Ruan Nanzhu

That night, all of Lin Qiushi's nerves were bunched up at maximum tension. His reason told him that all those images had been fake. Nevertheless, the sight of Ruan Nanzhu's burned-up face kept surfacing in his mind. The scariest thing was, Lin Qiushi was beginning to have doubts about the Ruan Nanzhu who'd been texting him.

Did the person on the other end of the line truly exist? Or, if something had happened to Ruan Nanzhu, would he choose to hide it, and keep up texting Lin Qiushi to pretend he was fine? That could very well be true, since there was precedent in Ruan Nanzhu's behavior. Lin Qiushi clutched at his phone in the somber evening, as if he was holding on to a bomb that could blow him to pieces at any second.

The idea that had already taken root somewhere in his brain sped up in its germination thanks to the terrifying scene from earlier. Lin Qiushi recalled the vow that he and Ruan Nanzhu had made—if something were to happen to one of them, they wouldn't insist the other survive.

It was at that moment that the phone in Lin Qiushi's hand suddenly vibrated. He quickly picked it up, and saw a text message onscreen—it was from Ruan Nanzhu, precisely the person who'd been weighing so heavily on his mind.

Ruan Nanzhu wrote: I'm fine. Qiushi, how are things on your end?

Eyes downcast, Lin Qiushi typed out two words, and deleted them again. In the end he only wrote: I'm good. Don't worry about me.

Moments later, Ruan Nanzhu texted again: Are you okay? Did something happen?

Lin Qiushi sighed. The two of them knew each other so well that even without saying anything, Ruan Nanzhu could already guess that something was wrong; though his answer had been vague, how could Ruan Nanzhu not understand with that intellect of his? Just as Lin Qiushi was contending with this, Ruan Nanzhu sent another text.

To his surprise, it read: Qiushi, I met you inside the door.

Lin Qiushi, "…" He read the words on the screen and didn't know what to say.

Are you really Qiushi? Are you really there? Ruan Nanzhu sent another text, only, the questions in it struck at Lin Qiushi's very soul. I'm wondering the same thing.

Lin Qiushi replied: Then do you have an answer?

No, Ruan Nanzhu wrote. No answer.

Lin Qiushi asked another question: Are you scared?

Ruan Nanzhu took a while this time to reply to Lin Qiushi. He said: I'm not scared of anything. I'm only scared that I won't get to die with you.

When he read this, Lin Qiushi couldn't help but laugh. At the same moment, a giant wave of confidence surged in his chest. He typed out slowly: Ruan Nanzhu, is it okay if I come find you?

If Ruan Nanzhu was even a little bit hesitant in answering his question, then Lin Qiushi would not continue. The difficult would only compound with two people together, after all, so if Ruan Nanzhu wasn't willing, Lin Qiushi couldn't possibly go over there and make things more lethal and troublesome for him.

But Ruan Nanzhu's answer came quickly. There was only a single word on it: Yes.

Seeing this reply, Lin Qiushi's exhausted expression broke open into a brilliant smile. He began to laugh, laughing so hard that tears fell from the corners of his eyes. Then he tucked his phone into his pocket and flipped up his middle finger at the building behind him, crassly cussing: "Don't you try to fucking scare me anymore, I'm going to go find him now! You moron!"

The most terrifying thing was living without hope. Lin Qiushi had something to miss now, and so this endless evening seemed to gain temperature accordingly. It no longer felt as bone-piercingly cold as before.

The latter half of that evening, Lin Qiushi once again was hit by several waves of ghastly attacks, but they were all harmless in the end. He successfully survived.

By the time the sunset's warm colors fountained out of the earth, Lin Qiushi was already lying on his own bed, deeply asleep as if everything that had happened the night before was all just a nightmare.

The next day, Lin Qiushi slept for the entire day. Then, he had a huge meal before heading for the school he'd gone to yesterday, filled with energy. Seated in the cafeteria, he once again started playing sudoku on his phone.

As he played, he was thinking—were there special aspects to the doors that Ruan Nanzhu had passed? Didn't this mean he could also see Ruan Nanzhu's friends from before? As he thought and thought, Lin Qiushi couldn't help his laughter. He'd lost all control of his expressions, because the moment he thought of Ruan Nanzhu, the corners of his mouth would turn up.

Daytime passed particularly quickly. The sun slowly descended beneath the horizon, and night followed.

Once evening came, Lin Qiushi was scared of being kicked out by the school's security guards, and so found a corner to hide away in. He watched the bustling school slowly go silent, until all he could hear was insect song buzzing in rounds, one after another.

The moon hooked onto the treetops, and stars dusted the sky. It was a clear and bright evening.

Lin Qiushi was seated on a bench by the school pond feeding the mosquitoes. There were so many mosquitoes here. They bit a whole row of red bumps onto Lin Qiushi's arms, both painful and itchy.

But it was hardly important. Compared to his excitement at getting to see Ruan Nanzhu again, it was truly nothing at all. They all said absence made the heart grow fonder—in this moment, Lin Qiushi well and truly understood the feeling.

Time ticked on by minutes and seconds, and following the ticking of the watch on his wrist, twelve o'clock came.

It only took an instant, but the quiet and peaceful atmosphere of the school changed. An unpleasant smell began unfolding in the air, and though Lin Qiushi didn't have Cheng Yixie's sensitive nose, he could still determine the source of it—it was the stench that belonged to rotting corpses. Even though it was faint, it still brought with it all sorts of bad feelings.

Lin Qiushi headed toward the rendezvous point—he and Ruan Nanzhu had agreed to meet on the tracks. The tracks were open space, and no matter what they encountered, it would be easy to avoid.

Only, when Lin Qiushi got to the tracks, he found it completely empty of people. Ruan Nanzhu was nowhere to be seen.

Lin Qiushi's heart gave a squeeze. Just as he was wondering if something had happened to Ruan Nanzhu, there suddenly came the sound of rushing footsteps behind him. Before Lin Qiushi could even react, somebody caught his hand, and a young man's voice, as bright as an oriole's, called: "Lin Qiushi, come with me!"

Lin Qiushi was yanked forward. He twisted his head to look behind them and saw that a few hulking, rotted bodies had appeared in the path, and were hobbling their way forward.

"This way!"

The youth took Lin Qiushi's hand and ran like the wind. Because the night was dark, Lin Qiushi couldn't determine the young man's appearance for a good while. It wasn't until they'd passed under a few streetlamps that he finally saw, in the interlacing light and shadows, that young man's beautifully androgynous features.

"Nanzhu!" Lin Qiushi exclaimed in shock. "This is what you look like at night?"

At the thought of how lofty and cool Ruan Nanzhu looked as an adult, his tone couldn't help but carry a tinge of laughter.

"You were this cute as a kid?"

The young man heard this and shot Lin Qiushi a glare, except his pretty appearance had absolutely no threat to it at all. Ruan Nanzhu said, "are you calling me cute?"

Lin Qiushi, "you are cute though."

Ruan Nanzhu, "another adjective, thank you."

Lin Qiushi laughed heartily. Though they were currently running for their lives, Lin Qiushi had never felt so happy while he was on the run before.

Ruan Nanzhu took Lin Qiushi to the side of the gymnasium, and the two of them got a chance to stand still and rest. Lin Qiushi asked, "what's the deal with those corpses?"

Ruan Nanzhu's tone had whatever written all over it: "Who knows? I've long since forgotten those small fries. How many doors have I been in, am I supposed to remember every single passerby?"

Lin Qiushi watched Ruan Nanzhu—had it been an adult Ruan Nanzhu saying such a line, he'd likely find Ruan Nanzhu extra cool. But it was this delicate little face before him now, and Lin Qiushi couldn't hold back his grin: "Mhm, yes yes, our Nanzhu is totally right."

Ruan Nanzhu's brows furrowed as he looked at Lin Qiushi. "Lin Qiushi, is this a mutiny?"

Lin Qiushi, "I don't want to either."

Ruan Nanzhu, "I've only become physically smaller—"

"I know, I know," Lin Qiushi rushed to say. "You've only become physically smaller, but psychically you're still huge."

Ruan Nanzhu ground his teeth. He'd heard Lin Qiushi's child-coaxing voice nice and loud, thank you very much.

As the two were speaking, there came a mischievous singing voice from the bushes not too far away, like a child reciting a nursery rhyme.

"Fuck," Ruan Nanzhu swore. "Why is it this door—"

Lin Qiushi asked, "which one is this?"

Ruan Nanzhu, "my eighth. It's a deadly little thing."

The moment he spoke, Lin Qiushi heard a child's bell-like giggle. And then a huge gust of wind hit, the lights by the roadside snuffing out one by one until all that surrounded them was darkness.

Ruan Nanzhu spoke quietly, "this thing tracks you by sound. Follow me, and don't make any noises."

Lin Qiushi knew Ruan Nanzhu had extraordinary vision, and could discern a path even in darkness. So he clasped Ruan Nanzhu's hand back and allowed Ruan Nanzhu to guide him forward.

Ruan Nanzhu was tiny and so were his hands. With just a little bit of force, Lin Qiushi could wrap himself around his entire hand.

A soft rustling made its way to their side. Ruan Nanzhu and Lin Qiushi walked carefully, doing their best not to make any sound.

Lin Qiushi heard a breathing noise slowing next to them. It stopped so close by that Lin Qiushi could pretty much feel the breaths gusting over his arm hanging at his side.

But then Ruan Nanzhu, walking ahead, suddenly stopped. He seemed to have spotted something, and gave Lin Qiushi's hand a light squeeze.

Lin Qiushi didn't dare move. The truth was he could clearly feel a pair of icy hands mounting themselves to his shoulders. The hands felt like a child's—they were tiny—and they had the temperature of ice cubes. Even through clothing, the icy wave they gave off kept emanating onto Lin Qiushi's body.

As for Ruan Nanzhu, he seemed to have encountered a bind—Lin Qiushi could feel a thin layer of sweat emerging from his palm. Lin Qiushi couldn't see anything, but could still distinctly feel the tension in the atmosphere.

And at the moment, just before everything congealed, a loud crash of glass shattering sounded from a school building not far from them. Following that was the thud of something heavy hitting the ground. The hands that had been fixed to Lin Qiushi's shoulder disappeared in an instant, and Ruan Nanzhu squeezed Lin Qiushi's hand and took off.

The extinguished lights by their side lit up once more. Lin Qiushi could finally see their surroundings.

It had taken only minutes in the dark for the woods surrounding them to become draped in a mass of cobwebs. In these cobwebs, pairs and pairs of red eyes followed them with malicious glares. Lin Qiushi first thought those were spiders about the size of human skulls, but upon closer observation, it was actually a giant spider on which was hung a number of human heads. These heads had not yet died; their eyes were still moving. Their glares followed Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu out, vicious and pursuing.

Ruan Nanzhu's head and shoulders were covered with cobwebs. Once they were in a safer place, he finally let out a breath of relief and began tugging the white webs off his body.

Standing behind Ruan Nanzhu, Lin Qiushi didn't actually have much of the stuff on him. He too began helping Ruan Nanzhu with the webs, asking, "what was the thing that jumped just now?"

Had it not been for the sound that drew the monster away just now, they might both be goners now.

Ruan Nanzhu said, "my friend."

"You have a lot of friends, right?" Lin Qiushi said. "Inside the doors."

"I guess," Ruan Nanzhu sighed. "Well, it's good enough knowing they're living good lives here."

Lin Qiushi recalled something.

"You also saw your senior, right? If he disappeared in the twelfth door…then he probably has some hints?" Whether it was the eleventh or twelfth door, as someone who'd been through it before, any hints he could provide were most likely important.

But Ruan Nanzhu's laugh was bitter. "As if we'd be so lucky."

Lin Qiushi, "hm?"

"I asked him every question you could think of, but he said he didn't know," Ruan Nanzhu said. "Whether the eleventh or the twelfth door, he had no memory of them."

Lin Qiushi, "…" He didn't think the answer would be like this.

"I didn't feel this way outside the door, but now, it does seem strange," Ruan Nanzhu said. "Back when my senior passed the eleventh door, I was still a newbie, so I didn't ask too many questions. But other people must have asked for details on the eleventh door, and they must have recorded it…But that wasn't the case."

Lin Qiushi frowned. "And we didn't seem to have realized it either."

Ruan Nanzhu nodded. "As if…"

Lin Qiushi, "as if our memories about the matter have been intentionally dulled down?"

What ought to have been a crucial matter had been wiped clean from their minds, but nobody had thought it strange. It wasn't until they'd entered their eleventh door did the strangeness become abruptly apparent.

"That's right. Thinking back on it now, how could it have possibly been not recorded?" Ruan Nanzhu said. "My senior still had so many friends, there's no way he wouldn't have wanted them to pass. And there's the twelfth door…"

Lin Qiushi said, "what happened with the twelfth door?"

Ruan Nanzhu said something that Lin Qiushi had not expected: "After passing his eleventh door, my senior went missing."

"Missing?!" Lin Qiushi was stunned. "But didn't you say he stayed at Obsidian?"

"Right, he was still at Obsidian," Ruan Nanzhu said. "But his existence just started fading for everybody, myself included. In the mansion, he became like some sort of invisible man…" He carefully chose his words, wanting to accurately describe that eerie feeling. "As if we all knew he was there, but we couldn't see him at all."

Lin Qiushi was silent for a while, before saying hoarsely, "…Nanzhu."

Ruan Nanzhu looked up at Lin Qiushi.

Throat bobbing, Lin Qiushi said, "I…recall that you've never mentioned your senior's name."

Ruan Nanzhu froze.

Lin Qiushi, "do you still remember what he was called?"

He'd seen some items from that senior's possession in Ruan Nanzhu's care before, but thinking back on it now, he discovered that he'd practically forgotten what those items looked like. And he didn't think Ruan Nanzhu was the type of person to forget the deceased—unless, this forgetting signified something…

A momentary blankness appeared on Ruan Nanzhu's face. He opened his mouth, and seemed to be on the verge of saying that name out loud. But in the end he failed. A name that ought to have been firmly remembered could not be teased out of his memories. He only knew he had such a senior, but could not remember that senior's name.

"Is he really dead? Or…" Lin Qiushi felt goosebumps rising along his arms. "Or has he passed the twelfth door?!"

Ruan Nanzhu, "…" He closed his eyes, unable to answer Lin Qiushi's question.

The wind gusted by again, sending the leaves around them rustling. Lin Qiushi heard the song again, and knew they had to run for their lives once more.

This time, Lin Qiushi was the one who took Ruan Nanzhu's hand. He murmured in Ruan Nanzhu's ear, "don't worry. No matter where, as long as you're there, I'm willing to go too."

Even to hell.

Ruan Nanzhu looked back at Lin Qiushi, and a grin appeared on his face. His hair was a bit long, fitting oddly in with his youthful face and deep-set eyes. He pushed up to tip-toes and left a gentle kiss on Lin Qiushi's lips.

"It's the same for me."

Lin Qiushi laughed brightly.

What followed was a frantic escape. The two of them were practically poor little mice under a playful cat's claws, doing all they could do seize any opportunity to survive.

And Lin Qiushi too got to witness in totality the terror of Ruan Nanzhu's doors. Throughout the evening, the amount of rest they got did not total up to an hour. Even when they just stood by the roadside, things like body parts would fall from the treetops around them.

At first Lin Qiushi was nervous, nervous that he would drag Ruan Nanzhu down. Afterwards though, he grew numb to it, and only continued to follow Ruan Nanzhu in their endless hiding across campus.

Lin Qiushi asked, couldn't we leave the school?

Ruan Nanzhu's answer was that he was more familiar with the school's environment, leaving might actually prove more troublesome. If they didn't have to, he thought staying in the school yielded more predictable results.

In between running for their lives, Lin Qiushi also saw many of Ruan Nanzhu's good friends, even some ghosts and monsters that liked Ruan Nanzhu.

This was practically a giant playground; those with grievances voiced them, those with vengeance wrought it, and of course there were those who came to repay their debts.

No wonder Ruan Nanzhu never had time to reply to Lin Qiushi before. Given the current intensity of their escape attempts, the two of them were lucky just to find time to chat.

They passed the night like this. When it was almost morning, the two of them sat resting by the cafeteria.

Ruan Nanzhu had sustained mild injuries, but none that were too serious. Lin Qiushi helped him with a simple bandage job, and while he was bandaging it, Ruan Nanzhu watched Lin Qiushi with a certain intensity in his eyes.

"You've seen how I pass my nights," he said. "Are you coming back tomorrow?"

Lin Qiushi nodded with a grin. Though his evenings were much easier by comparison, he still wanted to stay by Ruan Nanzhu's side.

"Fine," Ruan Nanzhu said. "As you wish."

As per their promise to each other, Ruan Nanzhu did not push Lin Qiushi away again. The two of them leaned against each other, waiting for dawn to rise.

Lin Qiushi said, "so you were this skinny back in high school, huh?" He'd helped Ruan Nanzhu with the bandages, and naturally had seen Ruan Nanzhu's body. Though high schooler-Ruan Nanzhu was already tall, he wasn't as fit, and wasn't anywhere close to his level as an adult.

Ruan Nanzhu squinted at Lin Qiushi, and didn't reply.

Lin Qiushi, "the you right now, is really so cute."

Ruan Nanzhu was blank-faced. "Then do you like the me now or the me in the future?"

Lin Qiushi, "…" He shouldn't have brought this subject up. Ruan Nanzhu was, after all, someone who managed to get jealous of himself in drag. Getting jealous of his younger self…Lin Qiushi had to hand it to him.

But under Ruan Nanzhu's glare, Lin Qiushi still sold out his own soul. He said: "I like both!"

Ruan Nanzhu, "tsk."

Lin Qiushi, "…" What's that disappointed expression supposed to mean?

When it was almost daybreak, they also discussed the matter of the key, but had no leads at all. This door was simply too strange. The monsters that appeared every night were pretty much different, and though some monsters appeared twice, they still couldn't work out any clues.

"No Solution" really had no solutions. At least for now, neither of them could identify any sort of pattern.

A matter of more concern was that they'd discovered the monsters' appearances were in order. The order followed when they'd gone into the doors, and increased as they went along…

"Maybe we have to experience all the doors?" Ruan Nanzhu deduced. "We have to go through every monster from every door one more time…"

Lin Qiushi had another thought. He said, "it's not just the monsters."

Ruan Nanzhu glanced at Lin Qiushi.

"There are past people too," Lin Qiushi said. "Isn't this like…a trial?"

Ruan Nanzhu nodded.

Lin Qiushi, "you add some, subtract some, and everything goes back to zero. If they hate you they kill you, if they love you they save you."

He propped his chin up in his hand, watching the lifting warmth of dawn at the edge of the sky. The urge to sleep rose in his mind, and Ruan Nanzhu fell to it first, collapsing into Lin Qiushi's arms.

Watching Ruan Nanzhu's sleeping face, Lin Qiushi leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to that forehead. Then, he too closed his eyes and fell deeply asleep.

This was, since Lin Qiushi first entered the eleventh door, the best sleep he'd gotten. Because he knew that Ruan Nanzhu was right by his side, and when the night came in, they would be able to see each other.

And come ghosts or monsters or death, nothing could separate the two apart. He was no longer scared. The giant cavity inside his heart had been filled with another's gentle soul.

What ought to have been terrifying evenings, because of Ruan Nanzhu's very existence, became something to look forward to.

Lin Qiushi finally understood that phrase, that to love someone was to gain both the soft cartilage and the armor that protected it.

They had finally become each other's most dependable backing.