Puzzle Madness

Chapter 4 Vortex
Sometimes Doudou feels that Mong Cai during the summer vacation is like a damp garbage dump.

This feeling comes from the hot mist rising from the summer sun and the sticky sweat on the back; the mosquitoes swarming above people's heads form a kind of vague crown.

Even though it was just past noon, the lanes were already jammed; the moving traffic made a roar of horns and engines, which was extremely noisy: Mong Cai's slow pace of urban construction could not keep up with the changes over the years.

But this wasn't the topic Doudou was concerned about while squatting in front of the newsstand. The 15th of every month was the day he looked forward to the most.
"The latest issue is here!"

Doudou pressed the rectangular button with the paint worn off, stuffed three nickels into the coin slot, grabbed the handle, and yanked open the oven-like lid of the self-service newsstand.

The August 1996 issue of "Super Psychological Exploration" was stacked into squares, exuding the smell of ink mixed with rust.

He picked and chose, and finally picked up the issue at the top.

As soon as you open the magazine, you can hear the sound of dripping music.

A thin cassette tape is embedded in a hole cut into the center of the coated paper on the back cover. Opening the supplement plays a tune, arranged in chapter order, to enhance the reader's reading experience. However, the capacity is limited, and the 16-bit music is crudely produced. The song is printed on the back cover—Sergei Kuznetsov's "Gray Night."

There had been a number of Soviet singers and bands touring Mong Cai recently, and "Parapsychological Exploration" had caught on. But there was only a short, repetitive melody; Doudou grew tired of it and pulled the tape out and tucked it into his pocket.
-
Doudou carefully rubbed the stuck pages apart—but the fragile paper still broke a corner between his fingers. He grimaced in pain and hesitated whether to secretly change to a new magazine, but then hurried on.
This month's issue of "Parapsychological Explorations" is still pretty much the same as the previous issues; most of it is just a bunch of vague, poorly printed snapshots of the story:

For example, there's the "Outer Space Killer Big Head Monster," which descends from the sky, inhabits a child's body, and then hatches; the "Suriname Full Metal Slug," which wields a full set of handmade weaponry and hunts nighttime humans; and the "Pleiades Mantis," which feeds on electronic media but enjoys reading the inner workings of human beings.
It has been a few years since I bought "Parapsychological Exploration" - the main content before was mostly about unclear legends and anecdotes from all over the world.

But in recent years, there have been many strange stories in Mong Cai or other cities in Jiaozhi Autonomous Prefecture: countless, with new ones every year -
A teacher at school once confiscated Doudou's magazine and returned it to him sweating for no apparent reason. He said:
"The editorial office of Parapsychology is located in Mong Cai. They are simply increasing the tourism and cultural appeal of our city through the influence of their media content."

Doudou didn't think so - because there were some genuine items among them, although they weren't what he liked.

As usual, he turned to an anecdote about a child whose parents were killed in a gas explosion but who was unharmed: the title was "Indestructible" - Doudou was a little tired of reading this story.

Somehow, for the past three years, Parapsychological Exploration has always brought up his story to fill its pages. Among the inexplicable and subtle phenomena that have increased in Mong Cai City, Dou Dou's "deeds" are really too unconventional:
It was so old-fashioned that it even affected his mood every time he opened the magazine. The only consolation was that the information published in "Parapsychological Exploration" was limited and his name was not included.
-
Doudou pulled out a notebook, pen, and a creased map of Mong Cai City from the front pocket of his schoolbag and sat down next to the self-service newsstand.

"New. New, but still the same old ones."

Although Mong Cai City has been very fashionable in "Parapsychological Exploration" recently, the monsters/mysterious phenomena/strange stories that are reported over and over again in the magazine are still the same ones: there is nothing new that Doudou can record.

He nailed a large hanging board on an empty wall in his house, with a map of Mong Cai City on it; and pinned clippings from "Parapsychological Exploration" to each corresponding location with pins.

This is something Doudou learned from "The Wire" and "The X-Files", but it didn't really come in handy: it just gave him some more ways to pass the summer vacation.

When he turned to the last page of the magazine, Dou Dou yawned, shook his head, and stood up—he could only go to the old spot tonight. Searching for the monsters appearing in Mong Cai City—the real thing, at least he had to see it with his own eyes: this was his summer vacation plan; however, summer was already nearing its end, and he still hadn't finished.
-
I walked from Doudou into Tianhu Community, passed the green belt without flowers and plants and the empty parking spaces, and then opened the elevator door covered with cobwebs. I didn't meet any neighbors - except for the security guard sleeping at the door: the old man with wrinkles on his face wore the same blue shirt with sweat stains under his armpits every day, and snored in the guard room.

Everything was as usual, just as Doudou was always happy: but this good mood was soon tarnished.

Because something was different in the elevator.

Doudou sniffed:
The smell of cigarettes was strong, almost acrid; two cigarette butts, their filters ripped and ripped, lay scattered on the floor. Although the smoke had long since dissipated and the elevator was no longer foggy, everything was still clear.

Someone smoked in the elevator, and even smoked more than one cigarette--
A blush began to spread from his chest, along his neck and onto Doudou's cheeks, like a light layer of cinnabar on his clean, white skin. His delicate features suddenly twisted and curled, moving towards the center of his face, until they formed a terrifying, almost vortex-like mass.

Doudou was very angry.

boom!
He clawed into the elevator wall with one hand.

Anger flowed through his bulging veins, and blue veins like small snakes could be seen under his skin:

How could someone smoke in an elevator? Who on earth would smoke in an elevator? This person is so evil, so evil—

Gaga, Gaga
The iron sheet used to cover the hole in the elevator howled and twisted between his fingers until it curled up like a half-dry rag.
-
By the time Doudou finally opened the elevator's metal door, his anger had vanished: the originally smooth metal walls inside the elevator had somehow become uneven and full of bumps - like a ball of paper that had been crumpled up and then unfolded and smoothed, but the marks left behind could never be faded.

He used his feet to hold the elevator door open and closed, and fanned himself with his palms and the magazines he had bought - until the only smell left in the elevator was the musty and rusty air, and it became the same as usual; only then did he leave contentedly.

Doudou lives in room 402, the only room in the entire corridor with Spring Festival couplets pasted on the door; Doudou turns the key and returns to his home where he lives alone.

At first glance, the room looked like a Dalmatian dog with a skin disease.
The walls, floors, furniture, and even the ceiling were covered with A4 sheets of paper filled with sentences of varying lengths. They were densely packed, layered upon layer, turning the room a grayish-white; on them were DouDou's childish and rough handwriting:
"Be a good child. Children are the infancy of human beings. Good children = good people." (The sentence was added in small print at the end: "So to be a good person, you must first be a "human being".")
[What does it take to be considered a human?] (A large, thick, black question mark drawn with a water-based marker.)
[If you do bad things, you are not a good person.] (This paragraph was crossed out and replaced with [If you beat up bad people, you are a good child.])
[If it doesn't look like something that's not human, it looks like a human.] (Next to this awkward sentence, a special issue of Monster Surprises from April 1996 was tacked on: the Pleiades mantis on the cover had been smeared with a large cross by Doudou.)
Some of the manuscript papers had yellowed edges, and some had become curled after being soaked in water and then dried: they seemed to have been written intermittently over several years.

Doudou dug out the printed workbook from his schoolbag and tore it along the dividing line. He took out a pen and wrote a few big words on it, then punched in exclamation marks:
[Caught a guy smoking in the elevator! ! ! ! ]
He jumped up lightly and used thumbtacks to pin the big slogan above his head - his hair touched the ceiling more than three meters high.

"Well."

Doudou tilted his head, pondering for a moment, then tore off another piece of homework paper. This time, he was a little calmer, restrainedly scribbling a few large words in ink: "Don't smoke in the elevator." He poked his head with the ballpoint pen, and finally added the word "please" before the sentence.

He walked out of the house, opened the elevator door again, and pressed the homework paper against the stainless steel wall in the elevator room.
Ping! Ping! Ping!
Doudou patted the wall as gently as he could until the wall sank obediently, embedding the homework paper in it like a picture frame; only then did he go home satisfied.

(End of this chapter)