Puzzle Madness

Chapter 137 Sincere Communication (Part 2)

DouDou held the Magic Swan II packaging box in her arms, seemingly wanting to shake it symbolically a couple of times—but then put it down again:
"Old Li, would you really be so dishonest? After all, you learned your lesson last time; surely you haven't learned anything yet."

"Hey, that's quite possible: you seem like a really good newbie. Maybe you want to replace the other side too, but don't want to pay for it yourself; maybe you want to file for workers' compensation—"

"You deliberately used this little trick to make me break your hand again, after all, you just said you were very tight on the budget!"

As she was talking, DouDou suddenly took a step back, a grin on her face:

"Haha, no, no; I was just kidding. Thank you for the handheld console! You're so smart, knowing I wanted to buy this new Magic Swan but didn't want to spend the money."

"Even if they secretly installed a GPS on me, it wouldn't matter -- I was just thinking this afternoon: maybe we really should give everyone some space to release the character's arc? Can I use the word 'release'?"

In the afternoon, DouDou didn't just browse through those novels and comics—he also specifically looked up the meaning of Sidney's strange remarks.

"Anyway, if you want to get to know me this way, I can also get to know you at the same time. That's fine!"

Gaaaaah—cough!
Dou Dou suddenly stepped forward, passing by Richard—he stirred up a gust of wind, the air currents wiping the water droplets from Richard's trench coat, splashing them onto the ground. He closed the planetarium's iron gates, shutting out the security guards who had finally fallen silent into the wind and rain:

"OK, OK, let's catch up; time flies, summer vacation is over in the blink of an eye."
-
The planetarium exhibition hall remained dim, only now illuminated by the light from car headlights and filtering in through the skylights. The corpses, with their mouths protruding, remained prone, kissing the cold ground.

Shila-
DouDou unzipped his backpack, opened it, and pulled out the disc of "Human Secrets #9734":
"Ha, look! I've got something that will make it easier for us to communicate—ah, I didn't kill any of your colleagues; don't worry."

He lightly tapped the plastic casing of the videotape with his fingertip:

"Let me tell you! Your colleagues found a really prank videotape: if you watch it, a mouth will grow out of the back of your head."

"And then! If you feed brain tissue into that mouth, you can gain that person's memories—pretty amazing, right?"

DouDou carefully turned the videotape over and showed it to Richard.

"This is the plate. Oh, I've already seen it."

He turned his head, smoothed his hair, and revealed the diamond-shaped opening of his occipital bone covering his teeth to Richard.

DouDou hasn't looked in the mirror yet, but the image must be terrifying; her fingertips are still wet to the touch.

When he turned back around—Li Chuck's face seemed even paler as the lightning flashed across the night sky; his Adam's apple bobbed, as if he had swallowed the entire thunderclap.

Noticing the other person's unusual behavior, DouDou waved her hands repeatedly:
"No rush, no rush; I didn't ask you to see it now—let's continue chatting first; then we'll see if we should exchange memories? I still don't know if this function is real or fake."

"I tried it with the brain tissue from your colleagues' corpses earlier, but it didn't seem to have any real effect, which was a bit disappointing. But since you're here, Lao Li, you can help me test it out."

"It's not that you're going to lie to me, but anyone can make a mistake, right? Can you help me figure it out and fill in the gaps?"

"Mong Cai—Mong Cai has been acting strangely lately. Since you've come back here, you must know something about it?"
-
"and many more!"

Richard's voice was so loud that it could echo throughout the planetarium even amidst the torrential rain:
“My conversation with you last time wasn’t honest enough, so I hope to make up for that mistake this time. DouDou, does your school have moral education classes? Or is it called Ideological and Moral Education now?”

“I also took that in middle school: I remember one lesson in the textbook that left a particularly deep impression on me, called--[Dare to say no to your friends].”

“I didn’t dare tell you before, but I’ve learned my lesson this time.” Every time he was in front of DouDou, he looked exhausted and half-dead.

But this time, Richard's fatigue seemed to have reached a new peak:
"To be honest, I can't bear to watch."

"You've noticed it too, haven't you? My other colleagues died after watching it—which shows that the danger of this kind of videotape is probably very high, and I can't bear the side effects."

He raised the prosthetic hand, which was indistinguishable from a real one, and placed it beside his face:

“DouDou, I’m just a mortal; not as special as you. I really don’t want to do this experiment with you, it’s too terrifying. You can be unharmed, but for me, it might be torture.”

"Of course, if you insist on involving me, I have no choice but to accept; because I don't want to die even more. You can't expect me to beg you to spare my life, can you? That would be so awkward."

Snapped!
DouDou suddenly threw her schoolbag to her feet, bent down and opened it, pulling out her exercise book and pen:
"Hey! You really did put a lot of thought into how to socialize with me after you went back last time, didn't you?"

"Since you've already put it this way, it would be impolite of me to drag you to watch this videotape and do the experiment. Besides, it's really not good to damage our friendship."

"Okay then: Lao Li, why don't you share some information with me first? You must recognize this videotape, otherwise you wouldn't be so emotional."

He handed Richard a pen and paper, tapped them, and then made a gesture of writing or drawing.

Richard sighed—like his weariness, this was a habitual expression he made in front of DouDou.

He held the notebook with his prosthetic hand, while his other hand flew across the paper, the pen tapping rapidly; it was unclear whether this was to avoid the prosthetic hand recording and monitoring his movements.

Richard quickly finished writing, then turned the notebook over and showed it to DouDou:

I'm currently working for two organizations simultaneously.
[Eurasia Postal Service/Link Renaissance Movement (also known as the Internet Advocates, to which the doctor also belongs).]
[I received a promotion after my last performance review, but I'm still under surveillance.]
DouDou raised both palms to his face, then suddenly opened them wide. He mouthed the words, his expression exaggerated:
[Wow! Oh! A double agent?]
Snapped.

He clapped his hands together, and the intense facial muscle activity vanished instantly. DouDou raised a single index finger to his face, tapping it repeatedly at Richard with a mischievous expression.
"Old Li, let's talk about something else first: What kind of center is the Human Cataloging Center? Is it famous?"

DouDou had seen this name on that blood-stained report and had kept it in mind ever since—compared to straightforward names like Asia-Europe Post, it was really strange and difficult to pronounce.

He remembered it: this copy of "The Secrets of Mankind #9734" was stolen from this human cataloging center by the network propulsion agents.

Richard put his hands behind his back, leaned forward slightly, and glanced at the ringed corpse not far away; then he slowly spoke:
"Oh. The Human Cataloging Center is an international, non-profit organization; it receives sponsorship and support from many political entities and is quite large."

"It's just that unlike our company, which has a lot of business that is open to the public, it doesn't have a big reputation."

“I didn’t know much about this center before: but recently, just these past few days, our company had a conflict with them; it hasn’t reached the point of a full-blown war yet, it’s more of a regional friction.”

Li Chak picked up his pen and tapped the ground beneath his feet—clearly, this "regional" referred to Mong Cai City, where they were located.

He adjusted his glasses, his eyes behind the lenses still glancing at the chain of corpses that formed a circle:
"I have heard about what the Human Cataloging Center does."

Richard took two steps, his gaze falling on the teeth tangled in the hair on the back of his colleagues' corpses' heads:

"To put it simply, their main job is to collect and study various human [subspecies]."

(End of this chapter)