Kaleidoscope of Death

Kaleidoscope of Death by Xi Zixu

Lin Qiushi could tell Ruan Nanzhu was furious, and typed: calm down, they’re not worth it.

Ruan Nanzhu went silent, but then flashed a cold smile. He didn’t reply to Lin Qiushi. It seemed he’d thoroughly taken down these people’s names in red—come the appropriate opportunity, he’d be ruthless about getting revenge.

Feng Yongle stood beside them, looking at the 502 door tag in Ruan Nanzhu’s hand with a look of fright. He stammered, “are we keeping that thing here?”

Ruan Nanzhu, coolly, “of course we can’t keep it here.” The tag would probably draw something over; though it wasn’t on their door, it still wasn’t safe.

“Then what do we do?” Feng Yongle asked. “It’s almost eight.” Once it was eight, they couldn’t go out.

Without speaking, Ruan Nanzhu left the room with the door tag in hand. He went across the hall.

It was an empty room across from them. Nobody was staying inside. It was locked, but Ruan Nanzhu easily opened the lock on the door. After putting the door tag inside, he closed the door again.

“We’ll keep it there temporarily,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “And get it out when it’s useful.”

Feng Yongle let out a breath of relief. “Those people were too much. How could they think to do something like this?”

If it hadn’t been for Lin Qiuqiu’s sharp hearing, they’d likely have been a goner here.

Ruan Nanzhu eyed the dawning night outside, and said, “let’s sleep.”

It was eight; though it was still early, the sky was already completely dark.

There wasn’t a single rustle in the entire sanatorium, as if even the patients who were so restless by day had grown afraid of this darkening night.

Lin Qiushi lied in bed playing on his phone. Ruan Nanzhu, in the bunk above, was quiet—it sounded like he was asleep already.

After playing for a while, Lin Qiushi grew drowsy. Just as he set his phone aside to get some sleep, he jumped, whole-bodied—he’d heard the sound of knocking.

Feng Yongle wasn’t asleep either, looking frightened. Clearly, he’d heard it too.

Dong, dong, dong. The knocks were loud, coming from the door across from theirs.

Lin Qiushi and Feng Yongle’s gazes met. They both saw relief in each other’s eyes… Good thing they’d put the door tag back. Whatever was stood there knocking, it definitely wasn’t human.

Dong, dong, dong! The knocks grew fiercer and fiercer, before finally, there was the sound of the door breaking. Lin Qiushi very clearly heard the door across from theirs open, and then—perhaps after discovering there was nobody inside the room—three or four minutes later, the sound of high heels sharply clacking along the hallway floor.

These noises came near from afar, then gradually disappeared. Lin Qiushi’s heart in his throat also slowly lowered.

Sleep, sleep… Lin Qiushi didn’t dawdle this time, shutting his eyes to force himself to bed. But no matter how he turned he just couldn’t sleep. Maybe his tossing and turning disturbed Ruan Nanzhu in the bunk above, because Ruan Nanzhu suddenly spoke: “can’t sleep?”

Lin Qiushi looked at the upper bunk, not knowing how to respond.

A moment later, Ruan Nanzhu climbed down in his night clothes. Then he very naturally lied down in Lin Qiushi’s bed.

He wore a long sleep shirt, and seemed a bit pale. When he lied down, his waterfall of black hair fanned out over the pillow. He turned his head, black eyes silently watching Lin Qiushi. This look made Lin Qiushi’s heart skip a beat.

The Ruan Nanzhu in this moment seemed, at a glance, perfumed with fragility. But closer observation would reveal that fragility to be nothing but a hoax.

In those dark eyes was a profundity like a deep, serene lake, as if just by meeting his gaze, the heart was calmed.

Lin Qiushi felt a pair of hands hook around his waist. As he was still self-consciously shifting about, Ruan Nanzhu’s face was already buried in the nape of his neck.

“Stop moving,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “And sleep.”

Lin Qiushi thought for a second, and stopped struggling. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep again.

Three minutes later, the two slipped to sleep in succession, leaving Feng Yongle alone with a woebegone expression… He wanted to squeeze in with them as well.

But squeezing in was impossible; if Feng Yongle really dared a squeeze he’d likely not survive the night. Though he had to note that the sight of the two young women entwined in sleep was lovely to behold.

Ruan Baijie had a sophisticated air, and seemed the mature type. But despite her pretty face, that air of hers made her seem hard to get along with. Lin Qiuqiu, on the other hand, was the completely opposite type. Her appearance wasn’t top notch, but was still plenty eye-catching. Feng Yongle thought for a while for the adjectives: Lin Qiuqiu carried on her an aura of delicacy and worldly compassion. Her face was very small, and looked like a cute little animal. Compared to the dazzling Ruan Nanzhu, she was obviously harmless at a glance. Plus, with her disability, she couldn’t help but attract some people with particular agendas.

In the middle of his thoughts, Feng Yongle grew sleepy as well. He closed his eyes, and his breathing evened out.

At midnight, the sound of heavy falling once again came.

But they’d learned their lesson from the night before; after everybody had been woken up, they lied calmly in bed without much movement. Lin Qiushi woke for a bit, then closed his eyes again and returned to sleep. Ruan Nanzhu the Sleeping Pill Fairy was indeed impressively effective—there was no concern of sleeplessness at all.

They slept all the way until the next morning, when Lin Qiushi got up refreshed and energetic.

As soon as he got up he was met with Feng Yongle’s plaintive gaze, and startled.

“Good morning,” Feng Yongle said. “Didn’t you hear anything last night?”

Lin Qiushi nodded to signal he did.

“Then why didn’t you two wake up?” Feng Yongle asked. “That thing was scary as shit. It just kept jumping, I couldn’t sleep at all.”

Lin Qiushi was silent. Really, his hearing ought to be better than Feng Yongle’s. But if he’d been fine with something Feng Yongle had been woken up by, the credit had to go to Ruan Nanzhu.

Ruan Nanzhu lazily said, “it’s enough to be alive isn’t it? You’re asking for too much.” He cuddled over and kissed the shell of Lin Qiushi’s ear. “Time to get up, baby.”

He kissed Lin Qiushi into shivers. Lin Qiushi’s ears were very sensitive—a single touch made his whole body tense up. But Ruan Nanzhu seemed to have discovered this, and just got worse in his teasing.

Lin Qiushi condemned with his eyes: you’re taking advantage of me not being able to speak.

Ruan Nanzhu replied with his eyes too: you’re wrong. I’d do this to you even if you could speak.

Lin Qiushi: …

He was speechless. Ruan Nanzhu beamed as he got up to wash.

Feng Yongle couldn’t tell the turbulent interchange between them, and was currently feeling moved by their “deep sisterly love.”

Lin Qiushi sighed, and gave up on pursuing the matter.

As the three ate breakfast in the dining hall, they began to discuss the sounds from yesterday.

Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu both expressed they hadn’t heard, so only Feng Yongle, grimacing, could say, “I think I know what’s the deal with that door tag.”

“What is it?” Ruan Nanzhu took a bite of a hard-boiled egg.

“The jumping sounds came from across the hall,” Feng Yongle said. “So I’m guessing, maybe the nurse will jump once from whichever room that has that number.” As for what happened before she jumped… It didn’t take much thought to know it would be nothing good.

Ruan Nanzhu, “oh, I see.”

Feng Yongle, “aren’t you shocked at all?”

Ruan Nanzhu, oddly, “we already know you’d die, it’s just a different way of dying… Why be shocked?”

Feng Yongle was speechless.

Indeed, that 502 door tag clearly meant death. As for how you died, that did seem less important.

Leaving after their meal, they bumped into Jiang Yingrui and his team. Among them was the trembling Xue Zhiyun, who’d been caught red-handed yesterday doing something nasty.

Lin Qiushi thought he’d be a bit awkward—but unexpectedly, he still greeted them with a shameless grin.

But this time, all three of them ignored him, just passing him by like air.

Considering Ruan Nanzhu’s expression however, Lin Qiushi had cause to believe that were it not for the fact that murders made ghosts here, Jiang Yingrui would already be dead by Ruan Nanzhu’s hands many times over.

Feng Yongle muttered under his breath about these shameless fucking bastards…

Faintly, Ruan Nanzhu smiled. But there was no humor in his eyes. “There’s no rush. Plenty of days ahead of us yet.”

The sanatorium was too big. Yesterday, they’d only roughly browsed a few floors, and hadn’t managed a detailed search. They planned to continue that today.

But after walking into the sanatorium, Ruan Nanzhu stood on the first floor and contemplated a while. “Have you guys discovered this sanatorium is missing something?”

Lin Qiushi: missing what?

Ruan Nanzhu, “we didn’t see a single doctor all of yesterday, did we?”

As soon as Ruan Nanzhu said this, Feng Yongle clapped in realization. “That’s right, we really didn’t see any doctors, only a few nurses—” And those had all been indifferent, looking to have not seen them in return at all.

“So what about the doctors,” Ruan Nanzhu said.

Lin Qiushi thought over the building’s zone map they saw on the first floor yesterday, and typed: I remember the sixth floor’s the doctors’ offices, right?

Ruan Nanzhu, “yes.”

Lin Qiushi: they’d seemed to be all locked. We’ll take a look upstairs again?

“Sure,” Ruan Nanzhu agreed with Lin Qiushi’s suggestion.

The truth was a large majority of the rooms in this sanatorium were locked. Wanting to search room-by-room was pretty much impossible. So they could only look for a targeted room, then unlock it for inspection.

Lin Qiushi counted himself lucky to have Ruan Nanzhu at his side, and began to seriously contemplate learning the art of lock-picking once he was out…

Most of the other floors were populated by patients. They wore hospital gowns, some wandering idly through the halls, some sitting silently in the corners. Some mumbled to themselves, as if in conversation with something nonexistent. A place that was meant to treat lung diseases seemed more like one large mental hospital.

But the sixth floor was quiet. There were no patients and no nurses. The entire hallway was steeped in a kind of dim lighting, like a reel from an old movie.

Once he reached the sixth floor, Ruan Nanzhu first found the Dean’s office.

The Dean’s office was in the center of the hallway. The door was closed, and they couldn’t see inside.

Ruan Nanzhu, “move.”

Lin Qiushi and Feng Yongle both turned their shoulders to let Ruan Nanzhu open the door.

Two to three minutes later, the lock before them opened with a click. Ruan Nanzhu didn’t immediately push the door open, instead very carefully cracked it to inspect the situation inside.

The room was quiet, and seemed harmless.

He searched the wall beside the door and found the room’s light switch. With a soft clack, a ghastly pale light illuminated the entire office.

Lin Qiushi followed Ruan Nanzhu inside. Once inside, his gaze was immediately caught by the wall.

The wall before him was packed with a constellation of memorial portraits. Every figure in the portraits looked cold and rigid, their chilly gazes shooting right out the frames. And they all seemed to have one thing in common: they were all wearing doctors’ scrubs.

Lin Qiushi very quickly noticed that on the highest point above the wall of portraits, there was an empty photo frame.

The three stared at that frame and sank into silence.

“Who’s it left for?” Feng Yongle laughed humorlessly.

Nobody knew the answer to that question.

After examining the picture wall for a while, Ruan Nanzhu turned his gaze elsewhere. The three began searching inside the room. It quickly yielded results. In the corner of a drawer, Lin Qiushi discovered a photograph. In the photograph was a middle-aged man, handsome enough, with a head of short blond hair. He had on a calm smile. Most notably, he wore a doctor’s scrubs.

Lin Qiushi held this photo, searched the wall, and indeed, couldn’t find this person’s portrait.

“It’s not here,” Ruan Nanzhu concluded.

“So the empty one was left for him then…” Feng Yongle said. “What if the key’s in the frame?”

Ruan Nanzhu thought this over. “Take the frame down and see.”

Feng Yongle nodded, found a chair, and climbed on. He reached up, took the frame, and lifted it off the nail.

“It’s just an empty frame,” Feng Yongle said. “Doesn’t seem anything special.” He turned it over, back and forth, and didn’t see anything noteworthy on the frame.

Lin Qiushi had been looking down at the frame as well, but all of a sudden felt a buzz in his body—he’d sensed a strange line of sight. He looked up in suspicion, following the sightline. When he got a good look at its source, a chill ran down his back.

Because what was staring at him was the memorial portraits on the wall.

The gaze of these portraits went from looking ahead to peering askance. Practically every portrait was staring at them out of the corners of their eyes. With their stiff pallor and lifeless gazes, Lin Qiushi got an unpleasant feeling. He immediately reached out and gave Ruan Nanzhu’s sleeve a tug.

Ruan Nanzhu noticed the change in Lin Qiushi’s expression, and looked where he was looking, immediately noticing the change in the portraits.

And that change was intensifying as well.

The eyes of the portraits slowly began to move, like the dead inside the frames were coming back to life. The frames had begun to shake as well. Lin Qiushi stared with wide eyes—he could see a person in a portrait slowly lifting its hand, looking like it wanted to climb right out of the photograph.

For a normal person, a sight like this would definitely cause panic.

But Ruan Nanzhu was very experienced. He glanced at the frame in his hands—and then his next move was to climb up on the chair and return the empty frame to its original spot.

Once the frame was back in place, all the changes stopped.

The people in the portraits returned to those indifferent expressions, eyes gazing lifelessly forward. It was as if everything they’d just seen had been an illusion.

Feng Yongle wiped at the cold sweat on his brow, and swore, “fuck, that scared me.”

Fright lingered in Lin Qiushi’s heart as well.

Ruan Nanzhu, “the key might be in the frame.”

“But didn’t we just check?” Feng Yongle huffed. “There’s nothing in the frame at all…”

Ruan Nanzhu glanced at him. “Isn’t the frame’s missing something thought?”

Feng Yongle startled.

Lin Qiushi knew what Ruan Nanzhu meant. The frame was indeed missing something—missing the portrait that should be in it.

“It’s missing the portrait?” Feng Yongle figured out as well.

Ruan Nanzhu nodded.

“Then where are we going to find the portrait?” Feng Yongle’s chuckle was pained. “The sanatorium’s so big…”

“We’ll find it,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “Let’s get out of here first.”

They left the Dean’s office, and Ruan Nanzhu closed the lock behind them.

They seemed to have a clue about the key, but still none for the door. They browsed through the entire floor, searching in every corner, but they didn’t find any hint of any tunnel.

Just as Lin Qiushi thought they weren’t going to have a breakthrough, Feng Yongle made a new discovery: he found a room.

That room had been locked, but somebody had broken that lock. And so Feng Yongle pushed the door right open.

That push was enough to terrify him—in that big wide room were piles and piles of black bags. From the shape of the bags, they were clearly body bags for holding corpses.

“Fuck—” Feng Yongle called for Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu in a hushed shout. “Come look, hurry!”

Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu came to the room door, and saw also these piles of stacked bodies.

“Don’t they take care of these bodies?” Feng Yongle mumbled.

Ruan Nanzhu frowned. “What did you just say?”

“I said, don’t they take care of these bodies at all—” The stench of rot had already permeated the room, and smelled particularly nauseating. “What is it?”

Ruan Nanzhu said, “maybe this is a way out. If they have to clear out the bodies…”

Lin Qiushi understood: you mean what that tunnel’s for?

Ruan Nanzhu nodded.

Lin Qiushi: there’s a thought.

In the background from the hint, the tunnel was where bodies were gotten rid of. If the stacks of body bags before them had to be taken care of, then they’d have to be brought to the tunnel. All the humans would have to do was follow.

Though this was now a possibility, it wasn’t easily implemented, since they didn’t know when the bodies would be cleared out.

Ruan Nanzhu continued his analysis: “The lock here’s been broken, so it’s likely somebody else has also found this location. If they’re smart enough, they’d have figured out the hint here as well.”

There were lots of ways to take care of bodies, primarily burial or cremation. There was no crematory here, so it was likely the former.

But there were no grave sites around the sanatorium, so anybody smart enough was apt to understand there was another site for corpse disposal here.

And if anybody had figured that out, they were competition.

“I’ll go ask the patients around here first, see if they know anything,” Feng Yongle said. “We can’t just wait around, after all…”

Ruan Nanzhu nodded in agreement with Feng Yongle’s line of thought.

Then Lin Qiushi signaled that if they needed, he could guard this place on his own. He couldn’t talk after all, and couldn’t question anybody.

Ruan Nanzhu, “alright. We’ll be around. If anything happens, make some noise and we’ll come right over.”

Lin Qiushi nodded in understanding.

The two went off nearby, while Lin Qiushi stayed put in a corner to see anybody else coming. After standing there for a while, Lin Qiushi saw the unexpected approach of a familiar figure. It was the one who’d tried to trip them up earlier, Jiang Yingrui.

Lin Qiushi froze a bit upon seeing him. Just as he tried to hide, Jiang Yingrui had already seen him from afar.

“Miss Mute.” Jiang Yingrui approached Lin Qiushi, wearing a peculiar smile. “Is it just you here?”

Lin Qiushi watched him back in silence.

“Where are your friends?” Jiang Yingrui asked, standing in front of Lin Qiushi. “They’re not with you? Leaving you alone in a world like this is very dangerous, you know.”

If Lin Qiushi was truly a helpless mute woman, perhaps he’d feel fear, even terror when faced with Jiang Yingrui.

But Lin Qiushi wasn’t, so against what were practically threats, his only reaction for Jiang Yingrui was a few blinks of the eyes.

“You’re not scared?” Jiang Yingrui asked softly.

Lin Qiushi still wasn’t reacting.

“Why aren’t you answering me?” Jiang Yingrui was getting closer and closer to Lin Qiushi. The lack of space between them felt invasive, and Lin Qiushi’s expression went cold. He pulled out his phone and typed: I don’t have anything to say to you.

“You guys also saw that room?” Jiang Yingrui said. “It’s all corpses inside you know…”

Lin Qiushi’s expression: And? Fuck off.

“Say—” Jiang Yingrui’s voice suddenly dropped in register. “—if I put you in a bag and throw you in that room right now, do you think they’d notice?”

This was over the line. Lin Qiushi stared coolly at Jiang Yingrui, contemplating beating him up for good riddance, when Jiang Yingrui switched to a smile. “Of course I’m only kidding. Miss Mute here is so cute after all, I couldn’t possibly.”

Lin Qiushi thought, you couldn’t, but I could.

Jiang Yingrui kept up that smile. “You guys just came down from the top floor, didn’t you? What did you find?”

Lin Qiushi watched Jiang Yingrui, expressionless.

“That’s fine, don’t tell me. We’re about to go check it out ourselves anyways,” Jiang Yingrui said. “I’ll leave you to stand guard here then.”

He waved at Lin Qiushi, turned, and walked away.

Lin Qiushi dashed forward and socked him right in the back. Lin Qiushi held nothing back; his kick sent Jiang Yingrui stumbling straight onto the floor.

“What the—” Jiang Yingrui was utterly shocked by Lin Qiushi’s actions. He probably hadn’t supposed that, with such a gentle appearance, Lin Qiushi could so something so rough.

Lin Qiushi just brusquely spat in Jiang Yingrui’s direction, and held up a middle finger.

Jiang Yingrui, “…”

Seeing Jiang Yingrui stare, mouth agape, Lin Qiushi felt much more satisfied. He was thinking how mute people really weren’t so well-off, since typing was all words and no presence—might as well shut up and just throw hands.

Angered, Jiang Yingrui began to laugh. “Don’t think I won’t hit a girl—”

Just as he got up off the ground, Ruan Nanzhu, who’d heard the noises, arrived. Lin Qiushi immediately threw himself into Ruan Nanzhu’s arms with an ill-treated expression.

Ruan Nanzhu, “what the fuck did you do to my Qiuqiu?!”

Jiang Yingrui, “…” I’m the one who got kicked, why are you acting the victim?!