Lin Qiushi stayed at Cheng Qianli's house for a while before getting up to take his leave.
Cheng Qianli stared after him, actually sort of reluctant to see him go.
"You're leaving already? You won't stay for dinner? My mom will be home soon…"
Lin Qiushi's expression watching him went a bit exasperated: "If your mom comes back and sees me, wouldn't she immediately kick me out?"
What parent would be happy to find a weird person in their house? Only Cheng Qianli, the head-empty little fool, would welcome a total stranger into his house and then ask them to stay for dinner.
"But I don't think you're a bad guy." Cheng Qianli's expression was very earnest. "You haven't stolen anything…"
Watching him, Lin Qiushi reached out and gave his cheek a pinch, leaving a bright red mark on the skin.
Bewildered, Cheng Qianli pouted: "What did you pinch me for?"
Lin Qiushi, "to wake you up some. Don't randomly bring people home." He glanced at his watch and moved toward the door. "I've got to go."
Cheng Qianli truly thought that he'd bonded at first sight with this person in front of him—now that Lin Qiushi was leaving, he was actually kind of sad.
"Where do you live? Whenever I'm not busy in the future, I can come over and play?"
Lin Qiushi smiled.
"Nah, if there's an opportunity, I'll come find you…" If there wasn't, maybe he'd just have to forget Cheng Qianli completely.
Though there was more Cheng Qianli wanted to say, Lin Qiushi was already pushing his way out of the door. He was in a rush for time, it seemed, and though his feelings were sentimental, his footsteps did not stall a single beat.
Lin Qiushi too wanted to chat with Cheng Qianli some more, but there was no helping the approaching boarding time for his flight. He did not want to try spending the night in a foreign city.
He'd already stayed longer than planned at Cheng Qianli's. If he stayed any longer, he would definitely miss his plane.
He called a car in a hurry, and rushed the entire way to the airport.
Once he arrived at the airport, however, he was met with a terrible announcement—due to the weather, the plane would be arriving late.
Late arrivals were common, but, at the moment, Lin Qiushi could not afford to pay the price of being late.
The flight he'd booked was around seven in the evening, and had things gone according to plan, he'd arrive at his home city at around ten. Add another hour to get home, and he'd have been back at his apartment around twelve exactly; the timing had already been tight.
But now the airport was telling him the plane would be late, and it looked like they wouldn't be taking off for a good while.
Sitting in the terminal, Lin Qiushi watched anxiously as the time ticked on by minutes and seconds.
When he could finally be sure that he wouldn't make it back, Lin Qiushi got up from his seat. It was already five after eight, and there was still no news from the plane. It seemed that he was destined to spend the night in this city.
Lin Qiushi sighed, and dragged his luggage back to city center. He had to find a suitable hotel.
He couldn't stay on too high a story; that way, he could get down without using the elevator. The floor he stayed on would best have many paths downstairs, and the simpler the room's layout, the better.
After searching for over an hour, Lin Qiushi checked into an express inn near the airport at around ten in the evening. The inn's environment wasn't great, but it won out by virtue of not being too tall—there were only three stories, and if you wanted to get down, you could just take the emergency staircases. Lin Qiushi took the room key and stored his luggage inside the room. Then he gave his backpack a simple prep.
In the time he had left after that, Lin Qiushi wrote out and edited a few text messages he wanted to send to Ruan Nanzhu. The content was basically telling Ruan Nanzhu he was okay and asking after Ruan Nanzhu's situation. He also mentioned Cheng Qianli and Tan Zaozao, not forgetting Li Dongyuan of course—though it wasn't like Li Dongyuan got along well with Ruan Nanzhu back when he was still alive.
After he had the texts ready, Lin Qiushi waited quietly for evening to come.
He sat in the foreign city, watching the sky dim. The bright sun sank beneath the horizon, leaving only a brilliant sunset. A dust of stars and moon also appeared above, as summer heat lingered in the air all around.
Lin Qiushi went downstairs and bought himself a popsicle. He ate it sitting on the window, watching passersby. He knew that once twelve o'clock came, everybody outside would disappear and he would enter another world, so he felt all the more nostalgic now toward the lively scene before him.
Sweetness spread along his tongue and reminded Lin Qiushi of the candy Ruan Nanzhu liked putting in his mouth. He looked down, and opened the text Ruan Nanzhu sent him yesterday, the corners of his mouth hooking up into a smile.
Tick, tock, tick, tock. Hour hand met minute hand; 12AM came.
The world seemed to go silent in an instant as it entered another dimension.
The moment it hit twelve, Lin Qiushi sent Ruan Nanzhu a text. At the same time, he also received a text from Ruan Nanzhu. The boulder suspended on Lin Qiushi's chest finally dropped—he sped through the text that Ruan Nanzhu had sent him, taking in that Ruan Nanzhu was fine.
And just as Lin Qiushi was reading, a sharp knock came loudly at the door, as if a gunshot signaling the start of a race.
Dong dong dong, dong dong dong. The person knocking seemed keen on bashing the door down, knocking so hard that the entire door shook with reverberations.
Through the peephole, Lin Qiushi spotted a person standing outside. Through the distorted glass, he saw the man standing there. The man looked quite normal. Was human-shaped. But he looked up at Lin Qiushi with potent malice in his eyes, and though the man seemed a stranger at first glance, Lin Qiushi still managed to recognize him. This was someone that Ruan Nanzhu had killed inside the Waverly Hills Sanatorium—Jiang Yingrui.
Lin Qiushi had helped Ruan Nanzhu hide the murder method back then, making it so that Jiang Yingrui couldn't figure out how he'd died, and so Jiang Yingrui never managed to get his revenge inside the door.
"Open the door, open the door!" Jiang Yingrui spat viciously. "Open it right now!"
Of course Lin Qiushi wasn't going to open the door. He turned around, eyes falling on the window behind him.
He opened the window, and there was a canopy underneath. If he wanted to get out of here, all he had to do was climb down from the window to the canopy, then leap from the canopy down to the first floor.
Seeing that Lin Qiushi wasn't going to open the door, Jiang Yingrui began uttering an eerie laugh. He turned and left for a moment, but when he came back, there was an additional room number plate in his hand. Lin Qiushi was more than familiar with the number on that plate—502. It was the cursed room number, and whoever lived inside that room was doomed to die.
Seeing such a thing Lin Qiushi hesitated no longer, flipping right out the window.
At the exact same time, Jiang Yingrui seemed to have placed the number card on Lin Qiushi's door, and the inside of the room began to change for the stranger—bloody marks began seeping in through the walls…
Lin Qiushi hopped from the window onto the canopy, and as he was about to take his second leap, he felt something tug on his shirt. The tug halted him for just a moment, and though it was only a moment, it was enough to save his life—because a tattered corpse smashed right onto the spot where he would've landed. The corpse was wearing a nurse's uniform, and though it was completely decimated, it still jerked back up to standing. Lin Qiushi sucked in a sharp breath and looked behind him. He found, to his surprise, a pale-faced little girl sitting in the window and smiling at him.
Lin Qiushi instantly recognized who the little girl was…She was a ghost he'd helped out once, little Miss Satchan.
"Thank you," Lin Qiushi said to her.
Satchan didn't say anything, only pointed a finger at the wall. A row of bloody words appeared on the wall, quite obviously the fatal lyrics of that song. Lin Qiushi took one glance before steadily saying, "sorry, I really am illiterate."
Satchan, "…"
Lin Qiushi, "why don't you go find the guy in there? He's Ivy League[1]."
He pointed toward Jiang Yingrui, who was still apparently standing at the door, waiting for something to happen to him.
At this, Satchan actually did look behind her with a contemplative expression on her face.
Lin Qiushi watched her and thought, some of the ghosts in here were indeed sentient. She even had critical thinking capabilities.
He took the opportunity, as the nurse was still struggling to stand, to jump off the canopy in another direction, taking off from the hotel.
After two nights' experience, Lin Qiushi felt that the ghosts attacked in intervals, and didn't just appear in endless droves. For example, if he managed to dodge the first wave of attacks, then he'd have a little room to breathe. He just didn't know if this was also the case on Ruan Nanzhu's side of things.
Though Ruan Nanzhu had experienced many ghouls and monsters, he also had quite a lot of helpful companions. Lin Qiushi firmly believed that Ruan Nanzhu would make it through.
Lin Qiushi followed the road forward, feeling a cover of condensation swathing around him. This fog was thin at first, but got gradually thicker, until even the objects around him became blurry in it.
And in the middle of the mist, an incredibly tall silhouette began to appear. Its arms and legs were long and snakelike, and on its head was the iconic top hat that allowed Lin Qiushi to recognize it in an instant—it was the slender shadow that he'd encountered before.
It stood in the thick fog, trailing after Lin Qiushi at a distance as if it were a prowling beast that could attack Lin Qiushi at any moment. But all Lin Qiushi could attempt was a haggard escape.
The fog acted just like a maze, enveloping Lin Qiushi. The worst thing was, Lin Qiushi was already a stranger to these surroundings, and thanks to the disruption of the fog, he unsurprisingly got lost. The path that ought to have continued beneath his feet was suddenly blockaded—a row of low, squat buildings got in Lin Qiushi's way.
These buildings segmented the path, forming only a narrow little alleyway. Lin Qiushi glanced at the black slender shadow still following behind him, and had a feeling like he was a sheep being shepherded by wolves.
With no other path to go, Lin Qiushi stared at the alley, gritted his teeth, and darted in.
The alley was tight, allowing only a single person through. The path beneath his feet was also broken, and there were water stains accumulated along the foot of the walls. Lin Qiushi didn't want to stay here for long, and so sped up his footsteps. He glanced behind him, and discovered that the shadow that had been following him had disappeared.
Why didn't it keep after him? Just as Lin Qiushi wondered this, he was hit with a sudden chill. His rushing feet froze in an instant, and, expression going stiff, he slowly looked up. He saw, above his head, not a dark starry sky but an empty white face.
The face had no eyes, only a huge mouth and two dense rows of white teeth attached to that mouth. This was the slenderman's face, and its long snake-like legs were standing above the houses on either side of the alleyway. From way up high it watched Lin Qiushi's pale face way down low, and it extended its hand toward Lin Qiushi…
Lin Qiushi's breathing stopped. He turned to run, but the slenderman was too quick—the next moment, Lin Qiushi had been caught by that pair of driftwood-dry arms. He was yanked up by the neck and, as if a caught doll, struggled helplessly in the slenderman's grip.
The slenderman's mouth split open in a satisfied grin. With a hand still choking Lin Qiushi's neck, he reached for his own head with his other hand, plucking that top hat off and bringing it to Lin Qiushi's head.
Lin Qiushi couldn't move at all. Human strength against a monster's was practically a mayfly's against a tree. Even though he knew exactly what would happen when the black top hat was placed on top of his head—he would become the slender shadow's next successor—there was nothing he could do about it.
As he stared at the top hat coming down on his head, Lin Qiushi felt a sudden chill burst out of his backpack. He even thought it was just his own hallucination before dying. But the next moment, the slenderman was letting out a blood-curdling scream. Lin Qiushi's neck was released, and he fell to the floor, clutching at his neck and hacking heavily. Beside him, black smoke bunched up in the shape of two children before enveloping the slenderman's entire body. He heard the slenderman's roar and the bell-like, tinkling laughter of a little girl.
Lin Qiushi didn't have time to think at all; he leapt into the alley at top speed, hastily escaping. He ran to a slightly safer location, and then finally remembered that the scene he'd just witnessed was actually kind of familiar. Upon careful thought…wasn't this exactly what had happened before, in the slenderman world?
Lin Qiushi opened his backpack and, sure enough, saw the blood red character for DEATH written across the second page of the diary. And this character, like the one before, had also been X'd out. He'd been saved by the notebook again. Lin Qiushi felt a bit relieved, but still didn't dare to stay for long. Bracing himself against the wall, he forced himself to continue forward.
Because he'd been so roughly choked, Lin Qiushi couldn't stop coughing. From his pocket came a vibration, and, heart leaping with joy, Lin Qiushi pulled it out to see a text Ruan Nanzhu had sent him.
In the message, Ruan Nanzhu had also sent a picture in response to Lin Qiushi's question—Lin Qiushi had asked him what his situation was like during the day.
The picture was of a beautiful, androgynous-looking young man. Those eyes had not yet seen the frigidity of maturity, and looked into the camera with a smile—it was a young Ruan Nanzhu. Phone in hand, Lin Qiushi couldn't help but grin. His fingers glided across the picture, and he had to press a gentle kiss to the phone screen.
Daytime-Ruan Nanzhu seemed to have reverted to the time when he'd first started entering doors, still in the years lush with youth. If that was the case, then it made sense for his point of entry to be a school.
Lin Qiushi read the text attached to the image. Ruan Nanzhu had asked him if he liked it.
Lin Qiushi replied with flying fingers: I like it so fucking much. Are you still busy over there?
It's better tonight, Ruan Nanzhu answered. I've met up with the senior who inducted me into Obsidian. How about you?
Lin Qiushi answered: If I can find the time to text you, I can't be too busy, right?
Once he'd written this, he tucked his phone away. Though he was happy to be chatting with Ruan Nanzhu, he couldn't lose his life because of it—he'd once again heard an unfortunate sound.
It was the continuous sound of a heavy thing falling. Standing in the mist, Lin Qiushi could see on a building not too far away the nurse jumping without rest.
Her body smashed to pieces against the ground, and then slowly recovered again before appearing on the next building. It shouldn't have had anything to do with Lin Qiushi at all, but there was no helping it—the positions she jumped from were getting closer and closer to where Lin Qiushi stood.
Lin Qiushi didn't doubt for a second that given the chance, she'd crash-land right on top of his body, cracking him open like a watermelon.
And the slenderman had once again appeared behind Lin Qiushi. Only this time, Lin Qiushi had learned his lesson, avoiding small alleyways. He walked on the pavement, feeling like a desert traveler looking for an oasis; there was only endless sand and despair as far as the eye could see, and no source of water to be found.
Satchan's song floated in too, sometimes near and sometimes far. It added to what was already a dark evening an additional touch of eeriness.
But Lin Qiushi didn't want to give up. There was still so much he wanted to do, and Ruan Nanzhu was waiting for him. As he watched the endlessly leaping nurse, an idea came to his mind.
Lin Qiushi changed directions, and walked toward where the nurse was jumping.
Bang. Bang. Bang. The nurse kept up her plummeting. Across the darkness, Lin Qiushi could see her broken body. Everybody said jumping was the most miserable death of all, and Lin Qiushi couldn't help but agree in that moment.
The nurse's skull was split into pieces, her body like deformed plasticine. White and red were all mixed up together, and he could even see stark white bones sticking out of the flesh. But Lin Qiushi was wholly numb to such a sight at this point—he'd simply seen too much of it. Seeing the nurse's corpse now, he didn't even blink.
Lin Qiushi's footsteps paused beneath a certain high rise. He looked behind him at the slenderman still following him, and made some rough calculations on the distance.
He didn't know whether or not his plan would be successful, but there was still some time before daybreak, and he couldn't possibly keep up this entanglement with the slenderman. Besides, Lin Qiushi had a faint feeling that, despite the scenarios looking like a dead end each and every time, there was always a lifeline hidden within.
Lin Qiushi continued ahead. The nurse was still jumping, only this time, she was coming toward where Lin Qiushi was standing.
The slenderman was getting closer and closer to Lin Qiushi. Lin Qiushi stopped walking, eyeing where the slenderman was. In his head, he was already calculating a very interesting math problem.
The distance between them was currently shrinking at a steady rate. The pace at which the nurse jumped off the buildings too was steady, and Lin Qiushi already had an answer to the question on his mind. His footsteps halted.
The slenderman did not know what it meant that Lin Qiushi had stopped, and so continued approaching. The smashed-up nurse went back upstairs again, and took a flying leap off—
Lin Qiushi clutched his backpack in his arms and waited for the final result.
A shadow fell over the slenderman's head, and he had yet seem to realize what this signified before the thing smashed right into him.
The two ghouls clashed face-to-face, and the scenario that Lin Qiushi was most looking forward to finally happened. The slenderman was punctured right through, its whole body wilting to the ground. The nurse's flesh was all mixed in with his body, plus all those bones.
Lin Qiushi heard the slenderman let out a furious roar—it wouldn't die as easily as that. Its body too began to revive, just at a much slower pace than the nurse's. One of its arms, however, had a death grip on the nurse's skull, preventing it from returning to her body.
The nurse too seemed to grow angry. She began emitting these screeches and sobs as her body clumped together with the slenderman's.
It was a sight both odd and absurd. Lin Qiushi felt that he ought to be grinning, but when he tugged up the corners of his lips, he found that he couldn't smile at all.
The slenderman wouldn't let the nurse's head go, but the nurse seemed too to have given up. She turned once more, went up the stairs, and leapt down—smashing onto the slenderman's body a second time.
The two ghouls began to fight each other furiously. Lin Qiushi dusted himself off and left.
He found a quiet corner and, enveloped by Satchan's song, opened his phone. He didn't see an answering text from Ruan Nanzhu though.
Lin Qiushi was a bit tired. His shoulder still ached, and he hadn't had a good night's sleep in days. He sat at the roadside and stared at his phone screen. He wanted to give Ruan Nanzhu a call, just hear Ruan Nanzhu's voice. But he also didn't dare. He was afraid that a single call could cost Ruan Nanzhu his life.
When will evenings like this end? Was there truly a door here? Could he really get out? Countless thoughts surged in Lin Qiushi's brain, flooding him with a multitude of emotions.
There was still over an hour until daybreak, but the mist in the sky was already fading. The sound of the nurse jumping too had stopped, and when Lin Qiushi looked up, he found Satchan standing in front of him, offering him a smile.
Lin Qiushi looked at Satchan, asking after the situation with his eyes.
Satchan smiled sweetly. What ought to have been a scary face was made adorable by this smile, and she approached Lin Qiushi, handing him something.
Lin Qiushi took it. It was a picture. In the picture was a beaming Satchan with all her classmates. It was the group photo most precious to Satchan—Lin Qiushi remembered it well.
He had a faint idea of what Satchan was getting at. He laughed, pained; he didn't think there would come a day when he would be receiving comfort from a ghost.
Satchan smiled at him again, her silhouette fading away.
As for Lin Qiushi, he covered his face with his hands. All he wanted was to see Ruan Nanzhu again, so the two of them could hold each other and get a good night's sleep. But he didn't think that what had been such an ordinary matter would become so infinitely difficult inside this door.