Puzzle Madness

Chapter 195 The First Dream War (Part 1)

When World War IV broke out, people only fought with sticks and stones.
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My good friend Einstein.
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My finger is in DouDou's refrigerator: it smells so bad that it attracts flies if it's not frozen. Even in October, people in Mong Cai can't just leave fresh food outside.

He had intended to conduct a series of elaborate tests—but when he threw his knuckles onto the living room dining table, cockroaches crawled on them first, and rats grabbed them and tried to carry them away; however, these pests scurried around perfectly fine, without disappearing like bubbles bursting.

So DouDou simply took matters into her own hands and touched the tip of the thumb; nothing happened.

【Ugh, this feels disgusting! It's already starting to rot, so it's not working?】

It seems this fingerstyle ...

Finally, DouDou simply wrapped it in plastic wrap again and again, stuffed it in a corner of the freezer, and stuck it together with the frozen dumplings.

The thumb has two joints, and the other four fingers each have three joints. Fourteen joints on one hand, twenty-eight on both hands combined? That means the "bullet" would need to be at least one centimeter long on each side, or perhaps a larger contact area would improve accuracy; in any case, at least twenty-eight could be used. What about the palms? The soles of the feet? The rest of the body?

Thinking about it all together, that gunman had a pretty good ammunition stash.

However, DouDou had other speculations. Looking at this finger reminded him of the "motherly love" of that strange aunt of the section chief—that large hand, like a fallen star or crystal, with numerous fingers, which did not exist for ordinary people.

If you used that hand as ammunition, you'd never run out—

[Perhaps only the "hands" have this effect, and other parts of the body don't? It seems that when people talk about touching or stroking, the first thing that comes to mind is the hands.]

Imagery is perhaps very important; I've pondered this point many times.

But for things that are difficult to verify at the moment, he only thought about them briefly and then stopped researching them.
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Ever since that obese "water ghost" visited Mong Cai No. 5 Middle School, Dou Dou has never dreamed of it again. The scene of people flying everywhere seems to be just a one-time experience ticket.

But every time he recalled that dream, he felt a strange, indescribable sensation, like something stuck in his throat while eating. After a few days, DouDou completely forgot about it and stopped caring about it altogether.

However, the frequency with which taro groups went into the water increased significantly.

[We, the members, are like workers drilling oil wells, without receiving wages]—this was said on the surface of the moon.

Ai Xi wanted to find something in her dreams, so the Taro Society came under stricter management.

During every spare moment of the day—between classes, long breaks, lunch break, art class, music class, and physical education class—at least three people would be swimming in the storage room.

It was almost like a shift system, with wave after wave of students dozing off in the damp, musty-smelling storage room, searching for the secrets of the deep sea.
But what exactly this secret is, nobody knows. Perhaps even Ai Xi herself has no clue. Anyway, the lunar surface is constantly being pressed down on by the Goldfish Eye, forcing wave after wave of underground water.

Goldfish Eyes then started complaining that she had tenosynovitis and even had to ask her mother to take her to the Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital for a small needle knife treatment on the weekend; she also complained about how long it took to get medical insurance, and so on.

The reason was that she had to keep several densely packed records of the water trips every day, while also acting as a lifeguard. It wasn't until she went to the provincial library, spent a weekend typing on the terminal, and printed out a thick stack of forms; that she let the members who went into the water fill them out themselves, while she was only responsible for approving and then compiling the results.

The new plan was decided by Goldfish Eyes herself, because Ash was busier than her.

Ever since learning that DouDou and the surface of the moon had the same dream, AiXi has been incredibly busy. Being late has gradually turned into skipping class: she's been spending a lot of time at the Children's Palace, even giving Mr. Liu, the model airplane teacher, a red envelope, and tinkering with something. According to her, she's "upgrading her equipment"; but it's not for her own use.

All sorts of strange things started appearing on Ruan Jingbo's body: they all came from Ai Xi, and most of them, just by looking at their appearance, did not seem to have any function at all.

Once, DouDou saw AiXi stuff a sheathed field knife into Ruan Jingbo's sock (it seemed to have been bought from a stall on the overpass, where they also sold Tibetan knives, wolf fangs, and secondhand books). Before, Ruan Jingbo used to practice controlling his body by spinning a pen, but recently the knife in his hand was gleaming and its blade was spinning like a top.

Sometimes, after Ruan Jingbo finished basketball training with the school team, Ai Xi would call her to move things; however, judging from the cement bags she moved, Ai Xi was actually trying to find the limits of her physical abilities.

DouDou was quite curious about how she convinced Ruan Jingbo—perhaps spending a long time in that endless arcade, only able to experience the outside world indirectly through sight and sound, was enough to drive a person crazy with boredom.

The school team only plays a few games a year. It's hard to imagine what she does the rest of the time; maybe, like in the comics, Ai Xi promised to find a way to bring her back to normal.

Furthermore, Ruan Jingbo absolutely refused to go into the water: that's quite strange. Dou Dou thought it was because she had disassembled herself into terrifying fragments in order to control the dance machine, and naturally didn't want others to see it.

Even during class, Ai Xi would sometimes grab a stopwatch, then suddenly pull Dou Dou's hand, mutter a few words, and drag him into their shared dream.
Sometimes it's just that I happen to come up with some reasoning and want to study it with DouDou; but more often it's a test, testing the difficulty of dragging DouDou into the dream through the water ghost method.

Gradually, they began to discuss many things only in their dreams; partly for reasons of secrecy.

Finding ways to avoid being a water ghost is very important: that's what she said.

Currently, this appears to be the only way to forcibly interrupt DouDou's activities; it's also not complicated to execute.

"Having at least 0.5 seconds of reaction time is quite slow for you; it's enough to tear off the other person's arm or kill them, and getting rid of contact would be easy. However, we can't let our guard down."

"[Water Ghost] can greatly reduce the cost of attacking you -- if it were me, I would definitely give it a try."

These are all old news, but Ai Xi always repeats them.

When they first discovered the operating mechanism of the "water ghost," Ai Xi was also very nervous; this incident with the obese man made her regain her sense of crisis.

Although most people would never be able to have any physical contact with DouDou if he wanted to, let alone provide him with prompts or visuals at the same time.

However, a well-thought-out plan, several usable backup plans, plus a bit of improvisation and luck, can overcome most of the world's difficulties—a point that Ai Xi and Dou Dou both agree on.

Ai Xi started recommending that Dou Dou listen to music while walking, and even went to a flea market to find a Panasonic Walkman with a broken volume control that could play radio and cassette tapes.

Anyway, DouDou isn't afraid of hearing damage, so she can listen to it even if it's right next to her ear 24/7; if a "water ghost" appears, at least it can partially block the cue words released through hearing: after all, auditory cues are easier to achieve than those from other senses.

Everyone is very busy due to the inexplicable chain reaction.

As for DouDou, he spends most of his time worrying:
What I'm worried about is the midterm exam.

(End of this chapter)