Kaleidoscope of Death

Walking through the long road in the wind and snow, the four of them did not encounter any strange incidents on the way, and returned to their residence smoothly.

But as soon as the few people returned, they felt that the atmosphere in the room seemed not right. They sat in the living room with pale faces, motionless, and there was a dead silence in the air. The atmosphere was even worse than when everyone first arrived here.

Lin Qiushi shifted his eyes to several people, quickly counted the number of people, and heaved a sigh of relief after confirming that there were not too many people.

"What happened?" Xiong Qi asked.

A man sitting inside trembled and said, "Upstairs, the corpse upstairs is gone."

"It's just that the body is gone?" Xiong Qi said, "Are you newcomers? There's nothing to be afraid of when the body is gone."

"It was eaten." The girl next to her whimpered, tears streaming down her face, "There's blood everywhere..."

Xiong Qi and Xiao Ke looked at each other, knowing that they could not get any useful information from these people, so the four of them decided to go to the third floor to check the situation.

They climbed up the stairs, and when they reached the second floor, Lin Qiushi noticed something was wrong—there were also blood stains on the walls of the second floor.

Because it is a wooden structure house, the walls are also brown in color. Lin Qiushi saw some black spots attached to the walls, as if something had splashed on them.

"Be careful, there may be something on it." Xiong Qi walked in the front.

Finally reached the third floor, Lin Qiushi finally understood what they meant by being eaten.

The place where the corpse was originally placed was empty, if it was just like this, it would be fine, but the corpse was gone, but there was something else.There were pieces of meat and bones all over the floor, as if the corpse had been brutally torn apart by something, and it had been gnawed to pieces, leaving only broken pieces.

Lin Qiushi's face turned pale when he saw such a situation, and he felt his stomach churning with discomfort.

"It's pretty clean." Xiao Ke is used to it, "I don't know what it is."

"Oh." Xiong Qi sighed, "Let's go, lock the third floor, and live on the second floor today."

"Yeah." Xiao Ke said, "I'll ask them about their specific situation."

They returned to the first floor and asked in detail what happened.

Only then did the people downstairs tell them what happened in the house.

It turned out that after Xiong Qi and the others left, a group of people searched the building, and when they found the second floor, they heard a very strange sound coming from the third floor.It sounded like someone was chewing something, with a gobbling sound.

Then everyone counted the number of people, and after confirming that there were no one of them on the third floor, they started to break out in a cold sweat.

Everyone didn't dare to go up to see the situation, and they were rigidly observing the situation on the second floor. When the sound of chewing disappeared, they had the courage to go to the third floor to check the situation - but they only saw the ground of minced meat and bones.

"It's terrible." Another older girl in the team looked a little dull, and she said, "I'm only entering the door for the third time. How could we have encountered such a world? Can we get out alive? What the hell is going on with that thing?" what is..."

No one could answer her questions, and the room was silent.

Xiong Qi sighed slightly, said that he was hungry and wanted to find something to eat, and asked if anyone would go to the kitchen with him.

Lin Qiushi said: "I'll go with you."

Ruan Baijie sat next to Lin Qiushi and said softly, "Qiu Shi, I'm hungry too, I want to eat noodles."

Lin Qiushi: "I'll go and see if there is any, and I'll cook you a bowl if there is any."

"Okay." Ruan Baijie bent her eyes and looked at Lin Qiushi tenderly, "Be careful."

Lin Qiushi nodded.

The kitchen is on the left of the living room. There is no natural gas here, only the most primitive firewood.

Xiong Qi and Lin Qiushi didn't speak much all the way, until they got to the kitchen, Xiong Qi lowered his head and started a fire before saying: "I don't intend to tell them everything."

"What do you mean?" Lin Qiushi froze for a moment.

Xiong Qi looked at the door in silence, and after making sure that there was no one outside, he whispered: "I'm not sure that our team is full of people."

Lin Qiushi's back got goosebumps because of these words.

"Things like this have happened before." Xiong Qi said, "The teammates we thought were not teammates, but those things."

Lin Qiushi said: "Then why do you believe me? What if I am also those things?"

Xiong Qi glanced at him: "You don't look like that."

Lin Qiushi: "..."

Xiong Qi continued: "And they don't look like people who have experienced this kind of thing several times. They are too panicked, more panicked than you."

Lin Qiushi was a little embarrassed to be praised like this: "Actually, I'm also quite scared."

Xiong Qi laughed at himself when he heard this: "What are you afraid of? I peed my pants three times that night when I entered the door for the first time."

Lin Qiushi thought of the terrifying woman last night, silently glanced at his crotch, thinking that he could hold on to it...

Xiong Qi: "I suggest that you also better keep some clues, don't tell them all."

Lin Qiushi nodded: "I see, thank you for your reminder, can I ask how many times you have been in?"

Xiong Qi: "Six times."

"Oh..." Lin Qiushi tried his best to digest the information Xiong Qi gave him, about the door, the team, and some hidden clues.

"It's useless to think so much, try to get out alive." Xiong Qi smiled self-deprecatingly, "Although I think this world is dead."

The fire in the stove was lit, and the water in the iron pot was boiling hot.

Lin Qiushi found a basket with ingredients beside him. There were noodles, eggs, and even some green vegetables. He put the noodles down and fried an egg. The aroma of the food permeated the kitchen, dispelling the shade of fear.Seeing this, Xiong Qi praised: "The workmanship is good."

"It's okay." Lin Qiushi smiled.

Four bowls of noodles were boiled, Xiong Qi Xiaoke, Lin Qiushi and Ruan Baijie, Lin Qiushi couldn't care less about the others.

Ruan Baijie was also hungry, and started to eat noodles with the bowl in her hand. Ordinary people would make a little noise when eating noodles, but she quietly ate the whole bowl of noodles, not even a mouthful of soup left.After eating, he didn't say a word, and turned his head to look at Lin Qiushi eagerly.

Lin Qiushi was terrified by her fiery gaze, and said helplessly, "Aren't you full?"

Ruan Baijie: "I'm full." As soon as she finished speaking, her stomach rumbled cooperatively.

Lin Qiushi: "...You eat it, I'll get something else."

Ruan Baijie: "No, no, no."

Lin Qiushi: "Really?" He made a gesture to continue eating, but Ruan Baijie's eyes were about to pop out. This appearance was so cute that Lin Qiushi couldn't help laughing, "Okay, you eat, I'm almost the same gone."

"Okay, okay." Ruan Baijie was not polite this time.

After eating two bowls of noodles, the coldness of going out for a trip finally disappeared. While eating, Xiong Qi told everyone the information they got from the old carpenter. Of course, he didn't say everything, and kept the last one. Well for clues.

"Could it be that the key is in the coffin?" There were still relatively calm people in the team, and one of them, a man named Zhang Zishuang, said, "Since the key clue is the coffin, then I think it's probably the case..."

"Oh, I hope so." Xiong Qi said, "I plan to go to the mountain to cut trees tomorrow morning. Men will go, and women can also follow. If you are really afraid of the cold, you can hide in the house, but the house If something happens, we won't be able to help."

After discussion, everyone agreed with Xiong Qi's proposal. Although some people thought it was too dangerous to go up the mountain in this snowy weather, the most dangerous thing in this world was not the weather, but those dirty things that eluded people.It is obviously the best policy to build the coffin earlier and leave here.

After such a delay, the sky darkened again.

After night fell, everyone simply washed up, and went back to the room early without thinking about doing other things.Lin Qiushi asked why everyone couldn't get together, Xiong Qi said: "Because when we get together, we will all fall asleep at a fixed time."

"What do you mean?" Lin Qiushi was a little puzzled, "It means that at some point, everyone will fall asleep?"

"Hmm." Xiong Qi said, "Maybe it's the mechanism of this world. As long as the number of people in the same room exceeds a certain value, everyone will fall asleep at a fixed time, and no matter what happens at that time, there is nothing to do."

"Then don't we just have to catch him without a fight?" Lin Qiushi frowned.

"Actually, those things can't kill casually." Xiong Qi said, "They need some specific conditions to kill people. The higher the difficulty of the world in the door, the wider the conditions, and some conditions are very... difficult to understand."

Lin Qiushi: "For example?"

Xiong Qi said: "For example, you can kill people with shoes on their feet."

Lin Qiushi: "..." He silently glanced at the shoes on his feet.

Seeing his appearance, Xiong Qi laughed: "I'm just giving you an example. What if the conditions in this world are to kill people who don't wear shoes on their feet, and you die if you take off your shoes. Besides, these conditions are not Single, some require many conditions to be superimposed together, so after summing up the rules, it is safer to sleep until dawn at night." He paused for a while when he said this, "Of course, the premise is that you can fall asleep .”

Because of Xiong Qi's words, Lin Qiushi recalled what happened last night. He glanced at Ruan Baijie, who was carelessly knocking a handful of melon seeds by his side, and felt that he had brushed shoulders with death last night.

It seemed that if he was not careful, he would become one of the two cold corpses on the third floor.

"Go to sleep." Xiong Qi said, "Good night."

Lin Qiushi nodded: "Good night." He called Ruan Baijie again and told her to go to bed together.

Ruan Baijie yawned, and put the remaining melon seeds on the table. She rubbed her eyes and muttered, "I'm so sleepy, go to bed early today."

Lin Qiushi said: "Okay, go to bed early."

The third floor was completely unusable because of what happened last night, so everyone moved to the second floor.

Lin Qiushi still slept on the same bed as Ruan Baijie. This time he was prepared and decided to lock the windows first, and planned to close the curtains as well, but it seemed that the curtains hadn't been used for a long time, and they couldn't be opened no matter what.

Ruan Baijie was lying under the blanket in her pajamas, moaning, "Qiu Shi, it's so cold."

Lin Qiushi was still studying the curtains, and didn't turn his head when he heard the words: "Put more on when it's cold."

Ruan Baijie: "...you don't have a girlfriend, do you?"

Lin Qiushi was puzzled: "Girlfriend, why do you have a girlfriend?"

Ruan Baijie fell silent, and when Lin Qiushi drew the curtains and turned back, she was already lying on the bed as hard as a dead fish.

Lin Qiushi still didn't understand: "What's wrong with you?"

Ruan Baijie said softly, "You...do you have nothing to say to me?"

Lin Qiushi fell into deep thought. Looking at Ruan Baijie's beautiful face, he finally had an idea. He said, "Yes."

Ruan Baijie showed a satisfied smile: "What do you want to say?"

Lin Qiushi: "That, that's the one... If we meet a ghost today, can you run slower?"

Ruan Baijie said indifferently: "No."

Lin Qiushi was angry: "Then you fucking ask me what I want to say, sleep!"

So each went back to each house, each found its own bed, back to back and began to prepare for sleep.

Originally, according to Xiong Qi, being able to fall asleep peacefully was the best situation to spend the night, but Lin Qiushi's mind was full of various thoughts, and he couldn't fall asleep at all for a while.Ruan Baijie behind him looked like a pig, and fell asleep as soon as he closed his eyes, making Lin Qiushi's teeth itch with anger.

As the night deepened, the temperature also became lower and lower.Fortunately, the quilt was quite thick, and there was a warm living person sleeping beside him, so it was not too difficult.

Lin Qiushi closed his eyes, sorting out the clues of the day, his consciousness gradually blurred, and he was about to fall into a deep sleep.However, just as he was about to fall asleep, he vaguely heard a somewhat strange sound.Unlike yesterday's knocking sound, this sound came from the ceiling above their heads. It was the sound of something sticky and heavy dragging slowly across the roof of the third floor.Lin Qiushi's hearing was sharp, and the original drowsiness disappeared instantly. His breathing paused, and he opened his eyes slowly, looking at the ceiling above their heads.

There was nothing there but old wood.

However, Lin Qiushi's body began to feel cold, because he heard clearly that the voice stopped when it moved above his head.

"Bada, bada." The sticky knocking sound stimulated his eardrums, and the knocking sound became louder and louder, making Lin Qiushi's goose bumps rise all over his body. He gritted his teeth and was about to sit up from the bed , but stretched out an arm around his waist.

"What are you doing?" It was Ruan Baijie's confused voice.

"Did you hear any strange noises?" Lin Qiushi lowered his voice, "On the roof."

"Sound? What sound?" Ruan Baijie said, "I didn't hear anything, don't move, I'm cold." Her breath gently hit Lin Qiushi's ear, with the smell of ice and snow.

"You..." Lin Qiushi wanted to say something, but felt that Ruan Baijie's arms tightened.

"Go to sleep." Ruan Baijie said.

Lin Qiushi had no choice but to close his eyes.

Ruan Baijie slowly hooked Lin Qiushi's waist with her fingers. This should have been a somewhat ambiguous gesture, but at this moment it was full of comfort.

The knocking sound on the roof continued, but Lin Qiushi seemed not as scared as before, drowsiness began to float in his mind again, and he finally fell asleep.

The next morning.

Lin Qiushi woke up in Ruan Baijie's arms.

Ruan Baijie stretched out her arms and hugged him in her arms, resting her chin on the top of his head. After being woken up by him, she still dawdled in a daze: "Don't make trouble, sleep a little longer."

Lin Qiushi: "..." Damn it.

He lay down for a while, seeing that Ruan Baijie still had no intention of getting up, he could only say: "I'm going to get up."

Ruan Baijie: "Well..."

Lin Qiushi: "Ruan Baijie?"

Ruan Baijie: "I called her Xiao Tiantian last night, and today I will call her Ruan Baijie."

Lin Qiushi: "..."

But even so, Ruan Baijie let go, and then leaned on the bedside to watch Lin Qiushi get dressed.After wearing it for a while, Lin Qiushi always felt that the atmosphere was a bit strange. After thinking about it for a while, he turned to look at Ruan Baijie: "Can you stop looking at me like that?"

Ruan Baijie: "What look? The money is on the table, take it and go, pass me the cigarette, I want one."

Lin Qiushi: "..." Is this an afterthought or something?

Ruan Baijie: "Why, you still refuse to leave, five hundred but we agreed yesterday, you don't want any more."

Lin Qiushi had nothing to say, and after putting on his clothes, he thumped and went downstairs.

The others were already sitting in the living room, eating the breakfast brought by the villagers. Lin Qiushi counted the number of people as usual, and found that there were three people missing in the room except Ruan Baijie.

Xiong Qi saw him and motioned him to sit down.

"What happened yesterday?" Lin Qiushi asked.

"No." Xiong Qi said, "Nobody died."

As long as no one died, Lin Qiushi breathed a sigh of relief.

In fact, it was very peaceful last night, and no one even heard any unnecessary voices.Lin Qiushi tentatively asked them if they heard any movement upstairs, but everyone said the same thing - it was a very quiet night, except for the wind outside, there was no other sound.

"After dinner, let's cut trees and send the wood to the carpenter, so we can go faster." Xiong Qi said, "The weather will only get colder and colder, and there was no accident last night..." Under his words There seems to be some doubts.

"Well, yes." Lin Qiushi responded casually.

The remaining three people also went downstairs one after another. Ruan Baijie was the last to go downstairs. She was still wearing the beautiful long dress, but she added two relatively thick coats and a pair of large cotton trousers on the outside. .Because the long skirt is very long, she walks very slowly and her posture is very elegant.

Seeing her coming, Lin Qiushi looked away uncomfortably.

"Qiu Shi." Ruan Baijie called his name.

Lin Qiushi hummed helplessly.

"Why are you ignoring him?" Ruan Baijie said, "He wants to eat the noodles you cooked."

Lin Qiushi: "I'll make it for you at noon, it's too late now."

Ruan Baijie: "You didn't say that when you were in bed last night."

Xiao Ke was drinking porridge, and almost choked to death when he heard these words.Xiong Qi's expression also became subtle, his eyes wandering between Lin Qiushi and Ruan Baijie intentionally or unintentionally.

Lin Qiushi didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "Okay, don't make trouble, I really thank you last night, I will make you noodles at noon, and I will fry you two more eggs."

"Okay." Ruan Baijie compromised, "Oh, it would be nice to have chopped green onions."

In such a cold day, it is very lucky to have green vegetables to eat. As for chopped green onions, don't think about it.

Everyone had a rough breakfast, put on warm clothes again, and the group prepared to go out with their axes in hand.

The place where the tree was cut was in the forest beside the village, and there was only one path leading to it.Because of the snow, the path became narrower and only one person could walk.

It's okay to go up the mountain, but it's more troublesome to drag the wood down the mountain, Lin Qiushi thought so while walking on the path.

Among the eleven of them, fortunately, one of them can do carpentry. That man is a middle-aged man in his 30s. He claims to be a carpenter. He can chop trees and make simple furniture, but things like coffins are not. I understand too well.He walked in the front, picked a few trees and started to teach everyone how to cut them.

Most of the people here have never done this. Although they are taught, they are quite unfamiliar with it for the first time.

Lin Qiushi made two gestures with the axe, and after the first cut, only a faint mark was left on the trunk.

"Your method is still wrong." Ruan Baijie stood beside her, put her hands in her pockets, and gasped, "You have to use your strength, otherwise how can you lift the ax so heavy."

Lin Qiushi: "Have you ever cut down a tree?"

Ruan Baijie: "I have seen others cut down trees."

Lin Qiushi snorted.

Ruan Baijie said: "Be careful, don't hurt yourself."

Lin Qiushi nodded and continued to swing the axe.This matter was more troublesome than they had imagined. In the morning, several big men took turns to rest and cut down a tree.

"What to do, Brother Xiong." Someone said, "What to do?"

Xiong Qi looked at the weather and gritted his teeth: "Let's go, carry this tree back home, and continue tomorrow."

Although it was only after three o'clock in the afternoon, the sky had already darkened, and large flakes of snowflakes began to float in the sky again. It seemed that there might be a heavy snowfall at night.

Lin Qiushi said: "How many pieces of wood are needed for a coffin?"

"The village chief said it was three." Xiong Qi said, "After two days of hard work, it's almost done. Come on, whoever comes to help."

Lin Qiushi was about to go forward to carry the tree, but he heard Ruan Baijie say: "Oh, I seem to have twisted my foot, Qiu Shi, please carry me down the mountain."

Lin Qiushi: "Huh?"

Ruan Baijie: "Oh what, hurry up, there are so many people here, why are you joining in the fun?"

Just as Lin Qiushi was about to speak, Xiong Qi patted him on the shoulder and said, "Go."

Lin Qiushi: "..." He glanced at Ruan Baijie's expression, but he didn't see any other meaning from her lovely and pitiful appearance, but he was sensitive to smell a clue, as if Ruan Baijie's sudden request was not what he imagined. as simple as that.

The author has something to say: Ruan Baijie is attacking, hahahaha, everyone has guessed it.