Kaleidoscope of Death

Generously sharing hints inside the door wasn’t much of a good thing at all, at least for the owners of the hints.

Because once you’d shared your hint, you’d exposed your own strength. The more difficult the door, the more true this was.

The more toward the end you were, the more difficult it was to get hints at all. So going public with a hint might make you a target, someone everybody was on their guard against. You might even be subject to sabotage.

Plus, without peculiar circumstances, nobody would want to share their hard-won hints anyways.

But the door before them obviously had to be an exception, because if they didn’t tell the others the rules of the game, then those who died and became Hakobito would increase the difficulty of their escape.

“Are we going to tell them?” Lin Qiushi asked. “What happens if we just announce it like this?”

“We have to tell them no matter what.” Though he’d heard the scream, Ruan Nanzhu wasn’t distressed at all. “But there’s no rush. They’re all shrewd old things, even if I tell them everything they might not believe me.”

As the three spoke, they returned to the foyer they were in before, and saw that someone had opened a chest in the corner. Inside the chest was something like a stethoscope. Someone had taken it out, and was examining it closely. That was an item available for use inside the Hako Onna game, Lin Qiushi recalled. He didn’t think someone would be lucky enough to open up an item immediately.

“Who screamed just now?” Liang Miye eyed the stethoscope, then looked elsewhere.

“It was me…” a girl said meekly. “I was just getting ready to go check out the kitchen with them, but then I saw something in the crack of the door. I think it was a- a little girl wearing a dress. I couldn’t stop myself, and screamed.”

This girl was obviously a newbie, nervous-looking and by all appearances inexperienced.

After hearing her explanation, a few of the veterans had on peculiar expressions. They wanted nothing more than to stay as far away as possible from those things—only newbies got so foolishly close and offered up their heads like that.

Lin Qiushi took the opportunity to look around, quickly counting up the proportion of newbies to veterans.

Of the twenty-three, at least four in that group of seven were newbies; dazed bewilderment was still visible on their faces.

Minus these seven, there were likely also some newbies in the remaining sixteen. Which was to say, more than one group had brought newbies into this door. So the newbie count was between eleven and twelve, about half-and-half with the vets.

Actually, upon closer thought, it was easy to understand how people could risk other people’s lives like this.

There was a limited number of death conditions. To test and identify one meant being able to avoid it. Testing these conditions with other people’s lives was the easiest method.

“Can you not just open random chests?” Among the old hands, there were already some who couldn’t watch these newbies mess around anymore. “Look—these chests are everywhere, so they must have some sort of special function. If you keep randomly opening them, shit’s definitely going to go wrong!”

“What can go wrong!” The one who’d obtained the stethoscope was a young man, bravely swaggering about with a poor attitude. “I’m perfectly fine, aren’t I?”

“You might be fine now, but who knows about later.” The one with all the suspicions seemed to be called Sun Yuanzhou. The twist of his head was cold as he spoke to the leader of this newbie pack: “You brought them in. Get a grip on them, will you?”

The one who’d brought the bunch of newbies in this time was a middle-aged man named Wei Xiude. His face was unremarkable, and by appearance alone, seemed friendly and congenial. But evidently, to have brought in so many newbies, he wasn’t at all a good person.

“Alright, alright.” Wei Xiude at least knew to speak well. “I’ll take care of them. Xiao Ji, don’t open anymore chests. It won’t be good if something happens. It’s dangerous inside the door after all.”

“Like anything will happen,” the young man called Xiao Ji spoke impatiently. “You’re too wimpy. No risk no rewards…”

As he spoke, he lifted his hand to open another chest.

“Wait—” Lin Qiushi spoke up to stop him.

But Xiao Ji naturally wouldn’t listen to Lin Qiushi. In a single breath, he opened up two more chests. Fortunately, his luck was good: one chest had a slip of paper in it, and the other was empty.

“What’s this?” Xiao Ji picked up the paper, and read it out loud. “False Answers…” There seemed to be only those two words on the paper, and no other information. He muttered, “the hell is this?”

He tossed the paper aside onto a table.

“Don’t open any more.” Seeing that Xiao Ji wasn’t planning to quit opening chests, Ruan Nanzhu finally spoke up. “If I’m not wrong, this should be a tabletop game I’ve played before, called Hako Onna. If you keep opening up chests like this, something nasty really will pop out.”

At this, Xiao Ji’s hands finally stopped. He said, “What? Why didn’t you say so earlier!”

Ruan Nanzhu shrugged. “You moved too quickly. As if I had time to.”

Because of Ruan Nanzhu’s words, all eyes in the house were now on him. Some looked energized, some doubting, some suspicious.

“You mean we’re playing a game right now? Have you played it before?” Sun Yuanzhou got the point quickly.

“A few times.” Ruan Nanzhu sat down on the sofa and leaned back. “I couldn’t be sure when I first came in, so I went upstairs to find some key items. I’m sure now that it’s that game.”

Everybody gathered around, waiting for his next words.

Ruan Nanzhu very simply explained the rules. In the heavy chests was a ghoul, and opening them up at random could very well release it. Humans caught by the ghoul became Hakobito—box people—who continue on to sabotage the survivors.

Regarding the rules, Ruan Nanzhu hid nothing. He gave detailed descriptions from beginning to end, and answered many people’s questions. But it was as he predicted—though he kept up an earnest attitude, the veterans didn’t simply believe everything he told them.

“According to what you said, we can just not open chests??” someone spoke up in the group, questioning Ruan Nanzhu. “That’s what you mean? That if we don’t open any chests, nothing will happen? You said the safe has a four-digit passcode. Though there are ten thousand combinations, as long as we spend some time testing it we’ll get it right eventually!”

Ruan Nanzhu turned a palm to the sky. “I’m only telling you the rules from the game I’ve played, not what the rules are here. There must have been changes, but I don’t know what those changes are either.”

“Let’s count up how many chests are in this house total,” a young woman said. Though she didn’t look very old, she was seasoned. “I’m Yin Xinyi, pleasure working with you.” She extended a hand to Ruan Nanzhu.

Ruan Nanzhu shook it. “I’m Zhu Meng.”

“On the first day, the Hako Onna will cry once,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “Where her cry comes from is where she’s located. After that, she’ll only cry when she wants to obtain a power…”

“Power?” Yin Xinyi asked.

“Yes. He’s opened one up already.” Ruan Nanzhu pointed at Xiao Ji. “False Answers.”

Muttering broke out among the crowd, many asking what exactly this meant.

“In the tabletop, it’s one of Hako Onna’s powers,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “It means the player who plays Hako Onna can lie.”

Yin Xinyi, “lie? She can answer our questions?”

Ruan Nanzhu, “in reality, yes. As for here, I don’t know what sort of derivative effect the power will have.”

“We’ll rest for today.” Sun Yuanzhou’s personality leaned toward dominant, taking up leadership among the group. “It’s already after ten, and things are more likely to happen at night. Let’s discuss this in more detail tomorrow.”

“Okay,” most agreed with Sun Yuanzhou’s suggestion.

Then everybody began splitting into rooms.

There were three floors in the mansion. Floor one held the functional rooms, like the kitchen. Floors two and three were mostly bedrooms, with studies and bathrooms among them. There was also a large balcony, though it was sealed up by cement.

There were no rules about how many people could stay together, but most went for two to three per room—Lin Qiushi’s group as well.

As the night got deeper, the mansion went hazy in the darkness.

Steel boards hammered over the windows blocked out most of the sun. Then, thick drapes like curtains at a show’s finale sectioned away the remaining light. The lights in the hallway were a dim red, making the whole area seem like a darkroom or something. It was quite discomfiting.

The room Lin Qiushi and company were staying in was also filled with chests.

They had done a rough count. In the entire mansion, there were at least two hundred wooden chests, each about half a meter tall, neatly placed in every single corner of the house; they had a collective presence that was difficult to ignore.

It was in a chest like this that a girl, with her body all twisted up, could be hidden. At the thought, nobody wanted to take a second glance.

After washing up, the three got in bed. Ruan Nanzhu took the bed by the wall and could see the mass of chests with a mere turn of his head.

Before they slept, the three discussed some things.

“What happens if I don’t open any chests?” Liang Miye said. “If nobody opens them, then nobody dies?”

“As if,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “There’ll definitely be a catch for us in here.” They just didn’t know what that catch was at the moment.

The doors would never allow them to unconditionally waste time inside, unless…there was only one person left inside this door.

“What kind of catch?” Liang Miye said. “But forcing our moves is good actually, or we’re all left hoping others will gamble on their own lives.”

Every time you opened a chest was a wager; who knew what would come out?

Ruan Nanzhu made a sound of agreement.

Lin Qiushi’s attention was also on the chests, though he was thinking about that stethoscope the guy took during the day. The stethoscope was a game item, but could only be used once a day. It could determine whether or not the Hako Onna was in a chest, because if she was, the stethoscope would pick up soft sounds.

It was a very important item, but it was now in somebody else’s hands.

Ah, this really was a game of luck, Lin Qiushi thought. As someone who’d never even won a simple five-yuan lottery, his luck truly wasn’t all that impressive.

Plus, with their lives as the gambling chips, they could hardly afford it.

Late in the evening, Lin Qiushi still couldn’t sleep well. Around three in the morning, a horrible scream came from downstairs, waking everybody from their dreams.

Lin Qiushi came awake in an instant, opening his eyes and meeting Ruan Nanzhu’s gaze.

“Something happened?” Lin Qiushi asked.

“Mh,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “Let’s go see. Downstairs.”

Liang Miye had woken up as well, and said, “that was the second floor, right? Don’t tell me somebody got bored enough of living and decided to open a chest?” Ruan Nanzhu had explained it thoroughly enough during the day. If, after all that, someone still wanted to risk their life to open a chest, then Liang Miye really had nothing more to say.

But the annoying thing about newbies was their unpredictability. Under the oppressive weight of terror, no one knew what stupid move they would make next.

The crying and wailing didn’t stop. When they got to the second floor, they could still hear the sounds coming through the door.

“Aaaah, it hurts, help me, help me!! Aaah—” The screams were chilling. Several people were currently stood outside that doorway. A sweeping look told Lin Qiushi that these were all veterans, including Sun Yuanzhou. He pushed at the door, then said, “it’s locked. I’ll go grab something.”

“No need, I got it.” Ruan Nanzhu slowly approached the door, bent down, and got to unlocking it.

Everybody’s eyes were fixed on him. Moments later, the lock clicked open, and the room inside was revealed to them.

The room was already empty. The cries were coming from inside a wooden chest. Not only were there cries emanating from the chest, but also a dull banging, as if the person inside wanted to beat their way out.

“Save me, please save me, I don’t want to die…” The closer they got, the more nerve-wracking the sound became.

“Who was staying in this room?” Ruan Nanzhu asked. As he spoke, his eyes drifted toward the chest beside this one. “They opened a chest.”

“Fucker.” Sun Yuanzhou seemed pissed off, angrily spinning around and going to the room next door. He banged on it until he’d woken up the people inside. “Wei Xiude, get your ass out here now! Were the people in this room with you?!”

Moments later, the room door opened and Wei Xiude walked out. He said, “what are you talking about, ‘with me’?”

“In that room!” Sun Yuanzhou jabbed a finger at the room where the incident occurred.

Looking at that room, Wei Xiude’s brow lightly puckered. “Yes, there are two of them in there.” He seemed to comprehend something. “Something happened to them?”

Sun Yuanzhou spat a curse.

Wei Xiude saw everybody’s eyes on him, none very friendly, and he laughed somewhat awkwardly.

“My apologies, I’ll give them all a stern reminder for sure. But they haven’t been in many doors and some of them don’t know the rules…”

Sun Yuanzhou, icily, “mind your own people, or don’t blame me for coming after you.”

Then he walked off, seeming thoroughly disgusted with Wei Xiude.

Which was fair. A normal tenth door was difficult enough, but the newbies Wei Xiude brought in managed to ruck up the gameplay level to difficult-as-hell.

Nobody was in a good mood at this moment. The looks they shot Wei Xiude were also filled with distaste. Behavior like Wei Xiude’s had always been contemptible. Inside the door however, every one could really only sweep the snow from their own front porches; they had no wherewithal to mind anybody else. But if Wei Xiude’d actions proved detrimental to everybody’s interests, then that was another matter altogether.

The chest was still wailing at a head-splitting volume.

Lin Qiushi found some items that were left behind around the chest. Judging by the quantity, it hadn’t just been one person dragged into the chest by the Hako Onna.

People dying meant an increase in the number of Hakobito; the risk of opening a chest had once again increased.

Lin Qiushi let out a breath, thinking things really were getting tricky.

It was the dead of night at this point. Most likely, nobody got any sleep since that chest wailed on for the entire evening. It was only by morning of the next day that the noise gradually weakened, then finally disappeared.

Lin Qiushi still couldn’t understand—Ruan Nanzhu had clearly told them not to open chests for no reason. Why would people still break the taboo? Did they really just believe they would be lucky enough?

After a sleepless night, nobody looked very well. The experienced veterans were mostly fine—it was those who’d been hoodwinked in who looked on the verge of collapse. One girl just curled up in a corner sobbing.

Breakfast appeared by itself in the dining room. It wasn’t too bad. Though Lin Qiushi didn’t have much of an appetite, he still forced himself to eat some.

It was Ruan Nanzhu whose attention kept wandering. He seemed to be thinking something over. Halfway through eating, he said he wanted to go to the bathroom, and Lin Qiushi said, “I’ll go with you.”

“Sure,” Ruan Nanzhu chuckled. “I’m actually a bit nervous.”

Bathrooms in the mansion were all stalls with no distinction for gender. Lin Qiushi stood outside to wait, but after a while, he heard a strange noise coming from inside the bathroom.

Lin Qiushi leaned in closer, and upon realizing what the noise was, his expression changed. The noise…was coming from Ruan Nanzhu.

Ruan Nanzhu seemed to be quietly keening, and in that keen were weak cries for help.

Lin Qiushi rushed inside the bathroom, calling out, “Zhu Meng, Zhu Meng, are you alright?!”

He wanted to open the stall door, but found that it was locked. He fished out his tools in a hurry, and popped the lock on the stall in a couple of swift motions.

Once the door was open, he could see inside. There was nobody there. Beside the toilet, there was a black wooden chest. There was no lock on it—it could be opened with a simple lift.

But Ruan Nanzhu’s voice was coming from inside the chest.

Lin Qiushi’s face darkened. Many thoughts turned over in his mind as he hurried over to the chest.

“Zhu Meng! Zhu Meng! Is that you in there?”

He knew that Ruan Nanzhu wasn’t someone who would just open a chest, but the world of the doors was full of peculiar circumstances. He feared that Ruan Nanzhu had encountered some sudden situation and was dragged into the chest by the Hako Onna.

“Zhu Meng!” Lin Qiushi began hitting the chest calling, “are you inside? Say something—”

“Help me…Please help me…” Ruan Nanzhu’s voice was getting weaker and weaker, as if it was going to fade away at any moment. “Please help me…”

It had only been a few minutes, but there was already a sheen of cold sweat on Lin Qiushi’s forehead. He stared at the lid of that chest and swallowed, hard, before asking in a raspy voice, “what’s my name? Tell me, what’s my name outside the door—”

“Linlin, save me…” was how Ruan Nanzhu responded to Lin Qiushi’s question.

Upon hearing Ruan Nanzhu’s answer, Lin Qiushi released a violent breath. He pressed his hear to that chest and listened as that thing inside keep calling his name in Ruan Nanzhu’s voice.

“Linlin, Linlin, save me…Linlin, it hurts…Linlin…”

After staring at that chest for a while, Lin Qiushi turned and left the stall. Then he began going stall to stall, knocking down the row.

Very soon, one of the stall doors opened at his knock. Inside was Ruan Nanzhu with his skirt lifted up, and his expression as he looked at Lin Qiushi was strange.

“Linlin, what are you doing?”

Lin Qiushi looked at his face, and without saying anything, walked in and wrapped him up tightly in a hug.

After a moment’s shock, Ruan Nanzhu returned the hug.

“What happened?”

Lin Qiushi, “I’ve learned what the change is.”

Ruan Nanzhu, “hm?”

Lin Qiushi said, “the Hako Onna’s power…False Answers.” He glanced at a certain stall. “The Hako Onna can imitate people’s voices and call for help from inside the chest.”

Affection disturbed the mind; the moment something happened to someone you cared for, you were no longer in the state of mind to contemplate the logic of the situation. And once you’d actually opened the chest, there was no longer time for regret.

“What did you hear?” Ruan Nanzhu instantly got an answer from Lin Qiushi’s words and expression. “You heard me calling for help inside the chest?”

“Yes,” Lin Qiushi said. “Fortunately, you don’t like to call me Linlin on the outside.”

Ruan Nanzhu said, “I didn’t hear anything. It seems the two people from last night were tricked like this.”

“Mh,” Lin Qiushi said. “They must have a good relationship outside the doors.”

Ruan Nanzhu said, “you said just now that the Hako Onna cried inside this room, right?”

Lin Qiushi nodded.

“Then we can confirm her location.” Ruan Nanzhu was thinking out loud. “There must be conditions restricting her movement, or we wouldn’t be able to open the chests at all.”

If there were no restrictions, then that meant the moment you chose a chest to open, the Hako Onna could move to the chest before you.

"Yes,” Lin Qiushi said. “So we can confirm the Hako Onna’s in this room…But two people died last night.”

That meant there were two additional Hakobito inside the house, and they were in unknown chests.

Ruan Nanzhu said, “let’s get them to confirm it with the stethoscope.”

Lin Qiushi, “the stethoscope’s with the newbie that Wei Xiude brought in.”

Ruan Nanzhu nodded. “Mh, I know. Let’s go talk to them first, so this item doesn’t go to waste.”

The stethoscope must have changed as well. As for how, they didn’t yet know.

Author’s Note:

The strongest players pretty much won’t ever bump up against each other, because they typically have their own hints for their own doors. The rest of the spots are divvied up among people without hints, so those people are weaker in comparison. Emmmm personally I think getting your hint out first thing would be catching the Idiot Ball? Everybody’s basically your competition, and there’s only one super important hint to the next door. Ruan Nanzhu would never go in a door and immediately announce he has a hint and attract everybody’s attention like that.

Many thanks to this YouTuber for giving me this split-second screengrab of the English name for “False Answers” ‘cause I couldn’t find it in the rulebook PDF…

Names in this chapter

• Sūn Yuánzhōu / Sun(1) Yuan(2) Zhou(1) / 孫元洲
• Wèi Xīudé / Wei(4) Xiu(1) De(2) / 魏修德
  • this bastard’s name translates literally to “one who practices ethics” lmao
• Xiǎo Jì / Xiao(3) Ji(4) / 小薊