Digestion
The sudden awakening brought me extreme frustration.
The appearance of Wang Ping actually means that a lot of important information is emerging, whether it is about the Foghorn Hospital twelve years ago, or the strange conditions of the mountain people. It would be the most accurate and quickest to get it from him.
The complete breakdown of clues at this moment means that many opportunities that are within reach will collapse directly.
From an emotional point of view, even though death has become commonplace in my experience, this is someone who has talked to me, helped me, and even known my name. Even if we only met briefly, I can no longer regard him as a stranger with a vague face.
And Pingping. Could it be that the boss was right and there was really no way I could take her away from this damn place?
I seemed to understand the special gentleness of the boss. This was not my usual character, but when a person finds himself at a dead end, he no longer has the fear of being hurt, nor will he struggle or feel sad, let alone angry, and thus he becomes unusually calm about things.
But I still felt a little unwilling.
Hidden in this unwillingness is a certain kind of unnaturalness that I can't explain, as if I am gradually going astray and entering into a trap that is both reasonable and absolutely absurd.
"Really?"
Xu Ping asked softly, "Are you okay?"
I shook my head and smiled at her, suspecting that I couldn't bear the blow and started to be suspicious and try to escape.
But the body was very honest and came to Wang Ping again to check his other half that was suspected to be wrapped in transparent water.
Unlike those yellow rash figures that had been completely digested, if it weren't for the action of looking up at the moon that caused the dislocation of organs, Wang Ping's upper body would look no different from that of an ordinary person.
The protective suit he had taken off was half hanging on his slightly raised arm. The name badge with the words "Foghorn Health Center" was still pinned on it, clean and tidy, and it could be said that it seemed to have become newer.
These transparent water masses are difficult to distinguish with the naked eye during the stage of digesting food. If it weren't for the change in the contents that gave it away, even at such a close distance, it would be impossible to tell that there is anything wrapped around the human body. It's as if everything is just an illusion I imagined and has no substance at all.
The remaining burning sensation on my calves reminded me that I could only watch this thing from a distance and not relax too much.
With Pingping's help, I found a scrapped scaffolding in the garbage pile on the platform and pulled out a rusty and loose iron pipe from it.
He pulled another piece of the trouser leg and wrapped it around his hand, then he picked up the iron pipe and tried to move Wang Ping's body surface.
Surprisingly, I thought I would touch something very thin and flexible, maybe a bit like jellyfish skin that has been melted by the sun and is about to turn into a puddle of water. But in fact, there was no special feeling.
At the same time, as soon as the iron pipe came into contact with the transparent water, there was no hissing sound of corrosion, but immediately a string of dark red rust climbed up along the other end of the iron pipe.
I just don't know why, at this point, they didn't drive Wang Ping to fight back or dodge, nor did they melt into water and flow down like the ones in the mine cart.
However, I accidentally pulled off the badge hanging outside the protective suit, and it fell to the ground with a clang.
My eyelids jumped, and I wondered how the badge fell out. Did I cut a hole in the transparent water ball? Suddenly, my body tightened, fearing that the thing would explode.
After waiting for a while without any response, I picked up the badge with my wrapped hands, looked around, and exclaimed.
There was something very strange here. The badge was also made of iron, but there was no sign of rust. Instead, it looked brand new as if it had been washed. I suspected that there was something wrong with my eyes, and I quickly looked at the iron pipe in my hand. It was so rusty that I felt like I could scrape off three pounds of iron powder.
I was a little confused, so I raised my hand and asked Pingping: "Am I blind?"
Xu Ping looked at me helplessly, as if I was a naughty kid who brought a cockroach home for no reason. He also looked it over and over, but observed the same thing as me.
This is very contradictory. It's made of the same iron, so there's no reason why the treatment would be different if it becomes an iron plate, right?
I didn't give up. I clasped my hands together and said "please don't blame me". I bowed three times to Wang Ping. After that, I took the iron pipe and poked Wang Ping twice.
The result was very strange. The rust on the iron pipe did not increase again.
Damn, what's the principle behind this? I have no idea what's going on. I thought to myself, is this thing also limited in quantity? Its corrosiveness is quite stingy. Is it only this time and won't be used again?
The two of them stood there staring at Wang Ping for a while. Finally, I gritted my teeth, ignored Pingping's objection, tore off my hand wraps, and touched him.
There will never be a second chance like this, where I can observe these various ghosts up close without being afraid of being attacked by them. If I don't seize the time to summarize some rules now, will I cry and scream the next time I am attacked by their lively counterparts?
The thought flashed through my mind, mostly to encourage myself. Before I could hesitate or regret, the damp and slightly cool touch gave me a shiver.
Then I was surprised: I was fine, these water masses seemed to have completely lost their vitality and their corrosiveness had disappeared completely.
I hissed and felt around carefully, and found that the half of Wang Ping that was not parasitic by the hair even maintained a certain elasticity. There was no rigor mortis and no smell of decay. It seemed that the transparent water mass was really just a solid and invisible mass of water covering it.
I moved my palm to the back of Wang Ping's head, and when I saw those misaligned black eyes, I still felt a little scared and didn't dare to press it down completely.
Looking at the badge in my hand again, I hesitated and confirmed with Pingping again:
"If the corrosiveness of the transparent water mass disappears quickly along with the activity, then it stands to reason that the badge would still be corroded and rusted before that. Is there something wrong with the logic and sequence?"
It's impossible for this thing to play hide-and-seek, living, dying, and living again. That would be too weird.
No, it seems possible.
But there is absolutely no actual evidence for this speculation, and I myself find it a bit untenable.
Pingping didn't know that I had started to compile incoherent thoughts in my mind, and was still helping me to deduce:
"Perhaps the transparent water mass came into direct contact with Wang Ping's skin, without passing through the area in front of the protective suit's chest, and without touching the chest badge at all?"
What she said makes sense. Things with zippers may not be very airtight, and it is impossible for Wang Ping to wear protective clothing all the time without taking it off to rest. It is possible that water could penetrate through any gap at any time.
I pondered for a moment, but for some reason I couldn't get over this hurdle.
If we are to be serious about this, there is actually a question that cannot be avoided, which is why the transparent water mass suddenly deactivated?
We speculate that the hairs are frozen and withered halfway through the transformation because they lack a lot of water as a hatching condition. But what are these transparent "water" masses?
Is it that the parasitic hairs mistakenly absorb some kind of activity as nutrients?
But this thing is not real water, it is just a metaphorical name I gave for convenience. It is really impossible to verify whether the hair is so picky about food or not.
After thinking about it, things seem to have reached a deadlock here.
We discussed it for a while, but couldn't come to a conclusion that was supported by evidence, and we were both a little frustrated.
Finally, I'm just going to discuss the absurd conjecture that just flashed through my mind:
"Do you think it's possible that the transparent water mass is corrosive at one moment and not at another?"
Xu Ping looked at me, said nothing, and just touched my forehead with a sigh.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so I quickly raised my hand and said, "I'm not sick, I'm serious."
She was stunned for a moment, then asked seriously, "What do you mean by sometimes there is, sometimes not?"
It's a bit difficult to explain. After going around in circles for a while, I finally organized some words to say that I suspect the transparent water mass itself is just a container and a positioner, and has no actual digestive ability.
I touched my shoulder, which still had a hole in it, and gave her a similar example.
The prophet fed on me and reached an exchange with me. He placed a "stone" in my body as a medium and signal source, and the two-way "stone mining" between us was completed.
Positioning, exchange, and transformation, this is one of the basic operating rules of the prophet.
So I was thinking, since we may be trapped in the body of the prophet, perhaps all these seemingly complicated and contradictory anomalies can ultimately be covered by this simple set of rules.
I made a grasping gesture towards Wang Ping, pretending that I was a prophet, throwing a stone as soft as water at Wang Ping.
——Just like this, the stone has only changed its appearance in our narrow perspective, but its essential function may still remain the same.
The transparent water mass may only have the function of wrapping and marking, and then wait for the prophet to take the prey that has nowhere to escape.
Xu Ping seemed to realize something: "You mean... the corrosiveness that appears and disappears is caused by something else being attracted by the water mass and then temporarily injecting some digestible liquid?"
"What could that be..."
She murmured, and we looked at each other. At this moment, an idea suddenly came to my mind and I had the answer.
The two of them raised their heads at the same time, looking up at the moon, and got goose bumps at the same time.
It was the water mark that passed silently across the dome.
When the yellow rash man was suddenly digested into water, it was also because of the unexpected appearance of the water mark that he stopped approaching me and might attack me. When they made the move of lying on their backs, I felt an inexplicable chill, as if they were about to be discovered and preyed upon by something.
When it came to Wang Ping, he suddenly fell still, revealing his strange state of being wrapped in water, and he also raised his head.
It was just that at that time I fell to the ground due to sudden weakness and palpitations. When I looked up again, the dome was empty. I didn't see any water marks, so I didn't think of this at the first time.
If the water masses are regarded as some kind of intestines that can move and unfold on their own and find the target that needs to be digested, then what they have to do is to unfold in time and wrap around the target.
Then, a huge, flat stomach gradually emerges, wriggles closer, connects to the intestines, and injects gastric acid into the food.
I was sweating a little. "But the Prophet is very weak now, and it may be a great burden for him to digest the food. My sudden weakness and collapse just now may not be an isolated accident."
"It should be said that it was precisely because of its weakness that the water mark that originally came to digest the target only appeared for a moment, resulting in only a tiny amount of corrosiveness injected into the water mass."
This is where it creeps me out.
I almost forgot that from the moment I was targeted by Taizai, I was just a piece of food marked by the prophet.
Xu Ping also understood what I meant, his face began to turn pale, and he subconsciously touched the water stains that were still on my body.
"You mean... the reason why water kept dripping from your body was because?"
"right."
I sighed, feeling a chill in my heart.
"We previously speculated that the prophet was rotting, causing his decayed body fluids to drip, thus affecting the pseudo-man and me, who was half transformed and eaten by him.
But we don’t know the exact effect, we can only roughly guess whether the liquid dripped directly from the prophet onto me.”
"Just now the dripping water on my body suddenly stopped. I didn't have an answer for a moment and felt very strange."
"Now it seems that it may not be so mysterious. The dripping water did not come out of thin air. There was indeed something rotting in my body. The sudden stop of the dripping water was because that thing had completely rotted and been consumed."
I slowly stood beside Wang Ping and gestured: "Just like Wang Ping. There is also a ball of transparent water on my body that has spread out and wrapped me. The Prophet's decay has caused the part of the external organs that wrap around me to rot, so there is an intermittent dripping situation."
"I repeatedly felt as if I was being dragged somewhere by the accumulated water in my body. The water marks responsible for digestion appeared several times."
"But as we observed, before the corrosive substance was injected and digested, causing the facial features to shift, the unfolding water mass could not be seen to be abnormal with the naked eye, nor could it be felt abnormally. At most, it felt damp and cool. For people who were wet by the so-called stagnant water, it would be difficult to feel that something was wrong."
Xu Ping's throat moved, and he seemed to have seen an extremely terrifying scene. "That is to say, a few minutes ago, you could have been digested and turned into a pool of water at any time."
I nodded sadly.
Wang Ping and I are the same. The water mass surrounding us is constantly deactivating, and the water marks are constantly approaching and moving away under the guidance of this unstable mark.
My luck was that the decay on my body was more serious, so the water mark discovered me later, allowing me to survive a few minutes longer than him, and to see the moment when the water ball completely rotted and left the body.
Just at this moment, a dripping sound was heard, and the accumulated water fell from Wang Ping's body to his feet and flooded to my feet.
The accumulated water flowed over Wang Ping's body. The half of his body that was originally covered with hair was now uncomfortably dry and pale because of the collective withering and falling of hair just now, forming a clear dividing line with the wet water stains.
I was still immersed in the shock and bitterness of having narrowly escaped death, and subconsciously I gently touched the dividing line.
The next second, Wang Ping's body was split into two, with the dividing line as the boundary, and it suddenly became two parts.
Then, without giving me any chance to react, the half-dry, dead white body shattered and scattered all over the ground. The limbs at the edge still retained a complete outline, but the abdomen and back torso, which were severely parasitic with hair, had completely turned into powder.
The scattered particles were so tiny that I was in a trance for a moment before I realized that I had unconsciously reached out to catch them.
In the palm of his hand, white sand and gravel mixed together, emitting a salty and bitter taste like a block of salt. There was no difference between the two.
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