Kaleidoscope of Death

Kaleidoscope of Death by Xi Zixu

With people as mirror, one can gain from loss. But Lin Qiushi didn’t know yet what to “gain from loss” meant from the hint.

After the girl who was burned to death last night appeared whole and hale in the restaurant, Lin Qiushi noticed that, in the restaurant, many people were looking on with unsettled expressions. These were likely those living in rooms close to where the incident occurred, and so had seen everything that happened in the corridor, thus knew that the girl in front of them was not human…

As for the culprit responsible for getting the girl killed—Xia-jie was clearly still unaware of what had gone down.

She was still casually chatting with the girl: “Wenjing, how was everything last night? How did you and Xiao Mian sleep? Nothing happened, right?”

The girl who’d burned to death was named Wenjing, and Xiao Mian was the girl rooming with her.

“Nothing, Xia-jie.” Wenjing’s smile was tranquil, and she spoke in a slow and languid tone. “Nothing happened at all last night…”

Xia-jie smiled. “That’s good.”

The restaurant had been somewhat lively at first. But upon Wenjing’s arrival, it went a bit distressingly quiet. Those who knew what happened last night all began to leave, casting Wenjing disquieted looks as they went.

Xia-jie seemed to notice these strange glances, and stopped to think. Her expression, once smiling, became a touch more severe and cold. Then she got up, found an excuse, and left—it seemed that when it came to reading the room, she was still quite sensitive.

As Xia-jie went, Wenjing didn’t try to stop her, only watched on with a small smile, her gaze hair-rising.

Cheng Yixie said, “should we go too?”

Ruan Nanzhu nodded. “Let’s.”

Not many people were left in the restaurant, aside from Wenjing, who was taking her time to eat. Only a few people on the thick side remained in their seats, completely ignorant to what was going on, judging by their expressions.

But when Lin Qiushi’s group got to the door of the restaurant, they heard a fierce argument going on outside.

Lin Qiushi went out to have a look, and found Xia-jie and Wenjing’s roommate Xiao Mian fighting.

“It’s your fault, it’s your fault—if it weren’t for what you said, Wenjing wouldn’t have died!” Xiao Mian was Wenjing’s roommate, and had seen Wenjing’s awful death with her own eyes. She was practically broken down, her weeping woven through with resentment and fury. “You want to get us all killed! Wenjing’s come back now to get revenge on you. Fucking bitch, just you wait!”

Xia-jie scoffed, and retorted without any airs of politeness, “what are you talking about, I got her killed? Did I know breaking mirrors means death? That mouth of yours can eat whatever it wants but don’t talk shit now, missy.”

Listening in on their conversation, Lin Qiushi quietly asked Ruan Nanzhu, standing beside him: “Does this count as Xia-jie killing Wenjing?”

Ruan Nanzhu shook his head.

“Then what would count?” Lin Qiushi didn’t really understand what were judged as murders inside the doors.

“Typically it only counts if you did it yourself,” Ruan Nanzhu explained. “Take them for example. Xia-jie genuinely didn’t know that breaking mirrors would get her killed.

Lin Qiushi, "…”

Ruan Nanzhu, “she only gave Wenjing a suggestion. As for whether or not Wenjing wanted to follow that suggestion, that’s a different story.”

Lin Qiushi supposed this was a loophole inside the world of the doors.

According to this then, people who entered doors could ostensibly murder each other—they just couldn’t do it so flagrantly. At the very least they couldn’t do it themselves. But beside killing, it was obvious that there were many other methods to get someone killed.

“Oh.” Lin Qiushi understood.

Xiao Mian was still crying. She seemed to have known that Wenjing girl outside the door. She said, “you liar, you bastard, go to hell! it’s all your fault, you said you’d protect us, you said—”

Xia-jie, coldly, “are you three? You believe what everybody tells you?” After she said this, she brushed Xiao Mian off with an irritated gesture, then turned to leave.

But then, Xiao Mian took out a bread knife from her pocket, and plunged it at Xia-jie. Though the knife’s edge wasn’t sharp, its tip was. If it really stabbed somebody it could absolutely kill.

Xia-jie’s reaction, at least, was quick. With a dash, she dodged Xiao Mian’s full-frontal assault. She saw the blade in Xiao Mian’s hand, and bellowed angrily, “you want to fucking kill me?” Grabbing Xiao Mian by the arm, she threw Xiao Mian harshly against the wall.

“Ah!” Xiao Mian didn’t seem to be Xia-jie’s rival at all. Her body slammed into the wall with a loud bang, and then she collapsed slack on the floor.

That wasn’t enough for Xia-jie though. She grabbed Xiao Mian by the hair and threw her in another direction. She was very strong. Xiao Mian, at 160, looked practically like a doll in her hands.

Seeing such a sight Lin Qiushi frowned and started forward to interfere, when Xiao Mian suddenly let out an awful scream, and bright red blood began pouring down her cheeks.

At this Xia-jie too froze. She hadn’t been planning on killing Xiao Mian, just teach her a lesson. Slowly, she picked Xiao Mian’s body up, and saw that on the frame of the painting Xiao Mian was slumped against, there was a sharp, oddly placed nail. The back of Xiao Mian’s head had been unerringly punctured by that nail.

“No, no— I didn’t want to kill you, I didn’t want to kill you—” Xia-jie was panicking now. She released Xiao Mian’s slack body, and took helpless steps backward. “I didn’t want to kill you, it wasn’t me, it wasn't—”

Lin Qiushi was bewildered as well. He didn’t think things would happen like this.

Fresh blood poured endlessly out of Xiao Mian’s body. Eyes wide open, she stayed glaring at Xia-jie before her with poison and resentment. And then she stopped breathing.

Xia-jie seemed to lose it in an instant. She kept shaking her head and muttering no as she stumbled away from the restaurant, her expression absolutely frantic.

Watching this, Lin Qiushi felt quite complicated. He asked, “does this sort of thing happen often?”

Ruan Nanzhu, “not often.” He glanced at Xiao Mian. “This woman’s just unlucky.”

How unexpected, that Xiao Mian would die in such an incident. He approached Xiao Mian and crouched down, closely inspecting the nail that had killed her.

“Now this nail is really interesting.”

Lin Qiushi, “interesting?”

Ruan Nanzhu, “it wasn’t here yesterday.”

Lin Qiushi blinked. “Are you sure it wasn’t?” This corner wasn’t a very noticeable location. To be honest, had a person not died here today, Lin Qiushi might never have glanced this way once before leaving this world.

But Ruan Nanzhu replied with utmost confidence, “of course. This nail was put in here either last night or this morning… Was anybody else at the restaurant when you arrived?”

Lin Qiushi immediately thought of Luo Qianshui, who’d been here before him.

He answered, “Luo Qianshui was here first.”

“Oh.” Ruan Nanzhu got up. “Is that so.”

Lin Qiushi, “she’s the one who put the nail here? But…”

He wanted to ask, at first, why she knew Xiao Mian and Xia-jie would have an argument and fight here that would end with Xiao Mian being shoved against the frame. But on second thought, this was the world of the doors. Nothing seemed improbable here. Nobody who’d made it to the ninth door was the kindly sort—someone using some method to predict what would happen today, and then setting things up accordingly? That surely wasn’t impossible to do.

As he thought this, Lin Qiushi actually did spot Luo Qianshui and her brother in a corner.

The two stood amid the spectating crowd, difficult to spot if you weren’t looking. But, when they met Lin Qiushi’s eyes, Luo Qianshan offered Lin Qiushi a smile, while Luo Qianshui maintained her usual expression of distaste. Then the two left. Like they’d lost interest in what would happen next.

Ruan Nanzhu got up. “We should go too. There’s a place I want to check out.”

“Will Xiao Mian get revenge on Xia-jie?” was the matter more pressingly on Lin Qiushi’s mind. It had been a while since he started entering the doors, but he hadn’t really seen any outsiders become ghouls to get revenge… To his knowledge there had only been the once, and this time surely wouldn’t be anything pleasant to behold. “Will we be involved?”

“No,” Ruan Nanzhu replied. “The problem’s her own.”

Lin Qiushi finally felt relieved. He asked, “where is it that you want to go?”

Ruan Nanzhu said, “we haven’t gone to that burning room during daytime, have we?”

Ah.

They returned to the thirty-fourth floor, and found the room that kept burning at night.

By day, this room was no different than theirs. It was simply a totally normal single-bed room.

But once inside, Cheng Yixie began to feel unwell and kept coughing.

“You smell something burning again?” Ruan Nanzhu asked him.

“Mh,” Cheng Yixie choked out. “It’s thick.”

Looking around, Ruan Nanzhu flipped out a dinner knife from his pocket, and went over to a corner to start peeling away the wallpaper.

Seeing the knife in his hand, Lin Qiushi was startled. “When did you get that?”

Ruan Nanzhu, “when I ate the egg.”

Lin Qiushi had been seated right next to Ruan Nanzhu; he should’ve been able to see everything Ruan Nanzhu did. But he hadn’t seen Ruan Nanzhu slip the knife away at all, and looked on exasperated, “how come I didn’t see it.”

Ruan Nanzhu shot Lin Qiushi a look heavy with meaning. “The things you don’t see can fill a book.”

Lin Qiushi had no retort.

Peeling the wallpaper off revealed the charred black wall underneath, confirming that there had been a fire in this room.

Lin Qiushi looked around. To his surprise, he noticed an interesting item.

A bronze mirror sitting beside the vanity.

Mirrors were hardly a rare item in this world, but the mirror before him was the first bronze mirror Lin Qiushi had seen in here.

The bronze mirror was only the size of his palm, rimmed with a flowing cloud design. There was even a little handle—intricate and quaint.

Lin Qiushi picked the mirror up, and looked down into it.

Likely due to the difference in make, the reflection inside the bronze mirror wasn’t as clear as the ones inside aluminum-coated mirrors, It was blurrier and more distorted.

Lin Qiushi skimmed a hand lightly across the mirror surface, and felt a thin layer of grit. He lifted some to his nose, and it smelled slightly singed—it wasn’t regular dust, but ashes left behind by something burned.

“A bronze mirror?” Ruan Nanzhu came beside Lin Qiushi and saw the mirror in his hand.

“With bronze as mirror…” Lin Qiushi muttered the hint, “one can right their apparel?”

Ruan Nanzhu didn’t speak, but took the mirror from Lin Qiushi.

“But what does it mean by apparel?” Lin Qiushi didn’t fully understand. “Do you think it can see the things mixed in among the humans?”

Ruan Nanzhu cocked his head. “We’ll know it once we try it.”

Lin Qiushi, “mh…”

They could do that. They already knew of one problematic person, after all. They also inspected everywhere else in the room. In a corner of a bathroom drawer, Cheng Yixie found a photo with a third of it burnt off.

The two people left in the photo was a woman and a child. The woman was smiling sweetly, holding the child in her right hand. Their poses were similar to what Lin Qiushi had seen that day in the corridor. The portion to the child’s right, however, was burnt away. It didn’t take much to figure out that it belonged to the child’s father.

“A family of three lived in the condo,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “And in the end, they only found two bodies. Where did the last one go?” As he spoke, his fingers skimmed the edges of the photo. “There’s one more. Where did it go?”

No one knew the answer. After the fire at the high rise, nearly everybody around had been swapped out. They knew nothing of the fire. Some people didn’t even know this building had once been on fire.

After that, Lin Qiushi’s group wandered around the high rise. Anyone they recognized, they looked at through the bronze mirror.

But to Lin Qiushi’s puzzlement, the first one they used the bronze mirror on was the inhuman Wenjing. In the bronze mirror however, there were no changes to Wenjing’s face. She still looked entirely human.

The dead Wenjing was unchanged, and same with everybody else.

Lin Qiushi couldn’t figure this point out. Examining the mirror, he said, “unless the mirror’s not meant for this?”

Ruan Nanzhu, “what else can it be for?”

Lin Qiushi’s laugh was pained. “How would I know?” He carefully pondered the phrase in the hint: with bronze as mirror, one can right their apparel… Were they misunderstanding the words in some way? Hang on… Apparel…?

“Right their apparel.” Ruan Nanzhu realized the same thing Lin Qiushi did, and even spoke up faster. “Did we only look at Wenjing’s face just now?”

Lin Qiushi, “let’s try again?”

Ruan Nanzhu, “let’s.”

So they returned to the second-floor restaurant. But Wenjing, who’d been sitting here spaced out, had gone.

“We came too late.” Lin Qiushi felt some contrition.

Ruan Nanzhu though, was quite certain: “No worries, she’ll definitely turn up again.”

“What does Wenjing want to do, hiding among the humans like this?” Lin Qiushi didn’t quite get why she came back. “To kill? But didn’t you say she can’t get revenge?”

Ruan Nanzhu said, “Wenjing can’t get revenge, but whether or not this is even Wenjing, we don’t know yet.” Potentially, the thing before the wasn’t even Wenjing, but a ghoul inside imitating Wenjing’s appearance.

Lin Qiushi thought this made a lot of sense.

As they spoke, they began heading back to the thirty-fourth floor. The elevator opened with a ding. Lin Qiushi saw that the bellhop who’d distributed their keycards was inside, smiling politely at them. “Good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon,” Ruan Nanzhu replied absently.

Cheng Yixie though, suddenly frowned. His gaze fell on the bellhop, seeming somewhat discomfited.

Noticing Cheng Yixie’s strange reaction, Lin Qiushi felt his heart jump a beat, and pulled out the bronze mirror from his pocket. Concealing it behind his body, he carefully aimed the reflective surface at the bellhop.

Nothing seemed off. Inside the copper mirror, the bellhop still maintained his professional smile. Recalling what they’d just discussed though, Lin Qiushi slowly began to move the mirror, from the top of the bellhop’s head, to the shoulders, to the waist… Until the bronze surface fell on the bellhop’s feet.

The image in the mirror finally changed.

Inside the bronze, the bellhop’s feet were flipped backwards.

Heels in the front, and toes in the back; it was a spine-chilling sight.

Lin Qiushi tensed. Noticing his reaction, Ruan Nanzhu too glanced at the mirror in his hand. He also saw the abnormality on the bellhop’s body, but his expression didn’t change at all, and he continued chatting with the bellhop about this and that.

“How long have you been working here?” Ruan Nanzhu asked.

“Two years now,” the bellhope replied. “Time really flies.”

Ruan Nanzhu, “two years? Then were you here when the fire happened?”

The bellhop replied, “not yet. It wasn’t until after the fire that I was hired on here.”

With another ding, the elevator doors opened.

The bellhop gestured, inviting them to exit first.

Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu left the elevator. Though he didn’t look back, Lin Qiushi knew that bellhop remained in the elevator just silently looking at them—because the elevator doors didn’t close. It wasn’t until they got to their room door that Lin Qiushi heard another ding, and the tight clenching in his chest finally loosened.

“It’s him,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

Typically, key NPCs were never the monsters inside the door. But this time the key NPC was clearly different from those before.

“I wasn’t either,” Lin Qiushi said. “Yixie, you smelled something didn’t you?”

If Cheng Yixie’s expression hadn’t changed, he wouldn’t have even thought to turn the bronze mirror on the bellhop. Until moments ago, they had only ever been targeting people who came in from outside the door.

Cheng Yixie nodded. “Yeah, there’s the burnt smell on him as well.”

It would appear that there was more than one way to identify the oddity in this person’s identity in this door. The bronze mirror was one. To possess a sense of smell as sharp as Cheng Yixie’s might mean you didn’t even need the bronze mirror to figure it out. Of course, this ability also had a distinct flaw—that was, if people were all together all the time, then their scents would be difficult to distinguish.

“Do you think that bellhop might be the father from the family of three?” Ruan Nanzhu sat down on the bed.

Lin Qiushi shook his head. “I don’t know, but we can’t rule out the possibility.”

Ruan Nanzhu let the conversation taper off. He fished out a piece of candy from his pocket, peeled off the wrapper, and stuffed it in his mouth. He mumbled around it, “do you guys want one?”

Lin Qiushi thought this was a bit strange. “Since when did you eat candy?”

Ruan Nanzhu, “I’m quitting smoking, aren’t I?”

Lin Qiushi, “why are you quitting smoking all of a sudden?”

Ruan Nanzhu, “you have liver cancer.” He said this very matter-of-factly. “I can’t be smoking in front of a patient.”

Truth be told Lin Qiushi had all but forgotten about his own liver cancer. Most people lived in pain with liver cancer, but he was lucky enough to enter the doors—his body now felt stronger than ever.

Lin Qiushi said, “alright, give me one.”

Cheng Yixie eyed the candy, and also held out his hand.

So three grown men sitting around the bed began eating fruit-flavored candy, and the room was slowly permeated with a faint, fruity scent.

As for clues to the key, it was still quite uncertain. Lin Qiushi thought that the key had a lot to do with the disappeared father from the family of three.

Ruan Nanzhu agreed with Lin Qiushi, and thought that finding the missing father was their top priority.

As the three were talking, there came a sudden knock at the door. Lin Qiushi went over, and saw a familiar face in the peephole—Luo Qianshan.

Luo Qianshan was standing outside their door alone, smiling at the peephole.

Lin Qiushi twisted around to ask Ruan Nanzhu: “It’s Luo Qianshan. Should I open the door?”

Ruan Nanzhu, “open it.” He for one wanted to see what Luo Qianshan wanted from them.

So Lin Qiushi opened the door. When Lin Qiushi saw him, the smile on his face grew amused. He said, “there’s something I’d like to discuss with you all. Ah—mind if we speak inside?”

Lin Qiushi, “please.”

Luo Qianshan nodded at him and entered the room. His gaze fell immediately on Ruan Nanzhu the moment he entered, though it casually moved away soon after. He said, “do you have clues to the key yet?”

Ruan Nanzhu didn’t bother being polite. “If that’s what you came to ask, you can leave.”

Luo Qianshan’s laugh was pained. “Why so aggressive?”

Ruan Nanzhu lifted his chin; looking on, he looked just like an arrogant queen: “I never waste my breath on the defeated.”

Luo Qianshan had no retort.

To have lost in a fight to Ruan Nanzhu was likely a stain on his life—Lin Qiushi wondered, if he found out the lady before him was a drag queen, whether he’d feel better or worse.

“I’m coming with a genuine offer,” Luo Qianshan said. “My sister and I found the hint to the key.”

He’d thought that when he said this, the three people before him would grow excited. But instead, they only looked, one after another, increasingly apathetic.

Stone-cold Cheng Yixie was a given. Ruan Nanzhu had already witnessed countless storms, and Lin Qiushi had prepared himself, and so thought there was really nothing to be shocked by.

So the one who ended up shocked was Luo Qianshan. He said, “isn’t there anything you guys want to say?”

Lin Qiushi, “congrats?”

Ruan Nanzhu, “oh.”

Cheng Yixie said nothing.

Luo Qianshan, “…” He was already contemplating the possibility that the three before him had already found the key…

Fortunately Ruan Nanzhu’s next words dispersed his concerns: “Alright, what do you want us to trade for your hint?”

Luo Qianshan, “I…”

Before he even said anything though, Ruan Nanzhu was leaning over onto Lin Qiushi’s shoulder, all fragile and breathy. “Let’s be clear though, I already have a boyfriend, so don’t make any unreasonable demands.”

Luo Qianshan, “…” I’m not. I don’t want. His face twitched. “Don’t be crazy.”

Though the person before him was indeed pretty, who’d dare make any moves on her when she had skills like that? Any potential future disputes, it wasn’t even clear who’d be beating up whom.

Ruan Nanzhu scoffed, “you don’t know a good thing when you see it.”

Luo Qianshan, “…” My bad, I apologize.

Author’s Note:

Fixed a bug—totally forgot about the revenge scene from the first door _(:з」∠)_

Translator’s Note:

• 3/15/21: the hints for every door can be difficult to translate with all their double meanings. I’ve edited this door’s clue in Ch. 71 to be: “with bronze as mirror, one can right their apparel; with history as mirror, one can understand the tides of fortune; with people as mirror, one can gain from loss.” The Chinese, for reference, is: 以銅為鏡, 可以正衣冠；以史為鏡，可以知興替；以人為鏡，可以明得失。
• I’ve also changed hotel “server” to “bellhop” because…. I finally remembered the word bellhop…

Names in this chapter:

• Wénjìng / Wen(2) Jing(4) / 文靜
• Xiǎo Mián / Xiao(3) Mian(2) / 小綿