Puzzle Madness

Chapter 159 Rain Rust (2)

DouDou happened to bump into AiXi at the door of her house.

He was clutching the [Yacht Boy 400] that he had dug out of his own brain, and Ai Xi was also wearing a transparent raincoat and carrying a cardboard bag that was dripping water.

Ai Xi's house is located in the middle of a narrow alley. It is an old wooden house built many years ago. The wooden planks on the exterior walls have long been blackened by rainwater. A low gray brick wall, about waist-high, has been added to the outside to keep out moisture and water.

The paint splashed on the wooden wall seeped into the fiber structure, leaving only a dark, murky blob—while the gray brick wall had long lost its "gray" color, covered by layer upon layer of paint; from the side, it appeared as a thick, raised layer.

The original wooden window frames had long since rotted away and were replaced with simple iron bars, which looked completely out of place with the wooden house. The roof tiles on the second floor were damaged, so they were patched with sheet metal and plastic sheeting and weighed down with bricks; layer upon layer of patches were applied, and it was anyone's guess when they would collapse.

To the left is a closed motorcycle repair shop with its roller shutter door covered in spray paint graffiti, while to the right is the back door of the swimming pool at Mong Cai No. 8 Middle School, which exudes dampness; the wooden house is sandwiched between the two, crooked and stuck, like a pimple that can't be removed.

Unlike DouDou's apartment, her home was the only place in the area without Spring Festival couplets; even the auto repair shop that had closed two months earlier still had its tattered Spring Festival couplets still on its door.

Both of them were startled, staring at each other in disbelief; it was Ai Xi who spoke first. She stood on tiptoe and stuffed the water-soaked cardboard bag through the iron window lattice:

"Hey? DouDou, I knew you looked a bit like me from a distance. I heard some strange noises up ahead, were they made by you?"

She didn't wait for an answer. As she spoke, Ai Xi jumped up, clinging to the windowsill, and squeezed her thin body through the iron bars, climbing into the house through the window:

"Come on in! It's probably going to rain for several days, and it's too humid outside."

Ai Xi never used her door, and naturally, neither did Dou Dou. He scratched his head, his mind preoccupied with something else:

[As expected, that distress signal wasn't sent by Ai Xi. Terrifying, terrifying.]

Now, DouDou can finally be completely certain: if it were her, she would definitely confirm this signal with DouDou immediately.

However, DouDou hesitated: Should she tell AiXi about this?

What if Ai Xi thinks that the distress signal might be misused, and then stops sending signals next time she encounters danger? Wouldn't that be even more troublesome? She's a good person in every way, but she worries too much.

DouDou shook the water off her raincoat, grabbed the iron window frame with one hand, and pulled herself into the room. Five finger marks remained on the iron window frame; they were from DouDou pinching her so many times.
-
The smell in Ai Xi's house is gone. For a while, half of the house was filled with torn cardboard, garbage bags, and empty wine bottles; when I first came here, I often smelled the sour smell of rotting food.

Although it was still cramped and low, there were blurry, blackened stains on the cement floor; it was unclear what they were, but they had seeped into the interior and could not be washed away.

Like DouDou, AiXi now lives alone.

It wasn't exactly destitute, but the furniture was very simple. The only appliances were a low refrigerator in the corner and a broken ceiling fan overhead—the light bulb hanging from the fan was working, though; Ai Xi pulled it to turn on the dim light.

DouDou took off his schoolbag and sat down directly on the cold cement floor. Usually, he would take AiXi's stool to sit on, while AiXi would sit on the edge of the bed; but today he was still soaking wet, so he didn't want to get her chair dirty.

He casually picked up the radio and shook it:

"Look, this is what I pulled out of my head. It's a German brand radio, I think it's called Speedboat Boy or something? My model airplane teacher mentioned it."

Ai Xi hung her raincoat on the nails next to the iron window bars; once the four nails were in place, the raincoat unfolded and straightened, becoming a simple curtain that blocked most of the water droplets that the wind would bring into the house. Hearing Dou Dou's words, she suddenly paused, turning her head:

"Huh? Did something strange happen? Why are you pulling things out of your head? That auditory hallucination keeps repeating '[It's time for class]' and you came to find me again; I knew it was you. How so, can this radio send out your thoughts?"

DouDou yawned again: she always felt sleepy whenever she came to AiXi's house. Although it was a simple and rough place, it had a more relaxing atmosphere than DouDou's own home in some ways.

The wind was still howling outside, banging against the tin roof. If the typhoon got any stronger, it felt like the whole wooden house would be blown away by the roots.

DouDou rubbed her face and gestured with her hands, recounting a series of events from the observatory and Changshan Beach to AiXi; however, it would be better to omit the part about receiving a distress signal from the pager for now.
"So, this Human Cataloging Center was disguised as me to trick you? Otherwise, why would you suddenly jump so far from the observatory to Changshan Beach?"

Unexpectedly, Ai Xi spoke first after only listening to half of the story:

"You remember last time you got into a fight with Asia-Europe Post, and it took you several days to tell me? This time you came to see me right away tonight. You must have been checking to make sure I'm okay, right?"

She clenched her chin and paced back and forth:

"It probably wasn't a letter or a note. Did they call you impersonating my voice? Or was it a pager?"

DouDou shrugged, took the pager off the strap of her backpack, and handed it to AiXi. Since AiXi had already figured it out, there was no need to hide it—she should have come up with a better excuse earlier.
"Yes, yes. It was a pager. I received a distress signal and thought it was you—take a look? But I don't know if it was a hallucination or how it was sent by someone else; people are so cunning these days."

Ai Xi took the pager and pressed the buttons for a while; then she shook her head and handed the pager back to Dou Dou.

"You can't tell from the reception, but if you can remotely control this kind of electronic device, it wouldn't be surprising if you could delete all the records."

After thinking for a moment, DouDou put the pager in the breast pocket of her raincoat this time:
"If you encounter anything strange, you should still send a signal."

Ai Xi pulled the relay-like transmitter out of her pants pocket, twirled it in her hand, and waved it in her pocket.

She smiled, the burn scars on her face creased and wrinkled:

"Don't worry, that's for sure. I know no one can stump you."

The two men held the Yacht Boy 400 in their hands and fiddled with it for a long time, but they still couldn't figure it out: especially when comparing the fingerprint dents on the shell - not only were there many of them, but the length and width of the fingers were also beyond that of ordinary people, and it would take at least two fingers stacked together to fill one dent.

DouDou pressed her finger against it to compare, and used her fingernail to pick at the rust on the radio:

"What were you doing running out in the typhoon? I thought I was the only one wandering around outside."

Ai Xi dragged the stool over and opened the cardboard bag with transparent tape on it:
"Didn't you go to the provincial library this afternoon? You might not know, but it seems there have been quite a few murders lately—remember? Didn't I show you photos this morning? There were several bodies of Asia-Europe Post employees in the school's teachers' dormitory?"

She took the gleaming, sharp objects out of the cardboard bag one by one. They were all knives, of various sizes, and she laid them out neatly on the floor.
"Actually, there have been quite a few strange murders in Mong Cai these past few days, but they haven't made it into the newspapers or the news."

(End of this chapter)