Kaleidoscope of Death

Kaleidoscope of Death by Xi Zixu

Though the Hako Onna’s position could change, the position of the items inside the chests could not. In other words, if somebody had already opened a chest and seen what was in it, then the next person did not have to waste a chance on the previously opened chest.

Opening the chests was dangerous, but there was potential profit in the danger. If they could find an item that could kill the Hako Onna or give her rest, or if it was the strongbox passcode or something like that, then the humans would gain the advantage.

After his speech, Sun Yuanzhou swept his gaze through the crowd, voice terrifyingly cold: “I know what you’re all thinking. You want to pick up other people’s leftovers, right? Zhu Meng, you’ve played the game before. Tell them, can Hako Onna enter chests that have already been opened?”

“Of course she can,” Ruan Nanzhu answered evenly. “The chests close after opening, so Hako Onna can definitely move inside. For those who want to avoid danger, I recommend you don’t try to play for leftovers. It’s better to starve.”

“Hear that?” Sun Yuanzhou said. “Intel. That’s what’s most important right now—intel. Open boxes in groups of at least two. This way, if anything happens, there’s someone to take the record.”

Frankly put, this was so that should anyone open up a Hakobito or the Hako Onna, they wouldn’t disappear without anyone knowing.

“That’s right, didn’t Xiao Ji open up a power called False Answers yesterday?” Ruan Nanzhu told everybody what they’d discovered earlier in order to prevent anybody else from getting tricked. “In the tabletop, this power meant that the player acting as Hako Onna could lie. But here, the power’s changed accordingly—Hako Onna can hide in chests and sound like people you know. So if you hear any sounds, don’t think that someone you know has been caught.”

Sun Yuanzhou nodded his own understanding, and looked at the group.

“Any other questions?”

The people seated around the table began to whisper among themselves, discussing the information Ruan Nanzhu gave them and Sun Yuanzhou’s suggestions.

“We’re also not going to make you open any chests. If you think you can bear the hunger, then go on, starve.” Sun Yuanzhou added one last option: “You can also wait until you’re so hungry that you can’t take it any longer, and open a chest then.”

“I have a question.” A young woman from the group stood up. Lin Qiushi remembered her name was Xuan Zihui. She pointed a finger at Ruan Nanzhu. “She’s the one who’s been telling us all this information. If she’s lying to us, we have no way of knowing.”

When he heard this, Sun Yuanzhou started to say something. But Ruan Nanzhu laughed, raising his chin and speaking with derision: “If you’d like, you don’t have to believe me at all. I don’t mind.”

Sun Yuanzhou, “exactly.” He was clearly taking Ruan Nanzhu’s side against Xuan Zihui’s suspicions. “If you can provide any other intel, nobody would mind.”

Xuan Zihui wanted to add something else, but was stopped by a tug from someone beside her, indicating she should stop.

“If we were in another door, I might have something to gain from lying to you. But in this door, there’s no profit to speak of from lying.” Ruan Nanzhu wasn’t even looking at Xuan Zihui, evidently disdainful of her doubts. “Increase the number of Hakobito, and you think I’ll have an easier time beating this game?”

“The nature of this door is a bit special. We can set all of that aside for now. I think it’s best we focus on the matter of opening the chests,” someone spoke up as peacemaker.

Sun Yuanzhou fished out sticky notes from his bag and distributed them among those gathered. He warned everybody that if anyone managed to open up an item or one of Hako Onna’s powers, then they had to talk. There could be no hiding.

People took the sticky notes with a rich range of expressions. Everybody clearly was taking their own measure of the situation.

After that everybody made a pact to exchange information every day at noon. They would trade discoveries from the day before and also check on the number of survivors.

When the meeting concluded, the group scattered.

“Do you think they’ll open up any chests?” Lin Qiushi began discussing with Ruan Nanzhu. They had him to listen to chests. Compared to everybody else, they had a much wider margin of safety.

“No,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “They’re all sly old foxes keen on surviving. Nobody will open a chest today at least.”

“Then we have to wait until morning?” Lin Qiushi understood Ruan Nanzhu’s meaning. “Breakfast, right?”

Ruan Nanzhu smiled.

“Yeah. Though that’s only one meal a day, you don’t have to starve if you’ve got the one meal.”

“Honestly, upon careful thought, this is not a bad method,” Liang Miye sighed. She was talking about the door’s restriction. After all, if it didn’t force them to open up the chests, then these people could definitely hole up in this mansion for months.

She mumbled, “who doesn’t want to get out as soon as possible though…”

That night, many people lost sleep. Perhaps it was due to hunger. Perhaps it was terror.

Lin Qiushi didn’t manage to sleep well either. For most of the night, he stayed halfway in and out of dreams. Amidst the drowsiness, he suddenly felt Ruan Nanzhu climb into his bed.

“Nanzhu…” Lin Qiushi mumbled. “What is it?”

Ruan Nanzhu got up close to Lin Qiushi’s ear and whispered, “Linlin, are you hungry at all?”

Lin Qiushi, “a bit…”

Who wouldn’t be hungry after not eating all day? He was only hungry, however, not so starved that he couldn’t stand it.

But he didn’t expect that after he said this, Ruan Nanzhu would fish something out of his own pajama pocket. Lin Qiushi looked down and saw that it was a piece of chocolate.

“Half for you and half for me.” Pinching the chocolate between his fingers, Ruan Nanzhu lightly snapped it apart. “It’ll be our secret.”

The corners of his eyes curved up, and Lin Qiushi thought his smile was very lovely.

“How much did you bring?” Lin Qiushi asked.

“Not much…” Ruan Nanzhu answered. He tore the wrapper off and brought the chocolate to Lin Qiushi’s lips. “Go ahead, eat.”

Before Lin Qiushi could say anything, he felt the chocolate push into his mouth. On reflex he gave Ruan Nanzhu’s fingers a lick, and saw Ruan Nanzhu’s pupils darken.

Ruan Nanzhu, “is it sweet?”

Lin Qiushi nodded.

Ruan Nanzhu got closer and lapped at his lips.

“It is sweet.”

He didn’t eat the other piece, but wrapped it back up and stuffed it into his pocket.

“How come you’re not eating?” Lin Qiushi asked.

“I’m not hungry,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “Sleep. We have to wake up early tomorrow.”

Lin Qiushi watched Ruan Nanzhu’s eyes. However impressive he was, Ruan Nanzhu was still just a regular human; he also got hungry if he didn’t eat.

Lin Qiushi still wanted to talk, but Ruan Nanzhu was already squirming into his arms, kissing him once on the chin and whispering, “shh, stop talking, you’ll wake Miye. Go to sleep already.”

Seeing Ruan Nanzhu’s adamant attitude, Lin Qiushi could only give in. He reached out and wrapped his arms tightly around Ruan Nanzhu.

The Ruan Nanzhu inside this door wasn’t small or frail—he was just a few degrees livelier compared to outside. At least, Lin Qiushi thought, if they were outside, he wouldn’t dare to fantasize about wrapping Ruan Nanzhu up in his arms to tenderly cherish…

The first thing next morning, Liang Miye stared at the hugging clump of people on the bed, eyes bugging out.

“Good morning,” Ruan Nanzhu greeted her easily upon waking.

Liang Miye said, “you two…”

Just as she wanted to ask why they were sharing a bed, she saw Ruan Nanzhu press a kiss to Lin Qiushi’s cheek, calling, “Linlin, time to wake up.”

Lin Qiushi mumbled drowsily, “good morning.”

Liang Miye, “…” Oh fuck, she seemed to have learned something she shouldn’t have known. The leader of Obsidian was dating one of his own members?! Wasn’t that a bit too similar to her own boss?!

Neither Lin Qiushi nor Ruan Nanzhu reacted to Liang Miye’s shock, washing up in tranquil peace and heading to the dining room.

Once in the dining room, they saw the atmosphere among the crowd and knew their guess last night was correct. Of course the door wasn’t going to be merciful and grant them a loophole—if they didn’t open any chests, they couldn’t have breakfast either.

Only Xiao Ji, who’d opened up a chest yesterday, was happily stuffing his mouth with hotcakes. People watched from around him, eyes red with jealousy.

“Heheh. No use looking at me like that. If you want to eat just open up some chests.”

Lin Qiushi’s group found chairs to sit in and waited for others to show. After a while, Sun Yuanzhou’s group arrived late. They sat down, gave everyone a smile, and began picking up and eating the food on the table—these people had also opened some chests.

“You guys opened the chests?” Xuan Zihui, who’d voiced suspicions about Ruan Nanzhu yesterday, hurried to ask. “What did you find?”

“You could say we were lucky, but you could also say we weren’t.” Sun Yuanzhou only spoke after swallowing a mouthful of porridge. “Two empty boxes, one power for Hako Onna.”

“We opened up another power!” The crowd was slightly despairing. “What did you open??”

Sun Yuanzhou put the power card on the table. Lin Qiushi was closest, and read the text in a moment: Open This.

“What does that mean??” Everybody looked toward the only one who knew the rules—Ruan Nanzhu.

“It’s a troublesome power,” Ruan Nanzhu sighed. “The Hako Onna can force a player to open a designated chest…”

The group sank immediately into silence.

“Meaning what? Meaning she can choose somebody to die?” The one speaking was a newbie who looked on the verge of breakdown. “Is that what that means?”

“Yes.” Ruan Nanzhu’s answer was light.

“But this is also our chance.” Seeing looks of despair surface on everybody’s faces, Ruan Nanzhu continued in a warmer tone. “The Hako Onna and Hakobito can actually be killed. It just takes one of the special items. And, the way to kill them is to use the item on the chest before opening it. These items are hidden inside the chests, so if you can open one up, you can render this power null.”

Nobody replied, because everybody knew in their hearts that things wouldn’t be so easy.

With two hundred chests, who know where those items were hidden?

A hopeless aura enveloped the crowd. Around the dining table, the sound of crying once again started.

Sun Yuanzhou clearly had no good feelings to spare the sobbing, breathless newbies. As soon as he finished eating he got up and left with his companions.

Ruan Nanzhu and Lin Qiushi didn’t dally around the dining table either—it wasn’t like they could eat at any rate.

“Let’s go see about the chests in the study first,” Ruan Nanzhu suggested after leaving the dining room.

“Okay,” Lin Qiushi nodded.

They got to the study, and Lin Qiushi selected two random chests. After bending down and listening closely to confirm no sounds were coming from inside, he took a deep breath and decided to be the first to open one.

“Let me try first,” Lin Qiushi said. He actually wasn’t all that confident. With another deep breath, he clasped the top of the chest and lifted with force—empty. There was nothing in the chest at all. As he exhaled in relief, Lin Qiushi also felt a sense of disappointment.

He hadn’t been able to open up a useful item.

“You take the next chest,” Ruan Nanzhu said, looking toward Liang Miye who stood off at the side, not saying much.

“Me?” Lin Qiushi was a bit shocked. She was already mentally prepared to go hungry for two days—it was Lin Qiushi’s power, after all. Two days wasn’t much anyways, it wouldn’t kill her. But she hadn’t thought that Ruan Nanzhu would give her this opportunity.

“Mh,” Ruan Nanzhu nodded.

Liang Miye had wanted to refuse, but then saw determined Ruan Nanzhu was.

“It’s only two days,” he said. “It’s not a big deal.”

Liang Miye, “alright… But you don’t have to starve either. I brought in some food of my own. Though it’s not much, it’ll do to curb the hunger.”

Ruan Nanzhu shot her a smile.

“Okay then.”

Liang Miye chose a chest. Lin Qiushi gave it a listen, then nodded, indicating she could open it. Like Lin Qiushi, she held her breath when she got ready and opened the chest with careful motions. There was something inside her chest—a card with a number 3 on it.

“It’s the passcode to the safe!” Lin Qiushi exclaimed.

“Not so bad,” Liang Miye grinned, slipping the card into her pocket.

Ruan Nanzhu, however, didn’t smile. In fact, he sighed.

“What’s the sigh for?” Lin Qiushi asked him.

“Opening the safe is the most troublesome way of getting out of here,” Ruan Nanzhu told him.

“Why do you say that?” Liang Miye asked.

“Because the passcode might not be in a single person’s possession. So when it comes time to leave, who does the hint go to?” Ruan Nanzhu said. “But it’s too early to think about that now. We’ll talk later.”

As the three kept discussing matters, they heard, coming from the dining room downstairs, a young girl’s wailing cry. This cry was piercing and anguished—it belonged to the Hako Onna.

When they heard this sound, all three of their expressions changed for the worse.

In the tabletop, Hako Onna couldn’t use a power immediately after a player opens one up. She must first cry to make the power truly belong to her. Though Hako Onna’s cry exposed her location, it told all the players at the same time that she had gained one more power.

“I’ve got such a bad feeling about this,” Liang Miye said.

Neither Lin Qiushi nor Ruan Nanzhu spoke.

The entire mansion was sunk in an air of despondency. Lin Qiushi came down from the second floor and saw pale-faced newbies sitting in the living room. They seemed to have given up on any hope of surviving, sitting there utterly still like wooden figures.

These were all people that Wei Xiude had brought inside, but Wei Xiude was currently nowhere to be seen. Clearly, after these people became a hindrance, he’d given up on them.

Lin Qiushi thought that this guy really ought to change his name, from Wei “Meritorious” Xiude to Meritless. It would be more fitting.

When it came lunchtime, only half of the group of twenty could move their chopsticks. The rest either didn’t come to the dining room at all or they sat there staring.

Sun Yuanzhou was a bit shocked that Ruan Nanzhu also wasn’t eating. He asked, “you didn’t open one either?”

“I was scared,” Ruan Nanzhu pouted, all soft and weak as he leaned against Lin Qiushi’s shoulder. His long lashes trembled, and his expression was pitiful. “What if I open it and something weird comes out?”

Sun Yuanzhou said, “but you can’t keep not eating.”

It seemed that he liked Ruan Nanzhu enough to care about him this much.

Ruan Nanzhu didn’t reply.

There really was a good amount of people not eating, even a few veterans. Thanks to Xiao Ji, Wei Xiude managed to eat his fill. His look of contentment did not put others in a good mood.

After eating, the group traded some information. No one had yet opened up any particularly useful items. Only one person found a can of gasoline.

Ruan Nanzhu explained the gasoline’s use. It can restrict the Hako Onna’s movement once or kill a Hakobito, but the condition to use it was that you had to be certain that the Hakobito or Hako Onna were in that particular chest, and use it while the chest was closed.

The person who found the gasoline let out a breath and said he was safe for tomorrow then. As long as he used the gasoline before opening the chest, he could be a hundred percent certain that the chest he opened was safe.

Liang Miye also told everyone about them finding a piece of the strongbox passcode, but she didn’t tell them what the digit was. She only said that if anyone else found any, they could work together. Whoever had more digits could get the key, and if everybody found only one, then they would play rock-paper-scissors for the key.

This was the fairest method. Plus, others hadn’t found any other digits yet, so everybody quickly agreed.

After exchanging intel, the group dispersed.

Ruan Nanzhu seemed a bit sleepy. He kept yawning after getting up from the table.

Lin Qiushi asked, “what’s wrong? Are you not feeling well?”

“Mh, I want to sleep,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “Let’s go back to the room first.”

He rubbed his eyes, looking really quite tired.

“Alright. Did you not sleep well last night?“

They walked up to the second floor and returned to their room. Ruan Nanzhu sat down on the side of the bed, but didn’t get in. His gaze fell on a chest by the wall.

Sitting behind him, Lin Qiushi paused.

"Zhu Meng?”

Ruan Nanzhu didn’t answer.

“Zhu Meng?” Lin Qiushi came up to him and patted him on the shoulder, asking, “what’s going on with you?”

Ruan Nanzhu’s head whipped around, and he said, “…nothing.”

A touch of hesitation surfaced between his brows, but in the end he still said, “nothing.”

Liang Miye, “Zhu Meng, you didn’t eat right? I’ll go make some instant noodles for you.”

She’d actually brought in instant noodles.

Liang Miye went to the kitchen to boil water. Lin Qiushi stayed seated beside Ruan Nanzhu, thinking Ruan Nanzhu wasn’t feeling well. He put a hand to Ruan Nanzhu’s forehead and confirmed Ruan Nanzhu wasn’t running a temperature.

“Does it hurt anywhere?”

Ruan Nanzhu shook his head. He seemed a bit disconcerted by his own condition as well.

“I’m fine.”

Lin Qiushi didn’t reply. He followed Ruan Nanzhu’s line of sight and saw the black wooden chest by the wall. It was still a normal chest, but judging by Ruan Nanzhu’s gaze, one would think there was something of tremendous importance inside that chest.

An absurd thought appeared in Lin Qiushi’s mind, and his expression went frozen. His voice, when he spoke, had become raspy: “Zhu Meng.”

He took Ruan Nanzhu’s face in his hands and pulled it by force to face him.

“Stop looking at that chest.”

Ruan Nanzhu didn’t answer. His expression didn’t look right at all.

Lin Qiushi, “Zhu Meng?”

Ruan Nanzhu reached up and pressed his hand to Lin Qiushi’s arm. Then, he pried Lin Qiushi’s hand off him and turned back, gaze once again landing on that chest in the corner.

“I think there’s an important item in that chest.”

As soon as those words were out, Lin Qiushi knew he’d guessed correctly—the Hako Onna had used a power.

Open This. There must be something important in there. Maybe it’s something that couldn kill the Hako Onna. As long as it’s opened, they could leave here and return to reality. Ruan Nanzhu’s eyes grew more and more determined. He slowly stood up from the bed.

“Nanzhu—” Lin Qiushi couldn’t care for much else at this point, calling out Ruan Nanzhu’s name directly. He grabbed Ruan Nanzhu around the waist. “Nanzhu, wake up!!”

Ruan Nanzhu didn’t speak. He was very strong, easily pulling off the arm Lin Qiushi held him with and continuing toward the chest.

“Nanzhu—” A layer of cold sweat dotted Lin Qiushi’s forehead. He used all his strength, but only managed to slightly slow Ruan Nanzhu’s walking speed. “Nanzhu you gotta wake up, you can’t open that chest!!”

He was roaring, trying to snap Ruan Nanzhu out of the illusion, but it was of no use. Ruan Nanzhu couldn’t hear his voice at all, only continued forward step by step. He was already moments away from reaching the chest.

Because of Lin Qiushi’s calls, Liang Miye had also come out of the kitchen. Seeing such a scene she yelled in fright, “Linlin, what’s wrong!”

“Hako Onna’s power!” Head soaked in sweat, Lin Qiushi was panting heavily. “Quick, come help me!”

Liang Miye also dashed over to help grab onto Ruan Nanzhu with Lin Qiushi.

But in the face of Ruan Nanzhu’s immense strength, their attempts to stop him were like mayflies dashing themselves upon a tree. It was in this critical moment that an idea flashed in Lin Qiushi’s mind. He yelled, “Liang Miye! Quick! Grab my backpack!”

Though she didn’t know what for, Liang Miye still made a run for the backpack, dashing back to Lin Qiushi with it.

“Now what?!”

Lin Qiushi said, “hold onto Ruan Nanzhu!”

He took the backpack and swiftly began to dig through it—he didn’t know if it would actually work or not, but this was the last hope of Ruan Nanzhu’s survival!