Puzzle Madness

Chapter 39 Audition
Doudou carried the mathematician from the bus stop to the police station.
"You can't just go to the police station and kill people!"

When the two men finally stopped, the mathematician still managed to muster a little blood from his limp limbs and spoke softly.

From their position, they could hear the commotion in the Mong Cai City Police Station, with indistinguishable shouts and curses coming from time to time, as well as the corresponding scolding - it seemed that quite a few drunks had already checked into the police station tonight.

It was precisely because of this that no law enforcement officers noticed the two of them at all.

Doudou half-turned his head and glanced at the mathematician doubtfully:
"What do you mean by killing people indiscriminately? What are you thinking?"

"Who do you think I am? A Doom Slayer in hell, killing anyone who moves? I just want to know who's chasing you. Come over and ask."

The mathematician seemed to have regained some strength. He adjusted his glasses, his gaze slightly shifting from Doudou's.

"So, do you want to ask directly? Civilians can't just pull files from the police station and check things. I don't understand why we have to go to the police station now."

"And—and—we are the suspects. If we go in, we'll be exposed."

"Oh! Aren't you a PhD? I thought since you're a mathematician, at least your mind is more active. Why are you always so dazed? You look like your brain isn't working properly today."

Doudou spread out his hands and pressed his fingers one by one onto his palms:
"We just killed those four people. The officers must have been investigating the crime scene—your home—while examining the scene, performing preliminary autopsies on those people, and checking their identities."

"And you have all these guns and money in your house! Not just yours, but also those guys who stormed in. So no matter what identity you used to rent the house, it would definitely be exposed; everyone would know there's something fishy about you, and there's no reason to start a weird fight."

"The Jiaozhi Autonomous Prefecture can't use that kind of assault rifle, okay? Even if you pretend to be some super gangster or the underground emperor of Mong Cai City, it's useless!"

"Right! You vomited so much—at least twice. Haven't you heard about this thing called [DNA testing] that's all the rage lately? I'm afraid you'll be found out right away that you're the [Iron Ruler Murderer]. Sorry, you're the fake [Iron Ruler Murderer] who was wrongly accused."

"But what difference does it make whether it's true or not? I'm the only one who knows your innocence! And speaking of those corpses just now—"

"They're wearing body armor and carrying some really cool fully automatic rifles. They're also wearing night vision helmets, infrared helmets, and all that other shit. These aren't things you can buy from mail-order magazines or TV shopping!"

"They're so well-equipped, and they're still yelling all sorts of nonsense, 'Hey, corporate law enforcement! I'll kill you if you don't surrender!' They've got to be a big company, maybe a giant multinational. They'll probably send someone to examine the body, then take it into custody, relocate it, or try to silence it."

"Even if we're not curious about how these employees died, we can't just leave these guns and equipment in Mong Cai and donate them to the police. What if someday a mischievous person follows this clue and finds out which company the equipment belongs to? Don't you agree? It makes sense!"

"Then if I catch the people sent by the company, wouldn't that let me find out who's after you? Then I can follow the clues. There's bound to be someone who knows the details and is willing to tell, right? Even if no one wants to tell, you can just kill them all and you won't be in trouble."

"Of course, they might have to wait a few days before sending someone to handle it, to avoid causing too much trouble. In that case, we could sit in on the autopsy! Or we could go dig around in the evidence room and ask a couple of the data guys and girls about the identities of the bodies. That would give us a rough idea of ​​what happened."

Doudou raised his elbow and nudged the mathematician, who was speechless and dazed.
"Well, what I said makes sense, doesn't it?"

The mathematician looked up and down, mumbling—he only caught the single key word he could still follow:

"Can I attend the autopsy?"

He wanted to say something like, "It wasn't us who killed four people, it was you who killed four people," but the mathematician knew perfectly well that he was now completely and utterly bound to DouDou—though he doubted DouDou would even be harmed if he died. Without DouDou, the mathematician probably would have already been taken away by these mysterious, fully armed men.

And—DouDou was right. Although the boy before him was a fellow who could tear a person to pieces with his bare hands, he was indeed capable of using his brain and even loved to use his brain.

It is difficult to see this characteristic from that beautiful and delicate face that does not show any human emotions.

What's going on? Why does it feel like he has more social experience than me? Is it because I don't watch movies on tape?

Doudou dragged the mathematician along, walked straight past the police station, and continued forward:
"Can't you just hide in the ceiling and listen in? Come on, I'll take you there. I was here two years ago, and I wonder if that ventilation duct is still there."

The mathematician was somewhat numb from what he said, and followed Doudou blankly:

"Doudou—you, aren't you still in middle school? Where did you learn these ideas?"

Doudou suddenly turned around, frowning; it was the first time he looked so serious since this journey:

"'Sloppy Modern Detective 2: The Vault Heist'. Haven't you played it? It's a lot of fun! The guide I copied from a magazine kept getting stuck, and I figured out a route to the end bit by bit on my own. Hey, gotta admit, I do have a pretty good brain. Why would I get stuck on something like math homework?"

"It seems that mathematics has a great impact on the overall development of young people like me. Oh! Well, that's not true. I just can't learn it well. What will I do if I have to study other subjects like physics and chemistry in the future? It's over. When God closes a window for you, he will also close the door by the way--"

Doudou was walking backwards, muttering to himself, leading the mathematician, who was already speechless, into the gap next to the police station.

Next to the Mong Cai City Police Station is a small shopping mall. The first half of the sign is no longer clear, and only the suffix "Trade City" can be seen. The brick surface of the exterior wall is red with gray, and ivy is all over it. At night, it gives a fluffy and hazy illusion.

Doudou reached into the mathematician's armpit with his left hand and grabbed it; the five fingers of his right hand, the toes of his left and right feet silently sank into the wall, and the mud and plaster powder peeled off and fell to the ground.

He was like a spider gripping its prey, or King Kong the gorilla clutching a beautiful woman: after a few leaps, he had climbed to the upper floors of the Trade City in the blink of an eye.
cluster!
Doudou carried the mathematician like a briefcase, bounced from a height, and landed on the top floor of the police station:

He dug and dug at the rooftop floor, and finally lifted a heavy rectangular cement slab and placed it aside, then pulled the mathematician with him into the exposed gap underneath.
-
This doesn't look like a ventilation duct, but more like a cave dotted with spider webs: cold white light shines in through the horizontal window strips, like clusters of temperatureless flames, illuminating the dust scattered in the air.

Even at this late hour, most of the offices in the police station were still brightly lit. Perhaps it was because of the horrific events that had occurred in Tianhu Community tonight—the weapons, the shootout, the multiple murders—but it seemed as if this small town's law enforcement was entering a new realm it had never encountered before.

Doudou crawled in front, and the mathematician moved behind; it was said to be "crawling" - but Doudou was more like a gecko or spider magnified countless times, moving silently between the walls of the duct; it even bounced back and forth between the four walls of the ventilation duct from time to time, but the mathematician could not feel the vibration of a heavy object colliding.

He almost thought that Doudou was just a strange monster that he had imagined under extreme pressure - the kind of monster that only he could see.

Crawling through such a fragile pipe was an unprecedented experience. The walls might collapse at any moment, and the mathematician would be inexplicably arrested for something like trespassing in a police station, becoming a fugitive: this uncontrollable thought tormented him, buzzing in his mind.

Doudou, who was jumping in front, suddenly pinched his throat to a shrill tone and sighed in a strange tone:
"There's not much dust in this ventilation duct. Did the cleaning lady come in and clean this part too? Oh, no, actually, only the bottom part isn't dusty. Did someone crawl over here first?"

(End of this chapter)