Kaleidoscope of Death

The first time Cheng Yixie realized he wouldn't live long was on his fifth birthday. Other children are still ignorant at the age of five and have no special idea about life and death, but he realized something from his mother's tears and his father's frown. He spent his fifth birthday in the hospital, with his silly brother Cheng Qianli, with a drip in his hand and bitter, unpalatable medicine, wishing on a beautiful cake with five candles in it.

When he looked at the lit candles on the cake, he whispered in his heart that he wished he could grow up quickly and that he wanted to see the rest of the world.

Cheng Qianli obviously doesn't think as much as Cheng Yicher, he has a big smile on his face, in contrast to the blank face of Cheng Yicher, all his attention is on the sweet and fluffy cake in front of him. It's better to be stupid than smart, all it takes is one sweet candy to make him smile from the bottom of his heart.

Cheng Yicher and Cheng Qianli were born from the same sibling, but they both seemed to be vastly different except for their faces.

Cheng Yixie realized early on that they were different from the other children, and he had even heard the doctor and his mother talk about their physical condition in private. During this conversation, one sentence stuck in his mind. Their attending doctor said that with today's medical standards, he and Cheng Qianli would not live past sixteen.

When Cheng Yixie returned to the hospital room, he saw his brother Qianli sitting in front of the bed, giggling at the cartoons on TV, his eyes as bright as the blue sky outside the window without a haze in them.

Cheng Qianli was much thinner and weaker than he was, and even though he was almost ten, he still looked like a malnourished bean sprout. In order to cure the disease, they didn't wear their hair, and the top of their heads and wrists were full of bruises left by needle holes.

When Cheng Yixie walked into the hospital room, Cheng Qianli raised his face at him and sweetly called out to his brother, those cute cat eyes overflowing with intense joy, he liked Cheng Yixie has always made no attempt to hide it.

"Brother." The tiny Cheng Qianli looked left and right, carefully waving at Cheng Yicher.

When Cheng Yixie walked to his bedside, Cheng Qianli motioned for him to bend down, Cheng Yixie thought he was going to say something to himself, so he did as he was told, but who knew that as soon as he bent down, a small candy was shoved to his lips.

"Shh." Cheng Qianli said, "Don't tell Nurse Sister, it was Grandmother who secretly gave it to me, I licked a bite of it, it was delicious."

Because of their illness, their diet was strictly controlled and they tasted only a handful of snacks all year long, Cheng Yicher thought how nice it would be if they were just normal kids, then Cheng Qianli would be able to eat all the food he wanted and not look as pitiful as he did in front of him.

"Give me back what you've eaten." Cheng Yicher responded to Cheng Qianli's kindness in this way, "It's dirty."

"You're lying." Cheng Qianli snorted, "You obviously like candy too, bad brother."

Cheng Yixie didn't say anything, the sweet taste of candy melted in his mouth, but he only had their future in his eyes, he couldn't imagine losing this silly brother in front of him, he wanted so much to see him grow up and have a life of his own.

Cheng Yixie thought that this matter of living was nothing more than his own extravagant hopes, until he was chosen by the door.

The horrible world inside the Gate is a horrible torture for many people, but in Cheng Yixie's case, it's a generous gift from God.

He hadn't even been sixteen when he entered the door, and he looked so out of place among a group of adults.

The first door was so difficult that at one point Cheng Yicher thought he would die inside, but he was lucky and met an old hand who often passed through the door.

After he came out of the door, Cheng Yixie's health started to improve rapidly.

The doctor said it was a miracle, obviously using the same medicine and the same quality method, but Cheng Yicher's body was rapidly recovering towards normal, while Cheng Qianli was getting weaker and weaker.

Cheng Yicher knew what was going on, and he attempted to tell his parents about this absurd but very real event, but they all thought he was joking.

In other people's eyes, Cheng Yicher was just sitting on his bed for a while and didn't go anywhere, so everything he said was probably just a child's imagination. How could he take his imagination seriously?

The wise Cheng Yicher understood that he would never be understood by the adults. The matter was beyond what common sense could explain, and he had no evidence to prove the existence of the door.

So what should Cheng Qianli do, Cheng Yicher thought, what about his stupid brother.

Before Cheng Yixie could get an answer, he entered the second door and met Obsidian's leader, Ruan Nan Candle, at the second door.

Ruan Nancandle was wearing women's clothing and called him a kid with a smile on his face.

Cheng Yicher just gave him a cold glance, not bothering to retort. What could you do if you were taking advantage of his mouth? He'd seen more adults in the first door who were smug one second and dead the next.

Cheng Yicher thought that Ruan Nan Candle was the same, but he found that Ruan Nan Candle was a person who didn't seem to be what he saw. Ruan Nan Candle was strong, and Cheng Yicher was keenly aware of that from his next actions.

When Ruan Nan Candle was about to leave, he gave Cheng Yicher a contact method and told him that if he wanted to know more, he could contact himself.

Cheng Yixie took a look at that contact information and secretly wrote it down.

After exiting through the second door, Cheng Yicher contacted Ruan Nan Candle and learned of Obsidian Stone's existence.

"Are you coming to Obsidian? This place might keep you alive a little longer." Ruan Nam Candle said over the phone.

Cheng Yicher agreed, and without even consulting his parents, he left the hospital and flew to Ruan Nam Candle's city that night.

This gambling act was actually very risky, because Cheng Yicher couldn't be sure if Ruan Nan Candle really had good intentions for him, he was just a little kid with no hands, and if Ruan Nan Candle's side really wanted to do something to him, he wouldn't even have a chance to resist.

But Cheng Yixie could only go for the gamble because Cheng Qianli didn't have much time left.

In stark contrast to the gradually recovering Cheng Yixie, Cheng Qianli was like a plant that had gone into winter, and the life began to drain from his body at a rate visible to the naked eye.

After Cheng Yicher arrived at Obsidian, the first question he asked when he saw Ruan Nan Candle was, "Can the others have a door?"

Faced with Cheng Yicher's question, Ruan Nan Candle was silent for a moment and said, "Yes, but I won't tell you."

"Why?" Cheng Yicher asked.

"Because it requires the lives of others." Ruan Nan Candle said, "You could do such a thing?"

Cheng Yicher was silent.

Ruan Nan Candle didn't continue this topic, but simply told him about the door, about the clue, about the obsidian stone, and a few other things. Of course, from start to finish, he didn't tell Cheng Yixie exactly what it would take to rob someone's door, but only instructed Cheng Yixie to hide his identity inside the door, or else he would be in danger.

Cheng Yixie listened carefully, but while he listened, he thought about something about Cheng Qianli and wondered, even if he took the door for Cheng Qianli, would he really be able to come out of the door?

The world inside the door was so terrifying and so alien to the naive Cheng Qianli, even if he had helped Cheng Qianli take the door like Ruan Nan Candle said, would this be another torture for Cheng Qianli?

He was so small, so afraid of the dark, so different from himself, just an ordinary little kid.

Cheng Yixie sat alone in the courtyard for a long time that day, waiting for the morning light to appear in the sky before he rubbed his dry eyes and went into the house with a blank expression.

No one knows what was on Cheng Yicher's mind, but after that day, he didn't return to his hometown, and he didn't contact Cheng Qianli again.

Was your brother too stupid? So you don't like him anymore? Someone questioned Cheng Yixie, but Cheng didn't say anything after hearing that, just cast an indifferent look.

He doesn't go back and doesn't contact Cheng Qianli just because he's afraid, afraid he'll lose control and do something over the line.

He didn't even dare to imagine Cheng Qianli's death, as soon as he thought about it, many terrible thoughts were born in his mind.

Cheng Qianli was a calamity that Cheng Yixie couldn't avoid in his life, and he knew that he could break the lowest boundaries for this brother.

And when he realized this, the only thing Cheng Yixie could do was to downplay Cheng Qianli's influence on himself, although the process of downplaying it was no different from cutting away a part of his body that was originally his.

They were twin sons, twin sons of the same bloodline, and with one look and expression they could understand what the other was saying and thinking, and even from a thousand miles away, Cheng Yixie could feel Cheng Qianli's gradual weakening.

Cheng Yicher thought everything would end just like that, but one afternoon he received a call from Cheng Qianli.

To this day, Cheng Yixie can still remember the weather that day.

It was a spring day with light rain, the shrubs in the courtyard were lush and green, everything was full of life reviving, and Cheng Qianli's voice came from the other end of the phone, a little weak and cryptic, and he called him, "Brother, brother, I'm so scared-"

Cheng Yicher said, "What's wrong?" He had a premonition of something, and his voice was rarely tense.

"I went inside a door." Cheng Qianli spoke intermittently, still a little weak, "There are so many ghosts in there, I finally came out, am I dreaming... When will you come back... I missed you so much... ..." it was as if his consciousness was beginning to fade, and he was talking nonsense.

Cheng Yixie listened, but laughed lowly, bringing tears to his eyes as he said, "Don't be afraid, my brother is here, waiting for him to return."

My brother will protect you.

At this point, Cheng Yixie realized that he would not be able to escape Cheng Qianli's calamity in the end. He would use all his means to protect Cheng Qianli's life, to see him grow up, marry, have children and grandchildren, and become rich and prosperous.

What the author has to say.

The long-awaited twins' episodes, the memory of the twelfth door in the modified memory of the version subject to (laughing cry).