ecstasy

boom!

The fire flickered for a moment; Richard lowered his straight arm and adjusted the shooting angle. The bullet from his pistol pierced the mathematician's knee:

The mathematician stumbled and fell down like a noodle; he supported himself on the ground with his hands, then rolled to the side and leaned against the wall.

"what!"

A sharp, short cry; blood slowly seeped out of the trouser leg, the amount of bleeding was less than expected; only a small smudge of red appeared.

Richard walked over to the mathematician, kicked away the dustpan that had fallen beside him, and gently pushed away the cardboard box that was about to fall apart. He didn't look at the mathematician, but instead stared at the mathematician's skinny wrist:

"Later, I remembered: Actually, I've read your case file, Doctor. Your case was a really big deal—our Special Package Handling Section doesn't usually handle routine cases, but this time, we were ready to intervene at any time."

"That project you're working on is called RAS Encryption Algorithm? Right? Strange. I've always wondered if you could really crack something like that. The most important thing is—such a broken algorithm wouldn't actually have much of an impact."

"Even our department knows about it; so why is there such a fuss?"

"And then, academics are all weird: I admit that. But my intuition tells me that you are weird in a different way."

"For example, you've been wanting to run away, but you ended up following me here. You're so afraid of death, yet you couldn't help but be curious all night: Isn't that weird? You can't figure it out?"

"It's okay. I also have a guess about you. Let me tell you slowly."

-

The mathematician didn't answer, his vacant gaze darting back and forth between Richard and him. The intense pain caused mucus to flow from his nostrils, cascading down the sweat on his philtrum, threatening to seep into the corners of his mouth.

Richard lifted the murky, dark red plastic bag and let the blood-filled bag sway back and forth:

"Don't worry about my hand—there's no one on this base who can perform surgery on me right now. Even if the automated medical equipment arrived, it wouldn't be assembled yet: I know that, and I guess Doudou knows that too."

"He doesn't care. But I have something to talk to you about."

"For example—I don't think you're sick, Doctor, or infected with any virus."

Gulp/patter.

Richard untied the plastic bag: blood slid out like sticky asphalt, spreading on the ground and forming small puddles of blood.

His hand now looked like the palm of a robot in a children's cartoon - Doraemon, Tinker Bell or Robot Cat, the mathematician couldn't remember: round, every relatively intact piece of skin was bulging outward; the deformed knuckles that were originally folded outward were now mostly covered by the congested palm.

"I don't want this hand anymore. I'm going to give it to you for a chance to have a one-on-one chat."

The mathematician didn't answer. He covered his knees, gasped for breath, and crawled on the tiled floor, leaving a fan-shaped trail of blood.

"Don't worry, Doudou is here: we still have plenty of time."

The mathematician was breathing heavily, and beads of sweat covered his forehead and nose. Even the excruciating pain from the blow to his knee only caused him to let out a few low screams.

Richard tapped his chin with the slide of his pistol, his eyes fixed on the mathematician's face; then he grabbed the mathematician's wrist and looked at it carefully:

"Doctor, you're tougher than you look. Or is it that your pain sensitivity has diminished?"

"I think the latter is more likely: much more. As for why—I'm afraid we'll have to wait and see."

The mathematician's eyes were filled with confusion - but he didn't ask any questions. He swung his arms, hitting himself randomly, and then slamming them at Richard: perhaps the mathematician himself didn't understand what was happening at this moment.

"I don't know much about your true personality, but my intuition tells me that you're probably quite afraid of death, right? Then why did you risk your life several times tonight just to satisfy your curiosity?"

"Strange, isn't it? I think so too."

"Although I'm not particularly confident right now—the confidence to verify whether my guess is correct. However, this is very important to me."

"So. You've been wronged. It's not directed at you, Doctor."

Richard raised his hand again and pulled the trigger:

boom!

Another thin, muffled gunshot rang out. There was no splash of blood, only a small, dark hole that suddenly appeared on the mathematician's right chest. Bright red spilled out, soaking through the surrounding shirt.

The mathematician collapsed to the ground, his body stretched straight by the punctured lung, his legs trembling and twitching.

-

Richard lifted up the plastic bag that had been taken off and seemed to have contained some sauce or stew, and held it in front of his face, as if it were a bag of ornamental goldfish.

"The reason you're being hunted—"

"I've been wondering how a simple multiple murder case could attract such a large-scale manhunt."

"Ah, I don't mean to doubt that you are the murderer. In fact, I believe you are innocent - if you really killed your family, how come you haven't been crazy? I mean, it's a big enough crime."

"Judging from your personality and past experience, you're definitely not a highly intelligent serial killer. So, if you were the real killer, the chances of you experiencing a manic awakening would be very high."

"Originally, I thought it might be because your manifestation was too subtle, or too strange, and the conditions for manifestation were so harsh that it couldn't be triggered even after such a long time."

Richard raised his hand and pointed upwards. It was a vague gesture that seemed to carry a religious meaning:

"But we've been next to Doudou for so long and still haven't reacted at all. You should have noticed, right? Besides the intuitive, pure violence, Doudou has other special features:"

"--He's a fanatic amplifier."

Chapter 69: Panther Transformation

"Before John Dou died, I cried. It was so strange - I was well past the safe distance, but I still cried my heart out: it was impossible."

He raised the gun and rubbed his eyes with his wrist. Richard used the name of the deceased, not caring whether the other party understood who he was referring to.

"Oh; it's that [tear duct infection] incident. It was widely reported. Didn't I mention it before?"

"I believe the results of the previous tests: According to John Dou's psychological analysis, he has a very low threshold for growth. For a middle-aged man with a traumatized mind, no matter how severe his mental illness is or how deeply he's fallen into delusion, reaching that level is already quite remarkable."

"But... that day: his ecstasy reached such a level of power that most of the city started weeping. If this [Pillar-level] potential really hasn't been discovered, everyone in the Analytics Department can eat shit."

"So, there must be some other external force."

"I used to wonder if it was because of the [package], but now that I think about it, it's impossible."

Richard raised his hand and patted around his casual suit, but couldn't find the large booklet with photos and numbers.

"Ah, I didn't bring my product catalog with me, so I can't show it to you. Anyway, I saw a very unusual patient a few days ago—his symptoms were terrifyingly intense:"

"And he was originally just a very mild case of ecstasy, like he had an aneurysm, and then he suddenly turned into a biological armored vehicle, and even bullets at close range couldn't penetrate his skin."

"Such a thing, such a monster: and yet it was killed, its head torn out like a pig; and stuffed into its own belly."

"Now that I think about it, who else could have done this? It could only have been our good Doudou—unless there's a mass exodus of supermen, and there are several more like him, all running into this godforsaken city."

"I don't know the exact reason, but—as long as they're within a certain range of him, or have come into contact with him, the intensity of the symptoms of a mania carrier is much higher than it should be. It's ridiculously higher."

"Then I wonder: Is it just an enhancement? Or is there some other factor that allows ordinary people to enter a trance more easily?"

"That's hard to say. My security clearance isn't high enough to access reports on the causes of ecstasy."

Richard suddenly lifted one foot and glanced at the dirt in the gap between the soles:

"You were vomiting all over the place just now. At first I thought you were eating raw pickled vegetables at a food stall. But why did you order raw pickled vegetables?"

"The file says you're a Malaysian Chinese, you're from Nanyang Technological University, and you're in Singapore. You probably don't have the culinary habits of Jiaozhi Autonomous Prefecture. I've been to Jiaozhi Autonomous Prefecture many times, and I can never get used to the raw and pickled food here."

"Your personality—it doesn't seem like you'd be interested in trying new things after just going through a life-or-death situation, right? That would be deliberate, like trying to hide something—but Doudou didn't even look closely at what you vomited, he didn't bother to care; you miscalculated on that point."

"I saw that what you vomited out wasn't some raw, pickled food scraps, and of course you didn't steal any corpses. But those were definitely fragments of internal organs. How could someone vomit so many internal organs and still be alive?"

"At first, I thought it was madness—even though your record is clean, it's not surprising that being around Doudou might have frightened you into a mental illness."

"The question is: without all the messy testing and development, how can you know what the symptoms of your ecstasy are? Ecstasy isn't a terminal you buy at the electronics store; it doesn't come with an instruction manual telling you how to use it."

"People who know a little bit about ecstasy know how to get around it—I learned that during my orientation. How did you know that?"

"You couldn't have known that your madness would cause you to vomit a bunch of viscera. You wouldn't have thought of ordering a plate of raw pickled food to try to cover up - to cover up the fact that you vomited a bunch of viscera and still be able to survive."

"If this line of thought is correct, Doctor, you yourself should not be in a frenzy yet."

Richard raised his hand and rubbed the stubble on his lips, which had grown from rough and hard to soft after not shaved overnight:

"I'm not a madman either. Even if I had one, my manifestations are so small that they're unobservable. In fact, the more calculating and rational a person is, the harder it is for them to acquire manifestations. Unless they've experienced a level of trauma or a level of guilt so strong that it can tear them apart."

"So companies recruit patients and criminals to join their teams, rather than developing signatures from existing agents: that's too difficult and risky."

The mathematician's chest heaved violently like a bellows. He opened his mouth, as if about to say something, but only a stream of bright red liquid flowed out of his mouth and onto his yellow collar.

A faint squeak escaped his throat—as if he had secretly eaten a rubber duck. An irresistible end was drawing ever closer; if a fly were to flit about at this moment, it would have been willing to settle on the mathematician's bewildered eyes.

Richard stared at the wall in front of him, completely unaware that the mathematician was on his deathbed.

"Oh, that's a bit off topic."

"Having said that: although I haven't spent much time with you, I know you well enough. I've come into contact with many criminals, traumatized people, and lunatics - you are not one of them."

"So - the reason those companies are going after you is actually..."

"It's because you really are a cyber-promoter. Right?"

"No, that's not accurate—it should be said that you were included in the group of network enablers because you accepted help from these people; they were the ones who helped you escape, smuggled you out of Singapore, and sent you to Mong Cai."

"I believe what you said before is true; the file states that you did not support the so-called [Link Revival Movement] before. But..."

Blood bubbles emerged from the corners of the mathematician's mouth, clusters of round bubbles, reflecting colorful lights in the corridor.

It looked like the life force would soon completely drain from the mathematician's body. But Richard didn't care. He simply sat against the wall, the muzzle of his service gun no longer pointed at the dying, emaciated man.

"Doc? Are you still awake, Doc?"

Still no answer. Richard seemed to be sitting on the ground, performing a stand-up comedy routine.

Richard walked forward, picked up the mathematician's wrist, turned it back and forth, and looked at it carefully - looking for some changes or traces.

After waiting for a moment, he finally raised his brows, as if he had finally confirmed something.

Richard suddenly stretched out his leg and kicked the mathematician, who had lost his breath.

"Okay, stop pretending. Let's talk. I'm not the one who's going to kill you. John's dead, and Doudou's playing next door."

-

thump.

The mathematician suddenly twitched, his back lifted up and hit the floor again; it was as if someone had punched him in the stomach.

hiss--

It was a violent inhalation, as if the swallowed air was going to explode the lungs and chest cavity.

call!

Like a zombie in a movie: the mathematician sat up with a "swish": but his eyes were still rolled up, which was a bit scary -

He pushed the ground with both palms and suddenly bounced up.

Bang!

The mathematician stretched out his arm, his five fingers hitting Richard's neck and clasping it tightly. He suddenly lifted him up and then pressed forward, smashing the agent's back against the glass window, causing spider-web-like cracks to appear.

It is hard to tell from his thin appearance that the mathematician has such intense power hidden in his body.

The sudden change caused the mathematician's forearm muscles to burst through the skin, revealing the red and white texture; the bullet-wounded knee creaked, but it did not affect his movements at all.

Half of his face was twitched in a hideous manner, exposing his gums; the other half was still stiff, revealing the dazed look of someone on the verge of death.

Click:

The tip of the index finger on the mathematician's other hand suddenly broke, bounced outward, and fell off, but half of the skin was still connected, like the outer cover of a lighter.

He raised his arm and pointed the broken end of his index finger at Richard's eyes.

Not a drop of blood flowed out; the broken end was black, as if the bones had been eaten away.

The mathematician raised his thumb, index finger still extended, making a pistol-like gesture. He gestured back and forth around Richard's eye sockets, as if the gesture with just his thumb and index finger could really pop Richard's eyeballs at any time:

"Fuck you, you bastards out there! You're not done yet, are you?"

His voice remained the same, but his tone, accent, and choice of words were completely different from usual. Veins popped out of his already thin neck, and his upper and lower teeth rubbed together, making a creaking sound. His eyes were still rolled up, and only a little bit of the pupils could be seen.

Richard looked at the index finger pointing at his eyes with great interest. He pressed against the corner of the wall with one foot, his arm, like a mathematician's bamboo pole, hanging on one hand. He didn't seem to be suffocating at all, but instead spoke with surprise:

"Oh—[Customer], you're the [Customer] of my order! Ha! It's really you!"

"You tampered with my fingers? So you can transform the human body. What did you transform it into? It can't be a gun. Something like a slingshot made of ligaments? Or a pressure-activated pneumatic launch mechanism like a harpoon? Will there be bone spurs that will poke out and kill me?"

"Alright. No killing, no violence, just talk nicely. Aren't you curious about what I want to talk to you about?"

Chapter 70 Amniotic membrane