Puzzle Madness

Chapter 134 Eat

[What did that auntie say before? We live in a world of [hearts] -- speaking of which, the heart seems to be a rather vague concept :]

To be more specific, we really need some kind of symbolism.

What is the connection between that and the dead people before us?
"Well—let me think about it, maybe it's like this?"

DouDou imitated Dr. Sloppy from "Dr. Sloppy's Modern Detective Stories," pursing her lips tightly.

Perhaps because the opening on the back of my head facilitates heat dissipation, all sorts of random inspirations keep flowing out of my thoughts.

DouDou recalled the bearded man with the report tucked into his arms earlier—the report was stained with blood, but the others had no external injuries:
"First of all, all eleven of them must have watched that videotape; you can tell at a glance, they all have mouths on the back of their heads."

"Then—this bearded man must have been killed! Because he was the only one with blood on him; and he was in charge of writing reports, which is a high rank; he was probably a captain or something."

"Oh! Could it be that someone else wanted to eat Big Beard's memories, so they killed him—after all, he was a high-ranking person and might know a lot of secrets; or he had a lot of savings and everyone wanted to share his money."

"That doesn't make sense. There are so many people; there's not enough benefit to go around. If someone were really high-ranking, they wouldn't have come all the way to our city."

"Hey, could it be that this bearded man was disliked by his subordinates all along, and as a result, when something like this happened, he was killed on the spot on some pretext?"

"Then the rest of the people will have to eat his memories as a pledge of allegiance—wow, how did I get so far off track!"

"Oh dear, neither of these possibilities is high! With more than a dozen people, how can we easily reach a consensus? Even a simple class meeting to discuss how to best use the class funds usually results in a long argument."

DouDou turned the [bearded man]'s head over to examine his weathered, white-bearded face; then turned it back over.

A quick inspection revealed that only this bearded man had the least amount of "tofu" oozing from the back of his head, and there were still quite a few finger marks left from digging.

"Well, no matter what, I feel like this bearded guy will be the first to die."

"Or perhaps these people discovered they had grown beaks, so they conducted experiments; they tried sharing their memories with each other. You feed me, I feed you; everyone exchanged little secrets and strengthened their bonds."

"Then, after eating, they regained their memories. They discovered that everyone was actually talking badly about each other internally, so they started fighting amongst themselves; the bearded man was killed. Then the others died too—hmm?"

DouDou scratched his nose and raised his eyebrows.

Still not right!

Apart from the bearded Middle Eastern man, no one else appeared to have any external injuries—there was no sign of gunfire or fighting around the telescope.

Everyone's mouths were clean, and there were no bite marks on their lips; their skin was only pale, without cyanosis or cherry red, and there were no subcutaneous bruises: it did not look like the death caused by drug poisoning.

"What did they say in biology class? Oh! The skin turns white within four hours of death because the blood sinks."

If someone is poisoned, they will struggle, vomit, and even convulse involuntarily when in shock; but these people are all too calm:

There were few traces of external force in the death.
DouDou's mind began to turn in another direction:
"That means it wasn't caused by external forces, but rather a problem within their own bodies? That makes more sense."

If it wasn't caused by external forces—then the cause of death might have been internal.

"If it's an internal factor, could it be emotions? Psychological factors? Or --?"

"Oh dear, there's one thing left!"

[Memory]: Shared memories. Only this shrouded mystery could lead to such a death ritual, so akin to a pagan sacrifice.
So, what kind of memories would cause these people to die so strangely?
Could it be that there's some other terrifying curse or side effect of the mutation in this "Human Secrets #9724" disc? It just hasn't manifested in DouDou yet.

"Is that so? That's certainly the most likely possibility; however, I think it might be a bit more bizarre?"

"They're all lying there like stone statues from Indiana Jones; there's definitely something strange about them—"

DouDou is still perfectly fine and has no discomfort whatsoever; however, he considers himself to be super healthy with strong immunity and resistance to all sorts of things.

Not everyone has the strong physique that DouDou has cultivated through a healthy lifestyle; it's normal that she can't resist the side effects.

But a gut feeling—or perhaps a keen sense of humor and drama—made him realize that there might be other explanations for this.

"Could someone have a mental virus in their brain?"

After watching a videotape that could drastically alter the human body in just ten minutes, DouDou felt that things like mental viruses were quite likely to exist.

"That's not right either; if there's a virus, why didn't they die at first, but only died when the memories started to be shared? Is it that powerful?"

If among these Asia-Europe postal employees—
One of them had dangerous, potentially fatal memories in his mind; so why was "this person" still alive while watching the videotape?

You can't let the dead watch videos, can you?
【dead?】

Suddenly, a possibility came to mind:
"Oh right! What happens to the memories of eating the dead?"

He glanced around at the almost silent surroundings, broken only by the rain falling outside the window. The damp, earthy smell brought by the downpour mingled with the gradually emerging decay inside, and the dried but lingering stench of blood:
"Maybe... well, just maybe—wait, if I absorbed the brain of the dead, would I be able to see memories that only the [dead] could see?"

"For example, [the afterlife] or something like that?"

"Wow! Could it be that they committed mass suicide after finding out about some [afterlife]?"
-
This is even more illogical—
After a human dies, naturally nothing will be synchronized into the neural network.
Not to mention the definition of brain death, which is the permanent loss of function of the entire brain, including the brainstem—which naturally includes the function of memory.

Even if humans do possess something like a soul, it should be completely separate from and independent of the body; otherwise, everyone would have already figured out the truth about life and death.

DouDou had only ever read those kinds of tabloid news stories before—someone whose heart stopped beating and then saw another world after death: but heart stopping is completely different from brain death, and it all seems like a hallucination during shock.

But just as the idea that inserting brain tissue into a hole in the back of the head would grant memory is equally bizarre; it's less science and more like a hallucination caused by a high fever.

"A product of fantasy." DouDou clapped her hands and concluded; "This kind of thing is a product of fantasy! Just like that aunt's [maternal love] from the week before last, it's the kind of weird thing that comes to mind if you don't study biology or physics properly—"

[Fanatics may be counterintuitive, but they are not [anti-science].]

Science is capable of understanding and responding to things spiraling out of control, so its continuous revision and supplementation are inevitable. Our world is not simply what it appears to be now.

DouDou suddenly remembered: when she was arguing with the section chief of Asia-Europe Post on Shouzhu 151, she seemed to have said something like that.

"Well"

DouDou shrugged: Then he rubbed his hands together vigorously and began to comb his wet, messy hair, exposing the back of his head.

To verify whether your guess is correct, there is actually only one simple and quick way:
Let's try it.

(End of this chapter)