Kaleidoscope of Death

Kaleidoscope of Death by Xi Zixu

Tan Zaozao came to visit and asked after Ruan Nanzhu with heartfelt care. The entire time however, Ruan Nanzhu pretty much blew her off.

“How was your fourth door?” Lin Qiushi asked casually as he sat on the side with nothing to do.

“My fourth door?” Tan Zaozao scratched at her head. “Alright, I guess…” She didn’t seem keen on talking about the world of the doors, quickly circumventing the topic.

Seeing this, Lin Qiushi didn’t ask any further either.

The television hanging on the hospital wall would occasionally play one of Tan Zaozao’s perfume commercials. Onscreen, her noble glamor looked completely beyond this world. Lin Qiushi eyed the commercials, then eyed the woman scrunched up next to Ruan Nanzhu, who had her face buried in a mango and yellow fruit flesh smeared all over her mouth. He fell into a peculiar silence.

Tan Zaozao clearly guessed Lin Qiushi’s thoughts from his expression, and bellowed, “stop staring, it’s all fake anyways!”

Lin Qiushi, “oh…”

Tan Zaozao peered at Lin Qiushi, and asked with malice: “Are there any stars you’re a particularly big fan of?”

Lin Qiushi answered frankly: “No.” He didn’t do the fan thing.

Tan Zaozao, disappointed, “that’s a shame. I could’ve gotten you an autograph or something.” I might’ve even had gossip to completely ruin your image of that person…

As they chatted, a breaking news report appeared on the TV, saying some star had a car accident on his way to a concert and died on the scene. It even showed footage of an awful car crash.

Tan Zaozao, who’d been working on her mango, suddenly looked up, seeming lost.

“He…”

Ruan Nanzhu, lying on the bed, asked quietly, “you knew him?”

Tan Zaozao nodded.

She put down the mango in her hand and spoke lowly, “he seems to be someone from the doors too. We filmed a commercial together, but we weren’t close or anything…”

Lin Qiushi watched Tan Zaozao, whose mood had clearly fallen.

“Then he began to have all these accidents.” Tan Zaozao talked, speaking quite slowly. “During a concert, a light fell from directly above his head, but he only had minor injuries. And other things as well. I had my suspicions then…”

“Maybe it really is just an accident?” Lin Qiushi frowned. “It might not be the doors…”

“It’s probably the doors,” Tan Zaozao sighed, clearly down. “I’m heading out. Take care of yourselves.”

Despite seeing her like this, Lin Qiushi didn’t know how to make her feel better. In the end he could only watch her hurry off.

Ruan Nanzhu’s expression remained calm the entire time Tan Zaozao was leaving. Lin Qiushi said, “she’s okay, right?”

Ruan Nanzhu, “she’s fine. She’ll be over it in a couple of days.”

Lin Qiushi had always thought of Tan Zaozao as quite an optimistic person. To see her break down so unexpectedly like this…

Even though before the actual breakdown, she’d taken off.

Faced with Lin Qiushi’s lack of comprehension, Ruan Nanzhu asked, with some surfacing exasperation: “You’ve really never liked anybody in particular?”

Lin Qiushi thought carefully, then slowly but surely shook his head.

“No. My family’s never been close. As far as I recall… Yeah, I’ve never really liked anyone.”

Since youth, the number of friends he had could be counted on two hands. It was precisely because of this that he had been able to leave behind his hometown to come work here with little hesitation.

“But girls must have liked you.” Ruan Nanzhu spoke with absolute certainty. “Unless you’ve never received a confession before?”

Ruan Nanzhu didn’t believe at all that with his personality and appearance, Lin Qiushi hadn’t been well-received by women.

“Well sure, I’ve received confessions, but I turned them all down,” Lin Qiushi answered.

Ruan Nanzhu, “how come?”

Lin Qiushi, “because I couldn’t give them what they wanted.”

Ruan Nanzhu frowned. “How did you know you couldn’t?”

Lin Qiushi quieted for a while, before answering softly, “because I didn’t like them.”

Ruan Nanzhu couldn’t help a laugh: “You’re self-aware.”

Lin Qiushi smiled. “I couldn’t delay their lives, they’re all good women.”

Lin Qiushi was indeed a warm person. If he met someone who needed help, he would do all he could to provide aid. But his kindness wasn’t limitless either. To put it bluntly, he would never help others by sacrificing himself; he had a thorough comprehension of his own capabilities, and would never request others to do things outside of the scopes of their abilities either.

A kind, clever person who knew how to accurately assess the situation was bound to be attractive.

Ruan Nanzhu slowly closed his eyes. The things that attracted him to Lin Qiushi however, didn’t stop there.

Seeing Ruan Nanzhu shut his eyes, Lin Qiushi thought he must be tired. He stood up from the bedside and quietly left the hospital room. As he did so he spotted Cheng Qianli, who was just coming back with the washed lychees.

“Why are you out here?” Cheng Qianli asked.

“Don’t go in,” Lin Qiushi said. “He’s resting now. Zaozao’s left too.”

Cheng Qianli, “oh, then what about the lychee?”

Lin Qiushi glanced at it.

“Just leave it. Bring it in when he wakes up, or just eat it yourself.”

Cheng Qianli, “nah, I won’t. Ruan-ge seems to really like lychee.”

At this, Lin Qiushi was suddenly curious.

“What else does he like, besides lychee?”

He had been living together with Ruan Nanzhu for a while now, but still knew little to nothing about Ruan Nanzhu’s likes and dislikes.

Cheng Qianli, “what he likes? He likes plenty of things.” He looked at the lychee, then looked at Lin Qiushi. “He seems to like you a lot too.”

Lin Qiushi, “what, and he doesn’t like you?”

Cheng Qianli giggled, “hehehe true that, ‘cause I’m adorable.”

Lin Qiushi thought oh, you’re really just shameless.

During the time of Ruan Nanzhu’s convalescence, many people from other organizations came to visit. Well, they said visit. “To gather information” was more accurate. After all, a ten-door top honcho like Ruan Nanzhu was a rare sight to see.

White Deer’s Li Dongyuan came by without any sense of shame as well. Though Ruan Nanzhu agreed to let him in, Ruan Nanzhu didn’t spare him any kind looks the entire time.

Lin Qiushi was seated by Ruan Nanzhu’s bedside, peeling lychees for him to eat. He’d part his mouth ever-so-slightly for the milky fruit to pass between his pale lips. Then, after some neat chewing, he’d open his mouth again and Lin Qiushi would bring the plate over to catch the black seed his tongue pushed out out.

This entire eating process was exceedingly elegant. Watching Ruan Nanzhu, Lin Qiushi suddenly understood what Tan Zaozao had meant when she said beautiful people ought to eat lychee.

Li Dongyuan sat just beside him, all friendly grins on that baby face of his. He really was very different outside the door. He said, “Nanzhu ah…”

Ruan Nanzhu shot him a glare from out the corner of his eyes.

So Li Dongyuan could only change his tune: “Ruan-ge, Ruan-ge, are you doing well?”

Ruan Nanzhu, “you can’t see for yourself? Say what you came to say.”

Li Dongyuan turned and glanced at Lin Qiushi.

Ruan Nanzhu understood his meaning, gaze shuttering.

“No need to keep it from him.”

Li Dongyuan, “I’m going into my ninth door soon, so you know, is there…”

Ruan Nanzhu, “no. Get out.”

Li Dongyuan, “…”

Lin Qiushi wanted to laugh, but thought it’d be inappropriate. So he kept his head down and pretended to be very seriously peeling lychee.

“Don’t be so mean.” Li Dongyuan had begun to pout. “I’m not even holding it against you, you know, the time when you pretended to be my lover Zhu Meng.”

With those big watery eyes of his, Lin Qiushi was reminded of Cheng Qianli’s husky…

But Ruan Nanzhu had a heart of steel and was utterly unmoved. He didn’t even appear shocked when Li Dongyuan called out his identity like that.

“Don’t waste my time. Talk business.”

Li Dongyuan, “I heard you had a hint for the ninth door though…”

Ruan Nanzhu’s lips moved into something that wasn’t quite a smile.

“Heard?”

Li Dongyuan, “fuck man, I really did! They’re all saying it.”

It was at this point that Lin Qiushi suddenly recalled that Ruan Nanzhu had already passed his tenth door. Didn’t that mean he likely already had a hint to the eleventh door? What could it be like? Was there something different about it than all the other doors?

“So?” Ruan Nanzhu stared at him.

“So, will you sell me the hint?” Li Dongyuan finally said what brought him here today.

Ruan Nanzhu turned him down without any hesitation: “No way.”

Li Dongyuan, “name any price, as long as I can afford it—”

Hints to the ninth door were too scarce; even he hadn’t been able to obtain one.

Only Ruan Nanzhu, the crazy bastard, could get his hands on two.

Ruan Nanzhu ate the lychee fed to him. Didn’t answer.

Seeing Ruan Nanzhu’s attitude, Li Dongyuan became a bit agitated. He said, “thirteen days from now is my limit before going in, I don’t have that much time.”

Ruan Nanzhu, “weren’t you having a great time jacking my customers? Telling them I got here on looks alone?” His lips were smiling but his eyes were cold. “And now you’ve learned to beg me?”

Li Dongyuan began to awkwardly laugh.

“My bad, my bad. Here, how about I service you for a night and you be the bigger person and forget all about it?”

Ruan Nanzhu pointed at the door.

“Get out.”

Li Dongyuan looked aggrieved.

Lin Qiushi thought, you’re really going overboard. You want the hint, fine, but you also want to take advantage of our boss? You totally deserve to get kicked out.

“I can give you a hint to the ninth door,” Ruan Nanzhu said, “but I have a condition.”

Li Dongyuan, “what condition?”

Ruan Nanzhu, “you go into the tenth door with him.”

At this, Li Dongyuan startled. He glanced at Lin Qiushi.

“You’re not…”

Ruan Nanzhu, “I am.”

Li Dongyuan’s expression changed immediately.

“Are you insane?!”

Ruan Nanzhu was already testy.

“Agree or get out, don’t sit here wasting my time.”

Li Dongyuan continued to look stormy, but in the end bit the bullet and agreed to go into the tenth door with Lin Qiushi. Judging from his face though, there was more that he wanted to say, but refrained since Lin Qiushi was still present.

Lin Qiushi stood up and said he was going to go wash his hands.

Ruan Nanzhu didn’t stop him this time.

But when Lin Qiushi came back from the bathroom, he heard Ruan Nanzhu and Li Dongyuan arguing. Li Dongyuan stood no chance against Ruan Nanzhu though, and ended up slamming his way out the door in a fit of anger. When he spotted Lin Qiushi, he even shot Lin Qiushi a glare.

As Lin Qiushi stood baffled by this glare, Li Dongyuan spoke: “Watch out for yourself then! If Zhu Meng whips it out it’ll definitely be bigger than yours!”

Lin Qiushi, “…” I already know he’s bigger than me, don’t need the reminder thanks.

He returned to the room and saw Ruan Nanzhu sitting expressionless on the bed. So he said, “what got you two arguing all of a sudden?”

Ruan Nanzhu scoffed, “someone wanted to make all these accusations about me. He thinks he’s worthy?”

Lin Qiushi, “you’re still not feeling well, don’t be angry.” Then, warmly, “what do you want to eat tonight?”

Ruan Nanzhu leaned against the bed.

“Porridge. Made by you.”

Lin Qiushi didn’t take Li Dongyuan storming off that day to heart because he thought, between Li Dongyuan and them, there would still be time for all sorts of stories, whether good or bad. But Lin Qiushi didn’t imagine that that day would be the last time he’d ever see Li Dongyuan.

The morning thirteen days later, Ruan Nanzhu, who was out of the hospital, received a phone call. Everybody in the mansion was gathered for breakfast. After he hung up, his expression went blank for just a moment. And then he opened his mouth and said, “Li Dongyuan is dead.”

The chattering crowd suddenly went quiet. Everybody heard what Ruan Nanzhu said.

First chewing on a bun, Cheng Qianli also stopped.

“Ah,” he said, then asked what everybody was wanting to ask, “Ruan-ge, what are you saying… Li Dongyuan, as in White Deer’s Li Dongyuan?”

Ruan Nanzhu made a noise of confirmation and stood.

“I have to head over.”

Lin Qiushi said, “I’ll go with you.”

Though Ruan Nanzhu was out of the hospital, he had yet to fully heal; even now, there was a pallor to his face. Lin Qiushi worried that if anything happened to Ruan Nanzhu out there, his body wouldn’t be able to take it.

“Okay,” Ruan Nanzhu agreed to Lin Qiushi’s accompaniment.

Lin Qiushi quickly changed and got into the car with Ruan Nanzhu.

After announcing a destination, Ruan Nanzhu sat in the passenger’s seat with his eyes shut to rest. His face was pale, and with his long, raven-dark lashes lightly fluttering, he had, in the air about him, a touch of fragility. But this fragility seemed just as likely to be Lin Qiushi’s imagination.

Was Ruan Nanzhu grieving? No. Lin Qiushi thought the upset he emanated was more like commiseration. The fox mourning for the dead rabbit.[1] Ruan Nanzhu hated Li Dongyuan, but hardly wanted Li Dongyuan to just die like this—because seeing this happen to Li Dongyuan, it was difficult not to think of it happening to themselves.

Lin Qiushi remembered that last time he saw Li Dongyuan, a bit over ten days ago, and he exhaled for a long while, as if he wanted to breathe out that entire mass of smothering air in his chest.

After a forty-minute drive, they came to an apartment building in the city.

Lin Qiushi first thought that White Deer was headquartered in one of the apartments. Only after they arrived did he learn that White Deer had bought out the entire building.

There were many people gathered out front. Lin Qiushi had a bad feeling when he saw this. After he parked, they went over to the gathered crowd and saw, unsurprisingly, what everyone was surrounding.

A body, smashed to smithereens. Its face could no longer be made out, but from its clothing and general appearance, this fallen corpse was recognizably Li Dongyuan.

This wasn’t Lin Qiushi’s first time seeing a dead body in real life, but this was the first time someone familiar to them was just dead like this. He glanced to his side at Ruan Nanzhu. Ruan Nanzhu still maintained his placid expression—only, there was a teeming light in those dark eyes of his, like the tossing of fathomless lakes.

A woman’s cries started. A teenage girl burst out from the crowd, fell to her knees beside Li Dongyuan’s corpse, and began to wail. She even tried to gather Li Dongyuan’s tattered body into her arms.

Those around the girl stopped her, and pulled her away from Li Dongyuan’s body by force.

Lin Qiushi looked around them, and found some people quietly whispering, some people looking on with numb eyes and pained expressions. These ought to be the members of White Deer.

A beautiful woman approached Ruan Nanzhu, and spoke lowly to him, “Mr. Ruan, hello.”

“Hello Ms. Jin,” Ruan Nanzhu said.

“Call me by name, Jin Yurui.” The woman seemed to want to smile at Ruan Nanzhu, but it came out stiff. The corners of her mouth made their way up by force, and looked very laborious. “From now on, I’ll be taking over White Deer’s internal affairs.”

Reading between the lines, she was to be White Deer’s next leader.

“Mh.” Ruan Nanzhu nodded his understanding. Then, after some silence, he suddenly added, “you don’t have to smile if you don’t want to.”

Jin Yurui’s smile immediately faded. She took a deep breath, as if to get a grip on her emotions. Then, hoarsely, she spoke: “Come inside, Mr. Ruan.”

Ruan Nanzhu nodded and headed for the apartment, Lin Qiushi behind him.

In the lobby of the apartment building stood six people. Plus those outside, White Deer likely had about twenty or so members.

Jin Yurui began to announce the things Li Dongyuan had already prepared before death. The whole process went by quietly.

But in this quiet, Lin Qiushi sensed a surging undercurrent. In the group, some didn’t seem pleased with Jin Yurui as the successor. However, when their gazes fell on Ruan Nanzhu, they seemed surprisingly wary of this outsider.

Lin Qiushi suddenly understood why Ruan Nanzhu came. He was here to quell one last upset for Li Dongyuan.

Jin Yurui was now White Deer’s next leader. She had just passed her eighth door, and there was still some time before her ninth.

But clearly, White Deer’s members weren’t as satisfied with her as they had been with Li Dongyuan.

Ruan Nanzhu had certainly noticed as well. But he wasn’t planning on interfering with White Deer’s matters, and so only sat silently to the side.

Lin Qiushi watched his awful pallor and thought he must be uncomfortable by now. Concerned, Lin Qiushi thought for a bit. Then he pulled out a piece of candy and snuck it into Ruan Nanzhu’s hand.

Ruan Nanzhu glanced back at him momentarily, before nodding lightly. He unwrapped the candy, and slowly placed it in his mouth.

The flavor of the candy was sweet, and washed away a certain sense of discomfort. Ruan Nanzhu sat in that lobby for a long time, until Jin Yurui was finished delegating matters.

The group in the lobby began to disperse. In the end, the three of them were left.

Jin Yurui looked up with a pained smile. “Thank you Mr. Ruan. If you hadn’t been here, I don’t know what I would’ve done.”

Ruan Nanzhu stood, and said, “I can only do this much. The rest of the road you have to walk on your own.”

Jin Yurui nodded. She was no fragile flower on tendrils; though faced with the winds she swayed a bit, in the end, she would withstand the storm herself.

“We’ll be off then,” Ruan Nanzhu said.

“Mr. Ruan won’t stay for dinner?” Jin Yurui asked politely.

“No thank you.” Ruan Nanzhu declined the sentiment, and said, “I’ll come again after he’s been buried.”

Jin Yurui didn’t force the matter either, nodding and showing Ruan Nanzhu and Lin Qiushi to the door.

Li Dongyuan’s corpse had already been cleaned up. Only a bloodstain on the ground was left to tell the world what had transpired here.

In a few days, this stain would be gone as well. At White Deer, people came and went. Perhaps they would all very soon forget that there had ever been a leader named Li Dongyuan.

The entire way here, Ruan Nanzhu didn’t look well.

It was only on their way back, sitting in the driver’s seat, that Lin Qiushi noticed something was wrong. He asked, “Nanzhu, are your wounds okay?”

He could faintly smell blood in the air. At first, Lin Qiushi had thought it was because of Lin Qiushi. But even now Lin Qiushi could smell it.

“I’m fine.” Ruan Nanzhu was leaning tilted against the door.

Lin Qiushi didn’t believe he was fine at all, and frowned.

“Let me take a look.”

Ruan Nanzhu, “no.”

Lin Qiushi startled. He didn’t think Ruan Nanzhu would refuse him so plainly.

“Let’s go home first,” Ruan Nanzhu said. Immediately after, his eyes drifted shut in apparent exhaustion.

Worried, Lin Qiushi couldn’t help but drive a bit faster.

Some tens of minutes later, they got back to the mansion, and Ruan Nanzhu finally dragged his eyes open. Lin Qiushi quickly took hold of him and helped him inside. Once he was in bed, Lin Qiushi very naturally sat down beside him, taking a corner of Ruan Nanzhu’s shirt in hand.

Ruan Nanzhu glanced up at him.

“What are you doing?”

Lin Qiushi, “I’m taking a look at your back…”

The wounds were the worst on Ruan Nanzhu’s back.

Tilting his head to the side, Ruan Nanzhu kept eyeing Lin Qiushi.

“Can you not look?”

Lin Qiushi frowned.

“No.”

He thought that Ruan Nanzhu’s wounds had for sure reopened.

Ruan Nanzhu gave this some thought.

“Then give me a piece of candy.”

Lin Qiushi fished out a piece of candy, unwrapped it, and popped it in Ruan Nanzhu’s mouth.

“Go ahead,” Ruan Nanzhu mumbled around the candy. “There’s not much to see really…”

Lin Qiushi lifted Ruan Nanzhu’s shirt and unsurprisingly, he found the wounds reopened. Blood trickled down his back and seeped into his clothing.

Brows furrowed, Lin Qiushi, “this isn’t good. We have to go to the hospital.”

Ruan Nanzhu stopped moving, his breaths evening out.

Glancing up, Lin Qiushi sighed.

“And now you’re faking sleep?”

Ruan Nanzhu still wasn’t talking.

Exasperated, Lin Qiushi could only get up to go grab some gauze. As he cleaned simply around Ruan Nanzhu’s wounds, he was still nagging, “we have to go to the hospital tomorrow morning.”

With a vague sound of acknowledgement, Ruan Nanzhu once again closed his eyes. He really was a bit tired, and wanted to get some actual rest.

Author’s Note:

The feelings are here, is it exciting enough /author proudly puffs up her chest

Translator’s Note:

1. “The fox mourning for the dead rabbit” / 兔死狐悲 (tù sǐ hú bēi). This is a direct translation of the chengyu. Both the rabbit and the fox are prey of the hunter, so the fox mourns the dead rabbit as it fears for its own fate. Translating chengyu is fun, because sometimes it requires sacrificing the imagery to convey the meaning concisely, or sometimes you can choose to put both.