Outside the window, it was dim and gloomy. Snow that had fallen sometime last night had left the bare oak branches draped in silver.
He set his phone on the bedside table, then forced himself to sit up despite his headache. He propped a pillow behind his back and leaned against the wall, gently rubbing his temples to ease the pain.
For patients, hyperthymesia usually did more harm than good.
This was especially true for Huang Xiuyuan. Countless trivial memories were crudely piled up in his brain, and patients often found themselves recalling them against their will.
For example, during an exam, he might try to remember something relevant to the test, only to dredge up memories of playing in the mud at five or eating watermelon at eight. It was a complete disaster.
This was something patients with hyperthymesia had to live with their entire lives, right up until death.
In elementary and middle school, people around Huang Xiuyuan had called him a child prodigy because of his hyperthymesia.
At first, because he was still young, the side effects of hyperthymesia hadn't been too noticeable. But after graduating from high school and entering university, they began to show more clearly.
Research in this field in China lagged behind that of Western countries.
After completing three years of undergraduate study at Harbin Institute of Technology, he applied to study in the USA at his own expense and pursued a master's degree at Harvard University. It was only after arriving at Harvard and reading papers and library materials that Huang Xiuyuan realized he had hyperthymesia.
His graduate advisor, Mark Benjamin, had described him as "an ordinary person with nothing but a good memory."
This meant Huang Xiuyuan wasn't a genius, just an average person. In fact, due to his hyperthymesia, he would become even more mediocre as time went on, while suffering from mental health problems.
As soon as he quieted down, all sorts of chaotic memories surfaced in his mind, one after another, as if demons were dancing wildly.
Outside, the first hint of light had appeared. He glanced at his watch. It was 6:53.
Dawn had come, and the sun was slowly rising in the east.
After tossing and turning for most of the night, Huang Xiuyuan still wasn't the least bit sleepy. He needed to solve a problem now: his hyperthymesia.
The problems caused by hyperthymesia could be divided into three main parts: memory that was difficult to control, an enormous volume of memories, and an inability to forget.
In this era, it was indeed an incurable and baffling condition. In the future, however, it wouldn't be a problem.
In the future, hyperthymesia was also known as "brain-cell evolutionary defect syndrome." It referred to a small group of people whose genetic mutations had caused a hypermemory gene switch to evolve in genes related to their brain cells.
This should have been a good thing. But the human body's genes formed an integrated whole; one change could affect everything else.
The emergence of the hypermemory gene switch gave brain cells the ability to remember everything they saw. But the "supporting systems" for that switch hadn't evolved alongside it.
The existing gene sequence in the human body included genes for memory-erasure switches and memory-regulation switches, among others. These had been suppressed by the hypermemory gene switch, leaving them unable to counterbalance this "super gene."
If the relevant genes could be perfected, the side effects of hyperthymesia could be eliminated at their source while preserving the ability to remember everything.
But Huang Xiuyuan knew full well that, given the state of genetic engineering at the time, trying to engineer genetic evolution was pure fantasy. One wrong move, and he could ruin himself.
Even in the future at the far end of his memories, no practical genetic-evolution technology had been developed.
Though there was no way to cure the condition at its root, there were plenty of ways to treat the symptoms.
Forcing his way through the jumble of memories, he walked over to the computer desk and opened his laptop, his fingers flying across the keyboard.
He searched online for a few things. Amid the tangled mass of memories, he recalled a first-generation treatment drug, along with other existing, known medications.
On the websites of several chemical supply companies, he found the drugs he needed. Quite a few companies sold them, and three had outlets in Cambridge.
He could also have ordered them through the websites, and they would have been delivered to Harvard University.
But the thought of the USA's notoriously slow mail service made him abandon the idea of ordering online. It would be faster to go there himself.
Huang Xiuyuan checked the locations of the three outlets and chose the nearest one. It was only 7:34.
He went to the bathroom, took off his sweat-soaked clothes, and had a hot shower. After brushing his teeth and washing his face, he felt a little more alert. He changed into clean clothes and pulled on a down jacket.
He stuffed his dirty clothes into a laundry bag, grabbed a handful of detergent pods, and carried the bag down to the dormitory's shared basement laundry room.
The washing machines in the shared laundry room could be used by inserting twenty-five cents. The dryers beside them were free.
After drying his clothes, Huang Xiuyuan brought them back to his dorm, then took his phone and wallet.
Because of the holiday, the area around the graduate dormitory was deserted. Every so often, he spotted an international student walking alone.
Huang Xiuyuan was somewhat withdrawn, and most of the few friends he was close to had gone home or returned to their own countries.
He walked out of Harvard University, hailed a taxi, and headed straight for his destination.
By the time he reached the nearest chemical supply outlet, it was 9:22. Despite the bitter wind, the shop was still firmly shut.
He wasn't surprised. Uncle Sam had his own way of doing things. Some shops usually opened around ten in the morning, though there were also twenty-four-hour convenience stores and fast-food restaurants.
With some time to kill, he went to McDonald's and bought a hamburger and a cup of hot milk. He ate while waiting for the chemical supply outlet to open.
After finishing the hamburger, he walked about a kilometer. It was nearly half past ten when an employee at the chemical supply outlet finally yawned and lazily pulled up the rolling shutter.
The middle-aged white man with a bushy beard saw him approaching and greeted him with a cheerful smile:
"Hey, buddy! Good morning."
He glanced at the man and got straight to the point, handing him a slip of paper. "I need these items."
"Oh, this damn weather. The ground's like Andrew's toilet—absolutely awful." The bearded man took the slip, rambling incoherently as he spoke.
"Glucose, vitamin B3, sodium chloride, purified water—those are all fine."
"Clonidine hydrochloride, this one seems..." The bearded man looked uncertain. He turned to a younger white man and asked, "Little Dodge, are there any restrictions on clonidine hydrochloride?"
Dodge was checking the stock of various chemicals. "I'll have to check."
Then he jogged over to the work computer and entered the name clonidine hydrochloride.
"Little Dodge, check GABA (γ-aminobutyric acid) too while you're at it."
"OK."
A short while later, Dodge looked up, rubbing his hands as he said, "GABA has no sales restrictions. Clonidine hydrochloride is a prescription drug. May I ask what you'll be using it for?"
He directed the last question at Huang Xiuyuan.
Calmly, he took out his student ID. "Here's my student ID. I'm planning to buy it for an experiment."
The bearded man looked at the ID. "Oh? Harvard? OK."
Half an hour later, more than a dozen chemical reagents and pieces of lab equipment had been packed up. He paid and immediately headed back to his dorm.
He didn't use the university's basic chemistry lab because it would be inconvenient. Besides, he only needed to mix the ingredients for the medication and didn't have to carry out any complicated chemical reactions, so he could do it in his dorm.
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