Kaleidoscope of Death

Kaleidoscope of Death by Xi Zixu

Twenty minutes. As far as the current situation went, that could go in the blink of an eye.

Many thoughts spun through Lin Qiushi’s mind, but he discovered not a single one could help him save Ruan Nanzhu. The only thing that could save Ruan Nanzhu—the wooden stake—was on Ruan Nanzhu’s person, and he didn’t even know if the wooden stake could be used to kill the Hako Onna after a power had been activated. He also didn’t know if the gasoline passed through the door could be used…Everything was unknown, and the cost of not knowing could very well be Ruan Nanzhu’s life.

Lin Qiushi felt an indescribable sense of powerlessness. Before the rules of the door, he was so weak, merely a mantis crossing its arms before a car[1]. He could only be crushed. He could only watch as Ruan Nanzhu died.

“Yu Linlin.” There suddenly came a voice beside him. Xiao Ji, who’d been standing far away, had approached him at some point. “Are you okay, Yu Linlin?”

Lin Qiushi looked at him. The coldness in his gaze made even Xiao Ji freeze.

“The key we got from the safe earlier…Is it still on her?” Without much decorum Xiao Ji pointed out the crux of the matter. “If the Hako Onna gets her hands on that item, we’ll be in bad shape, so…”

“So what?” Lin Qiushi replied icily.

“What I mean is, can’t you have her pass you the key from the door crack…”

Before he could finish speaking, Lin Qiushi cut him off.

“No.”

Abruptly shut down by Lin Qiushi like this, Xiao Ji could only laugh awkwardly: “Okay. If you can't…never mind that then.”

Never mind, he said, but everybody else who heard this didn’t look too friendly. This was the key to the door, after all. If the Hako Onna had it buried, then their odds of escape were even lower. And so the way people looked at Lin Qiushi changed just the slightest bit. Sympathy became spotted with something else.

Lin Qiushi too felt this change, but didn’t show any reaction. The truth was that in that moment, a rather insane idea had surfaced in his mind.

There were rules to the doors. If only one person was left, then that person was under the protection of the doors. All the ghouls and monsters inside wouldn’t be able to hurt him. And now, if Ruan Nanzhu was the last one left inside the room…Lin Qiushi forcibly abandoned the thought. Still though, the fear from being on the brink of losing Ruan Nanzhu was like a snake constricting around him, relentlessly coiling.

“Do you all have something to say?”

Lin Qiushi didn’t even notice that when he said this, the others flinched away from the look in his eyes, scared away by his expression and tone of voice.

“Linlin.” Sun Yuanzhou seemed like he wanted to say something, but in the end he kept it down—only sighed. “Forget it…Let’s not force it.”

“How can we not force it!” a sharp voice exploded from within the crowd. Lin Qiushi looked, and found Xuan Zihui, who’d always had it out for Ruan Nanzhu. She was beginning to yell: “If she dies, then our key is gone! Yu Linlin, get it through your head, if she loves you she’d hand the key over herself! She wouldn’t let you die here like this!”

Lin Qiushi stared at her, eyes icing over like deep pooling lakes.

Xuan Zihui’s initial hawkishness became, under Lin Qiushi’s dark glare, oddly self-conscious; she even backed away a couple of unconscious steps, swallowing heavily. “I…I’m only giving you a suggestion.”

“Mh,” Lin Qiushi said. “So I have the right to not take it under consideration, yes?”

Xuan Zihui was speechless, angrily biting down on her bottom lip.

Lin Qiushi’s voice was soft, and his tone too was genial. He said, “if something really happens to her, and we can’t find the mole, then let’s all die together here.”

The corners of his lips turned up, eyes dark like the ocean before a thunderstorm.

“I won’t let the person who kills her survive past this door.”

Everybody knew Lin Qiushi was serious. They no longer dared to try persuading him again, and could all only watch the time tick on bit by bit.

“Zhu Meng…” Lin Qiushi pressed his face to the door. “You’re so clever. Think, please think, is there any other way…”

Inside the room, Ruan Nanzhu could tell that Lin Qiushi was on the verge of a breakdown. He said, “Linlin, don’t panic, let me think about this. Maybe…maybe there’s some other way. Don’t panic.”

Lin Qiushi gritted his teeth.

“You lied to me. You really goddamn lied to me.”

Now that he was thinking about it, Ruan Nanzhu had likely seen all of this coming.

He’d already been off during the day. Lin Qiushi had thought he’d been reminded of something from his past, but now knew that Ruan Nanzhu not only had been reminded of the past, but also had detected the presence of the second mole.

But what could he have done? He could only quarantine himself away from the others, because once the Hako Onna used that power, it might not just be him who had to die.

As the Hako Onna’s primary target, Ruan Nanzhu did everything he could. He’d at least gotten the Hako Onna to waste her most lethal move on him; Lin Qiushi wouldn’t be in the same sort of danger.

The room had gone silent. Lin Qiushi didn’t want to waste anymore time here, so he got up, headed for the first floor, and began opening the chests.

If he could find the most useful item in the game, then maybe Ruan Nanzhu still had a chance at survival.

Liang Miye had clearly guessed what Lin Qiushi wanted to do. She watched Lin Qiushi open two chests, both empty, and then approach a third, moving to open it.

“Linlin, you have to snap out of it.” Liang Miye knew it was best not to get on Lin Qiushi’s nerves right now, but seeing his actions, she still forced herself to open her mouth. “Don’t open a third one. There’s no guarantee for the third one, if something happens to you, then Ruan…Zhu Meng would be sad!”

Lin Qiushi ignored her completely. He opened the chest, but the last of his hopes were shattered with that third lift. There was absolutely nothing inside. No items, no power, no Hakobito—absolutely nothing.

In this moment, a dark thought had made its way into Lin Qiushi’s chest. He hoped that he could open up a Hakobito, and go before Ruan Nanzhu did—so he didn’t have to endure what happened next.

When there was still around ten minutes left, he returned to the room Ruan Nanzhu was locked in and leaned against the door with his face buried in his knees.

Ruan Nanzhu seemed to detect the motion outside, and said, “Linlin, is that you?”

Lin Qiushi said, “I don’t know what to do.”

He said, “I’m too weak. I can’t save you.”

He covered his face with his hands, shoulders shaking. He felt on the brink of devastation.

The despair in his voice made Ruan Nanzhu’s heart seize, even on the other side of the door. He knelt there, pressed his face to the wood, and comforted his lover: “Linlin, don’t worry, please don’t cry…”

As he spoke, however, his smile was bitter. What comfort he could offer was so weak.

“Who is it? Who’s the mole? Have you guessed?” Lin Qiushi asked. “Is it him?”

And then he said a name, to which Ruan Nanzhu made a noise of confirmation inside the door.

“He’s the most likely one, but you still need confirmation…I have a way…Do as I say…”

He began to tell Lin Qiushi the rest of it, passing the matter on.

Lin Qiushi listened for a while without speaking at all. Just when Ruan Nanzhu thought he’d calmed down a bit, however, he suddenly said: “If they all died, then you’d be able to live, right?”

“No,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “If ‘they all’ includes you, I also won’t live.”

Lin Qiushi said, “yes, yes you will. It’s a chance I traded my life for, you’ll definitely cherish it.”

Ruan Nanzhu told him, “you can’t kill everyone. There’s another inside this room.”

There was still Tian Guxue in the room with him. When Tian Guxue discovered the door was locked, she’d completely broken down. Finding her annoying, Ruan Nanzhu had simply tied her up with the bedsheets and gagged her to boot—against a traitor, he had no mercy at all.

“Then what do you want me to do!!”

Hearing Ruan Nanzhu’s reply, Lin Qiushi began to roar. He was angry, furious, pounding his fists against the door before him.

“I don’t need your sacrifice, I want to fucking be together with you!! Even if we’re dead we have to be together!! Ruan Nanzhu, can’t you put yourself in my shoes?!”

Ruan Nanzhu didn’t reply.

After shouting so, Lin Qiushi quieted down, murmuring to himself, “I thought we still had so much time together…”

It seemed that he really had been too naive.

However capable Ruan Nanzhu was, so what? Against the targeted attacks of the monsters inside the doors, he was still just a regular human. Even if he’d discovered something, all he could do was make sure nobody else got pulled into the mess.

Inside the door, Ruan Nanzhu suddenly spoke quietly: “Yu Linlin, I love you.”

Hearing this, Lin Qiushi was silent for a while, before finally speaking with a voice gone hoarse.

“I love you too. Will you live? Please?”

Ruan Nanzhu seemed about to say something, but then from inside the door, there came a chilling cry. It was a cry that Lin Qiushi was more than familiar with—it was the Hako Onna’s voice. Lin Qiushi looked down at the watch on his wrist, and saw the minute hand land right on twelve o'clock—the Hako Onna could once again use a power.

Following the cry was silence. No matter how Lin Qiushi called, there was no answer from within.

Lin Qiushi swayed as he got up and stumbled away. Right now, at least, he still had something to do—get revenge for Ruan Nanzhu.

Everybody else was still searching for the fire extinguisher, but even after twelve o'clock passed, nobody managed to find it.

Lin Qiushi returned to the room. He sat down in the chair and didn’t move for the longest time.

Liang Miye was quite worried about his psychological state, but she didn’t want to try comforting him either, so could only sit by Lin Qiushi’s side and keep him company.

It wasn’t until around three in the morning that she carefully spoke up.

“Linlin, do you want to go sleep for a bit?”

Lin Qiushi looked up at her. Hairs began to raise on Liang Miye’s arms the longer he stared, and she hurried to say, “Oh…Well it’s fine if you don’t want to sleep too…”

Upon careful consideration, if this had happened to her, she might be in an even more brittle state than Lin Qiushi.

Lin Qiushi said, “okay, let’s sleep for a bit then.”

After he said this, he really did get himself into bed and was asleep in a moment.

But all this just made Liang Miye even more nervous. She’d actually seen quite a lot of this sort of thing, of losing a lover, and knew it was actually better to start crying on the spot. It was people like Lin Qiushi who kept it all bottled up inside that were more perilous.

But Liang Miye didn’t dare say anything more. She turned and got into her own bed.

While Lin Qiushi slept, however, she tossed and turned in restlessness. She barely slept at all the entire evening, and it wasn’t until around five in the morning that she finally closed her fuzzy eyes.

The next morning, by the time Liang Miye woke up, Lin Qiushi was already gone. She ran in a panic for the first floor without even washing her face, but she found Lin Qiushi sitting in the first floor dining room eating breakfast.

There wasn’t a touch of mental breakdown about him. In fact, he seemed conversely calm.

Liang Miye’s hair was a mess, and she was still in her pajamas. Braving everybody’s stares, she awkwardly greeted Lin Qiushi, “Linlin, good morning.”

“Good morning,” Lin Qiushi said.

Because Lin Qiushi had opened the three chests in one go yesterday, Liang Miye wouldn’t be eating today. But this was only a small matter. The far bigger issue was that Ruan Nanzhu was gone.

Liang Miye turned and returned to the room. When she passed by the room with Ruan Nanzhu inside, she tried to pull it open, but wasn’t surprised at all to find that the door was still locked. It couldn’t he accessed from the outside at all.

No sounds came from within either…

Liang Miye recalled Ruan Nanzhu’s face, and sighed long and deep inside her heart. Matters like life and death was upsetting, no matter when and where you put it.

Ruan Nanzhu’s death and the buried key sent a shock through everybody’s systems.

The worst thing was, that morning, they had a wave of bad luck opening chests, and found three Hakobito in a row. Their numbers sharply declined; counting Tian Guxue and Ruan Nanzhu who died the night before, there were now only thirteen people left inside the mansion, roughly half of their starting count.

After changing, Liang Miye returned to the dining room and found somebody crying. She checked out the situation, but discovered the crying person too had lost their companion, and was in a similar position as Lin Qiushi.

“Why didn’t you get the key out? If you’d gotten it out, then we might be able to get out already!” Xiao Ji suddenly spoke up as he ate. He’d never been especially cordial, and today was no exception. In a moment’s work, he’d turned the arrowhead onto Lin Qiushi.

With him in the lead, the way everybody else looked at Lin Qiushi became bad news as well.

Lin Qiushi’s smile was cold.

“If you’re so damn capable why didn’t you step up when we were opening that safe? You wait until now to run your mouth?”

Xiao Ji, “you’re just not gonna talk reason at all, huh—”

“So what if I don’t?” Lin Qiushi was ruthless. “You think you can kill me for it?”

Xiao Ji threw down what was in his hands and rolled up his sleeves, immediately making his way to Lin Qiushi. Xiao Mei, sitting beside him, rushed to stop him.

“Xiao Ji, forget it, things are already like this, what’s the point of making it worse?” She deliberately pressed her voice low as she continued: “He just lost his girlfriend, he’s got nothing to lose[2]. it’s not worth pressing him on this.”

Only then did Xiao Ji calm down.

While he made a ruckus, Lin Qiushi just stood there coldly watching. He wasn’t scared of fighting Xiao Ji at all. To tell the truth he was itching to fight somebody so that he could release a bit of the pent up thing in his chest.

Due to Ruan Nanzhu’s death, what once had been a somewhat cohesive team utterly shattered apart. They didn’t find the mole that had gotten Ruan Nanzhu killed, and no one dared to share information the way they did before. Everybody just left the dining room in a hurry after eating.

Faced with such a situation, Sun Yuanzhou wanted to restore things to the way they were before, but intention could not translate to ability. He wanted to encourage everyone to reunite, but somebody shot him down immediately, saying that if even Zhu Meng hadn’t been able to take care of the mole, then what use was it for them to unite? Moreover, if they told everyone what cards they held, maybe they’d become the mole’s next target.

In desperation, Sun Yuanzhou asked Lin Qiushi if he had any thoughts.

Lin Qiushi didn’t bother with decorum: “Thoughts? Why don’t you find that fire extinguisher you lost first before you ask me for my thoughts?”

Sun Yuanzhou, “…”

This situation was indeed his responsibility. If his fire extinguisher hadn’t been stolen, then things at least wouldn’t have happened like this, and Zhu Meng wouldn’t be dead…

Seeing Lin Qiushi walk away, Sun Yuanzhou could only sigh.

Zhu Meng’s death utterly decimated the alliance that was never very solid to begin with. Everybody in the house began to work on their own.

Liang Miye didn’t eat the entire day, nor did she see hide or hair of Lin Qiushi. It wasn’t until evening that Lin Qiushi returned to their room.

“Linlin, where did you go off to?” Liang Miye asked him.

“Had something to do,” Lin Qiushi answered vaguely.

Liang Miye knew his mood was poor and couldn’t really pursue the matter. The room went silent just like that.

Both of them were preoccupied with thoughts. Liang Miye was pessimistically pondering if they were all going to die here. Lin Qiushi’s mood today seemed a lot more stable compared to yesterday, however, though who knew how he was adjusting so quickly. Liang Miye had to admit that as an organization, Obsidian really was of the highest caliber. Had she been in Lin Qiushi’s shoes, she’d likely have broken down already.

The day passed like so, stagnant and desolate. It was like the entire mansion had become a mausoleum, and they were the people buried alive inside.

The next morning, Lin Qiushi and Liang Miye headed out first to open some chests. The chests were still empty. When they opened them, both were a bit disappointed.

Upon gathering in the dining room, they found that of the thirteen, two more people were down. Now, the number of Hakobito plus the Hako Onna in the mansion was thirteen, and the box people held an overwhelming advantage.

Faced with the threat of death, even the taste of food became tedious. Liang Miye prodded and nibbled at her meal, watching as Xiao Ji and Xiao Mei came in from the outside. The two were laughing and chatting, seemingly in a great mood.

But unexpectedly, Liang Miye discovered that when Xiao Mei sat down, her gaze seemed to fall onto Lin Qiushi. Though the eye contact between the two was relatively secretive, Liang Miye’s attention was on the two of them in the first place, and so had noticed immediately. A look of suspicion appeared on her face as she wondered, was there a connection between Lin Qiushi and Xiao Mei?

As she thought this, Lin Qiushi, sitting beside her, suddenly set down the chopsticks in his hands and spoke up in a level tone.

“Since everybody’s here, there’s something I’d like to announce.”

"What is it?” Sun Yuanzhou asked.

“I found the mole,” Lin Qiushi replied.

The moment he said this, the entire room burst into hubbub. Looks of shock appeared on everybody’s faces, clearly taken aback by what Lin Qiushi just said.

He found the mole? It had only been a day, how did he find the mole?

“Are you serious?” Liang Miye was shaken as well. She’d only missed Lin Qiushi for a day, and he’d already gotten his hands on intel about the mole?!

“Of course I’m serious,” Lin Qiushi smiled coldly.

“Then who is it?” Sun Yuanzhou asked in a flurry.

Lin Qiushi didn’t reply—his gaze, however, landed on a certain person. And when that person noticed Lin Qiushi’s eyes on him, he blew up, yelling loudly: “Who the fuck do you think you’re looking at? I’m the mole? Aren’t you just pissed about me telling you to hand over the key? You’d slander me like this?”

—Indeed, the one speaking was Xiao Ji, who’d been at constant odds with Lin Qiushi.

“Is it really Xiao Ji?” Other people looked doubtful as well, because everybody had witnessed the argument between Xiao Ji and Lin Qiushi. If Lin Qiushi didn’t have any evidence, this was sure to be a hard sell.

“Of course it’s him,” Lin Qiushi scoffed. “He’s the only one among us who can safely open boxes and not look suspicious when he does.”

“And? That’s all you got to prove I’m the mole?” Xiao Ji said. “I’ve got good luck, I got a good thing out of a chest—you’re not happy with that? Tell me what you’re gonna do about it.”

“Did you really get that item out of a chest?” Lin Qiushi said. “Everybody’s read the rulebook, right?”

Everyone nodded.

“This rulebook’s about the same as the one outside,” Lin Qiushi said. “It’s the rulebook for the second edition.”

When Hako Onna first came out, the game level had been more difficult because players didn’t have any usable items at all. But after the revamp, Hako Onna’s difficulty was reduced. One major change was that before entering the doors, players could select from a bunch of tools, among which included Xiao Ji’s stethoscope and the fountain pen that Lin Qiushi had opened up.

At first Lin Qiushi just thought the rules inside the door were different from those outside. But now, he knew that wasn’t the case.

The stethoscope in Xiao Ji’s hands was never found inside a chest; it was likely a tool provided for the players that had been put with the rulebook. Only, Xiao Ji had hidden it away in a chest, and then opened the chest before everybody’s eyes.

“Huh.” Faced with Lin Qiushi’s accusations, Xiao Ji seemed fairly unconcerned. “You’re all talk and no proof. Everybody knows you’ve got beef with me. You think you can just say a few words and have me sentenced to death? Yu Linlin, aren’t you a bit too naive?”

Lin Qiushi lifted a palm, and spoke serenely: “That was all just my conjecture. But of course, without actual evidence, I wouldn’t be telling you all this.”

Xiao Ji’s expression darkened, before he scoffed, “alright, go ahead. Where’s your proof? Let’s make it clear first though that I hate being wrongfully accused. If you can’t bring enough evidence to convince them…”

Lin Qiushi shot him a look of contempt.

“Enough posturing. The proof you want is hanging around your neck.”

The crowd looked toward Xiao Ji’s neck, and saw hanging there the stethoscope in question—the one used to check wooden chests for the box people.

Translator’s Notes:

1. 螳臂當車, chengyu that literally means “the mantis lifting its arms to block the oncoming car.” It means not knowing your own strength, or doing something outside the realm of your capabilities.
2. 光腳的不怕穿鞋的, idiom that literally means “someone going barefoot’s not scared of someone wearing shoes.” Someone who’s got nothing to lose isn’t scared of going up against someone who does. There’s actually several very creative phrases for this exact sentiment, like 死豬不怕開水燙, or “a dead pig doesn’t fear boiling water.”

• As you may know, spoken Chinese does not have gendered pronouns, so LQS’s pronoun use when he talks about RNZ/ZM is a translator’s choice. It’s worth noting in the written Chinese, everybody else refers to ZM in the female radical third person pronoun while LQS and LMY refers to RNZ in the male radical.