Puzzle Madness

Chapter 90 Ai Xi
It was past dawn, but not yet midday; the sunlight that penetrated the clouds was scorching, setting flies buzzing. Yet, many residents braved the humid, hot wind of Mong Cai and ventured out for a stroll.

Tianhu Community, Building 5, Unit 2, 4th Floor:
The corridor was not much different from before the summer vacation, except that there were a few yellow police seals on the elevator and one of the room doors.

The new neighbor who had just moved in a few days ago had disappeared; but at the end of summer, another visitor came here.

The girl, carrying her schoolbag, stopped in front of the door at the end of the corridor. Although it was mottled, it was much cleaner. There was a time when this place was covered with cobwebs, and the slightest touch would make your hands gray and black.

Knock knock, knock knock.

She raised her hand and knocked on the screen door frame.

"Hello Doudou, it's me, open the door."

The girl's eyebrows are very straight, almost close to and parallel to her slender eyes; when she smiles, they narrow into two upward arcs.

There was a prominent, curled scar on her left cheek, pink with a hint of white, like a burn mark; it spread from her jaw all the way to the end of her ear and cheekbone, and was slightly covered by the hair that just passed the base of her ear.

Perhaps because of the wrinkled skin caused by the burn scars, the girl did not have much expression: her eyes did not shift and jump, but were fixed on the door like nails, lacking some of the agility of her age.

Sometimes she would raise her hand and press the heel of her palm against the bump on her face; relieving the itchiness of the connective tissue.

It was like a face made of cloth, with a red patch sewn on one corner. The attention that could be drawn to her facial features was almost ignored, and the piece of hyperplastic skin became the center of her face.
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The inner iron door opened, and the outer screen door was pushed open; Doudou poked half of his head out from the gap:

"Oh! Ai Xi, you're here! Come in quickly, it's so early; I thought you would arrive in the afternoon."

Ai Xi followed Dou Dou and closed the double door. He took off his sneakers and carefully placed them next to the entrance.
"The sun is still too strong today. If I come over in the afternoon, my scar will get itchy from the sun."

She found a spot among the scattered textbooks and homework papers on the ground, then carefully piled them up, creating a videotape "tower" almost as tall as a person.
"Want me to help tidy up the house? You'll be more efficient finding things this way."

With a wave of his hands, he circumvented numerous obstacles like traps with ease:

"Thank you! But no thanks. Last time you helped me put my things away, I couldn't find them. I'm more used to the random placement of things now, so I can just grab them easily."

Ai Xi moved the various chairs that formed a circle in front of him. Doudou had used them to help him record his application for membership in "Parapsychological Exploration" a few days ago, but he hadn't been able to get himself ready.

"Doudou, are the owners of your community going to hold a party at your house? There are so many chairs."

Doudou grabbed the remaining chairs and piled them haphazardly in the corner of the room until it looked like a jungle gym at an amusement park.

"No, I was getting a videotape for 'Parapsychology'; setting up some seats would create a more lively atmosphere. Our neighborhood is deserted, so why would there be a homeowners' association?"

Ai Xi jumped up and down until he stopped in front of Doudou's desk. Compared with the rest of the room, the desk was as clean as a deserted wasteland that no one had ever set foot on.
"Oh, I understand. It's like an interview for a mysterious organization. It's more exciting."

All the mirrors in Doudou's house have been put away because Ai Xi never looks in the mirror.

She stepped onto the ottoman chair in her socks, squatted down, knees to her chin, and took out the tools for assembling the model from her schoolbag: a pen knife, pliers, and sandpaper ranging from 400 to 1,200 grit; she carefully arranged them parallel on the table.

Doudou pulled out an unopened model from the drawer—it was a box of the 1:12 scale model of "Demon Man" that had just been released this year (the 15th anniversary edition!), featuring the villain named Dr. Torment—and carefully placed it in the middle of the table:
"Eh? It's not even a mysterious organization, it's just a reader's club. Come on, come and help me put it together. I've come across something interesting these days, and I'd like to tell you about it."

Ai Xi consulted the instructions, picked up the pliers, and began to cut the panels one by one:
"No hurry, just tell me slowly. This will take a while to put together."

She picked up the penknife from the table, cut the 600-800 grit sandpaper into a rectangle, and stuck it on the ruler:

"I came to look for you a few mornings ago, but the room next to yours was full of police officers. I was so scared that I quickly went back."

"Also, you haven't been to the model airplane class at the Children's Palace these past two days. The teacher won't refund your tuition if you skip classes or ask for leave, which is really a loss. Even though they didn't teach anything new."

Doudou clapped his hands lightly, a hint of pride showing in his smile:
“This is what I’m going to tell you!” He leaned closer, cupping his right palm together, leaving only a gap in the middle. The base of his palm went through Ash’s messy hair, pressed against her scalp, and then he put his mouth into the hole formed by his thumb and forefinger.

This way, the other person can hear you through bone conduction, even with a ruptured eardrum—a little trick Doudou learned from a magazine. The article says this can prevent eavesdropping to a certain extent:

"The other day I encountered one, two, and three, three really powerful monsters! They even had a real fight with me. The visuals were really interesting to see up close, even more impactful than Jurassic Park."

Ai Xi didn't look back, and used a pen knife to trim the sprue so that he could polish it later.
"Speak slowly; if you speak too quickly I'm afraid you'll be distracted and spoil it."

But Doudou continued to speak rapidly, his mouth like a Chicago typewriter; he mumbled a lot, and in a blink of an eye he recounted the adventures and battles in [Shouzhu 151]:
".Then I ran into their underground base. Oh! What a pity, I didn't have a camera at the time - that skeleton can move? Then it turned into an invincible person and could regenerate at super high speed; everyone around it had wires in their stomachs. Her mother..."

As she listened, Ai Xi's brows knitted together. She tilted her head slightly, but her hand continued to sand the board. After Dou Dou finished speaking, she began to reply:
"--So there are many people with super powers besides you?"

Doudou was startled by this unexpected answer and didn't care about secret conversation techniques like bone conduction anymore:

"Huh? Didn't you always think I was just an ordinary person with a little more strength?"

Ai Xi blew away the dust that had fallen from the sanding process and swept it aside with a ruler. She narrowed her eyes, as if this was indeed a question worth pondering:

"Those big, strong-armed uncles in 'Hercules' and the Guinness World Record holders are just ordinary people with great strength."

CCTV-5 often broadcasts this program, and Jiaozhi local TV stations also often broadcast recorded programs; in addition to basketball, the only program on the TV in the school cafeteria is this, and it is said to increase students' appetite.

"Last time, you were trying to lift someone's dump truck, and ended up collapsing the road with your foot. An average person wouldn't be that strong."

Doudou grinned, recalling the memory with a smell, and felt a sense of sympathy:
"I almost stepped into the septic tank that time! Luckily you were the only one who saw it."

Ai Xi raised his arm and nudged Doudou gently with his elbow in a soothing tone:
"It's okay. Even if someone saw it, no one would believe it if they told others about it. Most people don't believe in supernatural powers. They would just think they were mistaken or that the road quality was too poor."

"But those big mouths in 'Parapsychological Exploration' have been publishing your story for years. So why was I the only one who discovered you before? I used to think Doudou was the only one in the world with real superpowers."

"But if there are still a large number of people with superpowers, there should be corresponding intelligence gathering agencies. They will sift through media reports or conduct their own investigations to find a way to identify the real ones, right?"

"This is someone with super powers! Even actors and singers have lots of scouts scouting the streets for them. That Bangkok kid from Class 2 was signed back to Thailand to film a movie last semester."

"Could it be that your superpowers actually include something else—something like memory erasure or disguise? It would make others think you're just an ordinary person."

Doudou began to pace back and forth behind the chair, but his feet made no sound:

"Now that you mention it, it's definitely possible! I didn't even try to hide it. I even lost my shot put at last year's sports meet, and the teacher didn't say anything. Remember?"

Ai Xi put the polished parts aside and put them together later:

"I remember you told me that. But I was running the 100 meters at the time and didn't see you compete. I think it started raining heavily right after you threw the shot put. We didn't even compete in the shot put afterwards. My 100-meter final was actually held in the mezzanine of the old teaching building."

"Perhaps there are some special conditions required to activate it? Or perhaps this special ability depends on the person. Or maybe you've been discovered a long time ago, but for some reason no one has come to find you; just like in Men in Black, where some secret agent is following you and erasing other people's memories?"

"Anyway, now that it's exposed, it's better to keep a low profile."

"If super powers are real, then it seems like a lot of these rumors are true; I used to think they were just conspiracy theories."

"For example, there actually is a secret base underneath the Shouzhu 151 Building. Who built this building?"

(End of this chapter)