Kaleidoscope of Death

After returning from his hometown, Lin Qiushi passed another peaceful length of time. He picked up two missions in the interim with Ruan Nanzhu’s introductions, and entered a couple of doors with people from other organizations. These were, of course, low-level doors, carefully tackled with hints in hand. Though there were some hardships, everybody came out safely.

On the other hand, Ruan Nanzhu had started planning for the tenth door. This was a door that they could have entered with Cheng Yixie, but Cheng Yixie turned down Ruan Nanzhu’s invitation, expressing that he’d go through his tenth door with his brother alone. Regarding this matter, Lin Qiushi had been confused for a while about Cheng Yixie’s stubbornness. It was a long time before he understood that Cheng Yixie refused because he’d privately obtained another hint about the tenth door.

A hint that he couldn’t show anybody else.

Ruan Nanzhu had known for a while, so didn’t argue further with Cheng Yixie. Instead he turned his sights onto other orgs, beginning his search for people who were passing their tenth doors.

And because of Ruan Nanzhu’s standing in the community, finding someone like this wasn’t difficult. They very quickly got news that, in Bai Ming’s organization, there was a young woman passing her tenth door. Her door count was higher than Bai Ming’s, and she was an impressive character.

Due to biological differences, most women were not as fit as men; in physical confrontations, they typically took the weaker position. And so, the survival rate of women inside the doors was low, but those who have survived are all top players.

That woman’s name was Liang Miye. Whether or not that was a pseudonym was unclear. All they knew was that she was a vet of Bai Ming’s organization White Bear—that she was usually pretty low-key, with very little presence.

There were about as many people in White Bear as there was in Obsidian, around six or seven. While few, all of them were experts.

It was just that Bai Ming’s door count was slightly lower than Ruan Nanzhu’s. He was only going into his tenth door at the end of next year.

So Liang Miye was actually the first in their organization to pass a tenth door.

“Do you have a hint for the tenth door?” During negotiations, Bai Ming was thorough in questioning Ruan Nanzhu. This was a major figure in his own org after all. If anything were to happen, they’d be suffering a major loss.

“Yes,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “A detailed one. Of course, if you have a more detailed one we can also use yours.”

“We don’t have a hint for the tenth door,” Bai Ming said. “There was a bit of an accident leaving the ninth door, and someone else took it first. What I meant was, if you don’t have a hint for the tenth door, you ought to do another ninth door first.”

Ruan Nanzhu said, “that you don’t have to worry about.”

Bai Ming, “alright then. Her door will be at the start of this year—there’s around a five month difference from Cheng Yixie’s door.”

Cheng Yixie’s door would be in May.

Ruan Nanzhu nodded his understanding.

“Then I leave her to you,” Bai Ming smiled. “But you better bring her back out.”

“Sorry, there’s no guarantee.” Ruan Nanzhu wasn’t having it at all. “I can only provide the hint. As for whether or not she’ll make it out, I can’t say for sure.”

Bai Ming lifted an eyebrow, and asked, “is the tenth door really that scary?”

Ruan Nanzhu, “there’s a qualitative difference.”

Bai Ming began to laugh. “Okay fine, I got it. I wish you all smooth sailing ahead of time then.”

“Mh,” Ruan Nanzhu said, glancing across the living room at Lin Qiushi, who was standing there with his head down and playing on his phone.

Bai Ming seemed to have found some sort of emotion in Ruan Nanzhu’s gaze. “Have you finally gotten over yourself then? Went for it?”

Ruan Nanzhu didn’t answer.

“It’s probably tasty, right?” Bai Ming said. “You pined for so long, after all.”

Ruan Nanzhu’s mouth twitched. “You think I’m like you?”

Bai Ming leaned back in his seat. “Hey, I didn’t wait for this long. I went for it when the moment was right. Carpe diem and all that.”

He was talking about Zhang Yiqing.

The moment Ruan Nanzhu introduced him to Zhang Yiqing, Bai Ming had known what he wanted. And he’d indeed gotten it. He and Ruan Nanzhu were the same type of person, with one slight difference—he had a lot less scruples, though it was hard to tell from appearances.

Ruan Nanzhu said, “you should go.”

Bai Ming stood up: “you won’t feed me lunch?”

Ruan Nanzhu, “there’s nothing to eat.”

Bai Ming, exasperated, “fine.” He eyed the kitchen, where Lin Qiushi was just tying an apron on. “You’ve been eating well, haven’t you.”

Ruan Nanzhu, “I wish the same for you.”

Bai Ming chuckled, and left without another word. As if his beloved ever cooked—it was always Bai Ming himself in the kitchen. But it wasn’t like he cared anyways. Spoiling and treasuring Zhang Yiqing made him happy as well. And happiness was all that mattered. Why care about anything else?

After an agreement was reached between Bai Ming and Ruan Nanzhu, Liang Miye moved into Obsidian.

The first time Lin Qiushi met Liang Miye, he was a bit shocked, because she was a skinny little woman with short hair and delicate features; she wasn’t a very lively sort of girl at all. He could see in her eyes, though, something that set her apart from the crowd.

“It’s a pleasure to be working with you, Mr. Ruan.” Liang Miye extended a hand toward Ruan Nanzhu.

Ruan Nanzhu shook it. “Ms. Liang.”

“Mr. Ruan—” Liang Miye didn’t bother with formalities, going straight for the topic at hand. “—when can we take a look at the hint?”

“In a bit,” Ruan Nanzhu replied. “The hint doesn’t have a lot of room for interpretation. In the mean time, we can get to know each other better.”

Liang Miye nodded, assenting to Ruan Nanzhu’s judgment. She glanced at Lin Qiushi, standing quietly at the side. “He’s going in with us?”

“Yes,” Ruan Nanzhu said.

“Alright,” Liang Miye said. “Then let us get to know each other.”

So the three began to pick up gigs, training in low-level doors to work with each other better. After entering, Lin Qiushi learned that Liang Miye’s appearance inside the doors was quite different from how she looked outside. Inside, Liang Miye was a goddess of great bearing. Standing at a height of 176—then adding on heels—nobody dared to chat her up. If Lin Qiushi hadn’t known she was a woman, he might have been tempted to suspect that she was another drag queen.

There were still three months until they entered. For the first two months, they averaged about a door a week. Liang Miye too gave Ruan Nanzhu and Lin Qiushi’s abilities her stamp of approval, meaning Bai Ming stopped coming around Obsidian to ask a bunch of questions.

In the remaining month, the three began researching the tenth door’s hint.

On the slip of paper for the tenth door, there were only two words: hako onna.

Hako Onna was a horror-themed tabletop game. It was a bit like Werewolf, just with players acting as humans going against the player acting as the Hako Onna.

Gameplay wasn’t complicated. It felt a bit like a Japanese RPG.

Hako Onna’s background story was that a girl witnessed her father killing her mother, and then her father shoved her inside a tiny little chest. All twisted up, the “box girl” lived inside the chest for a while, until she died a miserable death with profuse resentment. Players played as Visitors who unintentionally entered Hako Onna’s mansion. They had to find a suitable method to escape the mansion, or face death.

Players could move through the room boards. There were chests in every room, and from every chest, the Hako Onna, or items, or the Hako Onna’s power could emerge. Players could choose to open a chest, but if the Hako Onna was inside the chest, then the player was pronounced dead. They also became a Hakobito, who joined the Hako Onna in hunting the survivors.

It was Lin Qiushi’s first time playing this kind of tabletop game. He said, “so we’re playing this game once we enter?”

“Hard to say.” Ruan Nanzhu had his head down as he stacked the noise discs needed for the Hako Onna to move. “The game will definitely change in some way—we just don’t know how.” The noise discs were a prop from the game, a few round discs that the players had to stack on top of a little protrusion. If the disks weren’t stacked right and fell, it represented a noise made inside the game, and the Hako Onna could make an additional move.

It was basically a die—a die completely controlled by the players’ hands.

Lin Qiushi watched as Ruan Nanzhu stacked all five noise discs with ease—though they tilted a bit, they didn’t fall. Liang Miye, sitting beside them, said, “Ruan Nanzhu, do you mind describing what you encountered in your tenth door?”

Ruan Nanzhu glanced up. “The tenth door I passed had also been a game.”

“What game?” Liang Miye asked.

“The corner game,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “A pretty typical scary game.”

Lin Qiushi was quiet. Undoubtedly, this typical kind of scary game in reality was lethal inside the doors. Because once the game ended, something was sure to come out.

“How did you come out?” Liang Miye asked.[1]

“I finished the game, of course.” Ruan Nanzhu lightly moved his fingers, and tipped over all the stacked noise discs in front of him. He said, placidly, “once it’s over, you can come out.”

“Oh,” Liang Miye said. “Then this hint probably still counts as easy then.”

Because at least there was a way to win at Hako Onna. The three methods of winning inside the game were, 1) use a special item to give the Hako Onna rest, 2) use a special item to kill the Hako Onna, and 3) figure out the combination to the study safe, get the key, and then find the underground passage to escape the mansion.

“Like it’ll be that easy,” Ruan Nanzhu drawled.

Indeed. All the items were hidden in chests, and in order to find these items, you had to open the chests in front of you. However, hidden inside each chest might not be an item, but the twisted-up, terrifying Hako Onna.

“Mh,” Liang Miye said. “There will definitely be a way out.”

As the were speaking, it came to Lin Qiushi’s turn. He chose a chest inside the bedroom, flipped open that chest’s card, and found, on the back, the Hako Onna’s picture.

The Hako Onna glared with those dark black eyes, hand reaching for him, her body completely crammed into the tiny wooden chest. Lin Qiushi put the card back down. “Okay, I’ve become a Hakobito.”

Ruan Nanzhu put away Lin Qiushi’s character card, and gave him a card representing the Hakobito.

This game depended in large part on luck, but also on skill. Randomly opening chests was no good. They had to rely on more important items from inside the game.

Gameplay required at least four people, three Visitors and one Hako Onna.

Because they lacked one person, Ruan Nanzhu called Cheng Yixie over to play Hako Onna. After a few rounds, Liang Miye sighed, and said wasn’t the key to the game how clever the Hako Onna was? If she was smart enough, and the Visitors unlucky enough, getting out would be very difficult.

Cheng Yixie was clearly a fitting Hako Onna; Lin Qiushi got screwed over many times before he finally became smart about it and stopped opening random chests. Only after making sure Cheng Yixie wasn’t in his room did he dare to open a chest and see what was inside.

But like this, the game progressed much more slowly.

Throughout the remaining month, they kept playing this game. Once they became familiar with it, they also understood the game’s techniques—you really couldn’t open random chests. Blind reliance on luck was extremely irrational. The best way to go was, at the start of the game, using a few items to determine where the Hako Onna was, then opening the chests.

Of course, luck was still a major part of gameplay, because at times when they weren’t lucky, they weren’t able to find key items until the very end, instead opening power after power for the Hako Onna. With more powers, the Hako Onna had an easier time killing.

Bai Ming sometimes came to play with them at Obisidian as well. Eyes on the game board and chin in his hand, he laughed, “if I’m the Hako Onna, none of you are gonna make it.”

Ruan Nanzhu didn’t answer.

It was Liang Miye who said, “you’re too cocky, boss.”

Bai Ming, “I’m not cocky. It’s the game that’s got a major flaw.”

“I know.” Liang Miye knew exactly what Bai Ming was talking about. “But it’s all people who’ve passed their ninth doors, there won’t be any newbies.” And of those who’d made it to the tenth door, who among them wasn’t a sly old fox?

The worst fear of this game was idiotic teammates. If they messed around with gameplay, not only could they open up a whole slew of powers for the Hako Onna, but also increase the number of Hakobito and thus the game’s difficulty.

Of course, Liang Miye didn’t anticipate there being so many fools in the tenth door. The foolish ones all croaked in the doors before.

Their door was coming around January, with about a month to go until the new year.[2]

Liang Miye said, “and I was planning to go home to my parents for New Year.”

Lin Qiushi said, “it won’t be too late to go after we come out.”

But Liang Miye laughed. “You do know the survival rate of the tenth door, right?”

Lin Qiushi, “I know.” A door that even Ruan Nanzhu found difficult wasn’t likely to be anything close to easy.

“So I’m a bit worried I won’t be celebrating this New Year,” Liang Miye said. “Aren’t you worried?”

Lin Qiushi, “I’m worried.”

Liang Miye, “but you don’t look worried.”

Lin Qiushi, bewildered, “so how do I be worried?”

Liang Miye went quiet for a bit, before sighing, “you Obsidian people really are all prodigies.”

Lin Qiushi, “…” Were they?

There wasn’t much background to the Hako Onna game; it was simply a tabletop. Having played it for a month, they’d absorbed everything they could. All there was left to do was go in the door.

Because it was a high-level door, Liang Miye already knew precisely when entry would be. She said January 13th, seven PM. Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu began preparing everything they would take inside.

Ruan Nanzhu was crossdressing again this time. When he came downstairs in that long skirt, Liang Miye’s eyes could’ve popped out of her head. She stammered, “this, this is Mr. Ruan?”

Lin Qiushi, “wipe up your drool first…”

Liang Miye dabbed at the corner of her mouth. “Aren’t you way too pretty? What’s a girl like me meant to do?”

Truthfully, she’d heard of this matter from Bai Ming, but hadn’t dared to imagine what Ruan Nanzhu would look like in women’s clothing. After all, though in male clothes Ruan Nanzhu was lovely, there wasn’t an ounce of femininity about him. Just sitting there, his powerful aura allowed no room for improper thinking.

Lin Qiushi hadn’t seen Ruan Nanzhu crossdress in a while either, and had oddly missed it. Of course he hadn’t dared to say it aloud, merely expressing that he liked Ruan Nanzhu no matter the appearance…

A few days before going in, everybody in the mansion gathered for a meal. Lu Yanxue cooked up a feast, and Lin Qiushi even drank a bit.

Cheng Qianli said, “you guys gotta come back, alright?”

“We will.” Lin Qiushi patted his head. “You work hard too.”

Cheng Qianli mumbled, “I know, I’m not dumb…”

Nobody said anything to that, and the topic was forcefully diverted. It seemed everybody in the mansion had a common understanding about Cheng Qianli’s intelligence.

On the night of the thirteenth, everybody sat waiting in the living room. Lin Qiushi was watching TV, but when the living room clock rang seven times, he felt a clear change in the atmosphere.

Everybody around him had disappeared, leaving only him sitting alone in the living room. The program on TV also went cold. Lin Qiushi hoisted his pack onto his back, and got off the sofa. He opened a random door, and saw a familiar sight.

Twelve doors in a long hallway. Nine were sealed, leaving three.

Lin Qiushi came to the tenth door, grabbed the door knob, and pulled. Then he felt a powerful suction. By the time Lin Qiushi came back around, he was already on standing on an empty path, and at the end of the path was that lone three-story mansion.

Lin Qiushi followed the path forward, and quickly got to the mansion. Pulling open the door revealed a well-designed foyer, where eight or nine people already stood. They all looked over upon Lin Qiushi’s entrance on high-alert.

Because it was a high-level door, all the people here were already old hands at this. Most came with their own teammates. So the group was split into duos and trios, all quietly talking amongst themselves and discussing the situation at hand.

Lin Qiushi saw a familiar figure on the sofa and approached, calling, “Zhu Meng.”

Ruan Nanzhu turned around. “Linlin.”

Lin Qiushi, “how is it?”

Ruan Nanzhu, “I just got here too.”

“Oh.” Lin Qiushi began examining their surroundings as well. Because there was no set map in Hako Onna the game and all the rooms were pieced together by individual boards, every layout was different, and the location of the study changed as well.

Lin Qiushi thought their primary mission right now was finding the study and that all-important safe.

Five or six more people came in. Lin Qiushi thought the number seemed quite wrong, and immediately remembered Xia-jie from his own ninth door, where the hint had been with people as mirrors. He spoke lowly, “someone intentionally brought newbies?”

“Mh.” Ruan Nanzhu was frowning, clearly unhappy with this as well.

The number of people who could die every day was limited, so bringing in extras as cannon fodder increased your own chances of survival. For this door however, newbies brought on horrible side effects.

Liang Miye, annoyed, “I remember on my eight door, there were thirty-something people…”

“Thirty-something?” Lin Qiushi gaped.

“Yeah,” Liang Miye said. “And two nights in, half were already dead…”

Lin Qiushi, “…”

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” Liang Miye said. “Treats fall from the sky? Who knows what’s inside.”

More and more people gathered in the foyer, coming to a final count of twenty-three. Of them all, there was one group of seven, and judging by their expressions they were clearly newbies who didn’t know anything. Of course, there was the veteran leader amidst them.

Everybody was waiting for the NPC, but no NPC came. The front door, however, suddenly slammed shut with a bang, and from the first floor kitchen came a girl’s wailing cry. Then, the lights in the mansion all dimmed, drenching the room in a dark shade of red.

The game had begun. Lin Qiushi could clearly feel this.

They had a hint, and knew this was a game. But the newbies were completely clueless, asking: “What’s going on here? The NPC? Why is there no NPC?”

“What NPC,” a young man with a nose ring in the crowd said impatiently. “You don’t got eyes? Obviously we have to escape from here.”

The door was locked, and the windows were all sealed with tough metal plates. The entire house was secured like a cage, and they were the white mice inside.

“Let’s go see the second floor?” Lin Qiushi suggested.

“Sure.” Ruan Nanzhu stood.

They followed the stairs up to the second floor and took a look at the hallway, where a handful of wooden chests were conspicuously placed. Undoubtedly, this was the world of the Hako Onna.

At the end of the second floor hallway Lin Qiushi found the study. Opening the door, they immediately saw six wooden chests and, overtly, the safe.

Lin Qiushi approached the safe, which had a four-digit passcode.

Four digits, ten values that could fill them—which meant ten thousand possible combinations. Testing them all was impossible.

As Lin Qiushi had his head down in contemplation, there came a scream from the first floor.

Liang Miye, “dammit!”

Lin Qiushi, “hm?”

Liang Miye, “we forgot to tell those newbies not to touch the chests!”

Who the hell knew what they’d open up?

Author’s Note:

This is a real tabletop. If you’re interested you can find it on Taobao. I’ve played it before with friends, real crassly. I opened a bunch of chests along the way and died a bunch of wild deaths…

Translator’s Note:

1. LMY uses the polite/formal “you” here to address RNZ
2. They’re of course talking about the Chinese New Year, which is typically in February

*4/11/21: Many thanks to @tieukhannh for the suggestion to use “chest!” The Chinese and Japanese both mean literally “box girl/woman” but I agree that “chest” or “trunk” is likely a more accurate description.