Sculptures

Accompanied by Gu Longming's meaningless muttering, Lin Qiushi slowly drifted off into sleep.

Ruan Nanzhu's thoughts had always been difficult to guess, but what Gu Longming said actually reminded Lin Qiushi of something. The change in Ruan Nanzhu came after bringing Zhuang Rujiao back from White Deer. Could his reservations have come after seeing Zhuang Rujiao? Lin Qiushi thought that he really had to ask Ruan Nanzhu properly when he returned. If something really was the matter, maybe it can be resolved once the two talked it out.

Nothing happened this first evening. The next morning, everybody woke up. Some were filled with energy, while others had black circles hanging under their eyes. In particular, the two newbies were clearly not adjusting well to the world of the doors. The one named Xiao Mian even tried to leave the school, though of course in the end he returned downtrodden and no better off.

"I've already told you there's no escape, why won't you believe me?"

His roommate was an old man on his fifth door whose name seemed to be Wang Yao. Seeing Xiao Mian waste his time on a matter like this filled Wang Yao with disapproval.

Xiao Mian forced a smile. "I thought this was a prank, didn't I…"

"So? What did you see?" Wang Yao scoffed.

"It's completely shrouded in fog," Xiao Mian replied. "At first I thought the fog was just a morning mist, but once I was outside, I realized there wasn't a single person on the street…"

That the streets were empty past eight in the morning was clearly an abnormal situation. Plus, this was a school—all these students had seemed to just appear out of thin air. It was a scalp-numbing sight to see. So now Xiao Mian had clearly realized that the place he'd entered was different from reality. It also wasn't any TV program or trickster's scheme; it was a true otherworld.

"Good thing you came back," Wang Yao said, "or else this morning could've been the last time we saw each other."

He was smiling as he said this, but Xiao Mian's face went all the paler. Xiao Mian spoke no more, lowering his head and beginning to eat the food in front of him.

After listening to the two talk, Lin Qiushi turned to Gu Longming and said, "let's go take a look at the class where the incidents occurred after?"

"Yeah, sure," Gu Longming nodded.

Last night, Lin Qiushi had given Gu Longming the hint for this door. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" was a line from the Bible, meaning that what you damaged of another's, you must pay back at the same price. It had no scary origin story.

So Lin Qiushi couldn't currently figure out how to apply this phrase inside the door.

Gu Longming also had no idea, so the two wanted to first go to where the incidents occurred to better understand things. They'd work it out from there.

When he'd brought them to the dorms, the NPC from the night before had provided the group with the basic details. Incidents first occurred in Year Three, Class Three of the Sculpting department—within one week, three people from this class had died. They all died in particularly horrid ways, and of course, after the police investigation, it was announced that these had all been suicides.

The deaths of these three had been just the beginning. Terrifying incidents began to spread across the classes, and within half a year, eight people from the school were dead. The case instantly got a huge amount of attention. Because the police could not manage to find a breakthrough in the deaths, the school, with no other options, could only turn to private investigators, wanting to resolve the incident as quickly as possible.

College timetables were messier, but the NPC yesterday had given them Class Three's schedule.

Lin Qiushi took a look. They had two wood carving classes this morning.

Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming found the classroom, and saw that there were already about ten or so students sitting scattered about.

Others from the group had came along with them. These people walked a bit ahead of Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming. When they got to the classroom, they found a random student to question for information.

"Pardon me, can we interrupt for just a few minutes?" The first to ask was a girl from the group who looked quite sweet and adorable. She seemed the very likable sort, and even her name was pretty cute—Zuo Sisi.

"What's up?" It was a male student she'd asked.

Zuo Sisi smiled. "It's like this, we were asked by the school to investigate that matter…"

As soon as he heard "that matter," the student's expression completely changed. He waved his hand, indicating he knew nothing, and then turned away, ignoring every question afterward.

Zuo Sisi's initial attitude was friendly, but after the student kept ignoring her, she could only prod at him: "You're really not planning on telling us anything? It's not over yet, you do know that right? You're not scared misfortune's going to one day fall on you?"

The student still wasn't speaking, but some doubt entered his expression.

Seeing his attitude falter, Zuo Sisi quickly struck while the iron was hot: "We're all professionals here, we'll definitely be of help to you all. Isn't it better for all of you if we get this thing resolved quickly?"

"What do you want to ask? Class is about to start," the student finally spoke.

"Three people died in your class, right? Who died first? How did it happen?" Zuo Sisi asked.

The student pressed his lips together, then said quietly, "the first to die was Liu Xiaoyu. How she died I don't know…I only know that she died in the classroom where we put the stone sculptures."[1]

Zuo Sisi said, "you really don't know how she died?"

"I don't know." The student spoke firmly, but somehow Lin Qiushi still thought he was lying. It was because as he was speaking, the hand on his leg kept softly picking at his pants; it made him look particularly nervous.

"Let's go." Lin Qiushi turned toward Gu Longming.

"Just like that? We're not asking anything?" Gu Longming asked.

"Mh," Lin Qiushi replied. "They're too frightened, I don't think we'll get any answers. We might as well go look for old info from the school."

Gu Longming eyed the student trembling under Zuo Sisi's interrogation and gave it some thought.

"Sure, let's do that."

So the two left the classroom and went to the library nearby. They wanted to see the incidents that occurred in the school within the past few months.

At the library, Lin Qiushi told the librarian what they came for. The librarian peered at them before handing them a stack of information, explaining that this was left from the police investigation and might be of use to them. However, they should return it as soon as they were done with it.

Lin Qiushi gratefully took the information and thanked the librarian.

Then he and Gu Longming found a corner and began flipping through the information.

The file had data on all eight victims. Of the eight, there were three boys and five girls. They had all been third year students in the Sculpting department. The only difference was the classes they were in.

Out of the eight, the first victim had been found inside the sculpting classroom. Her head had been twisted off and mounted on a sculpture of a human body. It was a grotesque display—Lin Qiushi found pictures of the crime scene inside the file. Though the pictures were censored, it was still easy to imagine how horrible the scene had been.

The second victim had also been found inside the sculpting classroom. It was a boy, and he had died in a similar fashion to the first girl. The only difference was that his eyes had been gouged out, leaving only two empty bloody sockets.

The third victim's death still took place in the sculpting classroom. How she'd died was different from the other two—she'd been full-on scared to death.

If there seemed to a sort of pattern to the first three deaths, then the five afterward just seemed like random killings. Locations of death for the last five victims were scattered all over the school: in the bathroom, in classrooms, and even in the library.

The ways they died were also very peculiar. Lin Qiushi even saw one death by compass perforation of the eye socket.

"Fuck me, it hurts just reading it," Gu Longming, with his head bowed, tutted in amazement. "It's like all the ways you imagined dying when you were in school coming true."

Most students wondered at one point what it would be like to accidentally stab yourself in the eye with a compass, but unexpectedly, it actually happened here.

Lin Qiushi carefully flipped through the info, and found at the very end notes on the victims' relationships in life. He also discovered a group photo.

There were four people in the photo, among whom three were dead. One boy was left, beaming brilliantly in the picture.

"He's not dead?" Lin Qiushi was a bit shocked.

"What, this guy's not dead?" After seeing the photo, Gu Longming flipped once again to the front and confirmed that only three people in this photo were dead. There was still one lucky survivor.

Obviously this person was their breakthrough. The four must have been close, but only three of them were dead. So how did the last one survive?

Lin Qiushi thought for a while, and then took the photo from the file and dropped it in his own pocket. He said, "all these people actually have one more thing in common."

"Hm?" Gu Longming looked up curiously.

"They were all in the same club." Lin Qiushi pointed at an inconspicuous corner of the documents where each victim's interests, hobbies, and school clubs were listed.

They were all art students, and the victims' interests were varied. But of the eight, every single one of them had joined a club called the Sculpture Lovers Association. Membership in this club wasn't actually anything notable for sculpting students. Lin Qiushi was just pointing it out in passing, lest the two missed it.

"Right-o, but they're all Sculpting majors. It seems pretty normal for them to join this club. I think the problem's gotta be with this student." Gu Longming's mind was still on the group photo. "He's not dead, so our breakthrough's gotta be him, right?"

"Mh, we can go take a look first. He's also in Class Three." Lin Qiushi took a look at the schedule. "They should be out of class soon. Let's go wait for him outside the classroom."

"Okay," Gu Longming nodded.

The two returned the file to the librarian and headed out of the library.

This library was relatively new. Six stories in total, there were maybe four or five elevators. Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming took the elevator to the first floor and were just about to leave when they noticed something—in the lobby of the first floor, many white sculptures were on display. Most of these were sculptures of students, wearing school uniforms with heads full of long flowing locks. Some had on backpacks to walk outside with. Some had their heads bent down to read a book.

It had to be said—while they were fine by day, the sight of these sculptures by night would surely give someone a good scare.

Gu Longming was quite interested in these sculptures. After looking them over, he said, "these statues are weird."

"How so?" Lin Qiushi asked.

"They all look the same." Stroking his chin, Gu Longming glanced left and right. "All these sculptures have pretty much the same faces…"

Lin Qiushi looked as well, and said, "yeah they look the same, but aren't all sculptures pretty much the same?"

"No they're different," Gu Longming said. "At least the ones upstairs are different from these ones on the first floor."

There were sculptures on the other floors as well, just not as many as on the first floor. There were only one or two.

Giving this some thought, Lin Qiushi grabbed a random student. He said, "hey, can we ask real quick why there are so many statues on the first floor?"

In Gu Longming's grip, the student gave them a strange look.

"It's the school's rule."

Gu Longming jolted to attention and pursued the lead: "Rule? What rule?"

The student said, "any sculpture that wins an award outside of the school gets a duplicate in the school library…"

Lin Qiushi, "so there's going to be a ton of sculptures in the library?"

"As if," the student said. "It's just this year. In the past, practically nobody won any awards. These statues are switched out every year, they don't stay here for long."

"Then do you have a list of award winners from this year?" Lin Qiushi asked.

"No." The student looked at them like they were weird. "You want the list of award winners? Easy." He pointed at the pamphlets sitting outside the library door. "Those are the school's promo pamphlets. Everyone who's won a major award's listed on there. Can I go now? I still have studying to do."

It was only then that Lin Qiushi released his hold. After thanking the student, he turned and grabbed one of the pamphlets from outside the library door.

Flipping to the last few pages, there was indeed the list of award winners the student mentioned. After seeing it, Gu Longming cursed and said, "this is a list of award winners? More like a goddamn hit list…"

Calling it a hit list wasn't overstating matters at all, because practically every award winner from this year was dead, each from a cause stranger than the last.

"But having said that, it can't just be students from this school winning these awards, so why is it that only their school's being killed off?" Gu Longming said.

"I don't know," Lin Qiushi said. "Let's go back to the classroom and see. I want to find the student from that photo."

"Alright," Gu Longming nodded.

So the two headed back to the classroom.

But luck wasn't with them. Halfway there, the bell rang for the end of class. Students poured out in tides from the classrooms. The Sculpting department only had the two classes today, with its schedule free after. If they made their way over now the students might all be already gone, making it impossible to find who they were looking for.

But even so, Lin Qiushi still returned with Gu Longming to where the classroom was.

The classroom was on the sixth floor. The moment Lin Qiushi stepped out of the elevator, he felt there was something off about this story. With a light frown, he said, "be careful."

"What is it?" Gu Longming said a bit weakly.

"Something doesn't seem right," Lin Qiushi said. "It's too quiet…"

This was a teaching building. Even if class was over, it shouldn't be this quiet. It was so silent you could hear a pin drop.

Gu Longming nodded, expression growing more cautious.

The two slowly started toward the classroom. Before even getting there, they could already hear the sound of an argument coming from inside: "I already told you not to do that, why didn't you listen to me? Are you trying to die?"

Another person replied angrily, "you're too naive! You think by backing out now, everything will just stop happening? It won't. I'm telling you, it will never stop. It wants all of our lives—"

"Then what do we do?" a third person spoke dejectedly. "If only we hadn't done it like that in the first place…"

"Is there a point in saying that? It's already done—" The person speaking was getting more and more angry, bellowing, "so get over here now!"

Then there were some shuffling noises. Lin Qiushi quietly walked over to the window and looked in. Through a gap in the curtains, he saw three students standing in the room.

The three were surrounding something on a desk, and seemed to be discussing something.

Gu Longming, standing behind Lin Qiushi, suddenly swore under his breath.

"What?" Lin Qiushi glanced back.

Gu Longming whispered, "look under the desk."

Lin Qiushi looked under the desk, and found under there four pairs of legs…but inside the room, there were clearly only three people.

Goosebumps ghosted up along his arms when one of the three in the classroom took out a craft knife and cut straight into his own arm.

Fresh blood dripped down his arm onto the thing on the desk. The moment he finished, Lin Qiushi got a clear look at an additional pair of legs appearing under the table…The things inside the room were increasing in number…

"Should we go in?" Gu Longming was a bit concerned. "I think they're about to get themselves killed."

Lin Qiushi said, "let's go." He also thought that if they didn't interrupt what was happening inside the classroom, all three of these students were screwed.

"Okay." Gu Longming went to the classroom door and knocked, calling out loudly, "anybody inside?"

Some noises of panic came from within. After a moment, someone finally replied haltingly, "yeah. Is something the matter?"

"I'm coming in."

Gu Longming pushed his way in.

Classrooms in the teaching building could not be locked from the inside, only from the outside. Of course, under normal circumstances classrooms were left open for students to study in, though it was also true that ever since people were killed in this building nobody studied here any longer. It was dreary just to think about, after all.

The three students appeared wary of Gu Longming who had just barged his way in. In sync, they all took a step forward to hide the thing on the desk behind them.

"What are you guys doing?" Gu Longming said.

"What we're doing is none of your business, is it." The one on the left had a very unfriendly attitude. "Can you leave, actually? We're working on our wood sculpting assignment."

"Nope," Gu Longming said. "School classrooms are open. I can go wherever I want. So what are you doing? Collective self-harm?" His gaze fell on the student's still bleeding arm.

"It has nothing to do with you!" All three of them seemed quite anxious.

"What's on the table?" Lin Qiushi asked, then continued slowly, "we saw four people when we were outside. Why are there only three now?"

When they heard "four people," the students' expressions took a massive turn.

One of them forced a laugh.

"What are you talking about? There's only ever been the three of us in here."

"There were four." Very calmly, Lin Qiushi broke through their internal defenses: "Where's the person wearing red and black striped sneakers and pale blue jeans?"

At this description, the three students sank into silence. Their faces lost their last bits of blood, going paper-pale. One of them—a particularly miserable one—straight up began to cry, clutching his arm and weeping: "I knew we're going to die, we're really going to die…"

His body slowly curled forward until he was squatting on the floor, revealing the thing on the desk behind them.

Lin Qiushi could see it clearly now. It was a small wooden carving of a person. It had been placed on the desk and was drenched in blood. Due to the distance and angle, however, Lin Qiushi couldn't quite make out the details of the wooden figure.

"Stop fucking crying!" The snappish one cursed, grabbed the wooden figure, and shoved it into his pocket to leave.

Gu Longming stopped him in his tracks.

"Leaving just like that?" He slowly rolled up his sleeves, revealing the firm muscles on his forearms. "C'mon bro, let's keep chatting."

It had to be said, Gu Longming was a right muscular bastard in the first place. Plus his whole delinquent attitude, the threat coming from him absolutely worked.

But Lin Qiushi's brows furrowed.

At first Gu Longming thought Lin Qiushi was unhappy with this and made to explain. But then he watched as Lin Qiushi approached the most defensive-looking student and said, "what's that on the corner of your shirt?"

The student said, "what's what…"

Looking down, he saw that on the corner of his pale blue button-up was an additional red mark. And from head to toe, he began to tremble.

When Lin Qiushi first saw that mark, he'd thought it was some sort of patterning on the student's clothes. But upon closer inspection, it wasn't a pattern at all—it was clearly numerous bloody handprints. Judging by the angle, something had smeared upwards from below…Consider the student's reaction, it hadn't been noticed at all.

"Uwaaa…" the person squatting on the floor wailed in even worse misery.

Gu Longming said, "will ya stop crying? We're here to help, not hurt you. What are you so antagonistic for?" He put a hand on the fragile body of the student before him, speaking in a gentle tone. "C'mon, tell gege here about it. Gege's a good guy, we can definitely help you out." His mouth split open, revealing all his stark white teeth—in order to show, it seemed, that he was a compassionate and caring person.

But upon seeing his smile, the student gave a full-body shiver and ran away. Gu Longming didn't even have time to stop him and he was already sprinting out the door like the wind.

"What's he running for?" Gu Longming asked Lin Qiushi, looking all wronged. "I even smiled at him."

Lin Qiushi, "…" Though it would surely be a blow to the guy, he had to tell Gu Longming that with a smile like that, even Lin Qiushi would want to run.

Author's Note:

Ruan Nanzhu's worrying about too much! He's already past the age where he can throw everything aside to only think about love. If he actually did put aside everything just to get together with Lin Qiushi, that would actually be far more selfish of him. Of course, the path there is winding but the future is bright. /clenches fist