Kaleidoscope of Death

Obsidian was also known as Apache Tears. According to legends, tears shed for lost loved ones formed into these black stones. Anyone who possessed an obsidian rock was meant to be forever happy, and never cry again.

Lin Qiushi only learned this meaning behind the name much later. He asked Ruan Nanzhu who came up with “Obsidian.”

Ruan Nanzhu said that it was a senior before him.

Obsidian back then was an entirely different group of people. Only, with the passage of time, people came and went and came and went. The only thing to remain unchanged was the name.

After noticing that Lin Qiushi was in a poor state, Ruan Nanzhu took a long vacation and brought Lin Qiushi to a tropical island.

The island was warm and humid, the ocean a beautiful cerulean. There were white sand beaches and towering coconut trees, and the occasional hermit crab scuttling adorably across the sand. Walking on the fine sands barefoot burned a bit; the soft grains slipped upward between the toes and brought with them a gentle tickle.

Ruan Nanzhu stood in the water. He’d pulled up the legs of his trousers and was looking down. He seemed to be rubbing at something. Lin Qiushi sat underneath a beach umbrella not too far away, and watched as Ruan Nanzhu suddenly stopped whatever he was doing, turn, and start back.

The island was small. There weren’t many people and it was exceptionally serene. Having stayed here for over a month, Ruan Nanzhu’s pale skin had darkened quite a lot, but the chocolate-colored Ruan Nanzhu now looked even tastier. Approaching, he casually pulled off his wet t-shirt, revealing attractive abdominal muscles the color of wheat. And there were still drops of water on his skin, slipping from his neck down to his chest, then disappearing under that slim waistline.

Ruan Nanzhu came up to Lin Qiushi and handed him something. Lin Qiushi took it, and saw it was a huge, beautiful, multicolor conch. He handled it with a smile, asking, “can it be played?”

“I don’t know.” Ruan Nanzhu sat down beside Lin Qiushi and folded his legs up. Breaking open a coconut off-hand, he stuck a straw inside and began sipping.

Lin Qiushi, on the other hand, tried to play the conch. He was inexperienced though, and indeed failed to make a sound. Head tilting, his expression looked a bit distressed.

Seeing this Ruan Nanzhu took the conch from him and, after a thorough inspection, pointed at its bottom.

“I think we have to mill this bit off.”

“Then let’s try that?”

“We’ll go find the tools later,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “What do you want to eat for dinner?”

Lin Qiushi stretched out his back. “I’ll make it. Didn’t you borrow that barbecue rack…No fish though, right?

Ruan Nanzhu made a noise of confirmation, and then the two lied down under the beach umbrella for a nap.

But who knew that a little bit later, the skies would refuse them the pleasure[1]; thick rainclouds covered the blue skies, and the horizon line was beginning to roil. Ruan Nanzhu woke first. He turned his head and saw Lin Qiushi still deeply asleep beside him, and something in his heart squeezed. Shifting closer, he pecked Lin Qiushi on the lips to wake him.

"It’s about to rain.”

Lin Qiushi opened bleary eyes and—before he could react—he was already being hoisted up in Ruan Nanzhu’s arms and taken into the small beach house behind them.

Lin Qiushi was set down on the soft bed, long fingers from elegant hands sifting through his hair. The pleasant feeling made it so that he couldn’t quite tell what was dream and what was reality.

“I had a dream,” he mumbled.

“What kind of dream?” Ruan Nanzhu asked.

“I dreamed that you died,” Lin Qiushi said. “I was so scared.”

Ruan Nanzhu clasped Lin Qiushi’s hand and kissed his fingertips.

“Don’t be scared. I’m here.”

“I also dreamed of Qianli,” Lin Qiushi said. “I dreamed that he was sitting right next to me, asking if I wanted to watch a movie. But It’s a movie that I’ve already seen many times.” He opened his eyes. “It felt so real…”

Seeing Lin Qiushi like this, something in Ruan Nanzhu’s chest clenched in pain.

Lin Qiushi’s reaction to death had always been pretty demure. It wasn’t until Qianli was gone that all his emotions came bursting out.

Every aggregated feeling in the depth of his soul was welling up, weighing so heavily on him that Lin Qiushi could barely breathe.

Lin Qiushi rambled on about those bizarre dreams of his. He’d also dreamt that Ruan Nanzhu was cast in one of Tan Zaozao’s movies and too became a star. And Tan Zaozao didn’t die. She’d gotten married, and even had an adorable baby daughter…

As he spoke and spoke, Lin Qiushi’s voice got gradually lower. He seemed to realize that all he said were fantasies that could never come true.

Ruan Nanzhu called his name, kissed him. Tried to ease him out of this imaginative state of mind. “Qiushi, I’m here.”

Lin Qiushi looked at him, eyes widening.

“Nanzhu.”

“I won’t leave you behind,” Ruan Nanzhu said. Having seen what Cheng Yixie became, a certain idea in his mind grew firmer. “If something happens to me, I won’t insist that you keep living.”

Lin Qiushi stared blankly at Ruan Nanzhu. He hadn’t anticipated that Ruan Nanzhu would say something like this.

“It’s actually a good thing,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “If there weren’t any doors, I might already be dead. I would never have joined Obsidian, and would never have met all of you. This is all stolen time, and we can’t be too greedy…”

As he spoke, he gave Lin Qiushi another comforting kiss.

Lin Qiushi’s emotions gradually settled. Outside the house, rain was pouring, bringing with it howling sea winds that made the curtains rustle.

He yawned, and sat up in bed. His gaze was gradually clearing.

“When will the rain stop?”

“About another hour or so,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “There’s no rush. It’s still early after all.”

So the two sprawled back out in bed to watch the rain outside. To purely waste time like this was honestly such bliss—they didn’t have to think about the doors, didn’t have to worry about the consequences of failure. All they had to do was be with each other, and look at each other.

The rain continued for more than another hour before finally stopping. Ruan Nanzhu went out first, got out the barbecuing materials he’d borrowed from the hotel, and began prepping the materials.

He wasn’t all that good at cooking, and currently had his head bowed, trying to figure out how to cut a slab of beef.

Lin Qiushi found the sight of him kind of hilarious. He went over and offered: “You go start the fire. I’ll prep the food.”

“Okay,” Ruan Nanzhu nodded.

Honestly, if they didn’t want the trouble, they could go get a chef from the hotel to cook for them, but Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu opted to do everything themselves.

After certain experiences, everything in reality had become more beautiful. Even the mundane and trivial weren’t so annoying.

Lin Qiushi cut up the beef that Ruan Nanzhu had brought, and prepared some vegetables alongside. Then the two began grilling food by the seaside.

The beef they had was of prime quality, and grilled deliciously with just a little salt on top. As soon as he got a piece done, Lin Qiushi stuffed it into Ruan Nanzhu’s mouth, and this coupled with Ruan Nanzhu’s dark complexion, he felt somehow like he was feeding a black bear at the zoo. So the more he fed Ruan Nanzhu, the more he couldn’t help but laugh.

Of course Ruan Nanzhu noticed Lin Qiushi was laughing at him. He swallowed the beef in his mouth and said, “what are you laughing at?”

“Don’t you think it looks like I’m feeding a bear?” Lin Qiushi said.

Ruan Nanzhu quirked an eyebrow.

“Hahaha, like the kind in the zoo…” Before he’d even finished speaking, the grumpy chocolate bear was biting down on his neck.

And the chocolate bear opened his mouth and bared his row of neat white teeth: “If you keep laughing the bear’s going to eat you.”

Lin Qiushi managed to stifle the sounds, but his shoulders continued trembling. He obviously couldn’t suppress that urge to laugh.

So Ruan Nanzhu reached over and just picked him up. Lin Qiushi was an adult man, but in Ruan Nanzhu’s hands he seemed like some kind of toy. As if Lin Qiushi weighed nothing at all, Ruan Nanzhu put him on his shoulder.

“Don’t, don't—the fire! The fire’s still lit!”

“It’s fine,” Ruan Nanzhu said, before carrying Lin Qiushi into the house.

Naturally, what happened after that shouldn’t be described.

As they cooled off, Lin Qiushi felt a bit hungry—he had yet to eat that evening, after all. With the tip of his toe he prodded Ruan Nanzhu in the back and said, “I’m hungry.”

Ruan Nanzhu got up, sweeping his sweat-soaked hair up and back. Then he went to inspect the barbecue station they’d left behind, announcing unenthusiastically, “it’s all burnt.”

Lin Qiushi, grumpy, “you don’t say. It’s been on there for so long already…”

“Wait here a sec, I’ll go find some food for you,” Ruan Nanzhu said. He went back to the house and got a jacket. Draping it on, he headed out.

After watching him go, Lin Qiushi sprawled on the bed and began idling. He picked up the cell phone at his side, and saw several unread messages. These texts were sent half a month ago, but he hadn’t read them. The truth was, ever since arriving here, he hadn’t used his cell phone much at all.

Lin Qiushi thought for a while. When he opened the messages he discovered a lot of people had contacted him. Some were concerned about their conditions, and others were asking about their situation.

Lin Qiushi sent back a few plain replies, then heard footsteps at the door.

He looked up, and found Ruan Nanzhu carrying a giant plate of food, struggling to open the door with his legs and squeezing in through the door crack.

“Why did you get so much?” Lin Qiushi set down his phone and went to help Ruan Nanzhu carry the stuff.

Ruan Nanzhu arched an eyebrow.

“It’s still early isn’t it? You might get hungry again later.”

Lin Qiushi, “…” How could he not understand what Ruan Nanzhu was saying? His ears went bright red, and he said, “hey, moderation would be fine.”

They were both adults—on this island paradise with just the two of them, there were no such things as taboos, so they’d done pretty much all that could be done.

“But what if there’s not enough to eat,” was Ruan Nanzhu’s shameless reply.

Lin Qiushi: “…” How come he’d never realized how unabashed[2] Ruan Nanzhu could be?

Though he really was hungry. He reached for the food on the plate and began to slowly eat.

Ruan Nanzhu spotted the phone sitting on the side, and asked, “what, did someone call you?” In the month they’d been here, Lin Qiushi had hardly touched his phone. Ruan Nanzhu hadn’t asked either, since if there truly was an emergency, those were people who would contact him too.

“No,” Lin Qiushi said. “I was just looking at some updates from before…”

He paused for a minute, before asking quietly, “is there news of Yixie?”

Ruan Nanzhu shook his head.

The answer was expected, but still oddly disappointing. Lin Qiushi’s eyes shuttered and he continued eating.

“But I think I have a guess as to where he went,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “You still remember Zhuo Feiquan?”

Lin Qiushi’s recollection was almost violent. His eyes went wide as he stared at Ruan Nanzhu: “You mean Zhuo Feiquan’s sister—Zhuo Mingyu?”

“Yes,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “Maybe Cheng Yixie had already seen this coming.” He’d anticipated the death of one twin, but hadn’t expected that the one to die would be his brother.

“Then he…” There were things Lin Qiushi wanted to say.

But Ruan Nanzhu shook his head, saying, “it’s all just conjecture.”

Sighing internally, Lin Qiushi didn’t pursue the topic.

Their world of two was a lovely time spent. They didn’t have to think too hard about the messy things. It was enough to simply enjoy living.

They woke up on their own time every day, ate delicious foods, and saw beautiful vistas. In the company of his lover, this kind of life gradually nursed Lin Qiushi back to health. His psychological state began to recover, and though recovery was slow, his tendency to space out did get a lot better.

Seeing Lin Qiushi like this, Ruan Nanzhu could finally let out a secret breath of relief.

The two spent an entire two months out there before returning to Obsidian.

During this time, Chen Fei had been taking Gu Longming through doors. Though Chen Fei wasn’t as good as Ruan Nanzhu, he still counted among the experts, and brought Gu Longming through many low-level doors, hint slips in hand. He was basically getting Gu Longming acquainted with daily life in Obsidian.

Seeing Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu return from their vacation, Gu Longming was super psyched.

“Lin-ge,” he exclaimed, “you’re finally back!”

“Mh,” Lin Qiushi said. “How are you doing?”

“Doing pretty good.” As Gu Longming spoke, Chestnut was curled up in his arms. And judging by how handy he was at petting the thing, it seemed that he too was a hidden cat fanatic. “How come you got so much darker?”

Both Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu had gotten a lot tanner, their skin color rapidly approaching a shade of chocolate. But it was fine if boys were dark—they just seemed healthier.

Lin Qiushi inspected the darkened skin on his arm and grinned.

“Suntan.”

Gu Longming laughed, “you’ve tanned pretty evenly then.”

Lin Qiushi thought that it really wasn’t so even. Take the pants off and that whole bit was white…for Ruan Nanzhu in particular…oh…it was actually pretty sexy…

Of course, he would never say that out loud. Ruan Nanzhu was sitting right beside him. And so he changed the subject, asking how Obsidian had been.

Though Cheng Qianli’s passing was a huge blow to them, everybody was working hard to extricate themselves from the state of depression and return to their past normal of entering doors.

Somehow, half a year had passed. But Lin Qiushi had a feeling like he’d come from another world or something, as if those events had only happened yesterday.

The second day after Ruan Nanzhu’s return, Bai Ming came over, saying he had some matter to talk to Ruan Nanzhu about.

“How long has it been since you’ve gone in a door?” Bai Ming sat on the living room sofa and asked an immediately piercing question. But Ruan Nanzhu’s answer was frank:

“Half a year.”

“Half a year?!” Bai Ming seemed shocked by this answer. He looked Ruan Nanzhu up and down, and said, “are you really Ruan Nanzhu? Or were you swapped out for someone else?”

Ruan Nanzhu shot him a glare. “Get to the point.”

Bai Ming tilted his chin, indicating they should go to the study upstairs.

Ruan Nanzhu turned to Lin Qiushi, who was watching TV.

“You come too.”

Lin Qiushi pointed at himself.

“Me?”

“Mh.” After the answer of confirmation, Ruan Nanzhu was already heading upstairs himself.

Meanwhile Bai Ming was just as surprised as Lin Qiushi. But he accepted this development quickly with a new feeling in his eyes.

“I’m jealous of you two,” he laughed.

Lin Qiushi thought what did you have to be jealous of us for? The number of people who ended up with their idols could be counted on fingers.

The three came to the study, and Bai Ming and Ruan Nanzhu began talking business. The first words out of Bai Ming’s mouth immediately captured Lin Qiushi’s attention:

“Ruan-ge, have you truly seen anybody who’s passed the twelfth door?”

Ruan Nanzhu’s answer was two simple words: “I haven’t.”

The room went still for a moment.

Bai Ming, “you haven’t?”

“I haven’t.”

“But how is that possible?” Bai Ming said. “According to the rules…”

He was interrupted before he’d finished speaking.

“Forget the rules of the doors,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “My current guess is that the rules for the eleventh and twelfth doors will be different than before.”

Bai Ming’s brows furrowed.

“I once talked with someone who passed the eleventh door,” Ruan Nanzhu said.

Bai Ming watched him.

“He didn’t have much to say, but kept emphasizing one thing,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “Don’t treat others with wicked intent.”

Bai Ming, “…what does that mean?” He couldn’t, for a minute, comprehend what Ruan Nanzhu was saying.

“It means exactly what it means,” Ruan Nanzhu replied.

“Like don’t kill people?” Bai Ming stood up and began to slowly pace the room. “Then what about the twelfth door? What happened at the twelfth door?”

“Died,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “He couldn’t pass it.”

The answer was expected, but still oddly disappointing. Bai Ming sighed.

“So up through now, we’ve never actually known if the twelfth door could be passed? What if it’s all a sham, and there’s no rebirth at all?”

But Ruan Nanzhu didn’t answer. He drew loops on the circular black wood table with a finger and asked, “what are you panicking about?”

Bai Ming didn’t speak.

Observing Bai Ming’s expression, Ruan Nanzhu apparently recognized something, and his gaze took on a quality that seemed both like laughter and not.

He said, “Bai Ming, have you fallen?”

Bai Ming pointed none-too-politely at Lin Qiushi, who’d been sitting at the side without saying anything this whole time.

“Like you haven’t?”

“I have.” Ruan Nanzhu started to smile, but in his smile there was a touch of mockery and some schadenfreude. “But I’m not scared, he’s growing quick—we can live and die together.”

Bai Ming scoffed.

“You’d let that happen?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Had it been before, this really would’ve been Ruan Nanzhu’s Achilles’ heel. But after experiencing so much, Ruan Nanzhu had finally come to a point where he understood that maybe being left behind wasn’t such a happy thing after all. Was it good simply to survive? Not necessarily.

Bai Ming glared at Ruan Nanzhu, wanting to find some sort of wavering in Ruan Nanzhu’s gaze. But in the end, he failed.

Ruan Nanzhu stood certain, so certain that Bai Ming was envious. Lin Qiushi, who sat and looked on so gently at Ruan Nanzhu’s side, had become like Ruan Nanzhu’s pillar, supporting him as they continued indomitably forward.

As for Bai Ming—he wasn’t so lucky. He voiced a deep, long sigh and said: “Yeah, I’m down.”[3]

Ruan Nanzhu broke out in laughter.

“Didn’t you say you were just messing around?”

This friend of his—don’t trust that cheery friendly appearance, because he was actually quite a cold person, with all manners of men and women coming and going. They didn’t think there’d come a day where he was down for the count as well.

“How was I supposed to know.” Bai Ming never put up a front before Ruan Nanzhu, and sighed against the sofa. “He was just so frickin’ cute, and I really thought I was just playing around at first too—”

“It’s fun though, right?”

“So fucking fun,” Bai Ming laughed, pained. “Right, your eleventh door is the year after next, right? Can you say what the hint is?”

“Sure,” Ruan Nanzhu shrugged. “‘No Solution’.”

“Hah?” For a moment, Bai Ming couldn’t understand what Ruan Nanzhu said. “No solution?”

“Exactly what it says,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “I went in twice, and the hint both times is 'No Solution’.”

Bai Ming, “…” His expression twisted, and in the end he couldn’t hold back a curse. All this hard work of going in and coming out of doors, and the only answer they got was that there was no answer—was it just messing with them?

“Are you not panicking??” Bai Ming said. “You’re taking your little darling into a door with a hint like that?”

Lin Qiushi corrected, “I’m not the little darling here, he’s littler than me.”

Ruan Nanzhu chimed in: “In age maybe, but in other places, I’m bigger.”

Lin Qiushi, “…” Ruan Nanzhu you shameless—!

Bai Ming, “fuck me, and you’re bantering!”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, so there’s no use panicking.”

Bai Ming had nothing else to say to that—he only made a gesture of respect toward Ruan Nanzhu and congratulated him on this unprecedented optimism.

They all said that a true love was both the armor and the soft cartilage it protected[4]; it looked like Lin Qiushi really was giving Ruan Nanzhu a lot. At least, observing his good friend then and there, Bai Ming honestly couldn’t link this person to the horribly insecure Ruan Nanzhu from before.

Everybody was growing. Lin Qiushi was doing it, and so was Ruan Nanzhu.

“Alright, I’m off then,” Bai Ming said. “I’m meeting him for dinner after this. He’s been filming a new movie recently, and it’s hard enough to make the time to see me.” He got up and got ready to leave.

“See ya.” Ruan Nanzhu waved at him.

“Give me a call if anything comes up, I’ll do whatever I can to help,” Bai Ming said. “There are still two years until your eleventh door, so work hard 'til then, Ruan Nanzhu.”

“Mh, I will,” Ruan Nanzhu answered. He watched Bai Ming leave the study and head downstairs.

Lin Qiushi was going to go as well, but Ruan Nanzhu pulled him back. He looked at Ruan Nanzhu, confused, and saw a peculiar smile on Ruan Nanzhu’s face.

Ruan Nanzhu said, “Qiushi.”

“Hm?”

Ruan Nanzhu pointed at the desk in front of them.

“I want to try it here.”

It took a while for Lin Qiushi to understand what Ruan Nanzhu meant, and when he did, it took only an instant for his ears to go red.

“Ruan Nanzhu!” he yelped, “you’re shameless!”

Ruan Nanzhu, frankly, “yeah, I am shameless.”

Lin Qiushi, “…” For just a moment, he kind of missed that flower-on-a-lofty-perch Ruan Nanzhu from before.

Translator’s Notes:

1. 天公不作美 - idiom that literally means, “the heaven’s offices do not grant this beauty,” but is just used to refer to bad weather lol
2. “Unabashed” here was translated from the idiom “thick-faced,” which, if you’re a danmei reader, you’re probably familiar with at this point. But still. “Thick-faced” and “thin-faced” don’t read quite so naturally yet, at least not to me. It’s evoked in the last bit of dialogue as well: LQS says 你不要臉！ literally “you don’t want face!”
3. There are two terms RNZ and BM use to refer to falling in love: “白銘，你陷進去了？” and “栽了啊。” The first one is literally “sinking into it,” like you would with quicksand. The second is like “falling” but more along the lines of “face-planting into it.” Both these terms have bro-y, “aw dude I can’t believe you’ve done this!” vibes.
4. 5/18 - this line gets roughly repeated in ch. 136, so I’ve changed it to match. Previous version read “True love was both the armor and the chink in it” (original Chinese: 都說深愛的人是鎧甲又是軟肋).