Kaleidoscope of Death

Kaleidoscope of Death by Xi Zixu

The numbers on the sticky notes Sun Yuanzhou passed out were different for each person.

Ruan Nanzhu got eight, Lin Qiushi got seven, and Liang Miye got six. These notes could distinguish which person opened which chests. Sun Yuanzhou had done this as a precaution, but now it had come of unexpected use.

In order to eliminate Sun Yuanzhou as a potential mole, Lin Qiushi had told Sun Yuanzhou in private the day before that he’d found the Doll Mary[1]. But the Hako Onna never used the “My Doll Mary” power until Ruan Nanzhu once again made the announcement in front of the entire group. This proved that Sun Yuanzhou wasn’t on the Hako Onna’s side, or the Hako Onna would’ve used the fastest method to eliminate Ruan Nanzhu. If he were dead, after all, they’d be down one powerful rival, and the group would be without a leader.

According to everybody’s behaviors these past few days, Ruan Nanzhu also guessed that there was a limit to how many chests the humans could open in a day, and they couldn’t just open however many they liked. This was likely a rule to restrict the Hako Onna’s partnership with the humans—she knew where all the Hakobito were, after all, and after avoiding all the Hakobito, that player could open every chest in one go and then destroy all useful items. This would be akin to a dead end for the human players.

Judging by their progress these past few days, the mole definitely could not just open however many chests they wanted. As for the mole’s identity, Ruan Nanzhu also already had a guess.

After discussing matters with Sun Yuanzhou for another little while, he finally returned to the dining room.

Lin Qiushi was just about to ask after Ruan Nanzhu when he noticed Sun Yuanzhou looking at him oddly. It was a look a bit like disdain, flavored with some envy.

Slightly bewildered, Lin Qiushi wondered what exactly Ruan Nanzhu said to Sun Yuanzhou out there.

“Darling,” Ruan Nanzhu said, leaning his head on Lin Qiushi’s shoulder. “I want to talk to you about something.”

“Alright,” Lin Qiushi nodded.

So the three left the dining room and found a random empty room on the second floor to talk.

In order to confirm that the Hako Onna wasn’t around, Lin Qiushi used the pen immortal in the hallway. It made sure she was on the first floor and couldn’t hear what they were discussing.

Inside the room, Ruan Nanzhu gave them a simple rundown of Sun Yuanzhou’s sticky notes.

“Oh he’s good,” Liang Miye complimented afterwards. “If he hadn’t snuck in such a move, then we’d really have no other solutions.”

If they couldn’t even distinguish which chests were opened up by their people and which by the mole, then that would truly be the worst scenario.

“Mh. So now the problem is, who is the mole?” Ruan Nanzhu said.

Lin Qiushi gave it a thought.

“I think if the mole isn’t all that brilliant, they’re bound to leave some clues.”

Ruan Nanzhu propped his chin up in his hand.

“I currently have a suspect. If it really is that person, then they really aren’t all that smart.”

“It’s best if they aren’t,” Lin Qiushi said. “We only have to count up the number of chests that person’s opened to confirm their identity.”

They’d been here for three days. The number of opened chests per person, therefore, would not exceed three. Honestly, putting aside extenuating circumstances like the first day and possessing items, the number of chests opened per person ought to be between one and two. Since the mole was working with the Hako Onna, however, they’d definitely open as many chests as possible. Everybody’s sticky notes were blank at a glance anyways—they could choose to write down the content of the chest, or they could not. The mole didn’t know that Sun Yuanzhou had put his little trick on the sticky notes, and so in order to prevent the other players from opening unopened chests and gaining more items, they very well might have stuck on more sticky notes than one or two.

Had it not been for Sun Yuanzhou’s precaution, then they truly might have been helpless against this kind of move.

“So do we know what the count is on that mole now?” Liang Miye asked.

“Let’s count up every number on the chests first, and keep an eye out for number thirteen.” He’d already gotten the number of the person he suspected, but they still had to do the confirmation work.

So the three took out the notebooks and pens they carried on their persons, along with the ultraviolet light Sun Yuanzhou had given them. They began combing over every single opened chest in the mansion.

Liang Miye was in charge of technicals, Ruan Nanzhu stood guard, and Lin Qiushi was the one who looked. The three worked together in clear capacities and very quickly gathered detailed records on every single number on the chests.

It was indeed as Ruan Nanzhu guessed: the number of chests most people opened were between one and two, but there were two numbers that opened three chests each, thirteen and seventeen.

The owner of number seventeen was Xiao Ji. Plus the chests he opened up on the first day, he’d opened six in total. The number checked out, because on day one alone, he’d single-handedly opened up three chests.

The owner of number thirteen, however, had also opened three chests.

“She put three sticky notes,” Liang Miye said. “But it’s currently noon of day four. If we give it a count…three’s still reasonable, right? If this person is brave enough…”

“No,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “It’s her.”

“How so?” Liang Miye asked.

“If she did open three boxes, then aside from the first day, she must have eaten every single day,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “But not a single person got to eat on the first day. Day two, the number of people who could eat was small too. Most of the newbies chose to hold out.”

Lin Qiushi said, “is it who I think it is?”

He too had a faint guess as to who the person was.

“She introduced herself as Tian Guxue,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “Tell you the truth, she’s had so little presence that I’d nearly forgotten her name. It’s Sun Yuanzhou who wrote it down.” Cocking his head, he thought back for a bit. “But I can recall a few of the things she’s said. They were all dumb as hell.”

Lin Qiushi asked, “is it the girl who suggested you put the key back in the safe?”

Ruan Nanzhu nodded.

The Hako Onna wouldn’t dare to ask an experienced veteran to be her partner, because veterans typically came in groups, and those who came into the tenth door together were usually partners in life and death. The moment they turned their backs on her for their teammates, her plans would completely fall through.

That was why the Hako Onna chose a weak and timid newbie. The Hako Onna had likely promised Tian Guxue that she would be the last survivor, and then made her into a mole to provide intel.

Unfortunately, Tian Guxue didn’t seem to be a very qualified agent at all. At least, before all the old foxes like them, her identity had been quickly discovered.

“Fuck her, she’s really something else,” Liang Miye groused. “Now that you mention it, wasn’t there that girl who wondered if you’d forged a hint slip? If she can say something as stupid as that, then the way I see it, that person’s got about the same IQ as your mole.”

The hint slip was impossible to forge—there was no way of knowing the specific situation before entering the door, so a hint slip could only be faked once inside. Once inside, however, there were no conditions to do so[2]. The hint slip, then, was the optimal proof that Ruan Nanzhu wasn’t the mole, and so had successfully convinced everybody.

Now that Lin Qiushi’s conjecture had been confirmed, he spoke: “So it really is her. Should we reopen every chest she’s already opened now?”

“We’ll see,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “I do think we can go search her room though, see if there are any other clues.”

“Okay,” Lin Qiushi nodded. He agreed with Ruan Nanzhu’s thinking.

Ransacking someone else’s room was unethical behavior outside the doors, but inside the doors, with their lives on the line? It was really nothing.

But they first had to be sure that Tian Guxue wouldn’t return any time soon. Liang Miye happily volunteered to go stall Tian Guxue, so that Ruan Nanzhu and Lin Qiushi could go do the search.

With a nod, Ruan Nanzhu and Lin Qiushi came to Tian Guxue’s room, unlocking the door with a hairpin.

Tian Guxue lived alone. Though she kept the presence of others when she opened chests, at night she slept by herself. This was truly inconsistent with her professed timidity, but because they didn’t know the newbies well, Ruan Nanzhu’s group hadn’t noticed.

Now though, all the oddities were surfacing one by one; Tian Guxue was the mole they were looking for.

Once inside Tian Guxue’s room, Lin Qiushi inspected all the chests there and said, “all these chests have probably been opened.”

“Mh,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “She’d be scared to open those in other places and attract attention, so she opened all the ones in her room first…But the number of chests she can open must be limited by the day as well.”

“I just hope she didn’t find any important items,” Lin Qiushi sighed. “Let’s have a look first.”

Together, the two searched throughout the room, and very quickly hit pay dirt underneath the bed. When Lin Qiushi’s cell phone flashlight came upon something odd there, he reached in, felt about, and pulled out a card. When he saw what was on the card, he couldn’t help but curse.

It was a hidden power card, and on it was written two words: Moving Things.

Moving Things was one of the Hako Onna’s powers. It allowed her to inspect the contents of every chest in one room and also move them as she liked.

“Moving Things” wasn’t particularly potent, but it was another brick boosting up the foundations of the Hako Onna’s strongest power “I’m Behind You"—it brought them one step closer to unlocking that power.

Once they opened up two more of the Hako Onna’s powers, then the Hako Onna could unleash "I’m Behind You.” By that point, eliminating the entire group was only a matter of time.

They didn’t think that Tian Guxue would’ve opened up such a power and then kept it hidden from public knowledge.

Lin Qiushi exhaled noisily, emotions quite complicated.

“What do we do now?”

Ruan Nanzhu said, “let me think about it.”

Tian Guxue was actually a double-edged sword; she could help them open the chests, but she could also help the Hako Onna. Because the Hako Onna didn’t know what was actually inside the chests either, whatever they opened up was based on luck.

They searched the room again, but didn’t find anything else. Tian Guxue could be carrying something on her, or she might have already destroyed things outright.

“Why didn’t she keep the card on her, but in the room instead?” Lin Qiushi asked.

“Who’d want to keep this kind of thing on them?” Ruan Nanzhu replied. “Plus she doesn’t look very brave at all.”

Lin Qiushi nodded.

Ruan Nanzhu said, “put the card away for now. When we tell them later, we’ll leave it in the dining room. It’s about time we asked her if she’s opened up anything else.”

Lin Qiushi put the card in his pocket. Once in his possession, the card carried a sort of chill that seeped into the bones—it was indeed uncomfortable to keep around. It was an item that had to do with the Hako Onna, after all.

With the power card in their hands, the two headed downstairs. They saw Liang Miye and Tian Guxue in avid conversation in the living room.

Liang Miye looked up and saw them. Lin Qiushi gave her a nod.

Seeing this, Liang Miye smiled and stood. Ruan Nanzhu took the time to make an announcement to everybody seated in the living room.

“Let’s all go have a meeting on the second floor. There’s something I want to tell everyone.”

“What is it?” After killing Wei Xiude, Xiao Ji and Xiao Mei had stuck together. He asked casually, “have you found the mole or something?”

Ruan Nanzhu just smiled, not answering. During this dialogue, however, Lin Qiushi noticed Tian Guxue’s face go pale beside them.

Everybody arrived in the second floor study, waiting for Ruan Nanzhu to make his announcement.

Straight away, Ruan Nanzhu tossed the power card they’d found in Tian Guxue’s room onto the table. The first thing he pronounced was: “We found this in the mole’s room.”

Everybody looked toward the card—and instant hubbub. The smile Tian Guxue had managed to keep had completely disappeared as well; she was pale as a sheet, watching Ruan Nanzhu with a look of panic. Her body even began to unconsciously tremble.

“Fuck, who the hell is it!” Sun Yuanzhou had a temper to begin with. The instant he saw that somebody had hidden a power card, he exploded.

Before Ruan Nanzhu even spoke, Tian Guxue broke down. She began to sob and heave: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it wasn’t on purpose—I’m so sorry, she forced me to do it! I had no other choice!”

At this, everybody turned to Tian Guxue in astonishment. They didn’t think a newbie with such little presence would be the mole who’d been selling them out.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

Tian Guxue continued to apologize under the unfriendly gazes, but nobody said anything about forgiveness. After all, had Ruan Nanzhu not unearthed her identity by force, then they would all likely be screwed. They didn’t even know how many powers she’d opened up for the Hako Onna.

“Oh shut the hell up,” Xiao Ji snapped. “Why didn’t you apologize when you were fucking screwing us over? What’s the point of saying sorry now, huh? Tell us, what else have you been hiding!”

After being yelled at like this, Tian Guxue was trembling, but she didn’t dare try to refute any of it. She looked pathetically at Ruan Nanzhu.

“Zhu Meng-jie, I only hid that one power card, I haven’t kept anything else from you…”

“Oh,” Ruan Nanzhu said faintly. “Well, since you haven’t hidden anything, then you wouldn’t mind if we searched your body, right?”

“On what basis?!” The moment she heard they wanted to search her, Tian Guxue panicked. She got up to run, but was immediately pressed to the ground by the people standing ready around her. Even when she was on the ground, she was yelling, “how dare you try to search me—this is illegal!”

At the word “illegal,” everybody only scoffed. If there was such a thing as legality inside the doors, then would they be doing any of this? It really did take the contrast to understand that it was heaven outside.

“Go on.” Ruan Nanzhu gestured for Liang Miye to search her with the lift of a chin.

Had Tian Guxue been a guy, Ruan Nanzhu would’ve done it himself already. She was a woman though, and despite having done such a thing, Ruan Nanzhu’s group still let her keep a last bit of dignity.

Tian Guxue cried and struggled, but they held her down. Liang Miye inspected her pockets and backpack, very quickly finding something useful.

“It’s an item!” Liang Miye exclaimed in excitement.

“Which item?” Lin Qiushi asked.

“The wooden stake!”

Liang Miye fished out a white stick of wood from Tian Guxue’s pockets. It had one end sharpened to a point, and looked like the wooden stakes used to put down vampires.

This was a very critical item in the Hako Onna tabletop game, about as important as the gasoline.

In the game, there were only three items that could stop the Hako Onna. The first was the gasoline, the second was the rusty chain, and the third was the wooden stake currently in their hands.

“Aaaaah, give it back, give it back!!!”

When Tian Guxue saw the wooden stake in Liang Miye’s hands, she began to scream like she’d gone crazy.

“Give it back,” she said, “give it back to me! That’s mine!”

“Shut your mouth! If I hit women, I’d’ve beaten you to death by now!” Xiao Ji yelled, already very irritated by Tian Guxue’s screaming. “You have the nerve to ask for an item? We’re already goddamn saints for leaving you alive!”

But Tian Guxue wasn’t listening to Xiao Ji at all. She only continued to wail, and in the end, someone couldn’t take it anymore—they ripped off a piece of tablecloth and stuffed it into her mouth.

“Uhhh…” Tears continued to stream down her face, and Tian Guxue could only keep moaning.

The gasoline could kill the Hakobito while the wooden stake and rusty chain could kill the Hako Onna. The precondition to using the items, however, was that they had to know which one was the Hako Onna’s Weakness. If they used the wrong one, they would die immediately.

“She must have hidden something else.” Disregarding Tian Guxue’s muffled wailing beside him, Ruan Nanzhu continued to calmly analyze his current conclusions. “She’s hidden the rulebook, at least.”

But seeing Tian Guxue in such an unstable state, nobody wanted to release her. They got a rope from somewhere nearby and tied her to a chair.

They were going to wait until she’d calmed down to continue questioning her.

The atmosphere in the dining room was quiet. Beside Tian Guxue’s moaning, everybody else had sunk into silence.

Then all of a sudden, Sun Yuanzhou spoke up.

“Say…Do you think there’s only one mole?”

“She seems like the only one for now,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “At least that’s the case based on the evidence. Of course, let’s not rule out extenuating circumstances.”

In the numbers they recorded, only Tian Guxue’s count was off.

“Let’s just hope there’s nobody else,” someone mumbled.

Tian Guxue cried for well over half an hour. Finding no pity, however, she finally quieted her sobbing. She seemed to understand her position, eyes becoming lifeless and despondent before she finally gave up struggling, falling silent in her chair.

Ruan Nanzhu saw that she’d stopped crying and yanked the cloth out from her mouth.

“I know I’m in the wrong, but I had no other choice,” Tian Guxue spoke lowly. “I was scared, I was so, so scared…”

“Who’s not scared?” Ruan Nanzhu said. “We’re all human. Go on then, where did you hide the rulebook?”

“In the furthest bathroom on the first floor, under the water tank,” Tian Guxue said. She seemed to have truly given in, fessing up the location of the rulebook with honesty. “It’s all Wei Xiude’s fault, it’s him!!! If he hadn’t lied to us, we wouldn’t have come in here, uwaa…”

Outside the door, Wei Xiude had promised to protect them and bring them through the tenth door.

But in reality, on the very first day they entered the door, they’d known they’d been lied to. This was the tenth door—Wei Xiude could barely protect himself, how could he possibly protect them? Tian Guxue had gotten through her first door on luck alone. She couldn’t imagine that her second door would be so immediately difficult—difficult enough that she couldn’t see any hope of surviving.

Then there came a voice from the chests to tempt her.

Tian Guxue had been possessed. In the end she became the ghost that lured in passersby for the tiger[3].

Ruan Nanzhu sent people to where Tian Guxue said, and indeed found the rulebook that Tian Guxue had hidden underneath the water tank.

“Why didn’t you destroy the rulebook?”

The rulebook was wrapped up in a plastic bag and perfectly preserved. Xiao Ji flipped through it as he asked the question off the top of his head.

“I was scared I couldn’t remember it,” Tian Guxue answered quietly. She seemed quite stunned; being exposed like this had clearly been a huge shock to her. “I was so scared…”

Evidently, she didn’t completely trust the Hako Onna, or else she wouldn’t carry the wooden stake on her. Tian Guxue was neither brave nor very smart—she was indeed an easy target to manipulate. The only shame was that unclever people easily exposed their flaws. Lin Qiushi counted their luck that the Hako Onna hadn’t set her eyes on anybody else.

Had it been one of the old guards like Ruan Nanzhu who’d been tempted, then the whole house might very well have been killed without knowing anything.

The rulebook was pretty much the same as the tabletop they knew. With this, the group had a much clearer understanding of the game.

“Are you hiding anything else?” Xiao Ji asked.

“No, no, I’m really not hiding anything else,” Tian Guxue rushed to say.

But the way everybody looked at her was still filled with suspicion. She was currently bankrupt of all trust.

Then Ruan Nanzhu thought of something else.

“How many chests can you open per day?”

“Three,” Tian Guxue answered. “I’ve only opened twelve so far…”

Twelve was a lot.

Ruan Nanzhu sank into silence.

“What are you thinking about?” Sun Yuanzhou asked him.

Ruan Nanzhu looked toward Tian Guxue, and replied placidly, “how to repurpose some trash, of course.”

A look of fright appeared on Tian Guxue’s face. She’d always been scared of Ruan Nanzhu. Now, after hearing what Ruan Nanzhu said, she started trembling like a mouse under the scrutiny of a cat; she looked like she could faint at any moment.

Translator’s Note:

1. RNZ had been the one to tell SYZ that, but it’s what the text said.
2. I suppose this means that if they wanted to fake a hint slip, they could only do it once they knew they situation inside, and once they were inside, they had no physical way of forging it. Is it because it’s printed? Or because they’d have no time/opportunity? It strikes me that someone like RNZ could forge a hint slip (unless it’s computer-printed, but that feels ironically anachronistic; if it’s a typewriter, then couldn’t they bring a typewriter in with them?), and that’d actually come in handy for a door like this one. Had RNZ come in alone, for instance, and partnered up with Hako Onna, he could hide the rulebook and fake his authority via a fake hint slip. But anyways, I assume the potential benefits of bringing in everything you need to forge a hint slip is too abstract; it wouldn’t actually be useful in any other door, so he’d have no reason to prepare for that. (Then again, does SYZ have any more reason to prepare the hidden numbers on the sticky notes? :thinking-emoji:)
3. There are a ton of different classifications of “ghosts” and “ghouls” and “monsters” in Chinese cosmology. This one is particular is 倀鬼 / chāng guǐ, and one of the myths about this classification of ghost is that people who are killed by tigers become changgui, which in turn help tigers lure in more prey.

Names in this chapter:

• Tián Gúxuě / Tian(2) Gu(2) Xue(3) / 田穀雪