Death's Kaleidoscope [Illusion]

When the wind chime behind the door swayed at the third stroke of midnight, Lin Qiushi knew another grand illusion was about to begin. There were shadow puppet shows that never reached their final act, where Yu Ji always looked back just before taking her own life; rouge-red dye that never ran out, and deep in the alleys of the dye house, red silk billowed like a sunset that would never fade; and twelve doors, each hiding an obsession steeped in time, beautiful as sugar soaked in water, sweet enough to turn bitter. Ruan Nanzhu stood in the shadow of the first door and held out his hand. Half a melted candy rested in his palm. “Coming in? Once you wake from the dreams here, you’re dead.” Their task was to find the password hidden in the candy wrapper before the dream shattered, and to hold tight to the hand of the person beside them, so neither of them became someone else’s obsession in the illusion.