Right in front of Su Bai and Childe Hai, the one cooking the body was not a person, but a…
…Paper man!
A paper man that was as tall as a real person!
The paper man was wearing a hat of a servant on its head, with slanted eyes and thick red color on its cheeks, and it was about 160 cm tall. It was holding a pair of scissors in one hand and carefully moving the flesh pieces in the boiler, to and fro, with a pair of chopsticks in its other hand.
It seemed to have noticed the visitors so it turned around its head gently, slanted a little and looked at Su Bai and Childe Hai as if it failed to force a smile.
Paper men were quite familiar to most Chinese people. Nowadays, traditional funerals were reducing but it hadn’t been long, so most people had seen a scene of burning paper men on funerals in the countryside. Even now, such a custom was still going on in most rural areas in China.
Paper men were made mostly into boys, girls, maids and servants; living people burned them for their kinsfolks who had passed away as a good wish that these paper men would go serve their kinsfolks.
Therefore, paper men were an image of taboo. Most people would feel uncomfortable if they saw a paper man by the side of the road.
And at this moment, this paper man was cooking the body.
Is it the murderer?
Su Bai was thought so in his mind, but soon, he realized that this paper man was not the murderer. According to Childe Hai, Task 2 was to find the murderer, so if the paper man was the murderer, this task should already be accomplished.
But now, it didn’t look like the task had been accomplished.
Childe Hai ground his teeth, "Such bad luck."
At the next moment, the paper man threw itself towards them peculiarly with the scissors. There was still a smile on its face, but now it looked so frightful, especially considering that there was still a piece of flesh on its scissors.
Childe Hai held Su Bai’s shoulder with one hand and took out a string of small Buddha beads with the other hand. Su Bai had seen this kind of Buddha beads before; he used to see some women holding these beads and chanting scriptures when he was traveling in Tibet.
The Buddha beads were thrown out and bumped against the paper man. At this moment, these Buddha beads seemed to wield a power against evil; the paper man used to be solid with paper as its surface and bamboo canes or thin wood strips as support, but when the Buddha beads bumped into it, it immediately became flat.
The Buddha beads then returned into Childe Hai’s hand.
There was a smile saying "just so-so" on Childe Hai’s face, but Su Bai, who was held in front of Childe Hai as a human shield, was already cursing him in his mind, because he saw clearly that the paper man had not stopped attacking them, even though it had turned into a piece of paper right now.
Even his hand and the scissors in it were flat now- they were all paper! All paper!
Su Bai finally realized why the hand he saw last night was so pale and why it couldn’t get rid of blood once it got stained- because that hand was made of paper!
Last night, only one hand of it came because it wasn’t the right time yet or the paper man was not done yet; was that so?
That pair of scissors went directly aiming at them with such a speed, strength and degree of sharpness that they were just as good as a bullet or even better, just like Su Bai had witnessed with his own eyes last night!
Immediately, Childe Hai growled and pushed Su Bai forward at his convenience. Su Bai had no control of his own body right now; after Childe Hai pushed him, he even had to step forward automatically, which was as good as voluntarily asking for death!
At this moment, there wasn’t much hatred in Su Bai’s mind, because there wasn’t enough time for such emotion. When death came, his mind went absolutely blank.
Even, the last idea that came to Su Bai was:
‘Did this happen to those people I killed before?’
"Clack…"
Su Bai felt a severe pain on his face. But luckily, the paper man’s scissors had coincidentally missed any vital areas and had, instead, stabbed his cheek, taking away the flesh of half his face; it was not fatal.
The body of the paper man was not that sharp. Su Bai only felt a strong impact before he was knocked off, hit the wall and fell down onto the ground.
Below him were pieces of Guo Gang’s corpse and Chen Chu’s flesh blood. Immediately, Su Bai became messy all over.
Childe Hai was planning to use Su Bai as a scapegoat; as long as the paper man killed Su Bai, the story would become softened and smoother after an audience died, and its Danger Degree would go down. This was a kind of pattern, and also the understanding and practice of rules applied by audiences who had participated in more tasks. However…
Su Bai…
…was not dead!
So…
…it meant that danger was not over yet!
The paper man didn’t turn around to kill Su Bai who had been blasted away after it shaved away flesh from his face; it moved on and approached Childe Hai!
Even Childe Hai had sweat on his face. But he didn’t run away with his back exposed to the paper man like Guo Gang had done; instead, he stranded the Buddha beads in his hand, pulled them into a semicircle and tried to cap the scissors of the paper man.
But the next moment, something happened that made Childe Hai almost collapse: as soon as the scissors met the Buddha beads, the Buddha beads broke down as their string cracked and beads scattered. All at once, it became chaotic.
However, he had offset most of the scissors’ momentum. They only penetrated a little after stabbing onto Childe Hai’s chest, instead of entirely sticking into his body.
Childe Hai quickly clamped that flat scissors, at the same time there appeared a sign of 卐 between his eyebrows and his momentum suddenly rose; the scissors were forced to stop.
Just at this moment, Su Bai suddenly felt his body was back in control. Childe Hai was probably having no spare energy to control Su Bai. So he immediately got up.
Childe Hai looked at Su Bai from the corner of his eyes. He watched Su Bai stand up and became very nervous. Yes, nervous; he clearly remembered what Su Bai had been doing when he showed up last night— when that hand appeared in a horrifying way, Su Bai had chosen to stab a dagger into Guo Gang’s body as a direct revenge!
If Su Bai was gonna do the same to him, then… what would happen to him?
Childe Hai wanted to shout out or even let out his fireflies, but he could do neither; the scissors were getting stronger and stronger, and they were going deeper and deeper into his flesh.
He could barely hold them; this thing was much more powerful than he thought.
Besides, he was not an exaggeration of an ordinary murderer but a supernatural being in actual world that was promoted by the story!
That was to say, this paper man existed in reality, but it became more terrible in this story!
It was completely different from those he had faced in the previous story scenes he had gone through!
Su Bai’s eyes were fixed on the paper man’s hand all the time. Yesterday, he had seen its hand; it tried to get rid of Guo Gang’s blood from its hand but failed because it was made of paper.
But today, that hand was still white, which meant that the paper man’s hand was replaced!
Why did it have to be replaced?
Why?
For a better look?
No, it couldn’t be like that. There must be a reason… a reason…
Su Bai suddenly raised his head and shouted to Childe Hai, "Hang in there, Nancy boy[1]!"
Then he rushed to the boiler in the kitchen. It was a stockpot with so many flesh pieces boiling in it; Su Bai just lifted the boiler and poured the soup in it directly onto the paper man.
However, the liquid could not wet it at all!
Childe Hai’s face was turning paler and paler.
Not afraid of water?
No, no, it was definitely afraid of something related to water… Su Bai looked around and all at once, he realized those flesh pieces were pretty clean… There was barely any blood on them; almost all the blood had been cleaned while being boiled.
Why did the paper man have to make such an unnecessary move?
Why did it have to cook the body before slicing?
Su Bai used to think that the reason for boiling flesh pieces was that the murderer was afraid of leaving his traces on these flesh pieces. But if the murderer was a paper man or the tool of crime was the paper man, it had no need to do so!
It did this because…
It was afraid of blood!
Su Bai rushed to Chen Chu’s dead body and took the condoms in it; inside the condoms was merely water, but their surfaces were thickly covered with Chen Chu’s blood.
"Clap!"
"Clap!"
Condoms covered with extremely thick blood hit the scissors; after soaking the blood again and again, the scissors were becoming twisted and were softened.
The pressure on Childe Hai greatly fell, and his momentum began to rise. He even began planning a counter-attack.
"Clap!"
After Su Bai threw out the last condom in his hand, the paper man’s scissors unexpectedly broke into two pieces as Childe Hai twisted both his hands.
The paper man rapidly turned towards the door; it was running away!
Childe Hai kneeled on the ground; he was badly hurt on the chest, but he stood up immediately and shouted to Su Bai:
"Go! Go after it! Follow it, and find the real murderer!"
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] Nancy boy: It is a nickname/slur for effeminate homosexual men. Su Bai was making fun of Childe Hai because Childe Hai flirted with him first.