Puzzle Madness

Chapter 17 Beating and Killing—
John Dou felt the wind brushing against his scalp and laughed quietly in his heart:

【it's over. 】

It seems that bringing back live [customers] without using ecstasy is not as difficult as I imagined.

next moment:
boom!
The [client's] body was twisted into a reverse "C" shape by the impact--
"Wow!"

John Dou's left shoulder felt like a bell log, striking the [client's] xiphoid process beneath his sternum. His compressed stomach churned, sending acid rushing back into his esophagus and out of his mouth and nose. This was also the first time John Dou heard the [client's] voice.

Younger than expected, but a little mute.

Dive
His bent left leg pushed against the ground, and his other leg lunged forward: bending at the waist, his arms transformed into giant clamps. His bulging quadriceps made the legs of his trousers bulge.

Hug and throw——
Thousands of times of training have made John Dou's movements as if he is flying close to the cement, or even out of sight; and the huge advantages of arm span and weight allow him to easily wrap the client's legs in his arms.

Boom!
The two men smashed into the open elevator door together.
-
John Dou stretched out his legs and lifted the client, whose center of balance had been lost - then, he threw her to the ground with her own weight: he put one foot in the elevator, causing the whole elevator to shake.

Boom!
[The client] twisted his upper body before landing and used his shoulders to absorb the impact with the concrete: he avoided a broken cervical vertebra.

But it’s far from over.

John Dou had no intention of continuing to switch positions and seek to use jiu-jitsu to submit the [client] from the top position - even though the client clearly had no experience in ground fighting.

It would have been easy to strangle her, but John Dou wasn't going to do that. He wanted the client alive, but he needed to violently remove the ability and will to escape.

He placed one knee on the client's midline, then suddenly lowered his upper body and raised his half-bent arms:

Click.

The sound of soft cotton snapping came from the bridge of [the client's] nose. A faint tinge of red crimson crept into the elbow of John Dou's tattered trench coat: just now, as he pressed down, he delivered a twelve-point vertical elbow strike to his opponent's face.

click!
There was another crisp sound. This time it was John Dou's second lateral elbow strike, followed by a scattering of broken teeth—the hardest human bones crushed the woman's mouth and nose, and blood sprayed onto his expressionless face: those gray-clouded eyes were devoid of any emotion.

[Clients] come in all genders, young and old. For field workers like John Dou, gender and age are completely irrelevant:
After entering the melee stage, his only concern was how to quickly destroy the opponent's ability to resist.

Gu-cough!
Blood and excess saliva swirled in [the client's] mouth, pouring back into her trachea, nearly choking her.

But then, she couldn't even choke to death on her own blood.

John Dou knelt on [the client's] body until he pressed his knees against her mouth, which was torn by broken teeth, and her throat. He spoke, his voice full of wheezing and phlegm, the sound of an old smoker after a strenuous workout:

"I competed in the NCAA championships in college, in Arizona. It's called the National Collegiate Athletic Association in Chinese. I was a light heavyweight, never won a medal, and only placed fourth in wrestling. But it was good enough."

He looked at the pair of eyes that were gradually overflowing with red due to congestion, and the face that was turning purple. He pulled out his pistol from his waist again, clicked the safety, and put it to the customer's forehead:
"Later, I also learned Sanda, BJJ, Sambo, and Muay Thai. People at the gym told me I should try mixed martial arts. I hadn't done that yet."

He didn't think the [client] had the energy to discern what he was saying, but John Dou just loved chatting with people like that.

First, it is to divert the other party's attention: although there is no record in the file, if the ecstatic manifestations of the [client] have already appeared, distracting the other party's attention will help reduce the intensity of the manifestations, or even suppress them.

The second is that John Dou really hasn't had a good conversation with others for some time.

Normally he didn't like to talk about himself - at least he couldn't open his mouth when looking at Richard's face - but he could talk freely about the corpses of his previous clients: according to the psychotherapist assigned to him by the human resources manager, this was a manifestation of lack of security.

But John Dou himself couldn't figure out whether the psychotherapist was really "helping John Dou find a way to heal himself" or whether he was further digging into his psychological trauma to enhance the intensity of his ecstatic manifestations.

This time it wasn't a corpse, which was a breakthrough for him:

Perhaps it was because the other person looked so young, and all those years spent in the office had left a hint of childishness on his face.
Hiss--Ga.

The [client] beneath him gradually emitted strange, inhuman noises; suffocation was bringing her to the brink of death. John Dou suddenly shifted his weight, placing it back on his toes pressed against the ground:

"Give me the real package, and you'll get out alive. You've only been in this business for so long, and you've never done any field work. You can't hide it."

This was a lie, but it also had a grain of truth: He needed more than just a package; he needed information—and confidentiality after obtaining it. John Dou probably didn't understand why he told [the client] so much; perhaps the therapist really did help.

If there is really a secret behind this package, the [customer] must act with them. She and the information she knows may be an unexpected trump card.

hiss--
The [client], now able to breathe again, was soaked in sweat and blood, greedily swallowing all the oxygen in front of her. But this greed could not cover up the desire she wanted to express——
After taking two breaths, the [client] spoke vaguely, with broken teeth between his teeth:
"Can he survive?"

"Why? Because—because if your daughter were still alive she'd be about my age, or something like that?"

".And--and, I'm fucking awesome, right? You old dog, I almost ran away with such a big advantage--"

Her face flushed crimson as she clutched her side—her ribs had been broken in the previous fight. [The client] suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood stained with broken teeth.
"It's so powerful that you've even transferred my feelings. You want to imagine me as your daughter."

"So you want to give me a chance to live? That's too old-fashioned."

"It's so funny. It's so funny. Hahahahaha"

The laughter was tinged with phlegm and quacked like a duck.

John Dou's face was still as solid as plastic film, without a single ripple.

"Is it—strange? John Dou, I've seen your file. You—"

Boom!
[The client] didn’t get a chance to finish his words in the end.

John Dou's clenched fist hit her on the chin, causing her to faint.
-
John Dou grabbed the client by the back of her collar, dragged her into the elevator, and let her fainted lean her back against the elevator button.

This was indeed a quiet neighborhood—even though the fight had been so noisy before, John Dou couldn't hear a single sound now. Richard's choice of location was correct:
It's even a little too quiet. Is there really anyone still living in this community?
He sniffed and wiped it with the back of his hand:

Chatting at work was indeed a big mistake - it completely destroyed the little satisfaction John Dou had gained from successfully capturing [the client] alive.

Ding--bang!
The elevator door opened with the ringing of a bell; the unconscious body of the [client] hit the elevator floor with a loud bang.

John Dou glanced at her: [Client]'s mouth was filled with blood again and it flooded outside the elevator.

Click--
The old elevator door slowly closed, hit the [customer's] straight waist, and then retracted again.

boom!
John Dou casually carried the unconscious [client] into the elevator and slammed the elevator's emergency stop button.

Looking at the bloody and disfigured face of the [client], John Dou shook his head and took out the cigarette box that had been crushed in the fight from his breast pocket.

After a little hesitation, he took out a cigarette and put it in his mouth; the filter became flat and the tobacco was a little loose.

Even John Dou felt tired after this series of chases and fights; his messy hair stuck to his face.

There was a groove on the elevator wall, a vague rectangle. It seemed that there had been some notice embedded there, but now, the paper was face down in the dirty water, stained pink.

John Dou did not pick up the sticky A4 paper to look at it - unlike his partner, he was not that curious.

He pulled a lighter from his trouser pocket and flipped open the lid.

(End of this chapter)