Chapter 135: Real or Fake |
That day, it was Satchan’s company that greeted the irresistible drowsiness with Lin Qiushi. By the time he woke up it was another new day. Lin Qiushi sat at his bedside and watched the bright sunlight streaming in from the window. In the embrace of illumination, everything looked to be filled with hope.
Lin Qiushi got up out of bed, his body feeling particularly exhausted. After he washed up, he got his luggage and once again hit the road.
This time, the flight was not delayed. Lin Qiushi returned to his home city right on time. When his flight landed, he did not rush home, instead hailed a car to another location—the school that Ruan Nanzhu had mentioned in his text.
It was a high school in the suburbs.
It was May—nearing the end of the term and the college entrance exams. All the students were nervously studying. While the guards weren’t looking, Lin Qiushi snuck into the school from the back door, taking in the school in full.
Many years ago, Ruan Nanzhu entered the doors from right here. Lin Qiushi watched the neat school buildings before him and thought that he was now seeing the same sight as the young Ruan Nanzhu. Ruan Nanzhu had just been a kid back then; he would’ve been so helpless when he started entering doors. Luckily, he’d met a kind guide, and then befriended many people in Obsidian from whom he’d benefited greatly. Though the journey had been bumpy, he’d finally made it to today.
Lin Qiushi strolled slowly inside the school. Though he knew that currently, Ruan Nanzhu was in a different timeline than he was and the two of them had no chance of meeting, he still had a kind of miraculous hallucination—that through time and space, they were standing at the exact same spot, looking upon the exact same scene.
Only he didn’t know what the school looked like at night time, was all.
Lin Qiushi had ran around for two whole days, and was quite exhausted. He found a random corner of the cafeteria where he sat, lied down on the table, and fell deeply asleep.
He was running for his life every night—even for his body, it was hard to bear. But some things couldn’t be put on pause just because you were tired. Lin Qiushi didn’t want to die, and so had to keep working up the energy to face whatever was coming next.
He grabbed his luggage and quickly left the school, rushing to get home before the night settled in.
The truth was, Lin Qiushi really wanted to stay at the school and see Ruan Nanzhu just the once. But he was scared that he’d be bringing not only himself, but also all of his ghosts.
The pressure over on Ruan Nanzhu’s side was high enough already, Lin Qiushi really didn’t want to get him in more trouble. And so he could only tamp down how much he missed Ruan Nanzhu and opt for the safer path.
Sitting on his sofa with Chestnut in his arms, Lin Qiushi contemplated the “No Solution” hint. Ever since entering this door, he had found no leads on the key. It was as if the key didn’t exist at all, and there was no way for him to escape.
Then did the words “No Solution” from the hint have some other hidden meaning? Lin Qiushi closed his eyes and leaned against the sofa in quiet thought.
It didn’t bring about any conclusions though. The bizarre Otherworld of the evening seemed to be as tangled up as a ball of yarn, and he couldn’t comb the start of it out from anywhere.
Chestnut fell asleep in Lin Qiushi’s arms, its breathing going steady. Its body warmth traversed through clothing and helped settle Lin Qiushi’s emotions quite a lot.
It was very quiet in the room—there was only the ticking of the second hand. The TV was on, but the volume was turned way down low. Lin Qiushi stared at the silently moving screen and waited for night to come.
12AM. The clock’s twelve chimes came right on time.
Lin Qiushi sat in his apartment, and a thick charred scent wormed its way into his nose. The smell was so strong that he couldn’t hold back a series of low coughs. The next moment, Lin Qiushi snapped to attention. This was the smell of a fire, and he’d smelled it inside a door once before.
Upon realization, Lin Qiushi dashed into the bathroom to cover up his nose and mouth with a wet towel. Then he opened his front door, attempting to leave the apartment. The moment the door opened a thicket of smoke rolled into his house. Lin Qiushi ran out into the hallway, but found it already vigorously burning, and the fire was spreading its way toward him.
The towel on Lin Qiushi’s face blocked out most of the onslaught of smoke and ash, giving him a narrow chance at survival. He turned and dashed into the emergency exit beside him, making his way downstairs.
Hack, hack, hack. Violent coughs came out of his throat, and Lin Qiushi’s eyes kept watering from the smoke. He stumbled onward, afraid to stay for a minute longer, and only after taking the stairs several stories down did he find a floor that wasn’t smoking.
Finally, he could catch his breath. Lin Qiushi held himself up against the wall, panting as he got some clean oxygen. After he caught his breath and looked up, however, and got a clear view of his surroundings, he sucked in a sharp, nervous breath instead—the walls of the corridor around him were jam-packed with mirrors.
Mirror after mirror covered up the original wall entirely; Lin Qiushi could see his own haggard reflection in them.
When he saw these mirrors, Lin Qiushi immediately recalled the door he’d passed before, and the fire he’d encountered inside.
That concentrated sense of danger hung right at the center of Lin Qiushi’s chest; he immediately sensed there was something off here, and turned to run. But when he got back to the emergency exit, Lin Qiushi found that the door had been sealed shut, and no matter how he pulled, he couldn’t get it open again.
Knowing the path was closed to him, Lin Qiushi had no choice but to give up. He returned to the corridor, eyeing the hallway of mirrors. Then he gave his smoked-out, oxygen-deprived brain a shake to wake himself some.
In the dimly lit hall, the shadows of Lin Qiushi’s reflection were everywhere. The figure of Lin Qiushi was stacked repeatedly over the icy mirror surfaces, creating the illusion that this was a space of infinite expansion.
Lin Qiushi footsteps forward halted. In the darkness at the end of the hallway, he spotted two silhouettes that had appeared without him noticing. It was a mother and daughter, holding hands. Their bodies were burnt to scary charcoal black, and in the girl’s arms was a deformed doll, their black eyes stared quietly at Lin Qiushi. There were no emotions to be found in those two pairs of eyes, only reservoirs of deep stillness.
There was no turning back in the single corridor; standing in the center of it, Lin Qiushi was like an animal trapped in a cage. Worst of all though, the mirrors beside Lin Qiushi had also started to change.
The reflective surfaces rippled like water. Very quickly, Lin Qiushi understood that this change was due to extremely high temperatures. Fire leapt up at the end of the hallway—from the mother and daughter’s bodies—and began spreading toward Lin Qiushi at a terrifying speed.
He was going to be burned to death—when he realized this, Lin Qiushi turned and ran, but the fire was faster. He could already feel the scalding heat of the flames on his back.
And in that moment, a pair of hands suddenly shot out of a mirror beside him. They grabbed Lin Qiushi by the arms and yanked him straight into the glass, successfully getting him out of the way of the fiery assault.
When Lin Qiushi was tugged in, he was still in a daze—until he saw two familiar faces before him. It was Zhuo Feiquan, who used to often come to Obsidian to visit, and his sister Zhuo Mingyu.
“It’s been a while,” Zhuo Feiquan greeted faintly, looking down at Lin Qiushi from above.
Lin Qiushi’s heart had yet to settle, but he managed to pull himself to his feet.
“…It’s been a while.”
He’d thought he was dead for sure. he hadn’t anticipated that Zhuo Feiquan would save his life.
“My sister owed you from before,” Zhuo Feiquan replied.
In the People as Mirror door, Zhuo Mingyu had left the mirrors a few seconds early, which led to Lin Qiushi being trapped inside the bedroom. Had it not been for Ruan Nanzhu forcing Zhuo Mingyu to enter the mirrors again by threatening Zhuo Feiquan’s life, Lin Qiushi would very likely have perished in that door.
Lin Qiushi asked, “you guys are in here too?”
“Of course,” Zhuo Feiquan said. “Everyone who died in the doors are in here.”
“Then have you seen Ruan Nanzhu?” Lin Qiushi asked.
“Him? Why would I go see him.” Zhuo Feiquan clearly disliked Ruan Nanzhu, and wasn’t very friendly about it. “I don’t owe him anything.”
Lin Qiushi glanced at him, a bit exasperated. This was his first time entering the world of the mirrors, so he looked around and took in his surroundings. He was still standing in the hallway, only everything within sight was flipped. Through the mirror surface at the side, they could see what was happening in reality. The corridor that he’d stood in had been completely swallowed up by flames, and was now entirely black. Had he still been standing there, he’d have been burnt to a crisp.
“Let’s go, we can’t stay here for long,” Zhuo Feiquan said. “That thing can enter the mirrors.”
Lin Qiushi nodded, and followed Zhuo Feiquan into the emergency exit inside the mirror.
“We’ll take you downstairs. If you see anymore mirrors remember to stay away,” Zhuo Feiquan said. “That thing’s definitely going to keep attacking you.”
Lin Qiushi, “you died in the tenth door?”
Zhuo Feiquan nodded, his attitude toward this matter quite calm. He even looked warmly at Zhuo Mingyu, who stood beside him not saying much at all.
“It’s probably a good thing, actually.” At least he could stay with her inside the world of the doors.
“You two are still siblings here?” Lin Qiushi asked.
“Mh,” Zhuo Feiquan said. “We’re brother and sister, though during the day we don’t remember anything that happened inside the doors…But not remembering isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”
Lin Qiushi went silent. The three descended the stairs and reached the first floor, but right before they split up, Lin Qiushi suddenly asked, “is this place real?”
Zhuo Feiquan turned toward Lin Qiushi, his gaze asking what Lin Qiushi meant.
“Are you two real?” Lin Qiushi asked.
Zhuo Feiquan laughed. He said, “if we’re not real, would you still be alive?”
Lin Qiushi didn’t answer.
“This place is real, at least to us,” Zhuo Feiquan said. “We can think of it as a sort of compensation, from the doors to us…”
As he spoke, Zhuo Feiquan reached the bottom of the stairs. He led Lin Qiushi into a random bathroom, and pointed at a mirror passageway inside. “Go.”
Lin Qiushi reached for the mirror and then felt a forceful pull—it yanked him straight out of the world of the mirrors. He was back in reality, but his situation was still not that great—the thick smell of smoke still surrounded him, and the walls along the side are also marked with burns.
Lin Qiushi looked at the siblings in the mirror and spoke a quiet word of thanks.
He followed the stairs down, wanting to get out of there quickly.
But the matter wasn’t as easy as he’d hoped. Lin Qiushi was headed downstairs, but found that the floor numbers appearing before him were only getting bigger—he was actually climbing, and the higher he went, the more nauseatingly thick that burnt smell became. He slowed, but his ears caught on a particular sound.
The sound sent a layer of cold sweat instantly down Lin Qiushi’s back. Even his breathing froze for a moment.
That’s right—he heard Ruan Nanzhu’s voice. Ruan Nanzhu seemed to be furiously shouting about something at someone. It was a tone Lin Qiushi had never heard from him.
“A second less and your brother dies here!!”
After Lin Qiushi made out these words, he got closer to the emergency exit door and, through the tiny window, saw what was happening on the other side.
Ruan Nanzhu stood in the hallway, facing down Zhuo Feiquan and Zhuo Mingyu as he said the words that Lin Qiushi heard. His expression was as dark as Lin Qiushi had ever seen it, and there was palpable killing intent in his black eyes.
“Zhu Meng you filthy liar!!” Zhuo Feiquan roared in anger.
“Liar? You’re calling me a liar? We agreed to five minutes, and you came out early. If he’s dead, I’m burying you all with him—” Ruan Nanzhu shot back with an icy smile.
Hearing their back-and-forth, Lin Qiushi finally realized that this was what had happened inside the door.
Back then, he’d thought he’d been too slow. It was only afterwards that he’d found out it was Zhuo Mingyu who left the mirrors early, causing him to be locked inside the room with the keys.
And it had been Ruan Nanzhu, at risk of being burned to death, who forced his way back into the bedroom and rescued Lin Qiushi from within.
Everything before his eyes replayed like a memory. Lin Qiushi saw the moment when the mother and daughter vanished, and Ruan Nanzhu sprinted forward into the bedroom. He brought out Lin Qiushi, who’d already passed out.
They must have successfully escaped through the emergency exit after that, right? Though Lin Qiushi didn’t have any memories of these events, after he’d healed, Ruan Nanzhu had told him everything that happened inside.
The path was short, but Ruan Nanzhu had been burned up pretty badly. With Lin Qiushi in his arms, he headed in the direction of the emergency exit.
Everything looked fine, until they reached the emergency exit doorway.
Vicious flames suddenly burst out of the mirrors around them, blocking the group’s way. Ruan Nanzhu’s body caught fire, and he fell with a yelp. In his arms, Lin Qiushi too was swallowed up by the flames.
Watching from outside the door, Lin Qiushi’s eyes went wide. He hadn’t expected this turn of events at all. Ruan Nanzhu was on fire, tossing and turning on the ground as he screamed. Each piercing yell slammed into Lin Qiushi’s chest as if a heavy mallet—he almost couldn’t help but burst into that hallway and throw himself on top of Ruan Nanzhu to put the fire out.
“This is all fake. It’s all fake.” Lin Qiushi didn’t dare see anymore. He clutched at his own chest, gasping for air. His body slowly concaved and he nearly collapsed to the ground. Though he couldn’t see what was happening anymore, Ruan Nanzhu’s screams still would not stop.
“Aaaah, it hurts, aaaaaahh…” Ruan Nanzhu tossed in the flames, voice getting gradually weaker as he called out a name: “Qiushi, Qiushi…I’m sorry…I’m sorry…”
“Fake, fake, it’s all fake.” Lin Qiushi covered his ears, unwilling to hear anymore. He was afraid he couldn’t control himself, that he’d burst inside.
Ruan Nanzhu’s voice finally stopped, and Lin Qiushi too was covered in sweat. He was trembling from head to toe as he slowly straightened, and through that tiny mirror, he saw everything in the corridor again.
Four burnt-up corpses were lying in the hall, two of which were tightly entwined in an embrace. From what remained of their clothing, Lin Qiushi could tell that these were his and Ruan Nanzhu’s bodies.
They’d died together.
A vicious wave of pain came over his head. Covering his face, Lin Qiushi told himself repeatedly that everything before him was just an illusion.
But this wasn’t where it ended. A burnt body slowly began to move, crawling off the ground onto its feet. This body had already been burned down to a gruesome, frightening skeleton. He opened his mouth and once again spoke in Ruan Nanzhu’s voice: “Qiushi.”
“Nanzhu.” Lin Qiushi couldn’t catch his breath.
The corpse slowly came toward him, and through the glass, human and ghoul stared eye-to-eye. There was none of Ruan Nanzhu’s handsome features left on the body before him, only something terrifying. The corpse spoke to Lin Qiushi, “could it be, that you don’t remember?”
Lin Qiushi took a step backward.
“Do you not remember?” The dead Ruan Nanzhu looked at Lin Qiushi with those black holes of eyes. “Don’t you remember that all four of us died here?”
Lin Qiushi, “you’re lying! We didn’t die! You’re trying to goddamn lie to me!”
Ruan Nanzhu, “but do you remember what happened afterwards?…I made up all those memories to trick you.” His voice was filled with grief. “We died inside that door. It’s just that you don’t remember.”
Lin Qiushi indeed did not remember. He did not remember how he left that door, but that didn’t mean he would so easily believe what the person in front of him was saying.
“In order to save you, I burned alive,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “And then we appeared in this world that we’re in right now. I constructed a whole new set of memories for you…”
Lin Qiushi didn’t answer. He pulled out his phone, and rapidly sent out a text. But he got no response from the other end. Maybe the real Ruan Nanzhu was facing an urgent matter…
“The person on the other end is me.” He seemed to have noticed what Lin Qiushi was doing—the Ruan Nanzhu on the other side of the door lifted the phone in his hand, and his mouth split open in a smile for Lin Qiushi. “Of course I can’t reply.”
“No—” A shiver made its way down Lin Qiushi’s body at those words. He quickly flipped out his contact log and was about to give Ruan Nanzhu a call, when he suddenly froze.
He couldn’t do that. If Ruan Nanzhu truly was in a critical bind, a phone suddenly ringing on him would definitely cost him his life.
Lin Qiushi used the last of his willpower to stop himself from calling that number. He said, “don’t you fucking try to lie to me! There’s no way you’re Ruan Nanzhu!”
“Why not?” The person on the other end looked on with a woeful expression. “Or is it that you’re just not willing to accept such a cruel reality?”
Lin Qiushi bit down on his teeth and refused to answer.
“You’ve already started to doubt, haven’t you?” he continued. “You’re doubting everything here, you’re doubting their reality. How could they possible all show up at such timely moments? At every critical juncture, they save your life…do you know why? Because this is all a dream controlled by you.”
He turned around and pointed at that corpse lying on the carpet, a terrifying smile crossing his face.
“You’re already dead, Lin Qiushi.”
Lin Qiushi knew he shouldn’t be swayed, but some emotions could not be fully controlled. Following the words of the person before him, a number of terrifying thoughts did run through his head.
“Shut up already, I’m not going to believe you,” Lin Qiushi said. He wiped at his face with a hand before turning to leave.
Behind him, Ruan Nanzhu began to sniffle. He said, “Qiushi, don’t leave. I’m so scared of being on my own.”
Lin Qiushi’s breathing stalled.
“I’m so scared of being in the doors on my own, don’t leave me behind,” he said. “It’s so dark here, and I’m all by myself. Stay and talk to me, please? I’m really so scared…”
Lin Qiushi inhaled a deep breath, but actually calmed down some. He didn’t believe that Ruan Nanzhu would beg him in a tone like that.
“You’re not Ruan Nanzhu,” Lin Qiushi said. “You’re not Ruan Nanzhu.” It sounded more like he was saying this to himself, and he repeated it many times more.
“Lin Qiushi, Lin Qiushi, Lin Qiushi.” The person inside the door was still calling Lin Qiushi’s name in the voice that sounded just like Ruan Nanzhu’s.
Face blank, Lin Qiushi went downstairs. This time, the numbers on the stairs didn’t appear, and as Lin Qiushi headed down, he finally arrived at the ground floor of the apartment. Only, in his ears Ruan Nanzhu’s calls still echoed. This entire way down Lin Qiushi hadn’t stopped checking his phone, but even by the time he’d gotten to a place that looked safe, he still hadn’t received an answer from Ruan Nanzhu.
Was he alright? What was happening over there? Was he in danger? Lin Qiushi’s head was a mess. A certain thought even slowly surfaced in the dark—was the person upstairs truly not Ruan Nanzhu? If that was Ruan Nanzhu…then did Lin Qiushi just abandon him?
Uncertainty was always the most agonizing state. Lin Qiushi stood downstairs for the longest time. He thought more ghouls would assault him, but the district was uncommonly peaceful.
But it was this peace precisely that sent Lin Qiushi’s thoughts further into turmoil. He stared at his phone, wishing he could traverse through the electromagnetic waves onto the other end and confirm Ruan Nanzhu’s well-being; he wanted to see with his own eyes that Ruan Nanzhu was still alive.
But this was all wishful thinking. With a touch of despair, Lin Qiushi thought that if something were to happen here, then they wouldn’t even be able to die together…
