Kaleidoscope of Death

After a simple dinner, the sky began to darken.

Everybody returned to their own rooms to rest. Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming were no exceptions. After quickly washing up inside, Lin Qiushi didn’t rush into bed, but stood by the window and watched the rooms across from theirs.

The places where the baby’s corpse cried last night were right across from them. There were two teams of people in those rooms, four people total. The room Lin Qiushi moved out of last night was sandwiched right between theirs.

During their daytime inspection, Lin Qiushi didn’t find anything peculiar about those rooms, beside the tiny holes in the window paper that were easily overlooked.

The windows here were partitioned by wood into little squares, with glass along the top and paper along the bottom. Standing at the window Lin Qiushi could see outside through the glass, but if he were sitting he wouldn’t be able to see anything.

“What are you looking at?” Gu Longming, who was lying on the bed, cocked his head and asked Lin Qiushi.

“I want to know what makes those rooms so different from ours,” Lin Qiushi said. “You go ahead and sleep first.”

Gu Longming said, “let’s do it together then, yeah?”

Lin Qiushi, “I can do it on my own, I won’t watch for long. You sleep. Even if you stay up there’s not much you can help with.”

Gu Longming blinked big eyes at Lin Qiushi and didn’t insist. “Alright.” He yawned, turned around, and sure enough, not two minutes later fell asleep.

Watching him, Lin Qiushi couldn’t help but think of Ruan Nanzhu… Ruan Nanzhu’s ability to fall asleep was also top notch. Come to think of it, the mission partners who’d entered doors with him seemed to be fast sleepers overall, Cheng Yixie included.

The night grew thick, and cool winds assaulted the halls, blowing the lanterns lining the hallway into a swaying frenzy, nearly falling.

Firelight swelled and dimmed. Lin Qiushi could only keep watch through the dark, his vision of the hallway outside vague and impaired. He looked down at his watch. It was already eleven PM, nearing midnight.

Lin Qiushi’s plan was to wait until midnight, and, if the room across from theirs still hadn’t changed in any way, go to bed.

But just as he thought this, Lin Qiushi noticed motion at the head of the hallway. A blurred red mass had appeared out of nowhere, and moved slowly through the dark. Only when it came underneath a lantern could Lin Qiushi see, by light, what the red blur was.

It was seven, maybe eight children wearing red outfits. They each had a hand on the shoulder of the one in front, heads hanging as they took one step, two steps slowly forward. Maybe it was the distance confusing Lin Qiushi’s vision, but from the way they walked, these children seemed obviously inhuman.

They moved forward in a slow line. When they got beneath a window, suddenly they stopped, and the first child, with that awfully pale face, grinned eerily, slowly turning to face that window. It got onto tippy-toes, extended a small thin finger, and poked a tiny hole in the window paper. Then it pressed its face to the hole.

When Lin Qiushi saw this, all the hairs on his body stood up on end. He finally understood why, on the window of the room he’d switched them out of, there was that handful of tiny holes… If he hadn’t brought the baby corpse, hadn’t switched rooms, then at this moment, those ghost children would be looking through the window paper right at them.

Those things seemed to realize there was nobody in the room, and turned to head toward the next one. Lin Qiushi recalled there were people living in that room—so he got to see those children poke a hole, morph into a stream of bloody liquid, and slip along that window paper through the hole straight into the room.

All this happened in near-silence, but after a moment, the hallway returned to its previous peace.

Lin Qiushi remembered what happened during the day, and quietly murmured the hint several times: “I’ve said it once I’ll say it twice, my baby cries with all his might, if you see this chant this thrice, and he’ll sleep on ‘til morning light…” After three recitations, he started toward his bed, but then noticed a woman’s silhouette in the center of the courtyard. The woman wore a long red dress and had a head of long black hair; it was the Landlady who’d welcomed them during the day.

She just quietly stood there, watching the room the children entered. The aloof line of her back looked as if a frozen statue.

Lin Qiushi didn’t want to look any longer. He carefully turned and walked to his bed. But just as he sat down on the bedside, there was a sudden flash of brightness before his eyes. It stunned Lin Qiushi—for some reason, the oil lamp on the table had lit itself.

The light of that oil lamp illuminated the entire room, undoubtedly attracting the attention of all things awake in the middle of the night—whether those were good things or bad things.

In that blinding flash, Lin Qiushi threw himself at the oil lamp. With care to little else, he reached for the lampshade and quickly covered the lamp.

The lamplight was immediately extinguished, but Lin Qiushi’s body went frozen. He felt a gaze— a gaze coming from outside the window. He half-crouched, afraid to get up, worried that whatever was outside would see him.

Maybe it was Lin Qiushi’s nerves talking, but he thought he could even hear the soft rustle of a skirt blowing in the breeze outside.

And then, something began to softly scratch at the window paper. Moments later, a finger, with a nail painted red, poked through that thin sheet.

Lin Qiushi was crouched right beside the window, right in the blindspot of that hole. The person couldn’t see him from the hole, but he could see them—a single black eye appeared against that window, spying into the room with pernicious intent, searching for its target.

On the bed, Gu Longming’s breaths were still even; he hadn’t been woken at all by this.

Lin Qiushi held his breath, and did his best to reduce his own presence.

Those eyes watched for a long time from the outside, in the end still failing to find Lin Qiushi crouching in the corner. She sighed in slight disappointment, and slowly moved away.

But Lin Qiushi still wouldn’t move. He had a feeling that that thing was still near the room…

Sure enough, a few seconds later, that black pupil appeared again. If Lin Qiushi believed she’d left, that thing would probably be staring clear at him right now. As for what would have happened next, nobody knew.

Still failing to find Lin Qiushi, that black pupil grew furious with displeasure. Lin Qiushi heard once more the town caller outside the courtyard—after hearing this sound, the owner of the black eyes finally disappeared from behind the window paper.

Lin Qiushi remained crouched where he was. Only after confirming the thing outside had left did he slowly get up from the ground. His legs had fallen asleep, and he stumbled back to his bedside.

Gu Longming was still fast asleep, completely ignorant to what had just happened.

Lin Qiushi exhaled, and lied down beside Gu Longming. His brain was filled with thoughts of those children and the estate’s Landlady; he had a feeling there was a crucial hint hidden in this courtyard.

A normal person couldn’t possibly fall asleep after experiencing what he just did. But after his multitude of experiences from the doors before, Lin Qiushi was able to quickly calm down. He closed his eyes and attempted to call to mind that peaceful feeling of lying beside Ruan Nanzhu—and he actually sank rapidly into a dreaming sleep.

It seemed that Ruan Nanzhu the Sleeping Pill Fairy was very effective. Just the thought of him could put you to sleep.

Day three, the motions of Gu Longming getting out of bed woke Lin Qiushi as well. He opened his eyes and saw Gu Longming greeting him with gusto: “Good morning! Nothing happened to you last night, did it?”

Lin Qiushi, “yeah. I almost croaked.”

Gu Longming, “…are you serious?”

Lin Qiushi, “of course I’m serious.” He sat up in bed, and quickly sketched out what happened last night.

Gu Longming was fine at first, but when he heard that the thing had just stood at the window watching him, he looked scared. “Fuck, so she just stared at me all night?”

Lin Qiushi, “pretty much.”

Gu Longming, “good thing I wore pajamas.” He bashfully added, “if I’d slept in the nude like I do at home…”

Lin Qiushi, “…” You’d likely be dead.

After joking around, Gu Longming became serious again: “Are we switching rooms again tonight then?”

Lin Qiushi thought a bit, and said, “let’s go eat breakfast first.”

At breakfast, Lin Qiushi discovered two people missing from the group. It was the two staying in the room that the children stopped at last night.

“They came back last night right?” Everybody was quietly discussing the two missing people.

Lin Qiushi quickly finished his breakfast, and gave Gu Longming a pointed look.

Gu Longming wasn’t full yet, and stuffed another steamed bun in his mouth before mumbling, “yeah yeah, let’s go.”

Lin Qiushi got up and headed out the room.

“Where are you going?” someone asked them.

“We’re going to go take a look at their room,” Lin Qiushi replied. “See if they’re still there.”

“I’ll go with you.” Yan Shihe, who went into the ancestral shrine after Lin Qiushi’s group yesterday, stood as well. His partner Xiao Qian seemed a bit unwilling to go, but in the end didn’t protest and followed along.

The four walked down the hallway. Yan Shihe asked if they’d heard anything last night.

“Nope,” Gu Longming said candidly. “I always sleep right ‘til the morning, I didn’t hear anything at all.”

Lin Qiushi also shook his head.

“Oh,” Yan Shihe nodded. “Well I heard a child’s cry last night… It came from around where you guys were staying, so be careful tonight.”

Lin Qiushi didn’t reply. He hadn’t heard anything odd last night—and with his hearing, something that Yan Shihe could hear shouldn’t have gone unnoticed by him.

For Yan Shihe to say this, he was either lying, or that cry was audible only to him.

As they spoke, they arrived at the doorway of the two missing people.

Lin Qiushi knocked, and waited. He wasn’t at all surprised by the lack of movement inside.

“Go straight in?” Lin Qiushi asked.

“Why not.” Yan Shihe didn’t mind. “But it looks locked from the inside.”

Lin Qiushi, “I’ll give it a try.” Outside the doors he’d started to learn lock picking from Ruan Nanzhu, though his progress wasn’t quick and he couldn’t do more complicated locks yet. But the old lock before him was fine. If he really couldn’t get it open, breaking it down was still an option—it wouldn’t be difficult to get through if they really wanted to, was all.

A minute later, the lock gave a click and opened.

Gu Longming shot Lin Qiushi a look of admiration. “Bro, you’re amazing. I totally believe you’re an unemployed drifter now.”

Lin Qiushi, “…” What he just said somehow felt wrong.

Yan Shihe pushed open the door in front of them, revealing before them the scene inside the room. The small bedroom was completely covered in red blood. The blood didn’t look to have been sprayed though, more like trails of it had been left by something being dragged.

Unquestionably, the owners of the room had been met with misfortune.

Lin Qiushi entered the room, affecting nonchalance and looking around, as he slowly approached the window. He saw those small holes again. It was just that compared to yesterday, his emotions seeing those holes today were slightly more complicated.

Yan Shihe was meticulous as well, and quickly discovered the holes in the window. He examined the holes, failing to figure them out. It was actually Gu Longming who, also affecting nonchalance, remarked, “that makes me think of drugged incense from wuxia shows—it’s not humans that killed them, is it?”

Yan Shihe eyed Gu Longming in response.

One other notable thing in the room was, Lin Qiushi found, that the oil lamp on the table was out of oil. The lamp had been topped off when they moved in—and it had only been two nights, there was no way they’d burned it all already. But the oil lamp before them was burned completely dry. Or perhaps someone had emptied the oil from the lamp, or there was some other cause entirely.

“The corpses? Where are their corpses?” Even after searching the room, Yan Shihe could not find the two people’s bodies, and seemed doubtful. “Even if they’re dead, we should be able to find the corpses.”

But the corpses were missing. The bedroom wasn’t large, and did not have anything that could hide dead bodies.

“I don’t know,” Xiao Qian replied. “What if those things ate them?”

Yan Shihe’s brows furrowed, and he didn’t reply. Truth was, that was a real possibility, since inside the doors anything could happen.

Lin Qiushi was wondering about the bodies too, but more pressingly, he wanted to know where the Landlady was.

The room did not seem to have any more clues, though Gu Longming did find a child’s bloody handprint in a hidden corner. He didn’t mention this in front of Yan Shihe, but waited until the four had gone their separate ways before telling Lin Qiushi in secret.

“Mh, got it,” Lin Qiushi nodded. “Where do you think their bodies had been taken?”

Gu Longming, “I don’t know… Isn’t it normal for the corpses to be gone, after being killed by those kinds of things?”

Lin Qiushi, “maybe, maybe not.” Gu Longming had a good point, but he just felt there was something off. His instincts were telling him that where the corpses had gone was very important. But this was pure instinct, and there was no proof for it. This might be the experience Ruan Nanzhu talked about, something difficult to concretely describe.

“If it bothers you so much we can look around?” Gu Longming had noticed Lin Qiushi’s sustained frown. “There are still places on this estate that we hadn’t gone to.”

“Then let’s look around,” Lin Qiushi nodded.

The two began to wander around the estate.

Undoubtedly, the estate was huge, with messily designed pathways that were all too easy to get lost in. Good thing Lin Qiushi’s memory was very strong; weaving through all of it with Gu Longming was not difficult.

It was Gu Longming who got completely spun around. “Didn’t we just pass by here?” He remembered the landscape around them looking exactly the same, after all.

“We didn’t,” Lin Qiushi said. “The boulder on the path before was a bit smaller than this one.”

Gu Longming, “…” He stared so hard at the boulder that sparks could fly, but he still couldn’t find any difference between it and the one before. And so he turned an admiring look on Lin Qiushi, and said, “you’re amazing… You notice even this kind of thing.”

Lin Qiushi smiled, but didn’t reply.

Actually, he didn’t have this sort of memory before. But ever since entering the doors his memory began to improve, and this memorization of static scenery wasn’t difficult for him at all.

The estate was practically designed for people to get lost in. Many things were built to look exactly the same; even the potted plants and the rock work used the same layouts.

Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming spent an entire morning in the estate, and finally found the place they wanted—they found the courtyard where the Landlady lived.

How could they be sure this was the Landlady’s quarters? Because Lin Qiushi saw, draped over a tree branch, a long red dress swaying in the wind. He remembered this dress. It was the one the Landlady wore last night.

“Do you smell that?” Gu Longming’s brow furrowed, and he waved a hand in front of his nose. “Stinks.”

Lin Qiushi smelled it too. The scent was difficult to describe—a bit like blood, and also a bit like something had rotted. It was, in sum, utterly revolting.

Good thing Cheng Yixie wasn’t here, or he’d surely have a tough time.

Between the Landlady’s quarters and their location was a single metal door. The door was half-open, and they could faintly see inside.

Lin Qiushi took a moment to observe.

It was a large courtyard, but completely empty. Besides a large dead tree, there were no other visible plants. And the Landlady’s dress was hanging right from the top of this tree.

After confirming there were no movements inside, Lin Qiushi lightly pushed the door open, and the two entered the yard.

Looking around, Lin Qiushi quickly discovered blood in a corner of the courtyard. The blood trail looked like it came from something dragging, and seemed quite similar to the trails inside the room of the two missing people.

Gu Longming seemed to quite dislike this courtyard. He had his nose covered with one hand and an expression of distaste on his face.

“What’s wrong?” Lin Qiushi asked him.

Gu Longming said, “the feng shui of this yard is awful. It’s practically built for the dead.”

Lin Qiushi asked, “isn’t where we’re living built for the dead too?”

Gu Longming shook his head. “This place is worse. For most buildings, squared is good, but these buildings even intentionally cut out a corner…”

Lin Qiushi took a closer look, and found the buildings were indeed missing corners. Intersections of walls had been forcibly shaved inward into quarter-circles, and looked extremely strange.

As they spoke, Lin Qiushi’s expression suddenly changed. He said, “hide. Somebody’s coming.” And then he found a corner, ducking in with Gu Longming.

Moments later, the Landlady wearing red appeared in the doorway, pretty face bearing a cold expression. She did not discover Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming’s presence, and headed off into one of the buildings.

Once she’d gone inside, Gu Longming sighed in relief, and murmured, “that scared the crap out of me… Are we leaving?”

Lin Qiushi, “no, I want to go take a look.”

Gu Longming, “go take a look? Despite how dangerous it is?”

Lin Qiushi made a gesture for him to be quiet. Actually, not long after the Landlady entered the building, Lin Qiushi began to hear a peculiar sound. The sound was like a sharp blade hacking apart something hard—blade after blade, the sound thunked along.

Though Gu Longming was highly against Lin Qiushi’s decision to get a closer look, he didn’t protest further, obediently following behind Lin Qiushi. They snuck forward on tiptoes, and seeing such a large person doing this was actually kind of funny.

Lin Qiushi came to the Landlady’s threshold, angled his body, and very carefully peeked inside.

The Landlady had her back to them, holding a long blade. Her head as bowed as she chopped at something. Lin Qiushi looked closer and discovered it was a large chunk of meat… And judging by the ribcage, this was evidently part of a human body.

Clearly, the corpses of the two people gone missing last night were the things being processed under the Landlady’s hands right now.

And in the Landlady’s room, there was something even odder that attracted Lin Qiushi’s gaze. There were rows and rows of shelves, packed densely with oil lamps. Some lamps were empty, while some were filled with congealed lamp oil.

The Landlady hummed as she easily split the meat apart. Lin Qiushi looked at the hands and feet on the thing, and grew even more certain of his own hypothesis. After hacking apart the meat, the Landlady began to light a fire, and placed a wok on top of the stove.

What’s she going to do… Gu Longming asked Lin Qiushi with his silent gaze of horror.

Lin Qiushi shrugged helplessly, gesturing that he didn’t know either.

Gu Longming’s eyes went a bit panicked. He kept his voice low, “oh fuck no, that meat I ate yesterday, it’s not…”

Lin Qiushi, “…no way, right?”

Lin Qiushi’s tone was dubious as well, obviously uncertain. Recalling the delicious dishes they ate during the day, and the bone stock soup they had last night, Gu Longming was ready to puke it all up on the spot. He worked hard to keep it in though, and made a mental note to himself to only eat things like packaged crackers inside future doors, just to be safe…

And the Landlady, once the wok was heated, began to drop the chunks of meat inside one by one.