Puzzle Madness

Chapter 192 Levitation Technique (Part 10)
No one noticed what happened in the storage room. Thankfully, the school eventually cancelled the morning exercises.

They used cold water, towels, rhythmic pats on the forehead, and even slapped the face several times; they tried every method imaginable—
But this time is different from previous "launches":

Although they had created enough distance, neither the "lunar surface" nor the obese man showed any sign of waking up.

"Actually, that scene just now looked a bit like a ghost story! Did any of you feel the same way? Could it have been a magic show? A Ghost Festival event? Or something for Halloween?"

"DouDou, stop fooling around. The Ghost Festival is August 28th this year, the end of summer vacation; it's long over, and Halloween hasn't even arrived yet—you know it's definitely not a prank, what just happened was too outrageous."

"Oh, then this fat guy is probably delusional. Let's wake him up and ask him."

DouDou and AiXi chatted idly, their conversation revealing nothing of their bulging eyes.

For them, obsession was never a secret worth hiding; and Goldfish Eyes simply recorded Ai Xi and Dou Dou's conversation word for word, asking no questions whatsoever. As she wrote, her eyes glazed over, but her hand became increasingly steady, as if she had drifted off into a trance.

DouDou looked at the two sleeping people whose eyes were still tightly closed:
"Do you usually take this long to wake up from your dreams? I think there's something fishy going on here."

They tried to cover the obese man's upper body with canvas so that passersby wouldn't immediately recognize him as someone who wasn't a student—even so, half of his belly was still exposed and trembling.

There was also no intention to restrain the obese man with ropes: as long as DouDou was still there, even if the obese man woke up, he would not be able to harm anyone.

A few students had already returned to the teaching building, while the teachers were maintaining order in the classrooms; the playground was deserted.

So the group left the iron door of the storage room wide open to let out the sour smell of the fat man's body.
-
Goldfish Eyes's recording finally came to an end. She was panting heavily, as if recording was a physically demanding task:
"All done, everything's written. Now what's next?"

The entire campus became quiet, with only the faint sound of traffic coming from outside the road.

DouDou had already turned around and was rummaging through the metal shelf in the corner, trying to find something fun to pass the time:

"Wait until they wake up! Next period is English class, and I forgot to memorize the vocabulary—"

when!
The iron gate suddenly exploded with a loud bang, drowning out Dou Dou's unfinished words, and then began to sway back and forth due to the impact.

Whoosh! Whizzing!

One after another, the tearing sound of airflow followed, continuous and incessant. Something swept through the air, entered the storage room, and then chiseled into the walls with a muffled "thump-thump" sound.
".gun?!"

Ai Xi turned to the side, hiding herself between the iron gate and the wall; she pressed one hand against Goldfish Eyes' chest and pressed her back against the wall as well.

DouDou stood up casually and walked to the door:

"Huh—is that a gun? It feels a little different."

He had seen plenty of close-range fire from fully automatic weapons; the commotion was not limited to just this.

But just as he raised his hand to try and catch an oncoming bullet, the shooting stopped abruptly, leaving only the iron gate swaying precariously.

DouDou craned his neck and scanned the area, but didn't see the gun barrel he expected. It came and went quickly, as if it had just been a naughty child playing with a slingshot.

The shooting was brief, but—
"Fuck you, fuck your mother! That fat guy! The fat guy's gone!"

Goldfish Eyes let out a shriek, and the notebook in her arms fell to the ground with a "thud." DouDou and AiXi turned their heads:

The canvas lay flat on the ground, with only a few wrinkles, lacking the undulations that the obese man had created; it looked as if the obese man had been eaten away.

The obese man vanished, leaving only the lingering sour smell in the air. It was as if he had never been in this cramped storage room, which served as a makeshift base for campus clubs.
-
"It fires in bursts, but the sound of firing is very quiet. The initial velocity doesn't seem very high? It feels a bit like a BB gun."

The weapon used to fire it was probably an air gun, or even some kind of rudimentary projectile—in fact, it was because the projectile speed was so slow that DouDou didn't notice it at first.

DouDou stepped out of the iron gate, covered his eyes with his palms to block the sunlight, his movement resembling that of Sun Wukong:

"Shot horizontally or by hurling."

This judgment can be made without ballistic analysis because the environmental limitations are obvious. The storage room is located in a corner of the elevated floor, with almost the entire teaching building serving as a shield; it is a blind spot for any firing position at a higher elevation.

[Unless the bullets can curve. That's difficult, isn't it? I've never seen such a powerful gun when I played Quake and Doom.]

Due to the narrow and elongated entrance to the storeroom, the firing window was also tiny. And directly opposite the storeroom:
There are walls with iron railings and pointed tops to prevent people from climbing over; but there are also many gaps in the middle, directly next to the road.

When DouDou came downstairs during recess, she saw many vendors standing outside. They were carrying styrofoam boxes filled with sausages, sesame cakes, and fried skewers, ready to sell snacks to students who came to do their morning exercises.

Now, the area outside the iron railings is empty: only the flow of cars passing by. The morning exercises have been canceled, there's no business, and the vendors have all gone home.

[They moved so fast! They've disappeared completely; there's no one on the other side of the railing.]

Even if he jumped directly out of Mong Cai No. 5 Middle School, he probably wouldn't be able to find the shooter; aside from night vision, he doesn't have super eyesight or super hearing.

Not to mention that DouDou rarely blatantly violates school rules and regulations at school—it's only recess now, so he won't skip class and run around outside the school.
[Vanishing into thin air, turning into a living person! How is that possible?]

He turned around and stepped back into the storage room. Ai Xi, however, didn't even go outside to look; instead, she kept her eyes fixed on the ground.

"Look here."

In front of her was a small, bloody, mangled ball, limp and stuck to the ground.
It is a finger.

To be precise, it was the first joint of the thumb. The nail was covered in blood and grime, and the skin drooped due to laxity; there was a faint smell of rust in the air. It was unknown whose finger it was, or why it had been cut off and used as a projectile.

DouDou feigned surprise, her mind racing with strange and wonderful ideas:

"Oh my god, this is so bloody! Wait! Fatty's gone, was it because he got hit by this?"

Given the current situation, this seems to be the simplest and most direct possibility; after all, a bizarre situation should have a bizarre reason.

There were some translucent fragments around the knuckles, the material of which was indistinguishable at first glance; these were probably the bullets that were originally used to wrap the knuckles.

DouDou squatted down, turning her head left and right to examine it, but didn't reach out to touch the dirty thing:
"I guess it was this [bullet] that made Fatty disappear."

(End of this chapter)