Revolving lantern, back to zero

The emergency room at the city's First People's Hospital never sleeps.

When Lin Shen pushed open the glass door, the fluorescent lights in the corridor bathed everything in a stark white light. The smell of disinfectant mixed with the stench of blood wafted from the direction of the emergency room. Several nurses pushed stretchers past him, the wheels screeching on the floor. He stepped aside, his gaze sweeping over the beds on both sides of the corridor—behind every curtain lay a person, some groaning, some silent, some unsettlingly quiet.

Xiao Chen stood at the end of the corridor, clutching his phone, his face paler than the corridor walls. He saw Lin Shen, hurried over, and his lips trembled before he could speak.

"Captain, over here."

He led Lin Shen through a fire door and into the emergency room's observation area. There were fewer beds here, and it was quieter, but the smell in the air was stronger—not disinfectant, but blood.

Old Zhou was lying on the innermost bed.

Lin Shen paused for a moment when he saw him.

He had seen many wounded people, many people on the verge of death. But Old Zhou's appearance still made his heart clench—not because of the severity of his wounds, but because of his face. Just a few hours ago, Old Zhou had stood under the moonlight in the industrial area, leaning on his long-handled black umbrella, his voice hoarse but steady as he told him, "You're not the first." Now this man lay here, his face ashen, his lips devoid of color, a thick bandage wrapped around his left chest, soaked with blood, a deep red, still seeping out.

Old Zhou's eyes were closed, and his chest rose and fell very slowly, so slowly that Lin Shen needed to stare at him for three seconds to confirm that he was still breathing.

"What injury?" Lin Shen asked in a low voice.

"A knife wound." Xiao Chen stood behind him. "Left chest, pierced through the intercostal space, almost to the heart. The doctor said if it had gone in two centimeters deeper, he would have died."

"Who did it?"

Xiao Chen shook his head: "I don't know. Lao Zhou was found in his own home. The neighbors heard the sound of breaking glass and called the police. When we arrived, he was already lying on the living room floor, covered in blood. There were no signs of forced entry, and the window was smashed from the inside—he probably tried to escape by climbing out the window, but he didn't have time."

Lin Shen walked to the bedside and looked down at Old Zhou. Besides being pale, there was something else on the old man's face—a deep weariness, not physical weariness, but the weariness of having seen too much, knowing too much, yet being powerless to do anything.

"He said he wanted to see me," Lin Shen said.

"He said," Xiao Chen hesitated for a moment, "that the third key belongs to Su Wan. He also told you to be careful of Su Wan."

Lin Shen didn't respond. He stared at Lao Zhou's face, his mind racing. Su Wan. It was Su Wan again. The unknown number said the third key was himself, Lao Zhou said the third key was Su Wan. Su Wan herself said the third key was Lin Shen. Lu Ming said the third key was Lin Shen. Chen Yuan didn't mention the third key.

Four voices, two answers.

Who is lying? Or does nobody know the truth?

Old Zhou's finger twitched.

Lin Shen looked down and saw Old Zhou's right hand sticking out from under the blanket, his fingers slightly bent as if he were grabbing something. His eyes were still closed, but his lips were moving, making very soft sounds, like the wind blowing through dry leaves.

Lin Shen leaned closer to listen.

"317...it's not a cabinet...it's a door..."

Old Zhou's voice was broken and intermittent, each word sounding as if he had used up all his strength.

"317...it's a door...open the door...and you'll see...him..."

"Who did you see?" Lin Shen asked.

Old Zhou suddenly opened his eyes.

Those eyes were cloudy, bloodshot, and full of veins, but at this moment they shone with an astonishing brightness—not a normal brightness, but the kind of last, final, burning brightness that seemed to consume all life. He suddenly grabbed Lin Shen's wrist with a strength that didn't seem like that of someone who was seriously injured.

"See yourself!" Old Zhou's voice suddenly became clear, so clear it didn't sound like someone on the verge of death. "Cabinet 317 isn't a cabinet for files, it's a door! Every key opens a door! After opening cabinet 317, it's not the archives room, it's—"

He stopped talking.

It wasn't because he stopped, but because his body suddenly stiffened. The fingers gripping Lin Shen's wrist tightened abruptly, then released. Those astonishingly bright eyes dimmed in an instant, as if someone had turned off the lights inside.

The electrocardiogram monitor emitted a long, flat beep.

The sound of nurses running in the corridor could be heard.

Lin Shen stood there, the pressure from Old Zhou's fingers still lingering on his wrist. That pressure was still there, burning his skin like a branding iron.

Old Zhou is dead.

He didn't get to finish his last sentence.

---

In the corridor, Lin Shen sat on a plastic chair, head down, looking at the blood on his hands—Old Zhou's blood. He hadn't wiped it off, not because he'd forgotten, but because he didn't want to.

Xiao Chen sat next to him, holding an evidence bag containing a key. It was bronze-colored with a layer of dark green rust on the surface, and the label read "317".

"We found it at Lao Zhou's house," Xiao Chen said. "It was in a metal box, hidden in a compartment in the wardrobe. If someone hadn't searched Lao Zhou's house, we probably wouldn't have looked for that compartment."

"Has someone climbed over there?" Lin Shen looked up.

"The living room was ransacked; all the drawers were pulled out, and all the cabinet doors were open. But that person didn't find this metal box." Xiao Chen handed the evidence bag to Lin Shen. "Captain, wasn't cabinet 317 already opened? How come there's still a key to 317?"

Lin Shen took the evidence bag and looked at the keys inside. They were exactly the same as the two in his pocket—one he had gotten from Su Wan, and the other he had found in the pocket of another of his own corpses. This was the third one.

Three keys, all with identical 317 labels.

But Lao Zhou said 317 wasn't a cabinet, it was a door.

If 317 represents a door, then these three keys don't open the same cabinet, but rather three different doors. Each key corresponds to a door, and behind each door lies an answer.

What else did Lao Zhou say? He said, "Open the door and you'll see yourself." Not "see another version of yourself," but "see yourself."

Lin Shen stood up and put the evidence bag into his pocket.

"Chen Xu, go back to the station and review all the files in the Black Rose case again. This time, don't just look at the content, look at the files themselves—the paper, the handwriting, the numbering, the filing date. Make a note of anything that's not right, even if it's just a tiny ink spot."

Xiao Chen nodded, stood up, took two steps, and then stopped.

"Captain." He didn't turn around. "Old Zhou told you to be careful of Sister Su Wan. You...do you think Sister Su Wan is problematic?"

Lin Shen remained silent for a few seconds.

"I don't know," he said, "but I'll be careful."

Xiao Chen is gone.

Lin Shen sat on a plastic chair in the corridor, took three keys out of his pocket, and held them out in his palm. Three bronze keys, three labels with the number 317, three lines of handwritten numbers. He placed them side by side and compared them carefully.

The handwriting on the labels is exactly the same. Not just "similar," but "exactly the same"—the same font, the same font size, the same pressure, even the unnatural pause at the end of the number "7" is completely identical.

These three lines were written by the same person.

It doesn't mean "written by the same person" because the handwriting is similar, but rather that these three labels were written with the same pen, by the same person, and at the same time.

Lin Shen put the keys away, stood up, and walked into the doctor's office in the emergency room.

The on-duty doctor was writing a death report when he saw Lin Shen enter and took off his glasses.

"Team Leader Lin, I'm very sorry about what happened to Lao Zhou."

"Could you describe his wound again?"

The doctor opened the cover and pointed to a diagram of human anatomy: "Left chest, fourth intercostal space, the knife tip pierced from the upper left, penetrating the intercostal muscle, grazing the pericardium, and stopping in front of the left ventricular wall. The murder weapon should be a single-edged knife, with a blade width of about two centimeters and a blade length of at least fifteen centimeters."

"The direction of the wound?"

"From the top left to the bottom right, at an angle of approximately thirty degrees."

Lin Shen closed his eyes, trying to visualize the scene. A left-handed person approaching from behind, a knife stabbing from the upper left to the lower right. Or, a right-handed person holding a knife, face to face, the knife stabbing from the upper right—but Lao Zhou was attacked in his own home, so if it were face to face, he should have been able to see the assailant's face.

"Are the wounds all the same depth?" Lin Shen asked.

The doctor paused for a moment, then asked, "What do you mean?"

"After the knife was inserted, did it twist? Was there any secondary force applied?"

The doctor reviewed the records and shook his head: "No. One stab, straight out. The wound is very clean."

A single, fatal blow. But not intended to kill—if intended, the blade wouldn't have "grazed the pericardium and stopped in front of the left ventricular wall," but would have pierced the heart directly. The purpose of this blow wasn't to kill Old Zhou, but to leave him near death.

Let him teeter on the brink of death.

Let him enter the revolving lantern.

Lin Shen opened his eyes. He suddenly realized something—Old Zhou wasn't a "loser in the revolving lantern." Lu Ming said he wasn't an ability user, but rather someone whose memories had been implanted. But if Old Zhou had entered the revolving lantern while on the verge of death, even for just a moment, he could have "seen" something. The killer didn't want Old Zhou's life, but rather the images Old Zhou saw in the revolving lantern.

The murderer wanted to know what Lao Zhou knew.

When Lao Zhou was on the verge of death, he saw the truth about cabinet 317—317 was not a cabinet, but a door.

Then he told Lin Shen.

Then he died.

Lin Shen walked out of the doctor's office, through the emergency room corridor, and pushed open the hospital door.

The night wind blew in, cool and carrying the scent of autumn. He stood on the steps, looking at the sparse cars in the parking lot, and a few more pieces of the puzzle in his mind appeared, but the shapes became even more chaotic.

My phone vibrated.

Unknown number:

"Old Zhou is dead. Not an accident, not to silence him, but a warning. The person who killed him didn't want him to shut up, but to let you see him die. Now you've seen him. You've received your warning. Will you stop?"

"—Another You"

Lin Shen stared at the line of text, his fingers slowly tightening.

A warning. Old Zhou was killed to warn him. But what was the warning? That he should stop investigating? Stop searching for the truth about 317? Or—stop trusting Su Wan?

He typed four words:

"It won't stop."

send.

The message showed as delivered. There was no read receipt. He put his phone in his pocket and walked towards the parking lot.

He suddenly stopped when he opened the car door.

There was a rose on the passenger seat.

A black rose. The petals were a pure, unreflective black, exactly like the one he had seen at the warehouse entrance. A lifelike model of a small black snake was coiled around the stem.

But this time it wasn't just one flower.

There are three.

Three black roses were placed side by side on the passenger seat, their petals trembling slightly, as if they were breathing.

Lin Shen stood outside the car door, staring motionlessly at the three roses. A breeze swept through the parking lot, causing the rose petals to sway gently, and the scales of the snake model reflected a dark red luster under the flashlight beam.

He bent down and reached for the three roses.

The moment my finger touched the petal, the flower suddenly shattered.

It didn't shatter, it dissolved. The black petals, like drops of ink falling into water, dispersed in the air, turning into wisps of black smoke before vanishing. All three roses disappeared within three seconds, leaving no trace—no petals, no pollen, no scent.

Only the three small snake models fell onto the passenger seat, making a crisp metallic sound.

Lin Shen picked up one of them and looked at it in his palm.

It's not a model. It's a key.

A key, cast in the shape of a snake. The snake's body is coiled, its head raised, and the forked tongue is positioned as a key tooth.

He held the three snake-shaped keys in his palm, together with the three brass keys in his pocket. Six keys, three 317 tags, three snakes.

Old Zhou said 317 is a door. The three bronze keys are for opening the door. So what are these three snake-shaped keys for?

My phone vibrated again.

It wasn't an unknown number; it was Su Wan's number.

A voice message.

Lin Shen clicked on it.

Su Wan's voice came from the phone, very low and soft, as if she were in a small room, afraid of being overheard.

"Lin Shen, Lu Ming has appeared again. He said he'll be waiting for you at the warehouse at midnight tonight. He said he'll tell you what the third key is. But don't come. He doesn't just want to tell you about the key; he wants to drag you into his dream world. If you get into his dream world, you won't be able to get out."

End of audio.

Lin Shen glanced at the time on his phone screen.

9:41 PM.

There are two hours and nineteen minutes left until midnight.

He got into the driver's seat, put all six keys in his pocket, and started the engine. The car drove out of the parking lot and merged into the night traffic. The city lights flowed outside the car window, red, white, and yellow, like rivers of light.

He was thinking about a problem.

Su Wan told him not to go to the warehouse. Lu Ming told him to wait at the warehouse. Old Zhou warned him to be careful of Su Wan. An unknown number said Old Zhou's death was a warning.

Everyone was telling him different directions, everyone was telling him not to trust anyone else. But he had to choose a direction, he had to trust someone, even if only temporarily.

Whom does he choose to believe?

Lin Shen gripped the steering wheel, his mind flashing through everyone he'd encountered these past few days: Xiao Chen, Su Wan, Lao Zhou, Lu Ming, Chen Yuan, and the "other you" behind the unknown number. Everyone had secrets, everyone was hiding something, and everyone was pushing him in a certain direction in their own way.

But there was one person whose direction never changed.

Xiao Chen.

From the very first night, Xiao Chen followed him, never asking why or where he was going, just following. Xiao Chen saw another corpse of himself in the warehouse, pale-faced but not running away. Xiao Chen helped him check files, find Lao Zhou, and run to the hospital. Xiao Chen never pointed him in any direction, but simply followed behind him after he chose a direction.

Lin Shen picked up his phone and dialed Xiao Chen's number.

"team leader?"

"Chen Xu, do me a favor."

"you say."

"Go to cabinet 317. Not the 317 in the city bureau's archives, but another 317—the 'door' Old Zhou mentioned. I don't know where it is, but I know how to find it. Go to Su Wan's place; behind that network of relationships on her wall, there's a black door. There's a handprint-shaped indentation on the door. Press your hand on it."

There was a few seconds of silence on the other end of the phone.

"Captain, isn't that door only openable with Su Wan's palm print?"

"Give it a try," Lin Shen said. "If the door doesn't open after you press the button, wait until midnight. If the door opens at midnight, go in."

"And then what?"

Lin took a deep breath.

"Once you go inside, you'll see another version of me."

He hung up the phone and stepped on the gas. The car accelerated and headed towards the industrial zone in the north of the city.

He chose to go to the warehouse.

It wasn't because he trusted Lu Ming, nor because he didn't trust Su Wan. It was because the warehouse was where it all began. His first death was there, the corpse of another version of himself was there, and the first door of the revolving lantern was there.

If he wants to find the answer, he must go back to the beginning.

The phone screen lit up briefly.

Unknown number, last message:

"The warehouse awaits you. This time, you will see the whole truth. But the price of seeing the truth is—you can never come back."

"—Another You"

Lin Shen tossed his phone onto the passenger seat and gripped the steering wheel tightly with both hands.

Outside the car window, the city lights grew fewer and dimmer. The outline of the industrial zone emerged in the distance, like a sleeping behemoth, black, silent, and waiting.

He turned off the headlights and drove in the dark.

Midnight.

storehouse.

The last door.