Puzzle Madness

Chapter 9 Assembly—
"Look at me. Look at me!"

Doudou plucked up the rubbery, tough, and rough upper and lower eyelids, pulling them apart as if stretching. Blood lines as thick as water pipes crisscrossed the whites of his eyes, and balls of basketball-sized tears burst from the corners of his eyes, mixing the tears with the torn wounds to turn them pink.

"Do you think I am a monster or a human? A monster or a human?"

"I'm different from you, right? Right? Right?"

He could see his own reflection in front of him: his unusually large eyeball made the iris look like a curved full-length mirror; it reflected Doudou's bright yellow figure.

Doudou is looking forward to the answer he will get soon--
Are you a human being?
【of course! 】

But the verification from the monster itself was even more convincing to him.

Uh-huh, gulp.

There was no answer that could be understood, and all Doudou could hear was indistinct sobs.

"Say? Are you asleep?"

Hiss!

The eyelids were torn off like posters and flung aside; more blood gushed out, streaming down the monster's cheeks. Its fluids were so abundant that they formed a miniature waterfall on the lower eyelid.

Doudou pressed his palm against the wall of the monster's eyeball, his fingertips sinking into the vitreous humor. He pointed his other hand at his head and repeated the question as softly and clearly as possible:

"Take a good look at me: Am I—a human?"

Blood puddled between the supporting columns, covering the uneven pits. Its body fluids seemed endless—
Doudou's entire palm had been pressed into his eyeball: he felt as if he was pinching a huge ball of jelly.

Finally, the fat monster spoke; his voice was tired, spit-filled, and booming like a square speaker. But this was the first time it uttered a sentence in response to Doudou's question, and the first time it spoke like a "human":
"monster."

"Weird. Monster? You, you you—you are a monster."

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.

"Hehe." He scratched his head and laughed shyly: if he had this level of skill when he was taking model airplane classes at the Children's Palace, he wouldn't have needed to ask his good friend for help to 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 pulled a stack of phone cards out of his raincoat pocket: he had many, the edges taped shut, 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.
-
(End of this chapter)