Kaleidoscope of Death

Chapter 104: Paying Debts

After Lin Qiushi spoke, Zhou Hanshan's gaze fell upon the sculpture, and he didn't speak for a long while.

The sculpture's tears had dried, its eyes returning to the immovable blankness of before. It was as if the hint it gave them just now had only been an illusion.

Gu Longming bent forward and picked up the wooden figure. He stared at the doll in his hand and asked, "Zhou Hanshan, for real, how long were you and Zhu Ruyuan lovers?"

"Half a year," Zhou Hanshan answered. He headed to a corner of the storage room and grabbed a random bench. Without any care for the layer of dust on it, he took a seat. "We usually met up during club activities...She said she was busy with school, and I said I completely understood."

He used to complain about love making people foolish, but found now that it was indeed the truth. Even the way they met was filled with incongruity—truly knowing and loving each other wasn't up for debate at all.

The very beginning of this story had been a mistake. But he was foolish. He drew out this mistake and paid a painful price for it.

Lin Qiushi listened to Zhou Hanshan talk but he didn't pick up the thread of conversation. It was only when Zhou Hanshan finished that he said, "let's make a wish tonight."

"What?"

Zhou Hanshan thought he'd heard wrong at first, but after seeing Lin Qiushi's calm expression, he realized that Lin Qiushi really did say what he said.

"You mean...we're making another wish of this sculpture?"

"There's not much time left." Lin Qiushi held out the shattered doll in his hand. "You don't want to become like this, do you?"

Their wooden dolls were all broken. They could run but they couldn't hide, not forever; something could happen at any moment to take all their lives.

So leaving this world and ending it all was the best option, though coming to such a decision wasn't an easy matter at all.

"I don't sense any malice from it. You?" Lin Qiushi was looking at the sculpture in front of him.

In the present moment, the sculpture was already very much like a person. Whether it was body warmth or the texture of its skin, it was rapidly approaching humanity. Zhou Hanshan stared at the sculpture for a while. Then, all of a sudden, he got up and pressed his cheek to the sculpture's chest. Moments later, his face went pale, and he looked over his shoulder at Lin Qiushi.

Lin Qiushi could guess what he was thinking from his expression alone.

Indeed, Zhou Hanshan's next words were: "I hear a heartbeat."

Gu Longming startled, "a heartbeat?"

The shock had already made Zhou Hanshan numb. He said, "that's right, a heartbeat."

Watching the sculpture, he carefully caressed her cheek with his hand.

"Is she about to become human..."

Though this was a question, everybody knew well that in a few days time, the sculpture in front of them could very likely become human. They just didn't know that for her to come alive, what sort of price needed to be paid.

Lin Qiushi had already decided to stay in the activity room that night to make another wish.

Sitting in the activity room, Zhou Hanshan was inscrutably silent.

Lin Qiushi played sudoku, and Gu Longming had his head bowed inspecting the doll in his hand. The atmosphere in the room was tense and nerve-wracking.