ecstasy

Expectations and uneasiness faded from Doudou's face, replaced by a brand new emotion.

As if pulled by gravity, the delicate facial features were tightened by muscles and shrunk towards the center of the face; deep cuts appeared on the brows, and the teeth made a clattering sound as harsh as metal scraping.

The comfort, relaxation and euphoria of the evening were swept away; in their place was a molten stream of anger, burning in the darkness.

Doudou is angry:

This was not the answer he wanted to hear.

-

From the top floor of the electronics city came the faint rumble of thunder, the creaking of torn iron sheets, the splashing of water from the fountains, the sticky sound of large clumps of colloid falling to the ground; and the hoarse howls from the deepest depths of pain that can only be heard during feverish nightmares.

The security guards still playing cards outside the electronics mall drank up their briefcases of baijiu, looked up with grins on their faces, scratched their ears in confusion, and shuddered. They looked at each other and continued to immerse themselves in the shattering of cards.

No one mentioned the sound they had just heard.

The commotion is over: the top floor is completely different from what it was just now.

It was as if someone had turned on a faucet filled with blood and left it running for several hours: the sticky, dark blood covered the ground and flowed down the stairs; at first glance, it seemed as if dark red was the base color of the cement.

In the center of this scarlet sea, the fleshy giant's broken arm was straightened and torn off, extending from the opened abdomen, supporting the huge head that had been torn off.

It was motionless, and all life had long since left it; it had become some kind of bizarre and inferior giant statue - except that blood still kept flowing out of its body and spreading everywhere.

Doudou took two more steel bars piled in the corner and propped up the only remaining eyelid of the eye: the originally cloudy and huge white eyes had been completely disfigured, and the vitreous body had been smashed into pieces by Doudou, with juice overflowing, turning into a mass full of holes; but Doudou felt that this made it look a lot more imposing.

"hey-hey."

He touched his head and smiled shyly, thinking: If I had such a level when I was in the aircraft model class at the Children's Palace, I wouldn't have needed to ask his good friends to help me assemble the model.

But Doudou couldn't help it: after all, he was too strong, and he always had trouble fixing small things and those tiny parts, and his tools were often broken. Doudou busied himself with adjusting the monster's posture, occasionally stepping away to examine it and make sure it was in perfect harmony.

"OKOK, this look is good enough."

He raised the index fingers and thumbs of both hands to form a rectangle; he muttered something to himself and took several pictures with his imaginary camera.

This shape is more in line with Doudou’s idea of ​​a fun and cool monster: the monster cannot look like a human - it must be distinguishable; otherwise it will be meaningless and lack uniqueness.

But the heat in my heart came and went quickly; especially for Doudou:

Just now he was thinking about renting a camera tomorrow to take a few photos of his work as a souvenir collection, or even calling the TV station to announce his great discovery.

But after finally getting the monster into a suitable pose, boredom crept into his mind again. Doudou yawned for the umpteenth time tonight:

Oh, forget it. It's so annoying. Just draw a sketch and keep it in mind. It adds a touch of mystery.

-

As for the corpses left behind by the monsters, Doudou took a moment to move them out one by one and put them aside.

Most of them were in pieces and it was impossible to tell who owned each limb.

"."

Doudou put his palms together, lowered his head slightly and observed a moment of silence, imitating the actions seen on TV.

"My condolences, but that's wrong. Rest in peace. And bless me with academic progress? Is that okay?"

After he finished saying everything that came to his mind, Doudou couldn't help but yawn again.

The resentment and rage that had just emerged from the depths of his heart had quietly disappeared: even at this moment, Doudou had almost forgotten that he had lost his temper before.

He found a dry pile of steel bars nearby and sat down cross-legged.

"Next one—eh. I can't go to the one in the suburbs because the subway is closed. I can't go to the one in the city center because school starts. I'll go there again. It's near my house."

Doudou took a piece of scratch paper and placed it on the mid-year supplement of "Parapsychological Exploration", crossing out one strange name after another.

Although Doudou didn't find the Pleiades Mantis during this week's search, it was the first time he discovered a monster that hadn't even been described in magazines.

It was common knowledge—or at least Doudou thought everyone knew it—that even monsters had niches. After all, there couldn't be two tigers in one mountain. Since his new toy had taken over the electronics mall, the Pleiades Mantis naturally wouldn't appear here.

It's time to find the next target for investigation! But before that, we need to wrap up this evening.

He scratched his nose and used a pen to sketch the appearance of the deformed giant monster in front of him on the draft paper: Doudou couldn't wait to submit this to "Parapsychological Exploration" -

"What's a good name for this thing? Michelin Tire Man. No, I'll be sued for copyright infringement. Kinnikuman. Is there a cartoon with that name? Reincarnated Pig Demon. Forget it, I'll just go with my gut and call it Meat Man."

Crooked lines crawled all over the workbook like worms; only a vaguely discernible oval, like a stone oven, with two rectangular pillars sticking out from it could be made out. Doudou's drawing skills were already terrible, and sleepiness made them even more awful.

He stared blankly at the ugly and crude graffiti for a while - finally, in anger, he crumpled it into a ball and threw it aside.

[Let’s go, let’s leave it at that. It’s boring! ]

Doudou took out a stack of phone cards from his raincoat pocket: he had a lot of them, the edges of which were taped, with the remaining balance written on them.

He chose the one with the lowest balance—

After leaving the electronics mall, I'd find a phone booth to call the police. I imagined the amazed and admiring looks from those who saw this work, and a sense of relief and joy began to linger in Doudou's heart.

-

Chapter 10 Statue

The night continued. Moonlight finally broke free from the clouds, shrouding the city roughly and casually like an insect screen on a dining table.

The security guards outside the electronics mall were all drunk, snoring on plastic chairs covered in newspapers; their snoring was loud enough to scare off a burglar. The plastic bucket containing the "briefcase" was completely empty, and the bottles of Sanhua that had been bought later were now empty; they rolled around on the ground, banging against each other with a ping-pong sound.

Even if there had been any noise or noise before, it had been forgotten along with the alcohol in my hazy brain.

But the flies that were originally rolling around the braised dishes on the table now hurriedly flew into the electronics city and headed towards the top floor; there, there was a feast that they could not touch on weekdays.

-

Snap, snap:

Footsteps mixed with the sound of wet water echoed in the empty top floor, and ripples spread out in the pool of blood.

Two men wearing long black windbreakers with shirts underneath walked in; the hot summer night made them sweat all over and their shirts became transparent.

Click: Someone pulled out a flashlight, and a long, white pillar-like halo of light swept across the top floor—

He rolled the cuffs of his nylon socks down to his ankles and pulled the sleeves of his windbreaker up to his elbows, exposing as much skin as possible to cool down. He puffed on a cigarette, the end of which flickered like a traffic light about to turn green.

"Holy shit, how could there be so much blood? What the hell is that big?"

John Doe is a tall man with a gray stubble that pierces his jaw like steel needles and connects to his graying temples. His Chinese has lost most of its accent, a quality expected of a field agent operating in Asia.

The huge flesh statue had a strange shape, hidden in the shadows of the night, with flies coiling and wriggling on its surface - the flashlight light that swept across it from time to time only added a bit of horror to it.

The man named John Dou scratched his graying temples desperately, opened his mouth wide, and blew out clouds of smoke around him: the swarm of flies came faster than anyone else - a large group of flies danced like a pocket typhoon, and the buzzing sound made people's scalp tingle.

His partner tapped his glasses on his nose to swat away flies that had landed on the lenses. This man, with his mixed-race features, looked younger. On his breast pocket was embroidered the words "Rich Chuck":

"Hurry up. The support team says we have about ten minutes left: this observation point is obsolete. We need to check the scene first."

John Dou flicked the burning cigarette butt into the blood pool around him, making a hissing sound:

"Ten minutes? Bullshit! It takes ten minutes just to walk around this fat guy. Let them just stop the case. Ten minutes is enough for me to have a cigarette."

Richard waved his hand, slapping away the flies and secondhand smoke on his face:

"Let's gather some information first: The entire scene and the arrangement of the bodies all have obvious traces of ritual. There may be unregistered religious groups operating in Mong Cai."

John Dou was dismissive:

"Religious gangs? Religious gangs have nothing to do with us. We're just two fucking field agents, managing this and that. What religious gang could possibly get inside the company's observation post? There aren't any religious fanatics left in the autonomous prefecture anymore; they've all moved overseas."

Perhaps his partner had intentionally avoided the option of stopping the case, John Dou's tone was even more ferocious than usual.

The fat corpse occupied a small half of the top floor: if the head had not rolled to the side, he would probably have been able to break through the ceiling - and the net height of the top floor was already much higher than the other floors.

Richard was already accustomed to his partner's aggressive complaints. He raised his hand and pointed at the enormous, fat corpse.

"Did you notice the position of the hands and the head? Originally, this head was probably stuffed into the abdominal cavity."

John Dou avoided the puddles on the ground - even though his leather shoes were already dirty enough, he didn't want to step on the pink and yellow liquid.

"Hmph, hard to say. Maybe it's another company provoking Asia-Europe Post—didn't you hear that during training? Maybe another corporate group wants to start a war."

He walked to the base of the wall and used his fingertips to wipe away the superficial paint, revealing the rectangular metal hidden behind it:

"Here's the nameplate: SEA-O-179220."

"Okay. Let me look for it." Richard held the thick booklet to his chest and carefully flipped through it. Every page was sealed in plastic and filled with fine text and photos. "Wait. Read the code name again? Forget it, I'll look at it myself."

Richard squatted down and compared the code on the nameplate. His brows furrowed tighter and tighter, as if he was using them to pinch the mosquitoes flying around him.

"It doesn't match at all. Come and take a look."

He stuffed the photo album into John Dou's arms - the man in the photo had hair that was pulled together in wisps, full of dandruff and grease; he was thin and ragged, and only the huge bulge on his right arm, like a subcutaneous tumor, made the man look different from an ordinary tramp.

John Dou's eyes widened, and he glanced back and forth between the photo and the corpse:

"Ha. That's quite a change. Are you sure it's the same person? It's a second growth spurt, right? That's pretty impressive."

Richard took the photo album and put it back into the inner pocket of his windbreaker. He then pulled out a film camera and put it in his hand.

"There should be no mistake in setting up an observation station: it is possible that there has not been enough time to update the data and information."

John Dou waved his arms, making a lazy cross with the cigarette butt between his fingers:

"This size and proportion? I don't think Jesus has ever seen such a big fat guy. It's like an armored vehicle. Oh, Amen."

The two men stared at this wonder for a moment, and John Dou suddenly spoke:

"Gather information, but don't report it. There's no need for the two of us to finish this thing. We have a lot of work to do, and we can't finish it yet. We can pass it on to the support team later."

So the two of them began to pace around the huge corpse again, accompanied by the occasional groping and pressing of plastic gloves and the momentary brightness brought by the flashing of flash lights.

They found severed limbs and torsos piled haphazardly in a corner—the proportions of these bodies looked much more normal.

Richard squatted beside the scattered bodies:

"Only 179220's head was severed. The other bodies showed no such marks. Was this a special execution?"

John Douze didn't pay any attention to the details:

"You can remember this code name? You have a good memory. But first, take a closer look here."

"It wasn't chopped off with a sharp object, it was ripped off whole. Look at the cuts on the skin and muscle on the neck, they look like they were bitten by a dog." He kicked hard, but the head, which was as big as a beanbag, just stopped and swayed. "Damn, I can't kick it. Come over and see. This head alone must weigh 500 pounds, like a stone block."

Richard strode over to John Dou and the head, his leather shoes splashing in the dirty water:

"Well, the wound is jagged and irregular—the spine is broken."

It is called the spine, but it looks like the color is only slightly darker than the load-bearing columns of this layer, and the circumference is even greater.

Richard's sweat was getting heavier. He finally took off his glasses and wiped his wet hair carefully.

"What do you mean? Was it [the client] who did it?"

John Dou suddenly threw his hand outward as if to brush away a fly:

"What a lunatic! If [the client] had this kind of power, why would Corey send the two of us here to die? Without a chainsaw, no one can possibly remove a head this big—that's not right, not even a chainsaw can cut this thing off. But maybe this fat guy's become this mess because of the packages [the client] brought. Damn, they're getting more and more troublesome."

He suddenly closed his mouth and plucked his needle-like stubble with his fingertips:

"--Never mind, there's no need to dwell on it. Keep the orders separate; making random connections only adds to the trouble."

call!

Richard exhaled and squeezed his stiff shoulders. The pressure from the top floor seemed to become tangible, causing him to develop frozen shoulder within a few minutes.

"Let's start with classification, then? The original characterization was too weak. The files didn't even include background checks, behavioral analysis, or classification. There weren't any permanent observers at the observation points—but now it's like this."

"What kind do you think it is? The intensity of this ecstasy is too terrifying. If this fat man had retained his ability to move while he was still alive."

John Dou put out his two-puff cigarette butt in the fat layer of the corpse's flesh, sniffing the faint smell of burning. He immediately lit another cigarette, as if using it as a light source:

"It was called 'Miracle' a while ago, but now it's been changed to 'Crazy'. The marketing department is really messing around."

"This fat guy is a—a criminal. No, a patient. He has obsessive-compulsive disorder, a very severe one."

Chapter 11: Evil

John Dou didn't look back, but raised his palm and hooked it -

Richard took out his sidearm, a Czechoslovakian CZ-75, and handed it to John Dou: his sloppy partner had never loaded a bullet into his gun.

"The marketing department felt that [Ecstasy] sounded more high-concept, as if they were just reading Plato. We might change the name later."

"Obsessive-compulsive disorder? It's hard to say. We'd need an autopsy. Someone who re-enacts a crime scene too many times might also experience this kind of physical changes—"