Puzzle Madness

Chapter 80 Bite
Doudou opened his mouth wide, moved around to their side, and glanced back and forth between the two faces:
"Huh? She's your daughter? Your biological daughter?"

If you really want to identify them, they do have some similarities - such as sharp lips and the same deep eye sockets: but the witch in the building is a dangling skeleton most of the time, and Doudou has no time to seriously look at her appearance.

Oh!

The section chief was unable to answer this question. The five fingers of the witch in the building, which had just grown translucent skin, suddenly extended and expanded, wrapping around the section chief's neck like a rope, and then tightening -
Almost instantly, the redness of the bloodshot face overflowed from the section chief's face, and her braces creaked: her exquisite makeup could not hide it at all.

"--Ah! Why did they suddenly start fighting?!"

Doudou walked closer, getting next to the two of them; he walked around them, his eyes almost touching them, unwilling to miss any details.

He had no intention of getting involved: whether the witch in the building wanted revenge or simply had an itchy fist, it was none of Doudou's business; he was just curious about what was happening.

"Pourquoi?! Pourquoi?!"

The witch in the building roared, her voice piercing with tears. She shook the section chief's neck with both hands, and her tongue twisted in her mouth like a snake. However, without the section chief's translation, Doudou didn't understand what she meant:
"What? Ah, what are you talking about?"

Doudou, sweating with anxiety, circled the two of them, as if he were a referee in a boxing ring; he was afraid to miss even the smallest detail, yet he couldn't understand the most crucial words. The section chief, who could have explained the confusion, was now clearly speechless.

At this moment, he really regretted not taking English, Spanish, French, or any other foreign language cram school. He should have at least bought a Wenquxing learning machine. His previous laziness had caused Doudou to be as anxious as an ant on a hot pot, unable to keep up with the developing plot.
Suddenly:

The witch in the building suddenly raised her free hand and slammed it into the section chief's half-open mouth due to suffocation like a chisel - her fingers opened and closed like a jack, stretching the mouth to the maximum: the corners of the mouth tore, the braces fell off and fell to the ground; the creaking sound of the jaw joint being dislocated was tooth-grinding.

then--
The witch in the building put her mother's gaping mouth on top of her head like a hat.

Click--chi.

The section chief, who seemed to have been strangled into shock, began to move again.

"Uh? What are you guys doing?"

Doudou, circling in circles, suddenly stopped, bewildered by the sudden change. Naturally, no one had time to answer him. He wondered if it was because he didn't speak the language, missing some crucial information, or perhaps because he hadn't noticed any details.
It's like accidentally skipping a key cutscene while playing a game; the scene that appears after the black screen ends is completely incomprehensible.

Faced with the situation at this moment, he had no idea what was going on - how did it suddenly become like this?

Click, click, click, click!
The section chief gnawed on the food, which had already reached his forehead and had strands of hair stuck in his teeth; the crisp sound was like he was eating wafer biscuits.

The section chief seemed to have teeth as strong and sharp as steel—
Her neck was still entangled by the witch's fingers in the building, causing the food she swallowed to be completely unable to enter the digestive system, but instead got stuck in her throat and fell out of the corners of her mouth that was torn to her ears; but her cheeks were swollen with congestion due to the stuffed body tissue and suffocation.

The section chief, who had been as cold and indifferent as a human stone a moment ago, seemed to be possessed by something even more extroverted and violent; it was even impossible to be sure if he was still the same person.

But below the head, more weirdness happens:
The boundary between the section chief and the witch in the building became blurred: before he knew it, the section chief's skirt and shirt had stuck to the naked body of the witch in the building - as if there was an invisible corrosive glue in the air that dissolved and solidified their connection.

The witch's gums in the building grew and stretched until they broke away from the opening and became flesh-colored tubes with teeth, which hit the section chief's face - and then the same biting began: but not as crazy and fierce as the section chief's, and only some rat-like, rustling sounds came out.

The one-sided biting ends and the mutual gnawing begins.

Doudou originally thought that such scenes would never be seen in reality: such counter-intuitive situations should only appear in strange nightmares late at night, causing cold sweats -
He himself doesn't dream, but there are contributors to gossip magazines who write such short stories; but Doudou never thought such a scene would become a reality.

Even as their heads continued to devour each other, their bodies, limbs, and even clothing began to stick together at an ever-increasing rate. It was as if both bodies had become plasticine, effortlessly kneading together; a few more ruthless rubbings would make it impossible to tell them apart.

Gradually, it was no longer possible to refer to them as "two people".
-
This was the second time Doudou had seen something like "transformation" today: of course, a word like "fusion" might be more appropriate. Although they looked like they were devouring each other for a long time, in the end they seemed to stick together, cohere, and become a single entity.

Only one head was left, and the number of hands, feet and torso was the same as that of an ordinary person.

There were still scraps of meat, broken bones, and blood on the ground from the gnawing process; the section chief and the witches in the building seemed to have poor dining etiquette, which also caused them to be smaller than Doudou had imagined.

"How did you guys uh, suddenly merge and evolve?"

After racking his brains for a long time, he finally found a word to describe the scene before him. Everything that had just happened reminded him of those Cronenberg movies he had seen before: "The Fly", "The Fly", "Videoman" -
But the smell added to the vision and hearing is more stimulating than when it is through the screen.

In the sticky and slippery mess, the newly formed individual, after being pieced together, glued together, and reassembled, stood up and brushed off the dirt on his body.

The woman's hands and feet were of varying lengths, resembling a pair of tangled scissors or a crudely crafted art installation. She retained some of the outward features of the section chief and the witch in the building, but upon closer inspection, only a vague impression remained.
She was still wearing the same clothes that she had worn before as section chief: shirt, suit jacket, straight skirt; only the color had changed from black to brown-red - the shirt collar was stuck to her neck, and the connection between skin and fabric was smooth and seamless.

The clothes seemed to grow directly from her flesh, with muscle-like textures. Only—this woman had hair the color of a fiery sunset, not the light chestnut of the witch in the building.

She stared at her hands and opened her mouth, her voice still like sawing wood:
“It worked—it really worked.”
-
Doudou's gaze lingered on the woman, then on the debris and bloodstains on the floor. Even he was completely bewildered:

"So... so you are that aunt, right? What happened to you? Where is your daughter?"

The section chief raised her head, her large, oval eyes unblinking. She grinned, a strange smile that looked like joy:
"Yes, it was me. Did you notice? I think I made a little impression on you. I'm glad."

"You seem curious. I can give you a brief explanation. Would you like to hear it, Doudou?"

She seemed to be asking, but she didn't pause at all; she continued speaking without hesitation:

"Since you've communicated with Richard, I assume you already have some understanding of mania—mental illness and crimes committed are the core of mania; at least that's the general perception."

"So most of the research and development revolves around these two points; this is the mainstream direction now."

"Before transferring to the Special Package Handling Section, I worked in the company's Ethics Department for a while:"

"[Ethics Department]—it was established by the Asia-Europe Postal Service back then to research how to mass-produce ecstasy holders and develop symbolic uses."

“At that time, every company, private laboratory, government entity, and civil society organization.”

"As long as there are sufficient resources, they are all trying to use artificial intervention to study whether it is possible to generate specific humans in a trance state. The Ethics Department, of course, also has its own methods."

"Reshaping values ​​that contradict society's existing moral laws and then forcing subjects who have been raised within them to violate them makes it easier to reproduce more crimes while also inflicting psychological pressure and causing mental illness."

"For example: In a society where breathing is a serious crime, will more carriers of ecstasy be born? What if we try to completely eliminate sociality and completely isolate individuals from birth?"

"Anyway, I've done a lot of these experiments."
-
Doudou rubbed his chin vigorously, his eyes rolling as he thought - he temporarily put aside his previous doubts and accepted the new information:
"Creating superpowers in a secret lab? It's a classic, yes. But I feel like—the things you mentioned... don't sound good."

As the section chief spoke, he pulled his arm—stretching it longer so that the two limbs would align:

"It's really not good. There isn't a single good enough case. Perhaps following instinct isn't a sin at all, and it can't be defined. We've tried many other things, but none of them gave us the desired results."

"With such a long development cycle and a huge investment, coupled with the fact that the versatility and practicality of the game were never sufficient, the returns were naturally not enough. So gradually, most of our peers gave up on development."

Doudou stopped what he was doing. He frowned.

"Eh? Then why are you telling me this?"

The section chief turned her eyes away. The bloodshot veins in her eye had vanished, leaving only a tiny speck in the pupil.
"You are excellent, Doudou. I have never seen such an excellent child. Can you be even better?"

"Did Richard ever tell you about [Heart Ether]? Or [Thought Wave], or [Karma]?"

"No? Well, that's right; he's just that careless."

"Although his rank isn't high enough to directly follow up on the research, he doesn't seriously read the company's internal journals. Richard's work ethic isn't good enough, and he should have been dealt with sooner."

"These three terms all refer to the same thing; it's just that the research progress has been so slow that each organization has adopted a different name for it. I'll stick with the Ethics Department's name and call it Heart Ether."

"Heart ether is an observable indicator—ecstasy can't be directly identified by instruments, but it is positively correlated with this indicator."

"In places where ecstasy is likely to occur, or around people with strong manifestations, the value of heart ether is higher."

"Some researchers believe it's a form of human excrement, a fragment of emotion, or a medium between thought and reality—a description that's incomplete and inaccurate."

“I know that it is [love]: an emotion that is tangible and even exists independently of human beings; it is not just a collection of behavioral manifestations caused by the influence of neurotransmitters or a metaphysical concept.”

“No one else understands, but I do.”

"We live in a world where mind over matter, Doudou. Literally."

(End of this chapter)