Kaleidoscope of Death

Chapter 103: 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.