Hello
It is me, your brother QingBai. How have you been? It's been so long—nearly three years since we last stood face to face. In that time, I've lived through so much that the line between what was real and what I only imagined has blurred beyond recognition. But one thing I know with certainty: I am no longer the boy you once knew. I stand on the threshold of manhood—still bearing scars from choices I regret, yet carrying also the quiet pride of battles I chose to win. In the end, I've made peace with the person I've become.
Let me start at the beginning—the day our university days came to a close.
After graduation, I set out for a place with two names: some called it Wuren, others Renmin. No one could tell me which was true. Perhaps neither was. It was there I crossed paths with an old man—Zhihui, though a few whispered he also answered to Jeffrey. He was a man of few words, but when he spoke, his voice seemed to carry the weight of centuries. I listened, spellbound, not so much by what he said as by the quiet ocean of knowing that dwelled behind his eyes. But that, in truth, was only a prelude.
The real story—the one I've carried with me like a stone pressed against my ribs—begins on the day I opened my eyes to darkness.
I awoke in her room.
The light was almost none. Only a small square window, set high in the wall, let in a sliver of the outside world—a pale, dusty glow that slanted through the shadows like a single finger of dawn reaching into a tomb. I lay there, suspended between wonder and terror. Wonder that such a place could exist at all; terror that I could not remember how I had come to be inside it.
The room was square, yet its walls seemed to lean inward, as though the weight of the earth pressed upon them, giving it the hushed, suffocating feel of a cavern. A chain bound me to the wall—thick iron, flaking with rust, coiled around my ankle like a serpent frozen in time. The metal bit into my skin, leaving a burning ring, my flesh raw and red as though it had tried to recoil from the touch of age itself. The chain was driven deep into the stone by a stake, crude and immovable.
I was not alone. Jeffrey was there—his silhouette a darker patch in the dimness—and with him, two others, their faces swallowed by shadow, their breathing the only proof they were alive.
Let me step back now. Enough of speaking to you directly. Let me tell it as a story ought to be told.
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The room was vast, swallowing light and sound alike. It rose nearly twenty feet in height and stretched forty across—a cavern of stone and shadow, where the walls seemed to breathe a slow, patient menace.
Four people occupied one side of the chamber, each bound by iron chains pinned to the wall. The chains hung like serpents asleep, rust-flaked and heavy, their links whispering against the stone with the faintest movement.
Three windows, wide and set high in the wall, let in what little light there was. They were the room's only concession to the outside world—slabs of pale grey that slanted down in dusty columns, cutting the darkness into zones of half-visibility. In the shadows, a man could lose his own silhouette; but step into the light near the windows, and a ghostly reflection would stare back from the glass, as if the room were showing you a stranger.
One of the bound men was named Qingren. Some of his friends called him "Children"—a nickname that clung to him despite his twenty-six years. He was of middling height, neither tall nor short, with hair cut to an ordinary length. But there was nothing ordinary about its color: a dark, unsettling black that seemed to drink the light. His eyes were black too, deep as well water, and his face was smooth, untouched by beard. He was, by all appearances, unremarkable—except for the quiet intensity coiled within him, waiting.
Near him sat an old man: Jeffrey. His hair cascaded in long white waves, and a beard of the same pure white flowed down his chest. Glasses perched on his nose, catching the faint light and hiding his eyes. He was tall—nearly six feet—and even in chains, he carried himself with the stillness of a mountain.
In the corner, two more figures huddled close. One was a man with hair like fire—tall, crimson, wild—and eyes of pale, piercing blue. His face, in the dim light, seemed carved from nightmare; if you saw him at night, you would run. The other was a child, perhaps twelve years old, bald as stone. His skin had the pallor of illness, and his thin frame spoke of a body that had been fighting for too long. Cancer, perhaps, or something crueler.
Qingren opened his eyes.
His consciousness returned slowly, like a swimmer rising from deep water. The first thing he saw was the ceiling—rough stone, veined with cracks, stretching up into darkness. He blinked, letting his vision adjust. The light from the windows felt foreign, as though it belonged to another world.
He turned his head. He saw the child, curled in on himself. He saw the red-haired man, whose very presence seemed to vibrate with menace. A knot of anxiety tightened in Qingren's chest, his breath growing shallow.
Then he looked the other way.
Jeffrey was there.
Something loosened inside him—not entirely, but enough. The panic receded to a low, steady thrum. Still, fear remained, cold and sharp: he did not know where he was, or what would happen next, or why any of them had been brought to this place.
Slowly, one by one, the others began to stir.
The red-haired man was the first to fully awaken. His eyes snapped open and immediately fixed on Jeffrey. A sound tore from his throat—something between a snarl and a shout, wild and unhinged. His chains clattered as he strained against them, his voice echoing off the stone walls, bouncing back distorted, as if the room itself were mocking him.
The child did not scream. He did not move. He sat in silence, dead still, his small body trembling. Tears slid silently down his cheeks, catching the faint light before falling into the folds of his clothes. He wrapped his arms around himself, curling into a tight ball, as though he could disappear if he made himself small enough.
And Jeffrey?
When he woke, he did not panic. He did not shout. He simply sat up, crossed his legs beneath him, and watched. His face betrayed nothing. His eyes, hidden behind the gleam of his glasses, moved slowly from the red-haired man to the child to Qingren, taking in each of them with the quiet patience of someone who had already seen this room long before he ever opened his eyes.
Were am I? What happened? Why am I chained? Who are you?
So many questions, my dear friend. So many questions.
"What… what are you talking about?" The red-haired man's voice cracked through the silence like a whip. "Aren't you afraid? Are you working with them?"
"Who are them, my dear friend?" Jeffrey's voice was soft, almost a whisper, yet it carried across the room with unsettling ease.
"What are you talking about?" the red-haired man spat, his chains rattling as he shifted.
"Calm down," Jeffrey said. "First, let us present ourselves."
"Present ourselves?" The red-haired man let out a bitter, disbelieving laugh. "What do you think we are here to do—present ourselves in a dark room full of dust, chained to walls like animals?"
"What's the problem with that?" Jeffrey replied, his tone unchanged.
The exchange continued—though conversation was perhaps too gentle a word. The red-haired man, whose name I would later learn was Huai'ren, was a storm of frantic energy. He looked around the room wildly, his crimson hair catching the pale window light like a flame. He shouted questions into the darkness—why, what, where—every question a human mind could conjure in the grip of terror, he hurled them against the stone walls until they shattered into echoes.
And through it all, Jeffrey sat in stillness.
I watched him with a curiosity that cut through my own fear. His calm was not the calm of ignorance, nor the numbness of despair. It was something else—something that seemed to rise from a place I could not name.
"Have you ever been here before?" I asked him, my voice quieter than I intended.
No, he replied. I have never been here.
"Then how are you so calm?"
He turned his head toward me, and though I could not see his eyes behind the gleam of his glasses, I felt the weight of his gaze.
Why not? he said. Are we dead? Are we going to die? If neither of these things is true, then why would I run? Why would I scream? Why would I be afraid? I am curious to know where I am and why I am here—but I am not afraid.
I was amazed. His stillness was a kind of gravity, pulling the chaos slowly back to earth. The red-haired man's shouts began to falter, then fade. The room settled into a tense but bearable quiet. Emotions, raw and jagged moments before, began to find their shape again.
I turned to the boy—the small, bald figure still curled in the corner. His trembling had not stopped, but his eyes were open now, wide and wet with tears.
"What is your name, boy?" I asked.
His voice was a fragile thing, barely more than a breath. My name is Xiwang. But my friends call me Xiwu.
I looked at his pale skin, his frail limbs, the absence of hair on his head. "From what I can see, you may have cancer. If I am not wrong."
He nodded slowly. Yes. I was in the hospital. I was getting my chemotherapy. And then… I slept. When I woke, I was here. I don't know what is going on.
I turned to the red-haired man. "What about you, Redman?"
He scoffed, though some of the wildness had left his eyes. Redman? He let out a short, humorless laugh. Kids. You are even younger than me, and you speak to me with such disrespect. He straightened as much as his chains would allow. I am Huai'ren. Or Herry, if you prefer.
"I am Qingren," I said. "And this is Jeffrey."
After that, silence fell.
No one spoke. No one moved. The four of us sat in our separate corners, bound to the wall, bound to one another by the strange gravity of our shared imprisonment. The minutes stretched. The light from the three windows shifted imperceptibly, as though time itself were moving through the room like a slow tide.
Then—something changed.
On the opposite side of the chamber, a sliver of light appeared. It grew, widening like an eye opening, until a door, invisible moments before, swung open from the wall. Light flooded in from beyond—harsh, blinding—and in its center stood a silhouette.
The figure stepped forward. Step by step, the light bleeding around its edges, casting no shadow that we could see. It approached slowly, deliberately, until it stood before us.
It was a man.
He was perhaps fifty years old, dressed in simple clothes, a hat shadowing part of his face. But what I saw beneath the brim made my skin crawl. He was smiling. His lips stretched wide, too wide—curving almost to his ears, a smile that belonged in a nightmare. His eyes were blue, pale as winter ice, and they moved across each of us with the slow pleasure of a collector examining new acquisitions.
He lowered himself to the floor, crossing his legs, and looked at us all.
Welcome to the room.
Herry lunged.
The chains bit into his ankle, jerking him back before he could reach the man. He thrashed, screamed, his face contorted with rage. "Who are you? What is this? Let us go! Let us go! "
The man in the hat watched him with that same unbearable smile. He did not flinch. He did not move.
Jeffrey sat in silence, his legs crossed, his hands resting on his knees. His face revealed nothing.
The man began to speak.
My name is Gu. And I am the devil.
He let the words hang in the air, savoring them.
To keep it short, I brought you here to pass through—let us say—a test. A competition, if you prefer. It matters little what you call it. In any case, I will ask you to make five decisions. Five choices. And then you may go.
I looked at the others. Herry's rage had not diminished, but he had stopped thrashing, his chest heaving with each breath. The boy, Xiwu, was trembling again, his face buried in his knees. Jeffrey remained still.
Decisions? I thought. What is he talking about?
Then Jeffrey spoke. His voice was calm, measured, as though he were asking about the weather.
What if we do not take the decisions?
Gu's smile did not waver. Then you will never exit this room.
What if I do not want to exit this room?
Then you will die.
And what if I die?
Silence.
Then Gu laughed. It was a sound that did not belong to any human throat—high and hollow, echoing off the stone walls like shattering glass.
Hahahahahaha. He tilted his head, his ice-blue eyes fixed on Jeffrey with something that might have been admiration. You are funny, Jeffrey. You know, I did not want you to be here at first. But they told me to bring you. They said you are the most.
I stared at Jeffrey, my heart pounding. Gu knew him. They knew him. Who were they? What did this mean?
Gu clapped his hands together, the sound sharp as a gunshot.
Now. Now that everyone is awake, and no one is angry— his eyes flickered to Herry, who glared back with murder in his gaze—let me tell you everything you need to know.
He leaned forward, his smile softening into something almost intimate.
You are here, in this room. No one will leave unless you make your five decisions. And all of these decisions must be unanimous. Every single one. When you have finished all five tasks, you may go.
He paused, letting the weight of his words settle.
Oh. By the way. You will not eat unless you finish your first task.
From the doorway, where the light still blazed, another figure emerged.
This man was different. Dark-skinned, bald, his presence heavy and silent. What drew my eyes—what made my stomach turn—was his mouth. It was sewn shut. Black thread, coarse and thick, stitched through his lips in rough, uneven loops. He was chained too, the iron links trailing behind him, disappearing back through the doorway into whatever darkness lay beyond.
In his arms, he held a cat.
A small, innocent thing—fur the color of cream, eyes wide and golden. It blinked at us, oblivious, its tail curling gently around the man's arm.
Gu rose to his feet, spreading his arms as though presenting a gift.
Surprise.
He walked slowly behind the silent, sewn-mouth man, placing a hand on his shoulder.
Your first task is simple. And by the way—the tasks will go from simple to hard. Consider this your introduction.
He paused. His smile returned, wider than before.
Task number one is named: Who to Kill.
He gestured to the man with the sewn mouth, then to the cat in his arms.
You must choose. Either you kill this man… or you kill the cat.
"What?" Herry's voice exploded through the room. "This is crazy! Even if I don't want to play, it's obvious—we choose the cat!"
Gu's laughter was soft this time, almost kind.
Ah. But let me give you the descriptions. So you can choose… wisely.
He stepped closer to the man, whose sewn mouth did not move, whose eyes were fixed on some distant point beyond us all.
The cat: an innocent creature. Has killed no one. Two months old.
He turned, his gaze sliding to the cat, then back to us.
The man: He let the words drip slowly, like poison. This old man has killed more than ten innocent women. He has raped five of them. He is unknown. He has never been condemned to any prison time. Not only that… but he has killed and raped five other innocent girls. Five years old.
His smile was a crescent moon, pale and terrible.
That is all.
He turned. He walked toward the door, his footsteps echoing in the silence.
Goodbye.
The door swung shut. Boom.
Darkness swallowed the light. The sewn-mouth man stood motionless in the center of the room, the cat still cradled in his arms, its golden eyes glowing faintly in the dimness.
And the four of us sat in silence, staring at the murderer before us, at the innocent creature he held—knowing that a choice had been placed in our hands like a blade.
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