Puzzle Madness

Chapter 77 Peeling
Even though these corpses had been disemboweled, the air didn't carry the irony of blood or fishy odor; only a faint, burnt smell that came from nowhere.

Every corpse that passed by would wave its drooping hands to Doudou, as if to say hello - even though its face was facing the ceiling and its neck was strangled, there was no "eye contact" with Doudou at all.

Doudou didn't take it seriously, and was even somewhat moved by this strange enthusiasm after death. He ignored the witch in the building in front of him whose eyes were about to pop out of her head, and raised his hand to respond to the passing corpses:
"Ah, hello—oh, hi, hello hello. And you, hello! You can swing slower. There's rebar on the ground, and you might get poked."

Even though he was dead, everyone was still very polite; this made Doudou feel strangely comforted: in the past, when the school held a New Year's Day party, the students who were going to perform would also gesture to the audience in this way when they walked onto the stage.

Doudou watched them sway and waver, then spread out across the small square, hanging in every corner. Suddenly—the corpses, still hanging from the ceiling by wires, linked hands. More than a dozen bodies formed a large circle, surrounding Doudou and the witch in the building.

It was like they were playing the game of dropping the handkerchief together, and the atmosphere was even harmonious.

The lullaby on the radio had stopped, and the aunt with the rough voice was also silent; except for the witch in the building who was still mumbling, the entire Mong Cai City branch was silent.

"Hey, now..."

Doudou opened his mouth and looked around, but he was only halfway through his words when he felt the back of his hand become cold and clammy. He lowered his head and saw that the witch in the building had, at some point, gently placed her hand on his.

My throat feels a little itchy, as if I had eaten a piece of snow cake stuck in my throat--
Wow!
A coil of tangled rubber wire, as thick as a forearm, suddenly rushed out of Doudou's mouth. With slippery saliva, it nailed straight into the ceiling like a snake's head, making a dull "puff" sound.

"Hey, what insight does Wotuole have?"

Doudou's eyes widened, his hands clutching the wires coming out of his mouth, and he muttered incoherently.

Uh-huh! Swish!

His hands danced with afterimages, alternately dragging the wires extending from his throat, pulling out a long section each time - Doudou felt like a magician in "Zhengda Variety Show", performing the old-fashioned magic of spitting ribbons from his mouth.

In the blink of an eye, the entire roll of spirally twisted rubber wire, which was more than ten meters long, was pulled out by Doudou and smashed into the cement; but it was still twisting.

Doudou covered his mouth and spat a few times hesitantly:

"Bah, bah bah!"

Doudou lowered his head again and touched his abdomen; there was no alien-like bulging and rising, nor was there any wire suddenly piercing his body.

But after looking at the corpses around him with ruptured intestines and wires sticking out of their abdomens, Doudou still scratched his stomach a few times to prevent anything strange from happening.

"I don't blame you - I won't play with this spitting wire. It feels a bit unhygienic. Has this wire been disinfected? It wouldn't be nice if it ended up in someone else's stomach."

Doudou said as he turned his gaze back:

"Have you changed your clothes? You're so quick."

Doudou had just raised his head and pulled out the wire from his lower mouth; but now he found that the appearance of the witch in the building had quietly changed again.

Apart from the strange eyes, her upper body was no different from that of an ordinary person; but she put on a brand new "skirt".

There were more than a dozen human legs—merely bones—wrapped around the waist of the witch in the building. The bones hung down like a skirt, covering her lower body.

But through those gaps, one can see that there is nothing inside: it seems that the witch in the building never had legs in her life, and her lower body below the waist was only a long skirt made of bones.

Femur, patella, tibia, fibula, tarsal bones, phalanges—all the bones of a human leg were broken up and reassembled into this wind chime-like outfit. Even without any air disturbances around them, they still collided and made a subtle sound.

She just lowered her head and stared at the ground; no one knew what she was looking at, and even the low murmur of "Maman" had stopped.

There seems to be some invisible weight in the air--
The relief of those corpses staggering into the arena just now lasted only a brief moment:

The depression, heaviness, and worry that pounded deep into his soul and filled Doudou's heart were emotions he had never experienced in his daily life, and they even made him feel strangely uncomfortable.

Doudou frowned and thought carefully--
Then he grabbed the witch's head with his hands, one on each side, and pulled her close to his face. They were so close that they could clearly see the pores on each other's nostrils.

DouDou couldn't tell at all that just minutes before, the [Witch in the Building] was a skeleton with only a head and spine; he could see every speck of cloudiness and bloodshot vein in the whites of her eyes, and the constantly changing characters formed by the blood vessels in her conjunctiva: the [Witch in the Building]'s eyeballs were constantly rolling and trembling, as if they might pop out of their sockets at any moment. But DouDou couldn't understand those characters. It wasn't the Chinese he knew; it was somewhat similar to the half-baked English he'd learned in class, but completely incomprehensible.

Doudou nodded and looked as if he understood.

Some feelings don't really need to be expressed through words or text:

"Life is painful, huh? Don't worry, I understand what you mean."

Then, without a moment's hesitation, Doudou opened his mouth wide—his upper and lower jaws suddenly parted almost 180 degrees, the skin at the corners of his mouth deforming like rubber, but never cracking. Doudou seemed to have transformed into a crocodile in human skin, the hair on the back of his head bending and itching from pressing against his neck.

From the depths of the dark throat, a rumbling roar like a space shuttle engine came from far away and approached:

Finally, he roared.

[Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh——]
There were no more windows on this floor to shatter, but the concrete shards on the ground were shaking—
The skin and muscles on the face of the witch in the building undulate like waves.

The next moment——
The regenerated flesh peeled off her face once again: snap! Two streams of scarlet water burst out from her eye sockets.

The nose wing was then torn apart, and the entire nose was lifted off and slid across the forehead.

Crunch, crunch.

Her lips and gums parted as if burned by fire; her teeth trembled strangely before being torn out of her gums, then drilled into her mouth like bullets, rolled over her occipital bone, and flew out of her body.

Bo:
There was a sound like a bubble bursting. Brain tissue rushed out of the eye sockets and ear canals, was blown far away, and was swept into the cracks of the ruins.

All body tissues except the bones seemed to be running in the opposite direction of Doudou.

Snap, snap, snap, snap, snap:

The dozen or so corpses surrounding them exploded in the trembling, squeezing out of their clothes and falling to the ground, splattering into large round balls.

After a breath, Doudou closed his mouth again:

The skin, muscles and hair that the witch in the building had grown a moment ago had disappeared, forming a blurry human figure of blood-red and pink behind them, printed on the distant wall; and the witch in the building turned back into that skeleton - Doudou's roar took away most of her flesh and blood.

It's just that the blood seemed endless, constantly bursting out from the pores of the bones, making crackling sounds; as if there was a high-powered drainage pump hidden inside the body.

The hem of her skirt, made of leg bones, clattered against each other, making a sound like wind chimes, and then rolled to the ground. All that was left of the witch in the building was her lonely head and half of her spine; she looked like a white tadpole.
-
Doudou raised his hand and wiped his face; he felt a little embarrassed: he screamed too loudly and his saliva sprayed everywhere.

He grabbed the witch's skeleton in the building, and she was still trembling in his fingers:

"Huh? Do you have any batteries on you?"

Doudou picked up the skull with half of the spine and thought about it -
The popular science films that Richard played in the video studio before never mentioned that the dead could still be ecstatic.
Could it be that the witch in the building's madness meant she could be resurrected without limit? Or was she truly some kind of supernatural ghost? That was a bit too much of a rip-off—a complete puzzle with no solution; even the homework assignments wouldn't dare set it that way.

Moreover: Doudou clearly felt that the witch in the building did not want to continue to "live"; or to continue to exist.

"unless."

Suddenly, he had some inspiration:
"Oh! I think I understand what's going on."

"Come on, come on, I'll take you somewhere—um. How do I get to the radio station here? I'll find a map."

Doudou held the spine of the witch in the building in his hand and jumped forward in the direction where those people who had their stomachs ripped open came from. The witch in the building was still spurting blood, leaving a bright red path behind them.

　It will be launched tomorrow, thank you for your support

　　
　
(End of this chapter)