Puzzle Madness

Chapter 66 Underground
In the first half of this sleepless night, both Richard and the mathematician experienced Doudou's "massacre" of the four-man assault team -
The only difference was that one of them was engulfed in a smoke bomb, while the other was on a distant crane, his sight blocked by a wall.

The shock brought by the close witnessing is completely incomparable to the previous superficial itch:

And now it seemed that the word "massacre" didn't apply to the minor conflict in Tianhu Community. A more appropriate example had just appeared in their sight, hearing, and nose.

The two men turned their heads stiffly and their eyes met.

The mathematician could see Richard's lips moving, whispering to himself. It was a whisper that only he could hear with full concentration, and it was clearly not addressed to the mathematician:

".Live, live? Live. Die? I won't die, I won't die. I want to live - live. I want to live, I want to live."

When the mathematician turned back, he vomited again:

"Ugh—wow!"

This was the umpteenth time he'd vomited tonight, liquid and solid matter surging out of his mouth and nasal cavity—and this time, what he vomited wasn't even undigested food, bile, or stomach acid.
Instead, it was a pool of black and red liquid with clumps of meat in it, with clear and distinct textures; it was not muscle, but was more like an organ: like the uncut pig offal at the meat stall in the vegetable market.

The fishy smell mixed with stomach acid made their smell even more strange - but at this moment, as it filled the atrium lobby, it blended into the surroundings.

Doudou, whose body was as clean as new, took a step back in shock, and a pool of red water appeared on the sole of his shoe.
"Damn it! Doctor, what are you doing? Did you eat someone earlier?"

The ground was covered with pink, gray, and red fragments, scattered all over the place - this possibility was small, but not impossible.

Doudou looked at the distraught Richard, who had just turned his head and shut his mouth tightly. His eyes seemed to be out of focus, and his eyeballs were about to hit his temples.

"Why aren't you keeping an eye on the doctor? He just stole some corpse. What the hell is that vomit? It scared me to death."

Richard didn't answer; he just swept the vomit on the ground with his shoes and stared at the mathematician who got up tremblingly. No one knew what he was thinking.

Doudou glanced left, then right, and finally shrugged, his voice filled with helplessness:
"Oh, forget it! You two really are. You're both so clueless and can't even speak clearly. You're making me feel like a kindergarten teacher."

"Old Li! Wait, take the doctor to the infirmary and have a look. Don't let anything happen to you, that would be inappropriate. If you really are feeling unwell, I won't be able to take you to the hospital tonight."

He waved to the two of them, asking them to follow him. Doudou grinned and pointed his thumb mysteriously behind him:

"Oh! That's right; there's no need to smash through the ground."

"I was chasing those bad guys just now when I found an entrance. Looks like that's how they got up there—I bet it leads straight underground. Awesome, huh? Let's go!"
-
Perhaps it was fortunate that Richard and the mathematician did not have to go up to the second floor along the wet stairs that were still oozing sticky red, and experience a terrifying tour.

The three of them were in the corner of the first floor and saw the "entrance" that Doudou mentioned.

What was supposed to be a neat elevator door embedded in the wall has now turned into a huge wound.

Broken steel cables hung from above, dangling in mid-air; the rails were askew, parts scattered, and a powdery, sticky mess hung on the walls. A crackling, flickering electric fire hung at the top, illuminating the dripping blood.

It looked like there had been an explosion, leaving the entire elevator shaft exposed. Judging from the height, this elevator only went up to the second floor, which was where the blood came from.

The elevator door folded inward, landing at the bottom of the shaft; a dark red pool formed at the corners. It seemed Doudou's fist had caused the explosion; as for the elevator itself, he had no idea where he had shoved it.

Doudou put his hands under the armpits of his two companions and carried them lightly to the bottom of the well.

Doudou casually pulled open the outer elevator door, and soft white light rushed into the elevator shaft; but it made the mathematician and Richard squint their eyes.

This is clearly not a warehouse, nor an underground parking lot--
It doesn’t even look like part of the Shouzhu 151 skyscraper:

The corridor was clean and white, with the purity of a sterile room; aside from the occasional ceiling light, a hazy glow shone through the cracks in the walls. There were no floor plans, no signposts, and no directional markers on the walls. Each branching path was identical, leading to an unknown destination. I wondered if this was part of the original design, or if it hadn't been fully finalized yet.

The air was damp and slightly humid, with a pungent smell of metal and plastic, mixed with the faint acrid odor of burnt electrical wire insulation. It wasn't exactly refreshing, and even a bit unpleasant; but compared to the gray and filthy atmosphere of the atrium—it seemed as if they had suddenly stepped from a living hell into a man-made paradise.

Doudou clung to the corner of the wall and quietly poked his head out to look around; cautiously, like a thief sneaking into a museum - each fork in the road led to more forks, like a maze:

"Wow! A secret base! This is such a high-tech secret base! Lao Li, you guessed it right! For a moment I thought you were talking nonsense."

He turned his head slightly. His eyes darted up and down, as if blaming the other two for not following his lead and clinging to the corner together.
"Alright, we can split up now. Doctor, will you follow Agent Li to the infirmary or operating room? Anywhere like that? Help him with his hand treatment."

"You won't get lost here, Doc—never mind, Agent Li should know the way; just follow him."

"Also! You've been vomiting all night, haven't you? I think you should go see a doctor. Who knows if you've caught some virus? Go get checked out. In the movies, people who vomit black water are usually those who are possessed by demons. I don't have time to find a monk or Taoist priest to exorcise the demon for you right now!"

The mathematician held his chest with one hand and his lower abdomen with the other. He didn't know which part of his body was more uncomfortable:
"Ah? Me? No, do we really have to split up? But... didn't you say before..."

He glanced at Richard, who had a gloomy look on his face.

Richard looked sideways downward, as if there was nothing else in the world more attractive than this smooth wall base.
"What Doudou said makes sense. We'll listen to him."

Doudou retracted his head and rubbed the smooth walls of the corridor with his fingertips:

"We can't always go together. If they use poison gas, laser traps, biological weapons, alien hypnosis, or something like that, won't we all be taken down in one fell swoop?"

"Besides, you idiot! If you act with me, we might all be dead in an instant. Haven't you seen it in the movies? The villain will attack you first to interfere with me, and then I will reveal my weakness and be defeated."

He clutched his chest, pretending to be trembling from being shot—then instantly stood up straight again:

"Of course, this should be impossible."

"But! If I have to pay attention to protecting you, I won't be able to seriously look at the monsters that want to beat me up. I also need to record some material to submit to Parapsychology Exploration."

"Look at those bad guys up there, aren't they having a party in the lobby? I was curious at first, but I was busy blocking and catching bullets for you guys. I'm so busy! I only have two eyes!"

"Don't worry, don't worry. You two have grown up now, just have fun!"

"Oh, and here's another thing to keep in mind! Don't get caught: If the villains use you to threaten me and ask me to surrender, I won't do it—at most I'll help you get revenge. But if I do surrender, they'll definitely chop you into pieces."

"Well, so let's change it to not being [captured] alive."

"Just think about it! What if the villain sees that I refuse to surrender and gets angry and wants to torture you? How terrible would that be! A kind-hearted person like me won't torture you back, so in the end, the villain will gain and you will suffer."
-
The mathematician and Richard kept silent, their gazes darting back and forth through the bright white maze, each one looking absentminded. The bloodstains on their coats had already solidified, but a trail of gradually fading red footprints remained behind them.

Doudou held his chin between his thumb and index finger—after thinking for a moment, it seemed there was nothing else he needed to say:
"Okay then. I'll be leaving now. Be careful."

As Dou Dou spoke, he took a step forward, raised his arms, and walked straight into the corridor.

Richard lifted up the plastic bag filled with red water and put it down again:
"Doudou! Do you know where you are going--"

Crunch/Snap:

Doudou was like an old man strolling in the park, arms stretched out, palms clapping alternately in front of and behind him. Only his movements were ten times faster, and in a flash he vanished from Richard and the mathematician's sight. Only the strange sound of the rubber soles of his Warrior shoes scraping against the smooth ground could be heard faintly in the distance.

Richard stared silently at the empty corridor, then suddenly turned around and patted the mathematician's stick-like arm:

"Never mind, I get it. Doctor, let's go: let's find the infirmary."

(End of this chapter)