Puzzle Madness

Chapter 194 Levitation Technique (Part Twelve)

"The whole process was: send this fat guy into the school, through the [lunar surface], to lure us all over; then, through curiosity, entice me to press his stomach?"

"Not very meticulous. But -- they seem to know my interpersonal relationships quite well, and the whole design revolves around me. Oh dear! Could they be some kind of stalker? How perverted."

Ai Xi abruptly ripped off the dead skin from her lips, revealing a dark red oozing from the edge:
"Like an exposure test? Or a live-fire test? [Pressing] or something like that may not be necessary—contact is key."

"Wait, there's one more condition. That fat guy has to be in a dream state. Otherwise, there's no need to write the words on his stomach, and no need to cause trouble for our members."

“If all that is needed is shock or unconsciousness, it would certainly be more convenient to use medication or other methods.”

She scratched her forehead somewhat anxiously:

"Anyway, your association with Taro is basically out in the open. You're right—the gunman definitely knows about you, so he didn't dare to provoke you; he didn't shoot at us."

Ai Xi clenched her fists, her knuckles cracking; anger, like heat, slowly seeped from her.

"A very vague attitude, we don't know what's going on. What exactly do they want? These few points alone can't narrow it down. Your personality and social connections shouldn't be a secret, we must understand these people's motives."

"Tsk! Is this related to the recent outbreak of neck pain? Was it planned—or did we just happen to stumble upon this opportunity?"

DouDou took the pliers from AiXi, then grabbed a plastic bag and carefully put her finger inside:
"Don't worry, let's focus on what's in front of us first."

"I wonder if this knuckle still works. Maybe it's deactivated and no longer effective, or maybe it's too far from the torso to be useful; anyway, there are some limitations, otherwise it would be too outrageous. If it were ground into powder, it might lead to a technological leap for all of humanity, and everyone could teleport."

"However, we definitely can't touch it now: it might be a trap, left specifically for us to explore. If we do, wouldn't it be troublesome to be teleported to some outer space or the Mariana Trench?"

"That would be almost the same as being dead; I wouldn't be able to come back for at least a short time."

Ai Xi's mouth twitched, as if she were thinking about something. Suddenly, she raised her elbow and poked Dou Dou's ribs:

"You're being a bit cautious today, which is unusual. Are you in a bad mood?"

DouDou scratched her face with her fingertips, then stretched as if she was feeling a little uncomfortable.

"No—well, I think I had a dream this morning, it felt really strange. I've never dreamed before, you remember?"

Ai Xi's lips trembled slightly before she continued speaking:
"Dreams? Really those kinds of dreams. You don't seem to dream much. Do you remember the content? What exactly were they like--"

Snap, snap snap.

Goldfish eyes glazed over as she raised her hand and snapped her fingers several times. Recording this series of bizarre and mind-numbing analyses left her looking completely bewildered.

"Boss, what's going on? Um, he... he seems to have woken up on the moon."

Without her saying anything, the two of them immediately saw it.

Ah--ah!
The tall, imposing figure on the moon stretched out his limbs and let out a strange cry, as if just waking up. He rubbed his eyes, his face still blurry; then he propped himself up with one hand and rubbed his face:

"--Has class started? Did I oversleep? Everyone's here. Oh my, even DouDou's at the base! He's gotten even more handsome in just two days!"
-
On the lunar surface, he sat upright in a chair in the storage room, while the other three people squatted or stood, waiting for him to recount the whole story in detail:

"Forbidden technique! That fat uncle used a forbidden technique, you know? He was lying in wait for me right here at the base, setting up an ambush. I thought that move was a secret, something only the four Heavenly Kings of our Taro Society could use."

With goldfish eyes, hands raised upwards, fingers clawing, and feet stomping angrily on the floor, his eyes practically rolling back to the top of his head, he yelled, "Idiot, idiot! Our club doesn't even have a 'Four Heavenly Kings' structure! Even if the boss wanted to create one, it wouldn't be your turn—"

Ai Xi patted the goldfish-eyed man's shoulder, and the latter fell silent as if an alarm clock had been turned off.
"Stop arguing. Geng Quanyi, are you saying that person used [water ghost] techniques to force you into the water?"

Geng Quanyi is the formal name on the surface of the moon—but apart from her teacher, only Ai Xi calls her that; she prefers to call people by their full names.

The moon's surface was still winking at her goldfish-like eyes, making her so angry her eyebrows almost stood on end.

"Yes, the club president! He was hiding in the storeroom waiting. As soon as the door opened, he jumped up like a wild dog; I was so scared: he grabbed my arm and said, '[Mong Cai No. 5 Middle School storeroom]'!"

"I suddenly felt a heaviness in my stomach, like I had eaten too much. Then I was immediately dragged into the water."

"A very standard forbidden technique procedure, right, brothers? There might be a traitor among our members who has leaked this kind of secret."

Water ghosts, dragging, hypnosis, forced connection, or the "forbidden arts" mentioned on the lunar surface, all refer to the same thing in the Taro Society.

One method of forcibly creating a shared dream with others involves giving general hints through words (usually shouting), images, or text while making physical contact.

As long as the other party is influenced, and both parties simultaneously think of similar items, scenes, or concepts, they can forcibly form a shared dream. The more similar the things the two parties are thinking about, the higher the success rate.

DouDou discovered this. He used a similar method when he entered Ruan Jingbo's dream before:
But it was the other members who truly organized, summarized, and tried to expand upon the ideas—"water ghost" was the most popular nickname among them.

Ai Xi suddenly sighed, gesturing for him to continue:
"The conditions for [the water ghost] to be found weren't too strict, so it's normal for others to discover it. What about the underwater part? Did you talk to him in your dream?"

His face, pockmarked like a pockmark on the moon's surface, was almost completely wrinkled. He slapped his thigh hard:
"Holy crap! President, that's exactly what I was going to say, but I was afraid you wouldn't believe me! It's completely different from the usual way of going into the water!"

"Normally, since that person used '[storeroom]' as the clue, I should still appear here after I go into the water, right? But this time I inexplicably ended up in the city center and can only stand on the ground, unable to move."

"It should be the city center? It looks a bit like it, but it doesn't feel like Mong Cai. Oh well, I'm getting off-topic, sorry."

"Here comes the crucial part! I saw a lot of people, men, women, young and old, maybe even my distant relatives; they looked vaguely familiar but I couldn't quite place them. Guess what they were doing? They were flying! Like birds."

"They just clapped their hands, swung them around, and then they flew up! Can you believe it? Flying into the sky."

He comically clasped his hands to his sides, flapping them like a hen:

"That's outrageous! And there are so many people, even more outrageous than during Chinese New Year. Normally, when you go underwater, there are just as many people as there are divers; but this time, I don't know what happened! A whole bunch of random people have sneaked in."

"But we can't find that fat guy inside—isn't that strange?"

"So, what happened after I went into the water? Where's that guy? And why is there some blood on the ground?"

DouDou leaned close to AiXi's ear and covered her mouth with her hand:

"I had the same dream this morning, just one thing was different."

"In my dream, I was suspended in the air at a low altitude."

After he finished speaking, Ai Xi remained silent in the storage room for a long time.

(End of this chapter)