Puzzle Madness

Chapter 79 Reunion

The control room is no longer operational: the seats and control terminals that could originally accommodate twenty-four people are now empty, leaving only a few red marks on the floor and two bullet holes.

The intact lighting system shines light into the corridor - the entire Mong Cai underground branch is now dark, with only a few rooms still flashing lights.

blah-
Doudou crossed his foot and stopped abruptly, the sole of his shoe plowing a short groove with the momentum; the hem of his raincoat fluttered, and huge clouds of dust flew behind him:

"Eh? This is the radio station, right? Auntie, are you there?"

Doudou carried the squirming and trembling witch in the building and stuck his head into the control room—he saw a trembling figure huddled in the corner of the room.

"Oh! I finally found you! This floor is so huge, it's easy to get lost; I've been looking for a while."

She wasn't conspicuous in the spacious room and the numerous scattered devices, but her rapid sobbing and sobbing immediately made Doudou notice the woman with the fiery hair.

"Eh? Why are you crying?"

Gah!
Doudou could feel the sudden, violent pulsation of the cervical vertebrae in his hand, like a shoulder and neck therapy device set to full power. He clenched his palm a little tighter, and with his other hand, he casually smashed the entire skull, allowing the witch in the building to slowly reassemble herself.
"Wait a minute. Let me talk first, don't be anxious."

The woman huddled in the corner raised her head. She covered her mouth, but two tear marks could still be seen sliding down her cheekbones.

The woman had deep, knife-like nasolabial folds on her face, which made the tears appear abrupt; but the violent trembling facial muscles obscured the sense of incongruity: she seemed to be just a middle-aged person who was aggrieved, frightened, and indulged in anxiety.

She covered her face, her hoarse voice making her crying seem even weaker:

"Help me, little boy! Help me! They've all gone mad! They've all turned into monsters!"

"I really can't hold on any longer. Do you know how horrible our daily work is? Even now, there are still these monsters. I'm not one of them. I'm just in charge of the command here. I'm just doing clerical work."

".You are a smart kid, right? You are not the kind of person who would kill innocent people. You don't look like a bad person."

"Can you-can you get me out? Will you take me with you?"

She spoke fluent Chinese, but with an accent. Doudou recognized that rough, raspy voice—it was hers who issued orders in the building's first-floor atrium, and it was also her who had sung on the radio earlier.

Doudou stared at the woman's hair, then glanced around the entire control room:
"Hey, Auntie, there's blood on the ground over there, right next to the microphone? But you're not hurt, are you? Did you kill someone?"

An anxious and frightened explanation and pleading came from behind the woman's fingers covering her face:

"Yes, yes! Didn't I just say that? They're crazy: suddenly wires grew out of their stomachs, and I had to protect myself - I fired the gun, but my colleagues still turned into monsters! I didn't want that, I didn't want that!"

"Look! Look! There it is, with my coat."

Between her fingers, her eyes suddenly widened. The woman's entire body was trembling violently, staring intently at the witch in the building that was being reassembled in Doudou's hands:
"Ah-ah! The monster in your hand, hurry up and kill it! It's too scary, it's too dangerous! That's it! It's a weapon made by the company!"

After hearing these hurried words, Doudou pursed his lips and took a moment to organize his words before speaking:
"That's not necessary, Auntie. You know Richard? He told me what you looked like—he said you were a murderer; but I know you were his boss."

"He's pretty brave, but also quite scared of you. So I think you're pretty capable, right? There's no need to act so hard. It makes me feel a little embarrassed."

The crying and trembling stopped, as if they had never happened.

Then the woman stood up.

She straightened up and lowered her hands, exposing her entire face to Doudou again.

Aside from the two dark lines of eyeshadow and eyeliner smudged by tears, which blurred her cheeks and jawline, there was no trace of her crying and begging.

Doudou discovered that apart from the initial tears, the woman was just repeating the physical movements caused by crying.

Her straight back seemed to lack the curvature of a spine; similarly, the woman's face no longer had any expression, even the hair on her cheeks was so cold and hard that it almost turned into steel needles:
"Awkward? Don't be shy to try. No failure is too unacceptable."

The woman placed her palms against the seam of her skirt, her head slowly and steadily following Doudou's pace:
"My name is Amandine Dupont. I currently work as the head of the Special Package Handling Department at Asia-Europe Post."

"What about you? What's your name?"

The section chief has a face that seems to be in the prime of youth: his hair is a fiery cloud color and is messy, his skin still maintains its elasticity, and there are no wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and forehead; his lips are as sharp as blades, and there are a few freckles on his cheeks.

A face that was almost completely unrelated to her voice; but once one looked into her eyes, no one would doubt the years she had lived in this world.

His eyes were large and oval, his brows were very low, and his thick, messy eyebrows looked like they were drawn with a goat's hair brush; his pupils were the iron-like Prussian blue, surrounded by thin, short red lines scattered in the whites of his eyes.

As long as you look into their eyes, you will understand: those are a pair of madman's eyes, dry and tense.

The weary yet violent madness, the madness of trying and failing to fit in with human society, the madness of unfulfilled wishes—
“Auntie, you look so fierce; my homeroom teacher looks a bit like you, and she also likes to say things that sound very reasonable.” DouDou carried the witch from the building past a row of overturned equipment; he raised his hand and touched the screen of the terminal next to him—its colors were brighter and richer than the TV at home, and the dazzling light emanating from the screen was mesmerizing.

He suddenly remembered that the other party was greeting him, so he quickly took a break from his busy schedule and waved:
"Oh! Hello, hello, my name is Doudou."

Compared to the machines stuck in the corners of the corridor, the section chief was more like a surveillance camera. Her eyes and head followed Doudou's direction:

"Hello. I have never seen anyone possess such intensity of madness and violence as you do; I have never even heard of it."

Doudou was moving his head behind the monitor, trying to discern the specifications of the connecting cable—he politely raised his head to indicate that he was listening. Compared to these terminals, which were clearly powerful at first glance, it was difficult for other things to grab his attention at this moment:
"Ah, thank you for the compliment, Auntie. You're complimenting me, right? Your Chinese is also very good, superb. And your singing is also... there is room for improvement?"

He remembered the sawing song he had heard on the radio earlier - and clapped his hands encouragingly.

The section chief's eyes were wide open, their pupils motionless. Her pupils were small, surrounded by the whites of her eyes like islands. She had what fortune tellers call "four white eyes."
"Considering that you've already shared intelligence with Richard, then communicating with you can be the most profitable and optimal option. I have no way of knowing what information you possess, nor can I resist your violence."

"There's no need to lie anymore to try to gain your sympathy or favor. I underestimated your mental development before. You're smarter than you look."

Just as he was about to reach out and touch the pocket of the connecting wire, he suddenly looked up:
"Eh—do I look stupid? I think I'm pretty smart, but several people have said they can't tell I'm very smart."

Even the terminal in front of me seemed to have lost some of its appeal——
Doudou pinched his chin with one hand and hurriedly began to explain his inference:

"Wait! Listen to me, I've actually discovered more. For example, the Witch in the Building, I think that's what your company called it. The video said it used to be called the Transition Miracle, so I'm calling it the Transition Ecstasy now, right?"

"I originally thought her madness was that electric cord; it could move her around even after death, and even bring her back to life!"

"But think about it; if that's possible, then there wouldn't be dead bodies everywhere in the world that can move around! They could be used to make perpetual motion machines or something like that!"

"How many people have there been since the beginning of humanity? 100 billion? Even if only a fraction of a percent of them could do this, that's still a lot. And now, I haven't heard of a single one."

"My guess: Not to say anything bad about her, but I feel like she might be something like a remote-controlled racing car? Anyway, the mechanism is similar. I've been taking model airplane classes for quite a while; I'm considered an expert!"

"She herself isn't in a frenzy, is she? It's the frenzy of others that manifests through her—actually, it's you, Auntie, who's in a frenzy, isn't it?"

"So the witch in the building is indestructible. No matter how badly she's beaten, she can be resurrected. And she has several stages of transformation! Each transformation is a command you give in the radio station. She does weird things, sings songs, and so on."

Doudou lifted up the witch in the building, who had almost recovered and was shaking at a high frequency again, and glanced at her empty eye sockets:

"She's quite impressive, but I feel like she's not happy; it's like she doesn't want to live anymore."

Like Doudou, the section chief didn't like blinking. She stared blankly at the witch in Doudou's hand.
"Your reasoning is sound, Doudou. But the truth is more complicated than you think."

call--
Doudou exhaled, feeling relieved as if he had passed a quiz:

"Is that so? It's good that you guessed it right; be content with what you have. Oh, and one more thing; I sensed that she really wanted to see you."

Doudou squatted down and gently placed the python-like remains of the witch in the building on the ground--
"Go ahead! I'm done chatting for now."

Almost the moment it landed on the ground, it began to shake its vertebrae and twisted towards the section chief.

A while ago, Doudou had watched the witch in the building reconstruct her body many times; but this time was different from before.

A pale yellow body fluid, coming from nowhere, kept flowing out of the skeleton; and the flesh and bones that had been almost completely removed by Doudou once again [flowed] out along with the body fluid, wrapping around the lonely spine bit by bit.

From wriggling forward on the ground using her torso and abdomen, to crawling on her undergrown limbs like penguin wings; when the witch in the building stood in front of the section chief, she had regained her human form, leaving only a narrow trail of sticky marks and blood on the ground.

Doudou leaned forward, unwilling to miss a single frame of the picture; even though she herself didn't understand where the materials for her limbs came from—
Then she spoke.

"Mère? MèreMère!"

Vocal cords grew on the witch's empty cervical vertebrae, and her tongue re-entered her mouth. Perhaps because of the pale yellow body fluids that kept flowing out, her voice sounded wet and sticky.

Tick-tock: The witch in the building raised her right hand, which was covered with body fluids and still dripping, and placed it on the section chief's neck.

"What is she talking about? Where is this?"

Doudou had no idea what the witch in the building was saying, and couldn't even tell what language she was speaking. He was so anxious that he was scratching his head and felt like he was missing some crucial plot point. But the only person he could ask was the fierce-looking section chief.

The section chief raised his hand and grasped the witch's fingers that were touching his neck. From this angle, the witch's head was obscured, so Doudou couldn't see the section chief's expression, nor did her voice show any fluctuation or inflection.

"Mother, she's calling me Mother. That's French, we're both French. Her name is Manon Dupont; she's my daughter."

(End of this chapter)