Under the oil-paper umbrella, all rainwater was perfectly partitioned. Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu, walking in the rain, were as if wrapped within a ward. Not a single drop could drift onto them.
The path to the shrine was long. The two strolled along, unhurried.
This was Lin Qiushi's first time leaving the courtyard on a rainy day. The entire town was enveloped in the shower. Townsfolk who could sometimes be glimpsed were without a trace, and the whole street was empty, devoid of even people with umbrellas. Lin Qiushi guessed that perhaps in the entire town, there was only the single umbrella in his hand. After all, other umbrellas could not guarantee protection from every single raindrop.
They arrived at the bamboo grove, and began winding up the small path. Leaves around them rattled with the pummel of rain. When a gust of wind blew by, the leaves would rustle brightly.
Ruan Nanzhu and Lin Qiushi traded a couple of words here and there, but neither spoke much. They were both contemplating the matter of the shrine. There was also he who'd gone with Lin Xingping to the shrine yesterday, but did not return today—Cue Xueyi.
Lin Qiushi was actually a bit curious about what happened to Cue Xueyi in the shrine. Judging from Lin Xingping's reaction, it was bound to be nothing good.
The rain continued on, as if it was never going to stop.
Lin Qiushi thought they'd walk until noon before reaching the shrine, but under the oil-paper, they saw the shrine at the end of the road just a couple of hours later.
In the rain, the shrine seemed even more shrouded in mystery than before.
What had once been a dilapidated building had taken on an obvious change—it was no longer broken down.
"We're here." Ruan Nanzhu's steps stopped. He did not rush over, but observed first from the side.
"Mh," Lin Qiushi said. "It's changed a lot, it seems."
"Yes," Ruan Nanzhu said. "All the broken bits have been fixed up." This was likely how the shrine looked in its heyday: the incense altar before it was brimming with burning light, the tables beside it filled with all sorts of offerings. Clearly, a lot of people came to pray here.
Lin Qiushi's gaze fell on that well. He carefully approached, but didn't get too close, just observing from a distance.
He saw that what had been a dried-up ancient well was now teeming with translucent water, the crystalline surface struck into ripples by raindrops. Lin Qiushi stared at this well, thinking of the skeletons that had once been inside. He wondered if they were still in the water.
Just as he thought this, the well water, which had only been rippling, suddenly began to violently froth. As if it was boiling over, the water glugged and glugged, like something was surging out of it.
The sight of this sent Lin Qiushi unconsciously stepping back. The next moment, he saw reaching out of the water countless pairs of white skeletal hands. They looked like they wanted to grab the edge of the well and haul themselves out.
This well was not deep; climbing out ought to be easy. But those skeletons, when they grabbed onto the mouth, all had their fingers pried loose one at a time by some invisible power, forcing them to slip back into the water once more.
So the water kept churning, looking like the proverbial frying pan of hell.
"Let's go in first." Ruan Nanzhu pointed inside the shrine.
"Okay." Lin Qiushi pulled his gaze from the mouth of the well, and went with Ruan Nanzhu to the door.
They closed the umbrella, once again wiping it dry with a towel they'd brought. With it in hand, they pushed open the shrine doors, and walked on inside.
The moment the doors were open, wind surged in from the outside, blowing the good weather dolls above their head into energetic spins.
After he entered, Lin Qiushi set his gaze on that statue, placed dead center in the shrine. It was still that headless monk. Now though, there was an additional ceremonial staff in his hand, on top of which was a fresh human head. Judging by its appearance, it was Cue Xueyi, who'd been manipulated to come here by Ruan Nanzhu.
Cue Xueyi was dead, and then decapitated after his death, skewered like so on top of the monk's ceremonial staff. His eyes were still open, full of shock and terror, looking unsatisfied unto death.
Lin Qiushi met that gaze, and though he doubted his eyes, he thought he saw Cue Xueyi's pupils move.
Lin Qiushi lightly tugged on a corner of Ruan Nanzhu's shirt. "I think he moved…"
"Mh," Ruan Nanzhu said. "I saw it too."
So Cue Xueyi's head really was moving.
Just as Lin Qiushi made to talk, a strange sound came from above their heads. Lin Qiushi looked up, and saw that all the teru teru bōzu above their heads had begun to move. Their trajectories were clearly not caused by the wind, but done on their own.
One after another, the dolls began to sway. The next moment, round after round of cries fountained forth from their mouths.
"It hurts, it hurts… Help me, where's my body…"
"Help me help me help me…"
"Aaaah, aaah it hurts…"
It was a vision straight out of hell—all the dolls were screaming, and the white clothes wrapped around their heads began to seep through with red blood. They kept bucking and struggling above Lin Qiushi's head, until the cotton strings around them threatened to snap and drop them onto the ground.
"Aaaaaah, help me, help me…" Cue Xueyi, speared atop the ceremonial staff, began to yell as well. Lin Qiushi saw his head bucking and twisting. That monk statue, once seated in lotus position, stood up at an excruciatingly slow speed. It's other hand rose up, and pointed at the empty spot above its own neck.
Lin Qiushi instantly understood his meaning.
Ruan Nanzhu did too, looking up at the wailing teru teru bōzu. He said, "It's one of these then?"
"But how do we find it?" There were so many teru teru bōzu. Lin Qiushi thought that finding the monk's head amid these dolls was the proverbial needle in the haystack.
"There will be something special about his head." Ruan Nanzhu had already begun to pace the shrine, with his head up to carefully examine the dolls on the ceiling. "Let's look first."
"Okay." Though Lin Qiushi thought this was high difficulty, they still had to give it a try. Following in Ruan Nanzhu's footsteps, he also began to inspect the teru teru bōzu.
Though all their features were crudely drawn, each one looked genuinely different. Some had eyes that were just a single line, others a circle. In any case, there were no two identical dolls.
As Lin Qiushi searched, he saw the monk statue take a step forward. It was headed toward the open door.
A chill shot through Lin Qiushi. He called, "Nanzhu, hurry, there seems to be a time limit!"
Ruan Nanzhu, "okay!"
By the looks of it, if the monk statue left the building and got rained on outside, something would happen. Cue Xueyi, whose head was still skewered on the staff, was the ultimate proof.
But there were too many teru teru bōzu—a whole constellation of them, that keep swaying besides. Lin Qiushi was having a hard time telling any difference among them.
The monk's footsteps continued forth, until it was almost at the door. Normal people might have panicked, but Lin Qiushi, unexpectedly, went calm. The best way to stop everything from happening at this point was to find that special doll. All other thoughts were extraneous.
Lin Qiushi's gaze sifted through the teru teru bōzu above his head, before he suddenly noticed a doll hidden in a corner.
That teru teru bōzu, like the others, was wrapped in white cloth, and emitting its awful screams. There was still something on it that was different from all the other dolls, however—it was crying. Specifically, its features were drawn to be crying.
On all the other dolls, the mouths were turned up. Only on this one was the mouth turned down; there was even a teardrop drawn on the corner of its eye. When Lin Qiushi saw this doll, his heart thumped. He called, "Ruan Nanzhu, come here! Is it this one!!"
Ruan Nanzhu hurried over, and saw the teru teru bōzu Lin Qiushi was pointing at.
"Get it down and see!" Ruan Nanzhu said.
This doll was hung a bit high, so Lin Qiushi couldn't get it down himself. So he picked up Ruan Nanzhu to fetch it.
Ruan Nanzhu grabbed hold of that teru teru bōzu, snapped the string, and got it down from the ceiling.
"I'm opening it." At this, Ruan Nanzhu's hands began to move. They didn't have much time to hesitate. That monk was already at the door. Two or three more steps would carry him outside the shrine.
The white cloth peeled back, revealing the human head inside.
Lin Qiushi was a bit nervous, eyes fixed on the doll and unmoving. Only when the white cloth slipped off around a monk's head did he expel a breath of relief.
There was no hair on this head, with ring scars burned onto the scalp and both eyes tightly closed. Its expression was placid however, unlike the other teru teru bōzu wailing away; there was even a hint of a smile on the corner of its lips.
"Now what?" Lin Qiushi looked at this head, then at the halted monk statue, before asking, "just press it on?"
"I'll give it a try," Ruan Nanzhu said. "There's no guarantee it's correct…"
As he spoke, he cautiously approached the statue with the head in hand. Then he reached up, lightly placing the head on top of the monk's neck.
The next moment, that head opened its eyes. Its stare was blinding as it chanted: "Amitabha."
A sudden gust of wind swept through the building, whipping in the rain from the outside. Lin Qiushi's face got entirely soaked—but just as he was worrying, he heard the crisp sound of copper impacting floor.
More than familiar, it was the sound of the key falling to the ground.
That monk's ceremonial staff had morphed into a green copper key. The hand that held the staff now hoisted Cue Xueyi's head.
"Help… Help…" Cue Xueyi's calls began to fade, and his resentful gaze began to ossify. Black spots appeared on his skin until he became a petrified stone statue.
The monk chanted Amitabha once again.
The billowing rain outside the window stopped in an instant, and storm clouds in the sky began to disperse. The monk slowly walked outside the building, tossing the head in his hand into the well before him.
Then, with a leap, he too jumped into the well.
The water tossed again, its level quickly dropping until the well was dry once more.
The skeletons that had been at the bottom were also gone without a trace, as if once the monk's enmity had been released, they too were released from where they'd been imprisoned.
Lin Qiushi heard a clack. He turned, and saw that a black metal door had appeared in the shrine where the monks' statue had been. At this time, the green copper key was in Ruan Nanzhu's hand.
The teru teru bōzu had stopped crying as well. Ruan Nanzhu, curiously, "say, what do you think they look like inside now?"
"Don't know." How would Lin Qiushi even guess?
"Let's open one and see," Ruan Nanzhu said as he approached where the teru teru bōzu were hung, gesturing for Lin Qiushi to pick him up.
Though a bit exasperated, Lin Qiushi still listened to him, coming up close and picking him up so that Ruan Nanzhu could once again pluck down a good weather doll.
Ruan Nanzhu unfastened the white cloth on the outside, and saw that while the head inside was still a head, it had become of stone. Ruan Nanzhu muttered to himself, "maybe it does something if we take it…"
"What if it doesn't?" Lin Qiushi asked.
"If it doesn't it disappears," Ruan Nanzhu answered. "Things that aren't props can't be taken out of this world at all. Once you're out it's gone."
Thinking back, Lin Qiushi really had pretty good luck. With only a handful of doors passed, he'd already gotten three props.
"What about Gu Yuansi? Should we go back and tell Xiao Cha and them that the door is open?" Lin Qiushi asked. They'd gotten the door and the key, so they could leave right now. But Gu Yuansi was still a potential concern.
"We don't have to make a special trip back. The weather's cleared up, and there's nothing dangerous inside. They'll find the door eventually. As for Gu Yuansi—what do you think?" Ruan Nanzhu looked toward Lin Qiushi. "If you want to kill him, we certainly can delay going out by a couple of days. Though it'll be a bit annoying, there'll still be a way."
"He…" Actually, Lin Qiushi's feelings toward this person were complicated. He knew they'd all been in cahoots; though the criminals in question were Lin Xingping and co., without Gu Yuansi as a buyer, they wouldn't have had this business deal at all. The piper played no tune without a man to pay for it.
"Then let's let the doors judge him," Ruan Nanzhu said. "Cue Xueyi and Lin Xingping are dead. According to the rules of the doors, Gu Yuansi will inherit the highest level door of his teammates who died inside. Lin Xingping's passed at least six doors; Gu Yuansi's next one is at least the seventh."
For someone who'd just met the doors to enter the seventh door on his second try, he was sure to have more misfortune than good.
"Alright." Then Lin Qiushi sighed. "Am I being too kind?"
"If you weren't kind, I wouldn't have invited you to join Obsidian," Ruan Nanzhu said. "Some bottom lines can't be crossed. Once you do, you can only keep falling, and who knows when you'll end up hitting the ground." In the first door, had it not been for the way Lin Qiushi treated him, he and Lin Qiushi would not be having these stories today.
"Mh." Lin Qiushi nodded his understanding.
Since passing through so many doors with Ruan Nanzhu, he could honestly tell that, if Ruan Nanzhu wanted to, moving on his teammates inside the door would be easy. If he wanted, he could very well kill all those around him first, then leisurely go about searching for the key and door under the protection of the door's rules. After all, as long as he didn't act directly, those who died confused couldn't get revenge at all.
But Ruan Nanzhu didn't choose this sort of shortcut, in fact treated it as a strict taboo. Lin Qiushi felt strangely impressed with this insistence of his.
"Let's get out of here first."
Ruan Nanzhu said, "let's."
Lin Qiushi nodded.
Ruan Nanzhu opened the door with the key, and a path, radiating with warm light, appeared before their eyes.
Lin Qiushi stepped on into the glowing tunnel with Ruan Nanzhu right behind him. The two left the world inside the door.
Their visions twisted. Lin Qiushi was back in the hotel hallway.
First out was he and Ruan Nanzhu. Right on their heels was Lin Xingping and the others. Lin Xingping took one glance at them, then lunged, shouting, "you— you goddamn liars— you liars—"
Lin Qiushi dodged to the side, watching her coolly.
Lin Xingping was going to say something else, but then her mouth opened around a few cries, before she spun on her heels and ran for the glass window at the end of the hallway. She opened the window, like her body was no longer under her control, and she flipped right out. Then Lin Qiushi faintly heard the sound of something heavy hitting the ground, along with startled shouts from a crowd.
Cue Xueyi and Gu Yuansi also appeared. Cue Xueyi also seemed incredibly furious, but the moment he left the door, large amounts of blood began to pour from his mouth. He began to violently cough, before finally fainting right there on the floor, incapable of speech.
Gu Yuansi stood shaking at the side. The way he watched Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu was like he was watching some terrifying, prehistoric beasts.
It was likely his gaze that flipped the switch on Ruan Nanzhu's mean side. Ruan Nanzhu got up in his face, smiling. "There's no blood on your hands yet, so I'll let you go this time. But if I find you in the company of these people again, I won't go easy on you."
Gu Yuansi trembled all over, nodding rigorously, looking so scared he could pass out.
"Call 120 for that person—guess he's not totally dead yet, we gotta try to resuscitate." Ruan Nanzhu gestured with his chin for Gu Yuansi to call emergency services for Cue Xueyi, who'd passed out in a corner. "When the cops and doctors get here, you know what to say, right?"
"Yes yes, I know, I know." Gu Yuansi's expression was incredibly nervous, like if he misspoke, Ruan Nanzhu was apt to throw him right out the window. And this was the twelfth floor—it was creepier to survive.
"Let's go," Ruan Nanzhu said to Lin Qiushi.
Lin Qiushi made a noise of affirmation. Then the two stepped one at a time into the elevator.
Once inside, Lin Qiushi suddenly thought of security cameras, asking, "what about hotel security? Won't the cops see that we just disappeared?"
"No," Ruan Nanzhu explained. "In the eyes of those without doors, we only stood there aimlessly for a while."
"Stood aimlessly for a while?" Lin Qiushi didn't think it'd be like this.
"Yes, just stood for a while," Ruan Nanzhu said. "No more than ten minutes. In the security footage, it's likely we just stayed in the hallway in silence for a bit. Then that Lin Xingping couldn't deal with something, so she went off and committed suicide." Though it did seem strange, it wasn't likely to get them involved. Plus their identities had been doctored.
After leaving the hotel, Ruan Nanzhu and Lin Qiushi found an unwatched corner and removed their disguises. Ruan Nanzhu returned to his stunning self, chin lifted, aloof and proud. Nobody would ever think to link him to that mumbling tall woman.
Lin Qiushi turned his appearance back as well. He didn't actually have a very clear understanding of his looks, but now that he had a point of comparison, he liked his original appearance a bit better… After all, the make up job Ruan Nanzhu did on him was just too rude on the eyes.
After getting all this done, Lin Qiushi suddenly asked, "did you manage to get that umbrella out?"
"No." Ruan Nanzhu opened up his backpack, where the oil-paper umbrella had disappeared. "It wasn't a prop, so we couldn't bring it out."
"Oh…" Lin Qiushi was a bit disappointed. He thought that actually, lots of things inside the worlds were pretty useful—if they could be brought out, that is.
"This sort of thing just can't be forced," Ruan Nanzhu said mildly. "Not everyone has your kind of luck."
Lin Qiushi chuckled.
The two returned to the mansion, and very soon saw news about Lin Xingping and Cue Xueyi. The report only said a couple killed themselves after a fight, and didn't mention them at all. It seemed that Gu Yuansi really didn't rat them out.
"He's not a total idiot after all." Ruan Nanzhu changed the channel.
"What if he did rat us out?" Lin Qiushi hadn't had such an easy door in a long while; he wasn't even tired after coming out, sitting on the couch and idly nibbling on a watermelon.
"If he rats us out then he rats us out," Ruan Nanzhu lazily replied. "He'd still need to find people to take him through his doors. If he dares to run his mouth, then I'll dare to end his life."
Lin Qiushi was silent. He knew that though Ruan Nanzhu sounded casual, that definitely was not a joke.
The truth was, most of the time, Ruan Nanzhu didn't like to joke around—at least outside the doors.
Lin Qiushi finished the last piece of watermelon, and was about to get up to wash his hands, when he saw Ruan Nanzhu staring at him.
"What?" Lin Qiushi felt his hair standing on end, being stared at so hard.
"You still remember, right?" Ruan Nanzhu said.
Lin Qiushi, puzzled, "remember what?"
"You still remember right, what you owe me inside the door," Ruan Nanzhu spoke slowly.
Lin Qiushi stared for a moment more, before startling. The tips of ears twitched, going slightly red. "Ah… I thought you were joking about that."
"Of course I wasn't joking," Ruan Nanzhu said. "I never joke."
Lin Qiushi, "…" At least on that point, they could agree.
Author's Note:
Recently, my cat's getting more and more chatty. Every day when I'm churning out words he comes to chatter at me. And if I don't respond he even pulls at me with his claws. God knows how much temptation I've resisted for the grind.