Intermittent Memory Disorder

After hearing what Gao Xi had said, Gao Tian tried hard to recall his life in middle school.

For some reason, huge swaths of his memories were blank. Whether it was his teachers, his interactions with classmates, how many points he'd scored on his first college entrance exam, or why he'd retaken it, he could only remember scattered fragments.

They couldn't form a complete memory.

Could this really be just as Gao Xi said? Was he a patient suffering from intermittent memory disorder?

It was truly pitiful. He was a man without a past, and he'd encountered the Shattered Face Ghost. He'd nearly had his future severed, too.

Hesitantly, at Gao Xi's urging, Gao Tian stepped into the dim bedroom, one careful step at a time. A thin layer of dust covered everything.

Gao Xi deftly switched on the ceiling light. Looking at the certificates on the walls from elementary, middle, and high school, along with the group photos, Gao Tian felt his memories stirring. The room really did feel familiar to him.

Had he really gone into the wrong room when he first came home? Was the second-to-last room actually his younger sister Gao Xi's bedroom?

Seeing Gao Tian still hesitating, Gao Xi shook her twin tails, bent over, and pulled a thick leather journal from a drawer. With the musty smell of dust rising from it, she pushed it toward him.

"This is the journal you wrote in each time your memory came back. You said that if it ever cut out again, I should show it to you. Maybe it would help you remember something.

"I just didn't expect you to forget Mom and Dad so many times. But this time, you even forgot me."

Gao Tian slowly opened the journal's heavy cover. Its pages were packed with hurried, messy handwriting that was difficult to make out.

As he studied it closely, Gao Tian sadly realized he couldn't even tell whether the writing was his. He'd almost forgotten what his own handwriting looked like.

"Little sister," "amnesia," "fell ill during the exam," "Intermittent memory," "remember quickly," "don't want to be a burden"... Page after page was filled with words like these. Gao Tian soon lost interest. He couldn't find any useful clues.

"Do you remember now?"

The twin-tailed girl called Gao Xi stood in the dim light, looking at him with hopeful, sparkling eyes.

Gao Tian gave a vague reply.

"More or less."

He still doubted this younger sister who'd suddenly appeared in his life, but so far he'd found no solid evidence to prove which of them was wrong.

The scales in his mind had begun to tip.

In any case, Gao Tian temporarily suppressed the urge to use the Shattered Face Ghost to kill his "sister." Even if there were only a one-in-a-million chance that she was a real, living person, killing a family member on a whim would be a terrible sin.

There was no need to rush. He'd stay alert and see what this "sister" who'd suddenly appeared at home was really after.

Gao Xi wasn't a fool. She could tell from Gao Tian's expression that he didn't seem to have remembered anything.

Disappointed, she nevertheless nudged the journal closer to him.

"Write something down yourself. That way, if your memory cuts out again, you can tell your future self what happened."

Gao Tian waved a hand at her, showing off the gauze and stiff cardboard wrapped tightly around his palm.

"My dominant hand is injured. I can't write a single word."

When Gao Xi saw that two of his fingers were broken and the injury was so serious, her face immediately filled with concern. She grabbed his hand to examine it closely.

"How did you manage this? When you said you were moving out, I knew you couldn't even take care of yourself, despite being all grown up.

"Have you disinfected it? I'll get you some ointment."

Gao Tian ignored Gao Xi. His mother had finished cooking in the kitchen, and the most urgent thing now was to join his parents.

What worried him most was whether his parents had been brainwashed.

As he walked down the hallway, Gao Tian kept turning over an even stranger, more obscure question in his mind. Ever since he'd returned home, everything had started to feel wrong.

What did his father and mother look like?

Why couldn't he remember that, either?

Since he'd entered the house, his father had been sitting on the sofa watching television, his dark silhouette turned away from him. His mother's voice, along with the sounds of chopping and running water, came from the kitchen. He still hadn't seen her once.

Why couldn't he remember anything?

With that sense of facing the unknown, Gao Tian made his way into the living room, one step at a time. The dark silhouette was still watching TV. Only when his father heard footsteps behind him did he slowly turn around.

"Has your memory come back at all?

"What happened to your hand? It's in a bad way. Here, let's do this first. I'll drive you to the hospital this afternoon."

The man who turned from the sofa had a completely unfamiliar face. He was middle-aged, wore black-rimmed glasses, and had stubble on his chin.

Seeing the stranger greet him so casually, as if they'd been family for a long time, Gao Tian found it impossible to connect the man before him with the image of his "father."

Gao Tian realized he couldn't remember what his real "father" or "mother" looked like.

Could it really be as Gao Xi had said? Was he sick, suffering from intermittent memory loss?

An equally unfamiliar middle-aged woman came out of the kitchen wearing an apron, wiping her hands.

"Can you still eat with that hand?

"Do you want Mom to feed you?"

Gao Xi came hurrying out of the hallway behind him and shook her head.

"Honestly, this time you can't even recognize your own handwriting.

"This is the worst your illness has ever been.

"Big brother, you really shouldn't rent a place by yourself anymore. It feels like your condition's getting worse."

In a daze, Gao Tian sat down among this completely unfamiliar family of three.

Steaming dishes were brought to the table. The man who was supposedly his father and the woman who was supposedly his mother kept piling food into his bowl, chatting about amusing stories involving relatives he couldn't remember at all. Gao Tian couldn't make heads or tails of the situation. He could do nothing but silently lower his head and eat.

Noticing how awkward he looked, Gao Xi, who was wrestling with a fish's eye using her chopsticks, suddenly blurted out:

"Big brother.

"You look... so pale right now.

"You haven't forgotten what Mom and Dad look like too, have you?"

Parents weren't like a younger sister, who might or might not exist. Everyone had parents, so Gao Tian couldn't possibly have forgotten them.

But even if he remembered "father" and "mother" as abstract roles, he'd long forgotten the specific people behind them.

His mother smiled and reached out to stroke Gao Tian's head.

"Your dad's a businessman. He's always flying all over the country and rarely comes home. Look at you—you can't even remember what your dad looks like.

"As for me, I've been working overtime at the hospital lately, so I can only come home once a week. We hardly ever get to be together as a family. Usually, we hire a nanny to look after you and your sister, and most of the time, you two take care of each other.

"It's understandable that you've forgotten what we look like. We've spent more time apart than together. But I never thought you could even forget your sister existed. Can you imagine how hurt she must be..."

As the family of four ate around the long dining table in the living room, a series of urgent knocks sounded from the door.

With her mouth full of rice, Gao Xi put down her chopsticks, said, "Coming," and headed for the entrance.

"Who's that?" his father asked casually as he shoveled rice into his mouth.

Gao Xi rose onto her tiptoes to peer through the peephole. Muttering, "Gao Tian's girlfriend is here to see him," she reached for the doorknob.

Gao Tian's worldview was rocked once again.

Gao Tian's... girlfriend?

When had he ever had a girlfriend?

He had no memory of ever having one.

Had he lost his memory again?

Since entering this house, Gao Tian had found that everyone who appeared was a complete stranger to him. And yet he genuinely couldn't remember what his real parents were supposed to look like.

Gao Xi was about to turn the doorknob and let Gao Tian's "girlfriend" in. Suddenly, Gao Tian was struck as if by lightning. As though something had just occurred to him, he jerked his head up.

"Wait, Gao Xi...

"Don't open the door. Not yet."

His temples throbbed. Gao Tian felt that if they opened the door, something terribly wrong would happen. Something very wrong.

He remembered. He remembered something crucial.

Gao Xi slowly turned to look at him. Their father and mother at the dining table looked at him with pity, too.

"Gao Tian...

"Don't tell me you've even forgotten your own girlfriend, Li Xing."

Outside, the knocking continued. A muffled female voice called out.

"Is anyone home?

"I'm here to see Gao Tian. Could you let me in?"

Everyone inside the house looked toward Gao Tian.

Gao Tian put down his chopsticks.

"There's something I want to ask.

"I came back to my family's home today on a sudden whim.

"If I really had a girlfriend, and she wanted to see me,

"why didn't she go to my apartment? Why did she come here, to the home I haven't visited in six months—and happen to arrive just when I came back, too?

"Could something really be this much of a coincidence?"

His mother laughed and waved her phone, its screen still lit.

"Oh, you're such a suspicious child.

"I was wondering why you were so jumpy. That's what you meant.

"See, after hearing you and your sister arguing in the back room, I sent Li Xing a text and asked her to come check on you. I wanted to see if having her here might jog your memory."

Gao Xi laughed and backed her up.

"Big brother's always so suspicious."

Of the family of four, only Gao Tian wasn't laughing.

His expression grew more and more serious. Because he remembered.

Gao Tian turned to his father.

"When I came in, the front door had been left unlocked.

"You were watching TV and hadn't even turned around to look at me. But you still recognized me right away and called me by name.

"How did you know it was me who'd walked in?"

His father smiled as well.

"I've listened to your footsteps for over a decade. How could I not recognize them?"

That explanation seemed just as reasonable as the fact that his girlfriend, Li Xing, had suddenly come to visit him at home.

Of course, this alone wasn't enough for Gao Tian to determine which version of the past was true: the one he'd remembered, or the one his "father" and "mother" had told him.

But there was one more question, and they absolutely couldn't lie to him about it.

Gao Tian moved his lips and asked his final question.