Kaleidoscope of Death

That day, with the company of Satoko, Lin Qiushi had an overwhelmingly deep sleep, and when he woke up, it was a new day. Lin Qiushi sat on the edge of the bed, watching the bright sunlight coming in from the window.

Lin Qiushi sat up on the bed, feeling extremely tired, he casually washed up and took his luggage on the road again.

This time, the flight was not late, and Lin Qiushi arrived at his home city on time. After the flight landed, he didn't rush home, but took a taxi to another place - the school that Ruan Nanzhu had mentioned in her text message.

That school was in the suburbs and was a high school.

In May, it happened to be close to the end of the school year and the entrance exams, and the students were all studying intensely. Lin Qiushi sneaked into the school through the back door when the guards weren't expecting him, and saw the full picture of the school.

Many years ago, Ruan Nanzhu entered the school from here. Looking at the neat school building in front of him, Lin Qiushi thought that he and the young Ruan Nanzhu had seen the same scenery. At that time, Ruan Nam Candle was just a child, he would have been very helpless when he first entered the school, but luckily he met a good enough guide and made a lot of friends in the Obsidian Stone who benefited a lot from it.

Lin Qiushi walked slowly in the school, although he knew that Ruan Nanzhu was in a different timeline from him and there was no possibility of them meeting, but he had a magical illusion that they were standing in the same place, looking at the same scenery, as if they were separated by time and space.

I just didn't know what the school at night was like again.

Lin Qiushi was a bit tired after two days of running around, so he casually found a corner of the cafeteria, sat down on the spot, and fell asleep on the table.

When he woke up, the sun was already westering, and Lin Qiushi was full of tiredness, knowing that a night like the Hundred Ghosts' Walk was coming again.

Every night, he was constantly running for his life, even his body was a bit too much to bear, yet some things couldn't be stopped just because he felt tired, Lin Qiushi didn't want to die, so he still had to brace himself to face everything that was coming next.

He hurriedly left the school with his luggage in tow and rushed back to his home before it got dark.

In fact, Lin Qiushi really wanted to stay at school and meet Ruan Nanzhu, but he was afraid that he wasn't the only one who brought along the ghosts and monsters that came with him.

There was already enough pressure on Ruan Nan Candle's side, and Lin Qiushi really didn't want to cause him any more trouble, so he could only endure the thoughts of Ruan Nan Candle in his heart and choose a more prudent way.

Sitting on the sofa in his own home, Lin Qiushi held a chestnut in his arms, his mind thinking about the clues to no solution. From the moment he entered this door until now, he had no clue about the key. It was as if the key was simply something that didn't exist and he couldn't get out of here at all.

So did the word no solution on the clue hide any other meaning or not? Lin Qiushi closed his eyes and leaned against the sofa, quietly pondering.

This kind of thinking was not fruitful, the light and strange world of the evening seemed like a tangled ball of thread, unable to make any sense of it.

The chestnut fell asleep in Lin Qiushi's arms, its breathing becoming even. Its warm body heat was transmitted to Lin Qiushi through its clothes, making Lin Qiushi feel much calmer.

The house was quiet, only the ticking of the second hand, the TV was on but the volume was turned down to the minimum, Lin Qiushi watched the silent images in front of him and waited for the night to come.

At twelve o'clock, the clock chimed twelve times on time.

As Lin Qiushi sat at home, a strong burnt odor ran into his nose, it was so strong that he couldn't help but cough lowly. In the next moment, Lin Qiushi instantly reacted, this was the smell belonging to a fire, he had once smelled it inside the door.

When he realized what had happened, Lin Qiushi rushed into the toilet and covered his nose and mouth with a wet towel, then he turned around and opened the door to leave the house. As soon as the door opened, smoke poured into his room, and Lin Qiushi rushed to the corridor, where he saw that a huge fire had been lit and was spreading in his direction.

The towel on Lin Qiushi's face shielded him from the pounding smoke and dust, giving him a glimpse of life, and he turned around and rushed into the fire escape next to him, heading downstairs.

"Cough cough, cough cough." Coughing violently from his mouth, Lin Qiushi's eyes were constantly shedding tears from the smoke, he stumbled forward, not daring to stop in half, and descended many floors in a row before arriving at a smoke-free floor.

Finally able to take a breath, Lin Qiushi held on to the wall and panted heavily for fresh air, but when he lifted his head to see his surroundings clearly, his mouth sucked in a breath of cold air - the corridor he was on was filled with dense mirrors.

A piece of mirror covered all the original walls of the corridor, and Lin Qiushi saw his own wretched figure in the mirror.

Seeing these mirrors, Lin Qiushi immediately recalled the door he had once entered, and the fire that had occurred inside it.

A strong sense of danger hung over Lin Qiushi's heart, and he immediately felt that something was not right here, and turned around and wanted to leave, but when he returned to the fire escape, Lin Qiushi found that the door to the fire escape was closed, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't pull it open again.

Knowing that this path was impassable, Lin Qiushi could only helplessly choose to give up, he turned back to the corridor, looked at the mirror of this corridor, and shook his oxygen-deprived head, which was smoked by the smoke, to make himself more awake.

The dimly lit corridor was filled with Lin Qiushi's reflection in the mirror. On the cold mirror, Lin Qiushi's face was layered on top of each other, giving the illusion that the space here was incomparably huge.

Lin Qiushi's steps forward stopped, and at the end of the dark corridor, he saw two figures that appeared at some unknown time. They were a mother and daughter holding hands, their bodies had been charred, presenting a horrifying charcoal color, the girl was holding a disfigured doll in her hands, her black eyes gazing at Lin Qiushi quietly. No emotion could be seen in those two pairs of eyes, only a dead silence like that of a deep lake.

There was only one way down the corridor, and Lin Qiushi, who was standing in the middle of the corridor, seemed to be trapped in a cage.

The mirror began to distort like water waves, and soon Lin Qiushi realized that the change was due to the high temperature, and flames appeared at the end of the corridor, on the charred mother and daughter, and then began to spread rapidly in the direction Lin Qiushi was.

He was going to be burned to death - Lin Qiushi, who clearly realized this, turned around and tried to escape, but the flames were so fast that he could even feel the burning heat of the flames on his back.

At this moment, a pair of hands suddenly reached out from the mirror beside him, grabbed Lin Qiushi's arm and dragged him into the mirror, escaping the flames smoothly.

Lin Qiushi's entire body was confused when he was caught into the mirror, until he saw two familiar faces in front of him, but they were actually Zhuo Feiquan and his sister Zhuo Mingyu, who often came to Obsidian's doorstep.

"Long time no see." Zhuo Feiquan looked at Lin Qiushi condescendingly and greeted Lin Qiushi with a faint tone.

Lin Qiushi was so shocked that he barely managed to stand up from the ground and said, "...long time no see." He thought he was dead, but he didn't expect to be saved by Zhuo Feiquan.

"Counting what my sister owed you before." Zhuo Feiquan said.

In the door with the human mirror, Table Mingyu came out of the mirror a few seconds early, causing Lin Qiushi to be locked in the bedroom, after which if Ruan Nanzhu hadn't used Zhuo Feiquan's life to force Table Mingyu to enter the mirror again, Lin Qiushi's life would have been accounted for in that door.

Lin Qiushi said, "You guys are in there too?"

"Of course," Zhuo Feiquan said, "The people who died in the door are inside."

"And did you see Nguyen Nam Candle?" Lin Qiushi asked.

"Him? Why should I go see him." Zhuo Feiquan clearly didn't like Ruan Nan Candle and spoke in a rude tone, "I don't owe him anything."

Lin Qiushi looked helpless. Entering the mirror world for the first time, he looked around and saw the surrounding area. He was still standing in the corridor, but all of the scenery had all dropped a completely opposite way. The mirror next to him, on the other hand, was able to see what was happening in reality, the corridor he was standing in before had been completely engulfed in flames and turned into a charred blackness, so it was conceivable that if he had just been standing there, people would have been scorched.

"Let's go first, don't stay here too long." Zhuo Feiquan said, "That thing can enter the mirror."

Lin Qiushi nodded and followed Zhuo Feiquan into the mirror's fire escape.

"We'll take you downstairs, remember to stay away when you see the mirror." Zhuo Feiquan said, "That thing will definitely attack you again."

Lin Qiushi said, "You're the tenth door out of the way?"

Zhuo Feiquan nodded, he was quite open about it, even with a gentle glance at Zhuo Mingyu who hadn't said much standing behind him, "It's a good thing too." At least he could stay with her in the world inside the door.

"Are you here or are you brother and sister?" Lin Qiushi asked.

"Mm." Zhuo Feiquan said, "It's brother and sister, although we don't remember what happened inside the door during the day... but it's not a bad thing not to remember.

Lin Qiushi fell silent, the three of them went all the way down and reached the bottom of the building, when they were about to part, Lin Qiushi suddenly said, "Is this place real?"

Zhuo Feiquan turned his head to look at Lin Qiushi and asked Lin Qiushi what he meant with his eyes.

"Are you guys real too?" Lin Qiushi Dao.

Zhuo Feiquan laughed as he said, "If we weren't real, you'd be alive right now?"

Lin Qiushi was silent.

"At least for us, this place is real." Zhuo Feiquan said, "It's probably a kind of compensation from the door to us...."

As he spoke, Zhuo Feiquan had already reached the floor below, and he took Lin Qiushi into a random toilet, then pointed at the mirror in the toilet, "Get out."

Lin Qiushi stretched out his hand towards the mirror, and then felt a pull that ripped him out of the world inside the mirror. He was back in reality, but his surroundings were still not very friendly - still filled with the smell of smoke, and there were scorch marks on the wall next to him.

Lin Qiushi looked at the siblings in the glasses and thanked them softly.

Winding down the stairs, he wanted to get out of here quickly.

But things were obviously not as simple as he thought, Lin Qiushi was clearly going down, but he actually found the floor numbers in front of him growing larger - he was actually climbing up the stairs, and the higher he went, the thicker that burnt smell became, and he stopped in his tracks, but his ears caught some kind of sound.

This sound caused the cold sweat on Lin Qiushi's back to instantly appear, even as he paused for a moment to breathe.

That's right, he heard Ruan Nan Candle's voice. Ruan Nan Candle seemed to be growling something in anger at someone, a tone Lin Qiushi had never heard before.

"One minute less and your brother will all die here!!!" Lin Qiushi heard the words clearly as he walked to the fire door and saw what was happening on the other side of the door through the tiny window.

Ruan Nan Candle was standing in the corridor, saying what Lin Qiushi heard to Zhuo Feiquan and Zhuo Mingyu's siblings. His expression was incomparably gloomy, and his black eyes were heavy with killing intent.

"Zhu Meng you cheating liar!!!" Zhuo Fei Ming bellowed angrily.

"Liar? How dare you call me a liar? You actually came out early for the promised five minutes, if he dies here, you'll all have to be buried with him-" Ruan Nanzhu shot back with a sneer.

Hearing the content of their conversation, Lin Qiushi finally reacted that this was something that had once happened inside the door.

At that time, he thought that he was a step too slow for enough time, only to find out later that it was Zhuo Mingyu who had come out of the mirror earlier, causing him to be locked inside the door that held the key.

Later it was Ruan Nam Candle who fought the risk of being burned to death and rushed into the bedroom to save him from inside.

Lin Qiushi saw that at the end of the corridor, when the mother and daughter disappeared, Ruan Nam Candle ran away, rushed into the bedroom again, and took himself out of the coma.

The next thing they did was to escape through the fire escape, right? Although Lin Qiushi had no memory of these events, after he had recovered from his illness, Ruan Nam Candle told him about everything that had happened inside the door.

In this short journey, Ruan Nam Candle's body was burned very badly, then he carried Lin Qiushi in his arms and went towards the fire escape.

Everything looked normal until the four of them reached the door of the fire escape.

Flames suddenly appeared from the mirrors around them, blocking their path, and Ruan Nanzhu's body caught fire and fell down screaming, while Lin Qiushi, who was in his arms, was also drowned by the flames.

Lin Qiushi who was standing outside the door watching all this stared at him, he had not expected the scene in front of him at all. Ruan Nan Candle's body was on fire, constantly screaming and tumbling on the ground, the sharp screams were like a heavy hammer hitting Lin Qiushi's chest so hard that he was almost tempted to rush into the corridor and jump on Ruan Nan Candle's body to extinguish the flames from his body.

"It's all a lie, it's all a lie." Lin Qiushi didn't dare to look any further, he grabbed his chest and kept gasping for breath, his body slowly bending down, almost falling softly to the ground. However, even though he couldn't see the scene in front of him, Ruan Nanzhu's screams were still incessant.

"Ahhh, it hurts, ahhh..." he rolled over in the flames, his voice fading as he called out his name, "Qiushi, Qiushi... I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."

"Fake, fake, all fake." Lin Qiushi covered his ears, not wanting to hear any more. He was afraid that he couldn't control it and would rush in.

Ruan Nan Candle's voice finally stopped, but Lin Qiushi was already sweating, he was trembling slightly and slowly straightened up, seeing everything in the corridor through the small window.

There were four charred corpses lying in the corridor, two of them were clasped tightly, and Lin Qiushi judged from their only remaining clothes that this was Ruan Nanzhu and his corpse.

They had died together.

With his head aching violently, Lin Qiushi covered his face with his hands, repeatedly telling himself that what was in front of him was an illusion.

However, this wasn't the end, the charred black corpse began to slowly shake, and actually slowly crawled up from the ground, the corpse had been burned into the appearance of a skeleton, the appearance was hideous and creepy. He opened his mouth and uttered Ruan Nan Candle's voice again, "Qiushi."

"Nan Candle." Lin Qiushi couldn't breathe.

The corpse slowly walked towards him, and through the glass, one person and one ghost looked at each other, the person in front of him could no longer see Ruan Nan Candle's handsome face at all, only the horrifying remains, he said to Lin Qiushi outside the door, "Actually, do you not remember?"

Lin Qiushi took a step backwards.

"Do you not remember?" The dead Ruan Nan Candle looked at Lin Qiushi with his black hole eyes, "Don't you remember that all four of us died here?"

Lin Qiushi said, "You're lying! We're not dead! You're fucking trying to trick me!"

Ruan Nanzhu: "But do you remember what happened after that? . those memories were all made up by me to trick you." His voice was filled with sadness, "We died inside the door, you just don't remember it."

It was true that Lin Qiushi didn't remember how he had left the door, but that didn't mean that he would believe the words of the person in front of him.

"I was burned alive to save you." Ruan Nan Candle said, "Then we appeared in the world we're in now, and I made up a brand new memory for you..."

Lin Qiushi didn't say anything, he pulled out his phone and sent a text message on the fly . But there was no reply on the other end of the text message, perhaps the real Ruan Nam Candle was experiencing something important....

"The person on the other end of the phone is me." Seemingly noticing Lin Qiushi's actions, Ruan Nan Candle on the other side of the door actually lifted the phone in his hand and grinned at Lin Qiushi, "Of course I won't get back to you in time."

"No-" Lin Qiushi's entire body shivered when he heard this, he quickly flipped out his address book and was about to call Ruan Nan Candle, but his movements suddenly stopped.

He couldn't do that, if Ruan Nan Candle was really in a critical situation, the phone that suddenly rang on his body would definitely kill him.

Lin Qiushi used the last of his self-control to stop himself from dialing the number, he said, "Don't you fucking try to lie to me! How can you be Ruan Nan Candle!"

"Why not?" The man on the other side of the door gave a sad look, "Or is it just that you don't want to accept the harsh truth?"

Lin Qiushi gritted his teeth and didn't speak.

"Aren't you already beginning to suspect." He said, "Doubting everything here, doubting the reality of everything, how could it be such a coincidence that they show up and save your life every time you're in danger... Do you know why? Because it's all a dream you've manipulated yourself, ah." He turned around and pointed at the unmoving corpse lying on the carpet, a horrible smile on his face, "You're dead, Lin Qiushi."

Lin Qiushi knew that he shouldn't be shaken, but there were some emotions that he couldn't fully control. As the person in front of him told him, many horrible thoughts really ran through his mind.

Lin Qiushi said, "Shut up, I won't believe you." He stretched out a hand to wipe his face and turned around to leave.

Behind him, however, Ruan Nanzhu began to cry lowly, and he said, "Qiushi, don't go, I'm so scared by myself."

Lin Qiushi's breath caught.

"I'm so scared to be alone inside the door, don't leave me alone." He said, "It's so dark here, I'm alone, will you talk with me, I'm really scared..."

Lin Qiushi took a deep breath, but calmed down, he didn't believe that Ruan Nan Candle would beg him with such a tone of voice.

"You're not Ruan Nan Candle." Lin Qiushi said, "You're not Ruan Nan Candle." It was like he was saying it to himself, repeating it again several times.

"Lin Qiushi, Lin Qiushi, Lin Qiushi." The person inside the door was still calling out Lin Qiushi's name in the same voice as Ruan Nan Candle.

Lin Qiushi descended the stairs with an expressionless face, this time the number of stairs didn't appear again, Lin Qiushi went down and finally reached the bottom of the apartment building. Only his ears were still echoing with the sound of Ruan Nanzhu's call, all this way Lin Qiushi was constantly checking his phone messages, but he didn't receive any more letters from Ruan Nanzhu until he reached what looked like a safe place.

Is he okay now? What the hell is going on over there? Could we be in danger? Lin Qiushi's mind was confused, even certain thoughts rose darkly, was that person upstairs really not Ruan Nan Candle? If it really was Ruan Nan Candle...then wouldn't he have left him behind.

Uncertainty was always the most painful state, Lin Qiushi stood downstairs for a long time, he thought there would be ghosts that would continue to attack him, but the neighborhood was unusually calm.

This calm, however, made Lin Qiushi's thoughts even more confused, and he stared at his phone, wishing he could travel through the airwaves to the other side to make sure Ruan Nam Candle was safe, to actually see that he was still alive.

But this was nothing more than his extravagant hope, Lin Qiushi thought somewhat desperately, if something happened here, they wouldn't even be able to die together....