Kaleidoscope of Death

Kaleidoscope of Death by Xi Zixu

The first person to leave a door could gain a hint about the next door. This was preferential treatment and leniency that the door awarded the victor. This was also an affirmation of strength.

But what many people didn’t know was that when only one person was left in a door, that person, upon leaving the door, would earn a very special sort of hint. The person who possessed this hint gained not only detailed insight into the next door, but also a chance to save their own life.

For reasons, Ruan Nanzhu had never told Cheng Yixie about this. Cheng Yixie only learned about it by accident.

And Cheng Yixie, after just barely scraping his way out of the seventh door, had also come to a realization. He’d realized that he couldn’t protect Cheng Qianli. The world of the doors was treacherous and ever-changing; no matter how smart he was, he was just a mortal in the end, and all mortals made mistakes. Mistakes in daily life may be utterly unimportant, but mistakes made inside the doors could cost you your life.

Cheng Yixie returned to the mansion, saw Cheng Qianli’s brilliant grin embracing Toast, and made a silent decision.

Everything that followed became so reasonable.

Cheng Yixie was clever, and when clever people did bad things, they were naturally adept.

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing, Cheng Yixie.” Ruan Nanzhu very quickly figured out Cheng Yixie’s deviancy, and he and Cheng Yixie had their very first explosive argument. “You’re going to get Cheng Qianli killed, as well as yourself!”

Against Ruan Nanzhu’s accusations, Cheng Yixie chose silence.

“Stop this, while you still can,” Ruan Nanzhu said. “Don’t wait until it’s too late to turn back…”

Cheng Yixie gave Ruan Nanzhu an answer. He said, “Cheng Qianli’s not even eighteen yet.”

He held onto the railings, looking out over the lush green yard where Cheng Qianli and Toast were chasing each other around in play.

“If only one of us can survive, I hope it to be him.”

Ruan Nanzhu, “but there are other ways. You’re choosing the stupidest method—”

“But it’s the most lucrative.” Cheng Yixie was no older than fourteen, but there wasn’t any trace of a child’s innocence to be found in his eyes. His pupils were deep lakes, in which were hidden things even Ruan Nanzhu couldn’t comprehend. “Sorry, Ruan-ge, I really can’t just watch Qianli die.”

Ruan Nanzhu knew he had no chance of convincing Cheng Yixie. He said no more, and walked away.

At this point, the worst that Cheng Yixie had done was let people go to their deaths. But after…Cheng Yixie closed his eyes. He never wanted to talk about what happened after anymore.

Once someone broke their bottom line, it was like plunging into a quagmire; you could only keep sinking.

Had it been anybody else, Ruan Nanzhu would likely have already kicked Cheng Yixie out of Obsidian. But Cheng Yixie was just a kid. He was like a fresh-grown sapling that, before it could even grow up straight, got snapped at the waist by the battering rains and winds.

Cheng Yixie began to sink deeper and deeper in to the abyss, until he had no way of ever getting out.

Everybody said what went around would always come back around; Cheng Yixie thought that he would be the one to pay for the things he did. Once people do wrong, they had to pay a price. Cheng Yixie was willing to pay for his sins with his life.

But on the day retribution truly came, Cheng Yixie finally learned that some things didn’t happen as easily as he’s imagined.

The tenth door was hellishly difficult.

Even with the special hint slip, Cheng Yixie was running on the last of nine lives inside.

Just as he had Cheng Qianli, and the two were stumbling their way to the door, they discovered that where the door should have been was instead a giant green bronze statue. The statue was beastly and looked like a demon, and the green bronze encasing it was beginning to crack, revealing hard skin as black as lava rock underneath.

Seeing such a scene, Cheng Yixie knew the monster before him was about to wake. Though the door was right behind it, they still couldn’t make their way through.

“Gege,” Cheng Yixie spoke quietly, standing behind Cheng Yixie. “I’m scared.” The hand he held Cheng Yixie’s with was covered in sweat, and there was a helpless tremor in his voice.

“Don’t be scared, I’m right here,” Cheng Yixie comforted Cheng Qianli quietly. He took a deep breath, and then stuck a hand in his pants pocket, settling on the sharp dagger folded inside. “Just listen to me, and it’ll be fine.”

Cheng Qianli scooted closer. He seemed to have sensed something, and wrapped Cheng Yixie up in a tight embrace. They were twins, after all; they felt everything together. Through the thin clothing between them, Cheng Yixie could feel the heat of Cheng Qianli’s body as well as the anxiety in Cheng Qianli’s heart.

“Gege.” Cheng Qianli’s voice was filled with woe, and even sounded a bit choked. “Is it about to come to life?”

The monster behind them had already exposed the blood red of its eyes. The giant jaw packed full of fangs began to savagely snap. It looked ready to pounce at any moment.

“Mh,” Cheng Yixie said. “But it won’t be able to hurt you.”

“Why am I so stupid?” Cheng Qianli said. “If only I were smarter.” His tone of voice was agonized. “If only I were smarter, then Gege wouldn’t have to work so hard…”

Cheng Qianli’s arms around Cheng Yixie slowly began to loosen, and his voice too grew faint.

“But no matter how stupid I am, I still know what Gege wants to do…”

Cheng Yixie felt that something had gone wrong. His voice froze for a moment, and he slowly turned his head.

“Qianli…”

“Hey, I brought one too,” Cheng Qianli said. “I hid it in my pants pocket, just like you.”

He was smiling, but was likely also in agony—this smile was particularly hideous.

Cheng Yixie’s head inched down, and he saw a dagger stuck in Cheng Qianli’s chest. Bright red blood was flowing like a babbling brook down his chest, soaking his clothes and puddling on the ground.

Cheng Yixie saw that dagger, and felt himself reeling. He opened his mouth to say something, but the image before him appeared to have utterly stolen his ability to talk. He couldn’t say anything, and his body slowly slumped forward.

“Ge…it hurts…” Cheng Qianli collapsed in Cheng Yixie’s arms, black eyes big and staring. His pupils reflected Cheng Yixie’s figure. He called, “Ge…”

“Aah…Aaaah!!” A wretched scream came out of his mouth, and Cheng Yixie could only watch as Cheng Qianli’s breaths grew fainter. The roar of the monster behind him came from a spot directly over Cheng Yixie’s head, but Cheng Yixie didn’t turn around. The monster lunged at him and—

A black shadow enveloped Cheng Yixie. He ought to have been torn to pieces by the monster, but a faint sheen of light was emanating from his body. It partitioned the monster’s attack directly away from him.

In Cheng Yixie’s arms, Cheng Qianli’s chest had stopped moving. With a numb expression Cheng Yixie turned around, spotting that huge black door behind the monster. He saw that door and stumbled to his feet with Cheng Qianli in his arms. He made a run for that door, unlocking it with the key drenched in blood. He still wanted to see Cheng Qianli again. There were still so many things he hadn’t said to him.

Cheng Yixie sprinted out that tunnel like he had gone crazy, grabbing the Cheng Qianli outside in an embrace. The moment Cheng Qianli offered him a smile, mouthful after mouthful of blood began pouring out of Cheng Qianli’s mouth. Cheng Qianli touched his face, called him Ge, told him not be sad.

Cheng Yixie was wailing. His Qianli, this was his Qianli—the kid he loved the most still hadn’t been able to grow up. Hadn’t even passed his eighteenth birthday. Certainly hadn’t gotten to see all the beautiful sceneries of the world like he’d hoped.

What came afterwards, Cheng Yixie didn’t really remember. He didn’t really remember how he got through that time. By the time he came back to himself, he’d already left Obsidian, and was crossing doors with Zhuo Feiquan.

Zhuo Feiquan, like him, was a person left behind at the end of the world. Zhuo Feiquan no longer had a sister, and Cheng Yixie no longer had a brother. Zhuo Feiquan’s luck was just a lot better than Cheng Yixie’s, that’s all—he had a pendant that his sister’s soul laid in.

“Hey, you’re not planning on getting me killed inside the doors and stealing my pendant, are you?” Zhuo Feiquan spoke frankly. “I’m telling you, I’m hardy as hell.”

Cheng Yixie looked at him, answering faintly, “forget it. I thought about it, but it’s better not to do it.”

“Why not?” Zhuo Feiquan asked.

“I’m afraid he’ll have to pay for the bad things I do again.” Cheng Yixie’s tone was cold. “Look, isn’t that the case now?”

He didn’t even dare to die, because his life had been traded in for Qianli’s. That little fool had to be smart just this once, but this one time was all it took to torture him to death and back.

Zhuo Feiquan threw back his head and laughed.

To have experienced the same pain of losing family, the two actually had an odd resonance. Only those days didn’t last. Zhuo Feiquan died in his own tenth door, and before dying, he placed his pendant in Cheng Yixie’s hand. He didn’t say anything, because both of them already knew.

Cheng Yixie clutched the pendant that Zhuo Feiquan gave him and managed a smile, meaning he had accepted Zhuo Feiquan’s good will.

Once he had the pendant, Cheng Yixie wondered if he should use it to summon Cheng Qianli. But after thinking about it, he didn’t do it. Because he remembered that Cheng Qianli was scared of ghosts.

If he wasn’t there, Cheng Qianli could only wait around inside the doors. That was probably another kind of torture.

Cheng Yixie wouldn’t do that to him.

The days went on one at a time. So Cheng Yixie thought that this would be the end of his and Cheng Qianli’s story. He still went through doors in a state of numbness. He might die inside one of these days, but to the him right now, death seemed more like a merciful blessing and escape.

This continued on like this until Cheng Yixie went into his own eleventh door.

In his eleventh door, when he saw Tan Zaozao on television, Cheng Yixie became conscious of something. He left the hospital that he’d entered the door through in a hurry. He went back to his house and knocked on that familiar door.

Moments later, the door opened to reveal a face completely identical to his. And when he saw Cheng Yixie, he looked on with a stunned expression.

Cheng Yixie began to laugh, ignoring Cheng Qianli’s shock completely and wrapping him up in a hug. He said, “idiot, Gege’s been looking for you for such a long time.” I thought that once I’d lost you, I would never get you back.

Good thing that now, he was finally found.

And since he was found, staying in this illusory world of the door seemed to be…not all that bad.

The once-split soul merged back together then, from two to one, just like the moment they were birthed from their mother’s body. A satisfied smile appeared on Cheng Yixie’s face. He dried the tears at the corners of his eyes and watched as the sun outside the window slowly descended beneath the horizon.

Translator’s Note:

• Look, I need those of you who have even a passing understanding of Chinese to suffer this passage with me: 程一榭嚎啕大哭，他的千里，他的千里啊——他心愛的小孩還是沒能長大. The original is simply “HIs Qianli, his Qianli ah…” Just a fucking WAIL. Like me. Just fucking head back, sobbing at the ceiling.

[Extra: Twin Lives, Twin Deaths(2)] | [Extra: Bai Ming and Zhang Yiqing]