ecstasy

"what?"

Doudou was stunned, and even his anger subsided.

He looked around, stretched out his hand, and waved it back and forth in the empty space in front of him: there was no real feeling of touching any real object.

Doudou even stuck out the tip of his tongue, trying to lick the air—still nothing, no taste at all:

"Auntie? Are you still there?"

There was no answer.

The head of the Special Package Handling Department, her daughter, and the hairless monkey-like guy just disappeared into thin air; only a few debris remained on the ground.

Some pink-gray, jelly-like brain tissue; a few teeth that had fallen to the ground, and half a lip. It was unknown which of them these body parts originally belonged to:

"He's probably not dead. He just ran away...but why do I feel like something's weird?"

Doudou propped his chin with his hand, pondered for a moment, and then solemnly came to a conclusion:

"That naked man is more powerful than David Copperfield. Well, it's hard to say."

This was even more outrageous than the foreign magician I saw on Zhengda Variety Show—the guy who made the Statue of Liberty and other things disappear, and even walked through walls, even the Great Wall. But watching through the TV, Doudou wasn't sure: I heard that live TV footage isn't always real these days, and special effects are used.

The big bald guy who was so ashamed just now actually put on a show in front of Dou Dou. That was really amazing.

"Maybe it's some great magician who likes to streak naked? Is there such a person?"

But after a moment's thought, he reluctantly admitted the more likely fact:

"Well, it's probably some kind of space-transfer madness—that wouldn't be as fun as magic tricks."

If the close-up magic trick can make Doudou unable to see any clues, then Doudou will definitely give him a thumbs up.

"Auntie is really cunning. So her trump card is her escape technique. I can't catch her then. There's no way I can tell where she'll go. Maybe she'll go back to her hometown in Paris."

"Well, I hope she won't envy other people's children all day long. I'll beat her up next time I see her."

"It was a good day today. I met a lot of interesting people."

It was a great night: but the most important thing is to balance work and rest, so it's time to go back and rest.

"So—that's it?"

Doudou stopped yawning abruptly.

"Oh? Where are Agent Li and the Doctor?"

He suddenly realized that he had completely forgotten about the two companions who came with him.

There was a loud rumble up ahead, and I fought with the [Witch in the Building] through most of the underground branch; I also fought with the section chief on the 45th floor for 30 minutes. Even a deaf person should know where Doudou is--

Doudou ran for a long time looking for the radio station, but he didn't see the infirmary that Richard mentioned.

Since those two people haven't come here yet, they either ran away for their lives or died in some corner of the branch.

"What a miserable fate! Poor Doctor and old Agent Li—no! They weren't among those corpses with wires growing out of their stomachs. Do they have such a deep understanding of love? Even I have wires coming out of my mouth."

-

Thinking of this, Doudou jumped back into the underground branch and wandered around for a while. He ran through almost the entire remaining part of the secret base and finally found a message on a wall in the corridor:

[Dou Dou: The doctor has a stomachache, I'm taking him to see a doctor.]

The message was written with a broom dipped in some kind of light yellow liquid, and the large characters covered the entire wall; it looked dirty.

Doudou sniffed closer, but didn't smell anything strange:

"Eh? They didn't deliberately avoid me and ran away first, did they? Are they that lazy? They were just helping with a summer homework. Aren't they PhDs in mathematics and some ace secret agents? How stingy, you little bastard."

He said this, but he wasn't really angry. After all, not everyone was as strong and helpful as he was, and the homework was so difficult. If you put yourself in his shoes, Doudou wouldn't help others with their math homework either.

Having roughly understood the whereabouts of his two companions, Doudou jumped back onto the vertical hole left by the section chief who had been chasing him all the way, and jumped back to the 45th floor: After all, he had endured the entire night, so he might as well watch the sunrise before leaving.

Doudou had no plans to go to the floors above - he planned to wait until Shouzhu 151 was completely completed before taking the elevator to the top floor.

Don't do all the fun stuff at once; save some for later. It's a long-term process.

Dou Dou scratched his nose, feeling satisfied with his own wisdom in life.

The sharp draughts of air blew in from the sky at the approach of dawn, and no window panes could block it - the war that had taken place before had turned this place into ruins.

Compared with the entire Shouzhu 151 Building, these damages seem insignificant: but Doudou doesn't know how much damage the building structure has suffered.

Maybe the Asia-Europe Post has some superpowered construction worker who could just come over and do a few dances, and fix everything that was broken in today's fight.

Although it is not the rooftop of Shouzhu 151 Building, but when he stands here, nothing in the city can block Doudou's view.

Mong Cai is like a piece of grayish-white moss spread on the ground; in a moment, early-rising citizens will run and walk through it like a colony of ants.

Doudou stared for a long time, but still couldn't find where his home was from this angle.

But the sun had already risen above the edge of the mountains in Mong Cai, and the air was even colder than at the deepest night: this burning fireball, thousands of miles from the earth, its blurred pale circle pierced the sky -

But I was overwhelmed by the endless faces of the fathers and mothers in the dome.

Their red, swollen, yellowed eyes were open, and the bloodshot veins on their conjunctivae were thicker than railroad tracks, interweaving to form a railway map. The edges of their faces were sticky and knotted, as if melted into a single ceiling by strong acid; their mouths opened and closed, and their tongues moved like pink mountains; the screams, roars, and roars never stopped.

But everything was silent, and Doudou had no idea what they were talking about:

If only I could fly, get closer to these faces; maybe I could hear their voices.

Whether it was day or night, they would always look at Doudou from the sky. He thought the sight was quite interesting and he never got tired of it even after three years:

What Doudou had told the mathematician before was indeed the truth: his parents were in heaven.

【Should I learn to lip-read?】

Doudou waved at them and yawned: before he knew it, he had been up all night. Although he didn't feel sleepy after not sleeping all night, he did miss his bed at home.

He suddenly became curious - when other people in a trance, when the section chief or the witch in the building looked up at the sky, what did they see?

"Who cares? It's definitely not as fun as what I saw."

Doudou stretched, jumped down from the hole on the 45th floor, and went home. He needed to rest quickly because his deskmate would be coming home in a few days to help him build a model.

"There's no place like home."

Chapter 88 Supervisor

There was a rumbling sound in the supervisor's office. The huge noise coming out of the speakers was like a war, and the walls could not block it out at all.

The blinds behind the glass windows were all rolled up, and the yellowish-white window slats covered most of the panes, leaving only a little dim light leaking through the gaps, flickering.

The supervisor had locked himself in the room for the entire day, from early morning to midnight.

No one dared to disturb the supervisor who had closed the door - this was a terrible taboo in the Southeast Asian branch of Asia-Europe Post: the consequences of offending the supervisor were usually spread in the conversations in the toilet cubicles, scaring the listeners sitting on the toilet to shiver and even have to excrete a few more drops.

Everyone in the office could sense the venomous, repelling intent emanating from the director's office.

But the work has to be done by someone; especially those unlucky people in awkward positions.

The assistant, a woman named Marie Inoue, knocked on the door and gently pushed it open: the rusty hinges made a teeth-grinding creaking sound.

-

The remote control squeaked as it was pressed, and the VHS player made an overwhelming noise - the picture on the CRT TV paused, rewound, slowed down and fast-forwarded according to the remote control. The strange noises mixed together and made the listeners dizzy.

The supervisor was half sitting and half lying on the office chair, with his buttocks sliding off the cushion and his head almost resting on the armrest: he seemed not to notice the arrival of the assistant, but just mechanically repeating the operations in his hands.

The picture on the TV was blurry, and was covered with snowflakes and horizontal stripes caused by signal interference - the content was also a mess, but from the fixed hanging camera angle, it could be determined that these videos came from surveillance cameras.

The center of the picture is a bright, even somewhat dazzling yellow - only when it is paused can you tell that it is an oversized raincoat covering the person inside - the explosion, air flow and collapse of the wall follow closely, enveloping the figure in the yellow raincoat.

In most scenes, the feet of the yellow figure are always red and liquid is flowing.

-

The manager was overweight, like a couch potato who'd slumped on the sofa so long that he'd practically melted into the chair. His eyes widened, and he kept mumbling—although drowned out by the cacophony, Inoue Marie could still make out the manager's favorite curses:

"What bad luck! Amitabha! What kind of luck is this? You old French bitch, what the hell have you provoked? I'm going to the temple to worship Buddha tomorrow and let the Buddha cut off your head."

Inoue Marie suppressed her anger and cleared her throat. She then knocked on the open door with the blade of her fist.

"Supervisor? The call is over."

The supervisor tilted his head slightly—glancing out of the corner of his eye:

"Someone pulled your tongue out? Keep talking."

Inoue Marie nodded vigorously, quickly closed the door, and opened the notebook in her hand:

"The target's birth certificate has not been found. The earliest record is a flight from Singapore Changi Airport to Penang International Airport in Malaysia in 1987, but the immigration records only include the target's parents' identification information. He left Kuala Lumpur in 1991 and settled in Jiaozhi Autonomous Prefecture; he remains there until now."

"The target's parents died in a gas explosion in 1993; they died instantly. The autopsy records are clear."

"Also, after the return of Jiaozhi Autonomous Prefecture, a separate identity information system was adopted. You will need to apply separately to obtain the target's current ID number. Your signature is required."

The supervisor snorted. He used the remote control to flip the image back and forth several times:

"No birth certificate? He might be older than he looks. Maybe much older."

He twisted his body, and a loud "puff" came from under him:

"Send the field team over. Since 1970, investigate all the experiments conducted at Nanyang Technological University, both openly and covertly. And of course, all the information about his parents: their social connections, the projects they've worked on."

“Visit them all and see if you can replicate the target’s growth environment.”

Inoue Marie hesitated for a moment, but still didn't dare to cover her nose:

"What are the standards for approving funds for field work?"

The supervisor rubbed his shiny forehead with the back of his hand, which was wet with sweat:

"What do you think? The budget for next year hasn't come out yet. They're not allowed to approve too much, but they're not allowed to cry poor either. Let the finance department take charge."

"Also: establish a preliminary protection zone. I don't want to see any other company's dog-nosed agents in Mong Cai—not one, remember that."

"I don't want to see even one."

-

Beep!

The supervisor pressed the pause button, and the office fell into a sudden silence: even outside the door was quiet, with only the rustling sound of paper and pen touching, the hum of the central air conditioner, and suppressed coughs.

The air seemed to solidify, and the attention of the entire branch was focused here.

The supervisor suddenly jumped up from his soft chair like a frightened cat; his fat body was extremely agile.

He put his leather shoes on the edge of his desk and wiped them with a tissue, as if there was an unfinished oil painting on the uppers:

"So, what did the analytics department say? Have they determined the target's potential?"

Inoue Marie placed the documents she was hugging onto her desk and carefully put her hands behind her back.

"Yeah! It's out. The analysis department believes that—it may not be a blue ocean market, but the rating is still very promising; it has the potential to reach [Pillar]."

The supervisor turned his head. Hearing the word "pillar," he instinctively raised his right hand and gripped his other shoulder. He seemed to have a stiff neck, and his joints creaked as he moved his neck.

"Oh my god, I didn't expect this. How long will it take for me to find another [pillar] in my area? It was all worth it to be the first to get incense at the beginning of the year; I feel like my cervical spondylosis is going to heal on its own."

Tuk-tuk-tuk.

The director tapped his fingers on his desk like he was playing a piano:

"Have the Analysis Department fax over a more detailed briefing within half an hour, clearly outlining the approach. The specific implementation plan can wait, but I want a clear plan."

“Tell them to write: If you screw up your funding for the next few years, you’ll end up working as an analyst in a garbage dump in Manila.”

Inoue Mari let out a long breath as slowly as possible:

"Okay. Okay, Director!"

Inoue Marie had just turned around and grasped the door handle of her office when she was interrupted by her supervisor:

"Why leave? When did you finish talking?"

"What exactly did the analytics department say on the phone? Why did they think the target had the potential to be a pillar? Repeat every word to me first."

brush!

Inoue Marie turned around suddenly like a fan, clutching the notebook in her arms; her words were trembling:

"The destructive power displayed by the target is unprecedented, and its activity is high-frequency. If the destruction area is guided, it can damage a large number of buildings in a short period of time, posing a significant threat to public safety. In summary, the company can use the target as a pillar to establish a long-term industrial chain focused on post-disaster reconstruction. Therefore, the target may become another pillar of the company's business."

The supervisor threw away the ball of paper stained with shoe polish and clapped his hands together.