Puzzle Madness

Chapter 144 The Noisy Pager (Part 2)

"Is it a sea monster? Or an Atlantean? Or maybe a giant squid has become a spirit. I'm thinking of finding a job in the city to check it out."

DouDou sighed in the rain, but her voice seemed to be completely swallowed up by the downpour; none of the guys in protective suits turned around, they were just engrossed in their investigation and research.

They were carrying a bunch of random tools, busy working on the giant's face. But each of them was only slightly taller than the giant's head; they looked more like sculptors working on a stone statue.

DouDou walked over quickly and casually, pressing her head against the person in the orange jumpsuit closest to her: that person was holding a camera and constantly fiddling with it; the flash went on and off, clicking away at the film.

To avoid having her words drowned out by the storm, DouDou made sure to shout them out:

"Hello! Who is this person? They're so big. They're probably a deep-sea creature, right?"

The man in the orange jumpsuit froze as if electrocuted. He turned his head slightly; then suddenly snapped his gaze back as if he had seen a ghost—and finally turned his head back slowly and cautiously, trembling.

Snapped!
[The person in the orange jumpsuit] staggered backward and fell over; then rolled and scrambled, tumbling several times; leaving wet buttock prints on the beach; the camera in their hand was also flung into the air with the violent movements.

The person's voice was muffled by the mask, and even more indistinct in the downpour:
"How...how did you get here?!"

DouDou was a little puzzled, but was startled by the other person's violent movements:
"You came over here? What's wrong? There's no wall or security guards around here; why are you so surprised?"

The other researchers finally noticed the uninvited guest—they all stopped and began to slowly move backward, leaving long trails on the beach.

DouDou noticed that the other person's protective suit also had a clean white circular mark on the chest, shining brightly; everyone present had one on their chest.

He had just seen brand-new flowerpots with the same symbol at the entrance of the pedestrian street:

"Oh—you put those flower pots there."

Why did DouDou squat down to pick up the camera that had fallen from the hands of the woman in the orange jumpsuit and brush off the sand and grit?

Wow! This Polaroid camera is pretty good quality—oh, it's not an instant camera. Where did you buy it?

"What are you doing here? Are you researchers? Oh, have you seen my classmate—this tall girl, her hair is about this long?"

The other guys in orange jumpsuits also slowly moved backward, showing no intention of answering DouDou's question.

One of them grabbed a black thing around his neck—DouDou could see it now, it was either a throat microphone or a radio—and started to speak haltingly:
"Someone! Someone has broken through the [flower bushes] and barged right in!"

"Flower patch"? Those potted plants don't look like flowers at all. You can't just plant them in pots and call them flowers.

As the "researcher" spoke, he reached behind his waist and pulled out a strange-looking pistol; with trembling hands, he aimed it at his pocket and pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Whoosh!
DouDou raised her hand and casually caught the incoming bullet between her index and middle fingers.
It must be said that compared to the bullets he encountered a few days ago, these were much slower and longer.

It was a long, narrow tube, like a dart, with a tail; entirely black, it was barely noticeable in the rain.

"A tranquilizer gun? That's cool."

DouDou held it in her hand and examined it closely. She had seen this kind of bullet in "Animal World," where it was embedded in the skin of various large predators. However, in the TV shows, it was always fired with a rifle. She never expected there to be such a portable and miniature version.

Why is everyone so irritable these days? They all seem to want to grab me like an elephant; is it because of the hot weather?

boom!Boom!

More researchers drew firearms from their waists or ribs—but now they were firing standard handgun ammunition—and kept firing into their pockets.

*Bang!* A bullet pierced the Polaroid camera clutched in the pocket, scattering lens fragments everywhere; it was destroyed on the spot.

"Oh dear! What a pity—oh well, at least it wasn't me who bought it."

DouDou was still shaken and carelessly tossed her camera onto the beach; she felt a strange pang of regret, as if she had accidentally lost her wallet.

He flipped the dart over, supporting it with the pad of his thumb. He gently bent his middle finger and flicked it away forcefully. (DouDou softly added a voiceover.)
"call out."

Hiss!
But the darts are like saw blades on a logging machine, making a piercing and annoying noise as they fly.

There was none of the "fight fire with fire" effect that DouDou had imagined—the dart swirled horizontally, creating a gust of air that shattered the raindrops; it tore through the rain curtain in an instant.

It passed right through the "researcher's" forearm, tearing a large hole in his sleeve; then, along with fragments of orange fabric, it fell into the sea.

Half an arm also flew up, sparkling as it bounced into the air and landed in the giant's collar.

Even with the light from these engineering lights, the sprayed blood still looked pitch black; like oil seeping into the night and then being dissolved by rain and waves.

No one drew their weapons or fired; everyone scattered and fled, their shadows stretched long by the spotlights. Some even tripped over themselves, slipping and getting caught in the giant's hair, their strands tangled like steel cables.

Screams filled the night of torrential rain, but due to the obstruction of the masks and the pounding of the rain, most of them were just a buzzing, trembling sound.

DouDou stopped attacking and stood there with her arms crossed; she seemed both annoyed and tired.

Part of the reason was that recently, whenever he fought, he mostly faced ordinary guns and bullets, which had caused him some aesthetic fatigue; but he also had some doubts about his recent decision:
Hmm, I didn't kill them outright this time either. So did they show any [character arc]? No, they didn't seem to have any signs of awakening their fanaticism. Oh!

Old Li has been with me for so long, and I haven't seen him develop any superpowers; Ah Ai Xi has been with me even longer! There's probably something more to it.

[Hey, wouldn't it have been better if I had pretended to be anesthetized? That might have led to more interaction. But no, I still need to find Ai Xi.]

No one could read DouDou's mind; even fewer could imagine what strange things he was thinking about at that moment.

While he stood there hesitating and lost in thought, everyone quickened their pace across the sand; some even jumped directly into the surging waves, only to be swept away and disappear in the blink of an eye.

Finally, someone ripped off their mask and roared in the downpour:
"Cataloger! Call the cataloger over here—"

A response came from the other end of the escape route; accompanied by heavy breathing:

"Subspecies! There are more subspecies! You buy me some time, I'm going to release the subspecies!"

Oh?! What a coincidence!

Upon hearing the word "cataloging," DouDou immediately perked up:

It's that one—the Human Cataloging Center! Old Li wasn't lying.

[What exactly does a "cataloger" do? Anyway, they're obsessed with them. Oh, and there's even a human subspecies--]

However, the word "subspecies" intrigued DouDou even more. He reached into his rain hat and scratched the wet edge of his mouth: the teeth seemed longer than before.

DouDou quickly covered her face with her hands, trying to drown out the sound of the rain with her shouts:
"I'm not from Asia-Europe Post, or that...that network promoter! Don't hold back, bring out your powerful weapons and arrest me!"

(End of this chapter)