Puzzle Madness

Chapter 10 Statue
The night continued. Moonlight finally broke free from the clouds, shrouding the city roughly and casually like an insect screen on a dining table.

The security guards outside the electronics mall were all drunk, snoring on plastic chairs covered in newspapers; their snoring was loud enough to scare off a burglar. The plastic bucket containing the "briefcase" was completely empty, and the bottles of Sanhua that had been bought later were now empty; they rolled around on the ground, banging against each other with a ping-pong sound.

Even if there had been any noise or noise before, it had been forgotten along with the alcohol in my hazy brain.

But the flies that were originally rolling around the braised dishes on the table now hurriedly flew into the electronics city and headed towards the top floor; there, there was a feast that they could not touch on weekdays.
-
Snap, snap:
Footsteps mixed with the sound of wet water echoed in the empty top floor, and ripples spread out in the pool of blood.

Two men wearing long black windbreakers with shirts underneath walked in; the hot summer night made them sweat all over and their shirts became transparent.

Click: Someone pulled out a flashlight, and a long, white pillar-like halo of light swept across the top floor—
He rolled the cuffs of his nylon socks down to his ankles and pulled the sleeves of his windbreaker up to his elbows, exposing as much skin as possible to cool down. He puffed on a cigarette, the end of which flickered like a traffic light about to turn green.

"Holy shit, how could there be so much blood? What the hell is that big?"

John Doe is a tall man with a gray stubble that pierces his jaw like steel needles and connects to his graying temples. His Chinese has lost most of its accent, a quality expected of a field agent operating in Asia.

The huge flesh statue had a strange shape, hidden in the shadows of the night, with flies coiling and wriggling on its surface - the flashlight light that swept across it from time to time only added a bit of horror to it.

The man named John Dou scratched his graying temples desperately, opened his mouth wide, and blew out clouds of smoke around him: the swarm of flies came faster than anyone else - a large group of flies danced like a pocket typhoon, and the buzzing sound made people's scalp tingle.

His partner tapped his glasses on his nose to swat away flies that had landed on the lenses. This man, with his mixed-race features, looked younger. On his breast pocket was embroidered the words "Rich Chuck":

"Hurry up. The support team says we have about ten minutes left: this observation point is obsolete. We need to check the scene first."

John Dou flicked the burning cigarette butt into the blood pool around him, making a hissing sound:

"Ten minutes? Bullshit! It takes ten minutes just to walk around this fat guy. Let them just stop the case. Ten minutes is enough for me to have a cigarette."

Richard waved his hand, slapping away the flies and secondhand smoke on his face:
"Let's gather some information first: The entire scene and the arrangement of the bodies all have obvious traces of ritual. There may be unregistered religious groups operating in Mong Cai."

John Dou was dismissive:
"Religious gangs? Religious gangs have nothing to do with us. We're just two fucking field agents, managing this and that. What religious gang could possibly get inside the company's observation post? There aren't any religious fanatics left in the autonomous prefecture anymore; they've all moved overseas."

Perhaps his partner had intentionally avoided the option of stopping the case, John Dou's tone was even more ferocious than usual.

The fat corpse occupied a small half of the top floor: if the head had not rolled to the side, he would probably have been able to break through the ceiling - and the net height of the top floor was already much higher than the other floors.

Richard was already accustomed to his partner's aggressive complaints. He raised his hand and pointed at the enormous, fat corpse.
"Did you notice the position of the hands and the head? Originally, this head was probably stuffed into the abdominal cavity."

John Dou avoided the puddles on the ground - even though his leather shoes were already dirty enough, he didn't want to step on the pink and yellow liquid.

"Hmph, hard to say. Maybe it's another company provoking Asia-Europe Post—didn't you hear that during training? Maybe another corporate group wants to start a war."

He walked to the base of the wall and used his fingertips to wipe away the superficial paint, revealing the rectangular metal hidden behind it:

"Here's the nameplate: SEA-O-179220."

"Okay. Let me look for it." Richard held the thick booklet to his chest and carefully flipped through it. Every page was sealed in plastic and filled with fine text and photos. "Wait. Read the code name again? Forget it, I'll look at it myself."

Richard squatted down and compared the code on the nameplate. His brows furrowed tighter and tighter, as if he was using them to pinch the mosquitoes flying around him.

"It doesn't match at all. Come and take a look."

He stuffed the photo album into John Dou's arms - the man in the photo had hair that was pulled together in wisps, full of dandruff and grease; he was thin and ragged, and only the huge bulge on his right arm, like a subcutaneous tumor, made the man look different from an ordinary tramp.

John Dou's eyes widened, and he glanced back and forth between the photo and the corpse:
"Ha. That's quite a change. Are you sure it's the same person? Did you go through a second growth spurt? That's impressive." Richard took the photo album and stuffed it back into his trench coat pocket; then he pulled out a film camera and tucked it into his hand.
"There should be no mistake in setting up an observation station: it is possible that there has not been enough time to update the data and information."

John Dou waved his arms, making a lazy cross with the cigarette butt between his fingers:

"This size and proportion? I don't think Jesus has ever seen such a big fat guy. It's like an armored vehicle. Oh, Amen."

The two men stared at this wonder for a moment, and John Dou suddenly spoke:

"Gather information, but don't report it. There's no need for the two of us to finish this thing. We have a lot of work to do, and we can't finish it yet. We can pass it on to the support team later."

So the two of them began to pace around the huge corpse again, accompanied by the occasional groping and pressing of plastic gloves and the momentary brightness brought by the flashing of flash lights.

They found severed limbs and torsos piled haphazardly in a corner—the proportions of these bodies looked much more normal.

Richard squatted beside the scattered bodies:

"Only 179220's head was severed. The other bodies showed no such marks. Was this a special execution?"

John Douze didn't pay any attention to the details:
"You can remember this code name? You have a good memory. But first, take a closer look here."

"It wasn't chopped off with a sharp object, it was ripped off whole. Look at the cuts on the skin and muscle on the neck, they look like they were bitten by a dog." He kicked hard, but the head, which was as big as a beanbag, just stopped and swayed. "Damn, I can't kick it. Come over and see. This head alone must weigh 500 pounds, like a stone block."

Richard strode over to John Dou and the head, his leather shoes splashing in the dirty water:
"Well, the wound is jagged and irregular—the spine is broken."

It is called the spine, but it looks like the color is only slightly darker than the load-bearing columns of this layer, and the circumference is even greater.

Richard's sweat was getting heavier. He finally took off his glasses and wiped his wet hair carefully.

"What do you mean? Was it [the client] who did it?"

John Dou suddenly threw his hand outward as if to brush away a fly:

"What a lunatic! If [the client] had this kind of power, why would Corey send the two of us here to die? Without a chainsaw, no one can possibly remove a head this big—that's not right, not even a chainsaw can cut this thing off. But maybe this fat guy's become this mess because of the packages [the client] brought. Damn, they're getting more and more troublesome."

He suddenly closed his mouth and plucked his needle-like stubble with his fingertips:

"--Never mind, there's no need to dwell on it. Keep the orders separate; making random connections only adds to the trouble."

call!
Richard exhaled and squeezed his stiff shoulders. The pressure from the top floor seemed to become tangible, causing him to develop frozen shoulder within a few minutes.

"Let's start with classification, then? The original characterization was too weak. The files didn't even include background checks, behavioral analysis, or classification. There weren't any permanent observers at the observation points—but now it's like this."

"What kind do you think it is? The intensity of this ecstasy is too terrifying. If this fat man had retained his ability to move while he was still alive."

John Dou put out his two-puff cigarette butt in the fat layer of the corpse's flesh, sniffing the faint smell of burning. He immediately lit another cigarette, as if using it as a light source:

"It was called 'Miracle' a while ago, but now it's been changed to 'Crazy'. The marketing department is really messing around."

"This fat guy is a—a criminal. No, a patient. He has obsessive-compulsive disorder, a very severe one."

(End of this chapter)