Kaleidoscope of Death

Zhu Ruyuan came, not only came, but also heard everything they were talking about.

Zhou Hanshan was trembling with fear, like a little mouse in shock, holding his breath as if he were crouching beside a ferocious predator that might appear at any moment.

"She heard..." shuddered Zhou Hanshan, "She heard it all."

Gu Longming patted him on the shoulder and comfortingly said, "Don't think about it too much, she didn't hear it anyway and wants you dead, so what does it matter if you can hear it or not?"

Zhou Hanshan said he really wasn't comforted.

If it weren't for Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming, he probably would have died several times. Whether it was the suddenly shattered glass of the school building or the huge chandelier that had fallen from the library, they all told him that he was being chased by something and could lose his life if he wasn't careful.

"What the hell am I supposed to do?" Zhou Hanshan looked at Lin Qiushi's mumbling, looking dazed as if he had lost all his strength.

"Things will always work out." Lin Qiushi said, "You recall carefully, when you made your wish, did she do anything rather special?"

If Zhou Hanshan isn't lying, then there's a possibility that something went terribly wrong with the students' wishing ceremony. They had started it, but failed to finish it, allowing Juru-won to get her hands on them.

"Special move?" Zhou Hanshan said, "A special move..." he thought for a moment, but still shook his head and said, "There is no special move." He paused for a moment, and said in an uncertain tone, "The body turning into the texture of a statue... is that a special move?"

"The body turned into the texture of a statue?" Gu Longming said, "The appearance of the people hasn't changed?"

"Nope." Zhou Hanshan said with certainty, "No change..." if people turned into statues, they would definitely be discovered by the people around them.

Lin Qiushi suddenly thought of something as he said, "Who was the first person inside you who made a wish?"

"It's me." Zhou Hanshan raised his hand.

"She didn't make a wish?" Lin Qiushi asked.

"She? She's... Zhu Ruoyuan?" Zhou Hanshan recalled, "No, she made a wish." A somewhat creepy expression followed, "Yes... she was the first one to make a wish! How could I forget something so important." Only since he knew that Zhu Ruyuan wasn't human, he had acquiesced to the fact that this act of making a wish was meaningless, and after Lin Qiushi's reminder, it dawned on Zhou Hanshan that the person who had made the wish in the first place was actually her.

"What did she wish for?" Lin Qiushi asked.

"She... she..." said Zhou Hanshan, "I don't know, she said that the wish she made was to win an award, but I don't quite believe it now, I doubt that she In lying to me." After discovering Zhu Ruyuan's true identity, he had no trust in Zhu Ruyuan.

Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming were both silent, both of them thinking about what Zhou Hanshan had said.

Zhu Ruyuan's wish might not be to get a reward at all like she said, but to have all these people around her die, and now her wishes were indeed being fulfilled one by one, and it seemed that there was only one survivor left in the entire school, Zhou Hanshan.

When Gu Longming looked at Lin Qiushi, his eyes didn't conceal anything, so Lin Qiushi would understand what he meant almost instantly.

"Go out and have a cigarette." Lin Qiushi extended an invitation to him.

"Good." Gu Longming nodded.

Zhou Hanshan hung his head and looked like he didn't have much spirit, so Gu Longming told him to sleep for a bit longer and get up just in time to finish his meal.

Zhou Hansan responded vaguely, apparently not quite able to sleep.

When they reached the corridor, Gu Longming lit a cigarette and handed one to Lin Qiushi as well.

Lin Qiushi still refused his offer.

"What do you think." Gu Longming said, "You must have some idea right?"

Lin Qiushi leaned against the railing and folded his arms, "Do you think NPCs are human?"

Gu Longming tilted his head, he said, "No... if you use the standards I used to enter the door before, those NPCs don't count as human beings." In the case of the courtyard mistress from the last door they entered, she was more terrifying than a ghost despite her human appearance, and it was hard to treat her as a human. But Zhou Hanshan was different, although he was born inside the door, he could cry and laugh, just a living, breathing person. If it wasn't for the bizarre surroundings, Gu Longming would have even wondered if he wasn't a person outside the gate pretending to be an NPC.

"So you'll do it?" Lin Qiushi asked the key question, "If Zhou Hanshan is the key person."

After the conversation with Zhou Hanshan earlier, it was clear that they both grasped the crux of the matter - Zhu Ruyuan's wish had yet to be fulfilled.

So now the question arises, what if Zhu Ruyuan's wish is the death of Zhou Hanshan. Are they going to stand idly by and even help out Zhou Hanshan's life in order to fulfill Zhu Ruyuan's wish? Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming both thought of it at once, so tacitly came to the corridor at the same time and lit a cigarette.

"I can't do it." Gu Longming's attitude was straightforward, "He's too human-like, I can't treat him as an NPC."

Lin Qiushi didn't say anything.

"What about you?" Gu Longming, "Will you do it?" He shook the ashes in his hand with a bit of irritation, "There's actually no need to do anything, he's so cowardly and Zhu Ruyuan has been trying to kill him, as long as we kick him out, he probably won't even live to see the next day."

Lin Qiushi remembered how Zhou Hanshan was trembling with tears and could only sigh deeply. This was the first time he had ever encountered such a situation, and it was almost tantamount to a human nature test.

But the only thing Lin Qiushi was glad of was that Gu Longming and he were both quite sane, if Zhou Hanshan had met anyone else, he would most likely have been driven away. After all, to those outside the door, he was just an NPC, so naturally it was more important to find the door early and leave the place.

"What should we do?" Gu Longming a cigarette was already finished.

Lin Qiushi looked down at the courtyard below, spat, and said, "Can't kill him, at least we can't actively kill him."

Gu Longming nodded, threw the cigarette into the trash can, and turned around to enter the house. He didn't ask Lin Qiushi the last thing he wanted to think about - what to do if Zhou Hanshan didn't die and they didn't have a way to leave the door.

Lin Qiushi was still standing in the corridor, in fact deep down inside he always felt like this choice was a trap, the Gate usually didn't encourage them to kill each other, so why would they somehow support them to kill NPCs?

Lin Qiushi leaned against the railing and continued to wonder if he had missed any important clues.

Dinner was still at the school cafeteria, and the taste was ordinary.

Everyone had something on their mind, and they all looked like they couldn't eat, so they ended up coming back without much food.

When he came back, Lin Qiushi met a few more people from the team, they didn't know Lin Qiushi well, and when they saw him, they just casually greeted him.

After thinking about it, Lin Qiushi decided to tell them about the woodsman, so that they wouldn't be like Zuosi's companions who had casually thrown the woodsman into the water and caused an accident.

These people listened to Lin Qiushi's words, some of them believed it, some of them didn't, but Lin Qiushi didn't really care about their attitudes, he was just seeking peace of mind for himself anyway.

The sky was quickly darkening, and it would soon be nightfall.

Zhou Hanshan sat on his bed, his mood looking very low, he said, "Did Zhu Ruyuan make a wish that wanted us all to die?"

Lin Qiushi: "What?" His expression got serious, "What did you say?"

Zhou Hanshan was shocked by Lin Qiushi's expression and said, "I mean, is Zhu Ruyuan's wish that we all die..."

Lin Qiushi sat up in bed at once, and he said, "It's a paradox!"

"What do you mean?" Gu Longming didn't understand.

"Right now Zhou Hanshan hasn't won the prize, which means his wish hasn't come true, and that doesn't do justice to the principle of reaching equivalence! But if Zhu Ruyuan's wish is for Zhou Hanshan to go down and accompany her, then Zhou Hanshan's wish is doomed to be unfulfilled." Lin Qiushi felt that he had touched the key clue, "So at least for now, the statue shouldn't do anything to you because it hasn't fulfilled its wish for you! Maybe our earlier guesses were wrong..."

"Yeah, they died because their wish came true, but mine didn't." Zhou Hanshan said, "So what does that tell you?"

"It's simple." Lin Qiushi said, "It shows that it probably wasn't the statue that did it to you."

Zhou Hanshan, "Then what is it?"

"What else could it be, it's just your girlfriend," Gu Longming scoffed, "She can't wait for you to accompany her."

Zhou Hanshan's face was ashen, indicating that the joke wasn't funny.

Lin Qiushi said, "We need to go see that statue again, by the way, do you have any hard and fast requirements for the time when you hold the ceremony?"

"A hard requirement?" Zhou Hanshan, "I don't know about that, anyway, when we were making a wish, it was at night." He saw the sinking night outside through the window, "A very ordinary night."

"Hmm." Lin Qiushi nodded, "Go to sleep, we'll see it tomorrow."

Saying that he was sleeping, actually Zhou Hanshan couldn't sleep at all, Zhu Ruoyuan who was staring at him at the window during the day had left a deep shadow on him, making him look at the window...even though the curtains were already drawn at this moment.

Gu Longming was the one who fell asleep the fastest, and his even breathing sounded in the room when he closed his eyes.

Lin Qiushi, on the other hand, was in a shallow sleep, half asleep, and the slightest noise could wake him up from his dream. He thought he would be awakened by some strange noise tonight, but he slept until dawn.

When he woke up in the morning, he went to check on Zhou Hanshan first, and was somehow relieved when he was sure he was still alive.

But while they made it through the night safely, something happened to the others.

Two people had died that night, and they both died quite miserably, looking like they had been directly dismembered by something.

When Lin Qiushi went to look at their corpses, Zuo Silk was also there, she had black circles hanging under her eyes and smiled bitterly when she saw Lin Qiushi, "Good morning."

"Good morning." Lin Qiushi said, "Did you have a bad night's sleep last night?"

"Naturally it's not good," Zuo Silk said, "My friend was almost drowned last night."

Lin Qiushi said, "Drowned? Where do you drown?" The one place this dorm has water is the toilet.

"The washbasin." Zoss said, "I heard a little noise in the middle of the night last night and got up to find him squatting in the toilet, burying his face inside the wash basin filled with water..." she sighed, "I was trying to pull him out of the Come out, but he's too strong..."

Lin Qiushi: "Is he okay?"

"It's okay." Lefty said, "Good thing the water bowl was plastic, I went to the kitchen and got a knife and poked a hole in it." She looked to the house where the two men were dismembered, "I'm afraid the two men didn't just take the woodwork apart..."

Yesterday you demolished the woodsman, and today you're demolished yourself, when there's really no ambiguity at all.

"What about you, don't you have a woodchuck?" Zuo Silk asked Lin Qiushi.

Lin Qiushi shook his head, indicating that they hadn't taken the woodsman out from inside the activity room.

"Alright, I wish I had found the door to get out of here earlier." Zuo Shi was a bit annoyed, "This kind of thing can't be prevented... who knows how many more days it will last." After saying this, she turned around and walked away.

Lin Qiushi walked into the house of the two deceased, and indeed found scattered wooden limbs in the corner of the house, he picked them up and frowned slightly after carefully observing them, he seemed to have found something wrong....

A few minutes later, Lin Qiushi placed the wooden man in his hand in front of Zhou Hanshan, "Is there anything different between this wooden man and yours?"

Zhou Hanshan had a look at it, "It seems to be similar, but mine is a little rougher."

Zhou Hanshan's wooden man they had also seen before, inside the statue that Gu Longming had shattered that day, that wooden man also shattered, but Lin Qiushi clearly remembered that that wooden man and the one in his hand, seemed different.

"It's indeed different, my wooden man wasn't painted." Zhou Hanshan said, "What's wrong with this one?"

Lin Qiushi didn't say anything and said, "Let's go, let's go to the activity room."

They casually ate something and headed straight to the activity room.

The lock of the activity room was broken and the door was open, but it saved Lin Qiushi the effort of unlocking it. He went inside and started looking around for Woody. As expected, they quickly found the Wooden Man inside a wooden box in the corner.

There were more than twenty woodies in the wooden box, each one was well made, very finely polished and had a layer of clear paint used for protection brushed on the outside.

"Why is this the only one?" Lin Qiushi asked.

"I don't know..." said Zhou Hanshan, who was also very confused, "It was Zhu Ruyuan who gave each of us a wooden man, I don't know how many styles of wooden man there are."

Lin Qiushi didn't say anything and turned to go to the utility room. The lock of the utility room was also unlocked, but the statue covered in white cloth was still standing quietly inside, it seemed that the others still didn't dare to move the statue until they were sure of its function, after all, anything inside the door was very dangerous.

However, compared to their last visit, this statue was obviously a circle larger, Lin Qiushi removed the white cloth and found that her appearance was even more exquisite, her hair was slender and her face was extraordinarily animated, as if she would be able to flexibly sport autumn in the next moment.

Zhou Hanshan felt scared at the sight of this statue, he said, "This statue is becoming more and more similar to Zhu Ruyuan..."

Lin Qiushi didn't say anything.

Zhou Hanshan continued, "It's simply like she was carved out of a mold." He cautiously stroked the statue, then his face changed dramatically and he fell backwards in a mess, "Fuck, fuck!"

"What?" Lin Qiushi looked at him.

"Warm, this statue is warm-" Zhou Hanshan said panicking and explaining, "This statue has temperature!"

Lin Qiushi was stunned, then he put his palm on top of the statue, however things were even worse than what Zhou Hanshan had said. Not only did the statue have a temperature, it even had the touch of skin.

The statue, which should have been hard and cold, became warm and soft, and she stood as if she was just a statue in disguise that might move at any moment.

Gu Longming also leaned in to touch it, and was equally shocked, saying, "This... this isn't going to end up being a fucking human, is it?"

Zhou Hanshan seemed to be a little overwhelmed by the excitement and bent down and began to sob, he said, "I'm so scared, Zhu Ruyuan, why are you doing this to me, I haven't wronged you, why are you doing this to me..."

Just after Zhou Hanshan said this, two objects were suddenly thrown in at the door, which hit Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming directly, and they were stunned for a moment before they realized what was thrown at them - they were two mutilated wooden men, exactly like the kind that were placed in the box outside the house. The only difference was that the two wooden men were headless.

"Fuck!" Gu Longming, who had been hit by a wooden man, couldn't help but curse obscenities as he said, "What about this! Is this the responsibility of contact? Is this a fucking unmarried girl from the old world?!"

Lin Qiushi: ".......your analogy is really vivid and graphic.

The old society's unmarried girls were to be married off. Lin Qiushi had thought that they would be fine if they didn't touch the wooden man after coming over, but he didn't expect the ghosts here to be so simple and violent, making him not know what to say.

Lin Qiushi picked up the wooden man that belonged to him and made sure that the wooden man had no head. Without a doubt, if he couldn't find the door and the key quickly, this wooden man would be the last thing Lin Qiushi would end up with.

Zhou Hanshan no longer knew what to say, he crouched down on the ground as if he had lost all his strength, his expression was dull and pitiful, and he even reached out his hand to hug the statue next to him.

"Zhu Ruyuan, what do you really want, do you want my life? If you really want it, take it." Zhou Hanshan's tone was stagnant, fear seemed to have taken over his will to survive, he put his head on top of the statue and muttered, "I won't run, I'll come down and stay with you, okay."

After he said this, Lin Qiushi saw the statue move. The statue slowly, slowly lowered its head, although the movement was very slow, making it seem like it was nothing more than an illusion of its own, but Lin Qiushi was very sure that the statue did indeed move. She dropped her head and looked at her lover with gentle eyes, red liquid appeared in her eyes made of white plaster, slowly sliding down her cheeks and dripping onto the ground.

The statue was crying, but she just didn't have any tears, and her eyes were filled with bright red blood.

Zhou Hanshan also saw the blood in the statue's eyes, and he was stunned for a few seconds, dumbfounded, "Ruyuan, is it you, is it you crying?"

Naturally, the statue would not answer his question.

"Do you want me to die?" Zhou Hanshan said, "If you want me dead, you'll nod your head?"

After he said this, a strong wind blew outside the window, and this wind blew the curtains hungrily, as if human beings were crying.

By the time the wind stopped, the statue had stopped crying, her keeping a certain pose, but her eyes fell on Gu Longming.

Gu Longming was a little uncomfortable: "Is she looking at me?"

Lin Qiushi looked at the statue with his head off, but somehow felt that the statue's eyes seemed to have another meaning, he walked behind the statue and followed the statue's gaze and found that the statue's eyes did indeed land on Gu Longming's body, but the part of her landing was a bit strange... she seemed to be staring at Gu Longming's pocket.

Lin Qiushi: "Gu Longming, what's in your pocket?"

Gu Longming: "Huh? What is it?" He felt in his pocket for the wooden man that had just hit them, "That's it, what's up?"

"You put the woodsman to the side." Lin Qiushi said.

Although Gu Longming was in a fog, he still carefully placed the wooden man on the ground beside his feet.

Lin Qiushi paid attention to the statue's eyes and noticed that it was actually moving slowly, moving from Gu Longming's body to the ground next to it.

Gu Longming also noticed it, and he was shocked, saying, "What does this mean? What does it mean when it looks at Woody? Did she throw it to us? Is this her deliberate attempt to provoke us or something-"

Lin Qiushi shook his head and voiced his opinion, "She should be giving us a hint."

"Hint?" Gurung stroked his chin, "Prompting us to learn the woodsman?"

Lin Qiushi didn't say anything, he didn't really understand why the statue was staring at the wooden man.

As the three of them stood in the house, amidst Zhou Hanshan's low sobs, a thought came to Lin Qiushi's mind vaguely, and he said, "Zhou Hanshan."

Zhou Hansan looked at Lin Qiushi with hazy tears.

"You said that you need a wooden man to make a wish, right?" Lin Qiushi asked.

"Yes." Zhou Hanshan said, "What do you mean..."

Lin Qiushi looked at the statue, "Do you think she's prompting us that we need to make another wish?"

Zhou Hanshan was stunned.

"If our wish is to end all of this." Lin Qiushi said, "This wish, will it come true?"

This wish, like Zhou Hanshan's, is an unfulfilled paradox.