Paradox

Zhu Ruyuan had come. Not only did she come, she'd heard everything they'd talked about.

Zhou Hanshan was so terrified he couldn't stop shaking. Like an overwhelmed little mouse, the way he held his breath was as if a vicious predator could appear crouched at his side at any moment.

"She heard…" Zhou Hanshan stammered. "She heard everything."

Gu Longming patted his shoulder in not-at-all-perfunctory comfort: "Don't think too hard about it. She wants you dead whether she heard you or not after all, so what does it matter if she heard you?"

Zhou Hanshan expressed that truly, he wasn't comforted.

Without Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming, he would likely have already died many times over. Whether it was the teaching building windows suddenly breaking or the giant chandelier in the library suddenly falling, they were all telling him that he was being pursued by something. One wrong step and he could lose his life.

"What in the world should I do?" he mumbled, looking at Lin Qiushi. He seemed utterly drained of all his strength.

"We'll get this all resolved," Lin Qiushi said. "Think back carefully. When you made the wish, did she do anything of note?"

If Zhou Hanshan wasn't lying, then the students' wishing ritual might have had a major problem. They started it, but couldn't end it, allowing Zhu Ruyuan to do as she liked to them.

"Anything of note?" Zhou Hanshan said. "Anything of note…"

He thought on this a while, but in the end still shook his head.

"She didn't do anything of note." After a pause, he asked in an uncertain tone of voice, "her body changed to feel like a sculpture…is that something of note?"

"Her body felt like a sculpture?" Gu Longming said. "She didn't look any different?"

"No," Zhou Hanshan answered with certainty. "She didn't change…"

If even her appearance changed to look like a statue, then the people around her would surely have noticed.

This reminded Lin Qiushi of something. He said, "who was the first to make a wish?"

"Me." Zhou Hanshan raised a hand.

"She didn't make a wish?" Lin Qiushi asked.

"She? She…you mean Zhou Hanshan?" Zhou Hanshan thought back. "No, she did make a wish."

He looked a bit chilled.

"That's right…she was the first to make a wish!! How could I forget such an important thing!"

Only, after finding out Zhu Ruyuan wasn't human, he'd wordlessly assumed that Zhu Ruyuan making a wish was irrelevant. After Lin Qiushi's reminder, Zhou Hanshan realized with a start that the very first person to make a wish had been her.

"What did she wish for?" Lin Qiushi asked.

"She…She…" Zhou Hanshan said. "I don't know. She said her wish was to win the award, but now I don't quite believe that. I think she lied to me."

Since finding out Zhu Ruyuan's true identity, he'd lost all trust in Zhu Ruyuan.

Neither Lin Qiushi nor Gu Longming replied. They were both thinking back on what Zhou Hanshan said.

Perhaps Zhu Ruyuan's wish wasn't to win the award like she said at all, but for everyone around her to die. If so, her wish did come true person-by-person—judging by the current situation, Zhou Hanshan was the only lucky survivor left in the school.

Gu Longming shot Lin Qiushi a look, keeping nothing hidden. That was why Lin Qiushi understood him in an instant.

"Let's go for a smoke," Lin Qiushi invited.

"Okay," Gu Longming nodded.

Zhou Hanshan hung his head without a bit of energy left on his face. Gu Longming told him to sleep for a while longer, and by the time he woke they could go to dinner.

Zhou Hanshan answered with a vague sound. He clearly would have a difficult time getting to sleep.

The two went out into the hallway. Gu Longming lit a cigarette and offered Lin Qiushi one as well.

Lin Qiushi turned down his offer.

"How do you see it?" Gu Longming asked. "You must have a theory already, right?"

Lin Qiushi leaned against a railing, both arms folded.

"Do you think NPCs are people?"

Gu Longming tilted his head.

"No…If we're going by the standard of my first doors, then those NPCs are definitely not people."

Like the Landlady in the courtyard from the last door they entered—though she looked human, she was scarier than the actual ghouls, so it was hard to think of her as a person. But Zhou Hanshan was different. Though he was born inside the doors, he could laugh and cry; he felt alive just like a human. If it weren't for their creepy circumstances, Gu Longming could have even believed that he was a person from outside the door pretending to be an NPC.

"So could you do it?" Lin Qiushi asked the most important question. "If Zhou Hanshan is the key figure here?"

After chatting with Zhou Hanshan just now, they'd both clearly grasped the crux of the issue—Zhu Ruyuan's wish had not yet come true.

So here was the problem. What if Zhu Ruyuan's wish was Zhou Hanshan's death? In order to grant Zhu Ruyuan's wish, were they supposed to stand by and watch Zhou Hanshan die, or even help Zhu Ruyuan out a bit? Both Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming had immediately figured out this problem, and so had come out to the hallway in sync, lighting a cigarette.

"I can't do it." Gu Longming was very straight-forward. "He's too much like a person. I can't treat him like an NPC."

Lin Qiushi didn't answer.

"And you?" Gu Longming asked. "Could you do it?"

A little aggravated, he shook some ash off his hand.

"We don't actually have to do a damn thing. He's such a coward, and Zhu Ruyuan keeps wanting him dead. If we just kick him out, he probably won't live to see morning."

Lin Qiushi recalled the way Zhou Hanshan trembled and cried, and could only sigh deeply. It was the first time he'd encountered such a situation. This was practically a test of character.

The only fortunate thing was, Lin Qiushi thought, that he and Gu Longming were the logical sort. Had Zhou Hanshan been met with anybody else, it was highly likely that they'd have kicked him out already. To the people from outside after all, he was just an NPC. It was far more important to find the door and get out of here as soon as possible.

"What do we do?" Gu Longming had already finished smoking a cigarette.

Lin Qiushi looked down at the yard beneath them, and exhaled.

"We can't kill him. At least, we can't initiate killing him."

Gu Longming nodded, tossed the cigarette butt into the trash, and went back inside. He didn't ask the question Lin Qiushi least wanted to consider—what if, without Zhou Hanshan's death, they couldn't leave this door?

Lin Qiushi remained in the hallway. Truthfully, deep in his heart, he felt like this multiple choice question was a trap. Normally the doors never encouraged the people kill each other, so why would they suddenly push him to kill an NPC?

Leaning against the railing, Lin Qiushi continued to ponder the possibility that he'd missed something very important.

Dinner was once again taken care of at the school cafeteria. It tasted unremarkable.

There were thoughts preoccupying everyone's mind; nobody seemed keen on eating, so in the end, they all left without taking much.

Upon returning, Lin Qiushi bumped into another bunch of people from their group. They weren't close with Lin Qiushi, and so upon spotting him, only offered a casual greeting.

Lin Qiushi thought for a bit, and still decided to tell them about the wooden dolls, so that they didn't do as Zuo Sisi's partner did and throw the doll unknowingly into the water. Anything could happen.

When they heard what Lin Qiushi had to say, some believed him and some didn't. Lin Qiushi didn't particularly mind their attitude either way, since he was only doing this for his own peace of mind.

The sky quickly grew dark and plunged them into evening.

Zhou Hanshan sat on the bed, looking quite down. He said, "Zhu Ruyuan's wish. Is it for us to all die?"

"What?" Lin Qiushi's expression immediately grew somber. "What did you just say?"

Zhou Hanshan jumped at Lin Qiushi's face, muttering, "I was just saying, is Zhu Ruyuan's wish for us to all die…"

Lin Qiushi shot up in bed, exclaiming, "this is a paradox!"

"What do you mean?" Gu Longming didn't understand.

"Zhou Hanshan hasn't won the award, which is to say his wish hasn't come true. This doesn't fit the equivalent exchange principle! But, if Zhu Ruyuan's wish is for Zhou Hanshan to join her down there, then Zhou Hanshan's wish will definitely not come true." Lin Qiushi felt like he'd caught onto the key clue. "So for now at least, the sculpture shouldn't be trying to kill you, because it hasn't granted your wish yet! Perhaps our assumption had been wrong…"

"That's right, they died because their wishes came true, but mine hasn't," Zhou Hanshan said. "What does that mean though?"

"Simple," Lin Qiushi said. "It means that what's trying to kill you might not be the sculpture."

Zhou Hanshan, "then what is it?"

"What else, your girlfriend of course," Gu Longming poked fun. "Boy, she really can't wait for you to go keep her company."

Zhou Hanshan's face was ash gray, indicating that this joke wasn't funny at all.

Lin Qiushi said, "we have to take another look at that sculpture. Right, when you did the ritual, were there any hard requirements on timing?"

"Hard requirements? That I don't know about. We made the wish at night though." Through the window, he eyed the dark evening outside. "On a very normal night."

"Mh," Lin Qiushi nodded. "Let's sleep. We'll go look tomorrow."

But it wasn't like Zhou Hanshan could sleep at all. Seeing Zhu Ruyuan staring at him through the window during the day had left a deep trauma on him, and his gaze kept being pulled to the window…though the curtains had been drawn already.

Gu Longming was the quickest to fall asleep. Upon closing his eyes, the room was filled with the sound of his even breathing.

Lin Qiushi stayed in a half-asleep state, so that the softest commotion could wake him from his dreams. He'd thought some odd noise or another would surely wake him that night, but he managed to sleep until morning.

At dawn, he checked in first on Zhou Hanshan. Upon finding Zhou Hanshan alive he let out a strangely relieved sigh.

Though they'd passed the evening peacefully, others weren't so lucky.

Two people died that night, in awful ways. It seemed that something tore them apart from limb to limb.

When Lin Qiushi went to inspect their bodies Zuo Sisi was also there. Black circles lined the bottoms of her eyes, and she managed a grimace when she saw Lin Qiushi.

"Good morning."

"Good morning," Lin Qiushi replied. "Didn't sleep well last night?"

"Of course not," Zuo Sisi said. "My friend was almost drowned last night."

Lin Qiushi, "drowned? Where?"

The only place with water in the dorms should be the bathroom.

"Wash basin," Zuo Sisi said. "Last night around midnight I heard something, so I got up and found him bent over in the bathroom with his face buried in the wash basin filled with water…"

She heaved a sigh.

"I'd wanted to pull him out, but he was too strong…"

Lin Qiushi, "is he alright?"

"He's fine. Luckily the basin was plastic. I got a knife from the kitchen and stabbed a hole right through it." She glanced at the room with the two dismembered people. "I'm guessing these two tore their dolls right apart…"

Yesterday they disassembled their dolls, so today they got disassembled. There was really no ambiguity there at all.

"What about you? You didn't get a doll?" Zuo Sisi asked Lin Qiushi.

Lin Qiushi shook his head, indicating that they hadn't taken any dolls out of the activity room.

"That's fine. Man I really want to get out of here quickly." Zuo Sisi was a bit annoyed. "You just can't avoid these things…Who knows how many more days we'll last."

After saying this, she turned and left.

Lin Qiushi entered the room of the two dead people and indeed found the scattered limbs of some wooden figures in a corner. He picked up the dolls and, after a careful inspection, frowned lightly. He seemed to have spotted something off…

A few minutes later, Lin Qiushi placed the wooden figure in his hand before Zhou Hanshan.

"Is there something different about this doll than yours?"

Zhou Hanshan took a peek. "They look pretty much the same, but mine's a bit rougher."

They'd seen Zhou Hanshan's doll before—that day in the sculpture that Gu Longming broke. That doll had broken too, but Lin Qiushi clearly remembered that that doll looked somewhat different from the one currently in his hand.

"Yeah, it's different. There's no coating on my doll," Zhou Hanshan said. "Is that a problem?"

Lin Qiushi didn't reply, just said, "come on, let's go take a look in the activity room."

After getting something to eat, they headed straight there.

Someone broke the lock on the activity room, so the door stood wide open, sparing Lin Qiushi the effort of picking it. Once inside, he began looking all over for wooden figures. As anticipated, they very quickly found a box of wooden figures in a corner.

There were well over twenty dolls in the box, all sculpted finely and sanded down to each and every detail. They'd even been brushed down with a clear protective coating.

"Why is there only this kind?" Lin Qiushi asked.

"I don't know…" Zhou Hanshan was bewildered too. "Zhu Ruyuan was the one who passed the dolls out to us. I don't know how many types there are."

Lin Qiushi didn't speak, but turned and went for the storage room. The lock was open on the storage room too, though the sculpture covered in the white cloth was still standing untouched inside. It seemed that everybody else, prior to confirming the sculpture's powers, didn't want to move it just willy-nilly either. After all, everything inside the door carried large amounts of risk.

But compared to last time, the sculpture had clearly grown once more in size. Lin Qiushi removed the cloth and saw that her appearance was even more intricate, minute down to the strands of hair. Her expression too looked particularly lively, like she could take off in limber motion at any moment.

Zhou Hanshan was immediately frightened at the sight of this sculpture. He said, "the sculpture looks more and more like Zhu Ruyuan…"

Lin Qiushi didn't answer.

Zhou Hanshan continued, "it's like they came out of the same mold."

Very carefully, he caressed the statue—but his expression immediately changed, and he stumbled back a few steps.

"Oh fuck, fuck!"

"What?" Lin Qiushi looked over.

"It's warm, the sculpture's warm—" Zhou Hanshan explained in a panic. "The statue has body heat!"

Startled, Lin Qiushi pressed his own palm to the statue, but found that matters were worse than Zhou Hanshan described. Not only did the statue have body heat, it even felt like skin to the touch.

The statue that was supposed to be hard and cold to the touch was now warm and soft. She stood in place like a human disguised as a statue, like she was going to move at any moment now.

Gu Longming also came over and gave it a touch. He too got a scare.

"This…This isn't gonna fucking turn into a human at the end, is it?"

Zhou Hanshan seemed to be having a hard time dealing with this, bending over and beginning to sob.

"I'm so scared, Zhu Ruyuan, why are you doing this to me? I haven't wronged you, why are you treating me like this…"

Just as Zhou Hanshan said this, two things came flying through the door, striking both Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming. They froze for a moment before realizing what had been thrown at them—two broken wooden figures, exactly like the ones from the box outside. The only thing different about them was that these two dolls were both missing their heads.

"Fuck!" Gu Longming, struck by the doll, couldn't help but swear. "What are we supposed to do about this! We've touched so now I gotta be responsible? Is this a fucking maiden from the old society or what?!"

Lin Qiushi, "…" That's a real vivid and graphic analogy you've got there.

Maidens of the old society, you had to marry if you so much as looked at them. Lin Qiushi had thought, coming over here, that as long as they didn't touch the dolls they would be fine. He hadn't anticipated the ghosts here would be so simple and crude about it, and now he didn't really know what to say.

Lin Qiushi picked up the doll that belonged to him and confirmed that it was indeed headless. Undoubtedly, if they didn't hurry up and find the door and key, then this doll represented Lin Qiushi's end.

Zhou Hanshan didn't know what else he could say. Crouched on the ground, he seemed to have lost all the energy in his body, expression exhausted and pitiful. He even reached out and held the sculpture beside him in his arms.

"Zhu Ruyuan, what in the world do you want? Do you want my life? If you really want it, just take it." Zhou Hanshan spoke dully. Terror seemed to have robbed him of his will to live. With his head set on the sculpture, he mumbled to himself, "I won't run anymore. Can I come and stay with you?"

After he said this, Lin Qiushi saw the sculpture move. The sculpture slowly, slowly lowered its head. Though its movements were slow to the point of seeming like a hallucination, Lin Qiushi was certain that the sculpture was actually moving. She lowered her head and watched her lover with gentle eyes. From those white plaster pupils, a film of red liquid seeped out, trickling down along her cheeks and dripping onto the floor.

The sculpture was crying. It was just that she didn't have any tears. What fell from her eyes was fresh blood.

Zhou Hanshan too saw the blood in the sculpture's eyes. Freezing for a moment, he uttered, "Ruyuan, is that you? Are you crying?"

The sculpture naturally couldn't answer him.

"Do you want me to die?" Zhou Hanshan said. "If you want me dead, will you nod?"

At this, a violent gust of wind came through the window. It whipped the curtains into a frenzy and sounded like a human howling.

By the time the wind stopped, the sculpture had stopped crying. She'd frozen in a particular position, but her gaze had fallen on Gu Longming.

Gu Longming, uncomfortably, "is she looking at me?"

Head crooking, Lin Qiushi observed the sculpture. For some reason he felt that there was some other meaning in the sculpture's eyes. He circled behind the sculpture to follow its gaze, and found indeed that the statue's attention had fallen on Gu Longming. Only—the place it fell was strange…She seemed to be staring at Gu Longming's pocket.

Lin Qiushi, "Gu Longming, what's in your pocket?"

Gu Longming, "ah? What's in my pocket?"

He patted inside and fished out the doll that had struck them earlier.

"Just this. Why?"

"Put the doll off to the side," Lin Qiushi said.

Though Gu Longming was utterly baffled, he still very carefully set the doll down on the floor beside his feet.

Lin Qiushi watched the sculpture's eyes, and discovered that her gaze was truly moving. It gradually shifted from Gu Longming to the floor beside him.

Gu Longming noticed as well, with a jolt to his heart.

"What does that mean? What does it mean that it's watching the doll? Did she throw them at us? Is she purposely provoking us or what—"

Lin Qiushi shook his head and gave his own explanation: "She's likely giving us a hint."

"A hint?" Gu Longming stroked his chin. "Is she hinting that we should copy the dolls?"

Lin Qiushi didn't answer because truth be told, he hadn't thought through why the sculpture was staring at the wooden doll either.

The three stood in the room, and in the midst of Zhou Hanshan's quiet sobbing, a faint idea surfaced in Lin Qiushi's mind. He called out, "Zhou Hanshan."

Zhou Hanshan glanced at Lin Qiushi through teary eyes.

"You said that to make a wish, you need a doll, right?" Lin Qiushi asked.

"Yes," Zhou Hanshan said. "What are you saying…"

Lin Qiushi looked at the sculpture. "Say, do you think she's telling us that we should make another wish?"

Zhou Hanshan froze.

"If our wish is for all this to end," Lin Qiushi said, "will it be able to come true?"

This wish, just like Zhou Hanshan's wish, was a paradox impossible to fulfill.