Hazy Memories

Central City No. 003.

Inside a mansion.

Qin Yiguan crouched on the nutrient pod, his face twisted. Gritting his teeth, he kept drawing a smile over "Ninth Brother's" face inside, only for the nanny robot to wipe it away immediately.

"Do we have to remember the past?!"

"Do we have to suffer?!"

"That expression makes you look like you're having a nightmare. It always reminds me of that painful memory!"

"Fine!"

Qin Yiguan roared and sprang to his feet atop the nutrient pod, staring at everything with bloodshot eyes.

It was as though a devil were about to awaken inside him.

But the next instant.

The boy's fierce presence faded. He slowly sat back down on the nutrient pod and stared at the boy inside, his expression growing calm.

"All right."

Qin Yiguan remained silent for a full two minutes before abruptly raising his head, his slow words breaking the silence.

"The idea that my parents ascended with the Gemini Superbrain..."

"Was just a fantasy someone made up."

"Because I knew all along."

"My parents are dead."

"My memories of that time are hazy, but I haven't forgotten."

"The amnesia... was an act."

"My parents... might very well have... died by my hand."

"To be precise, it was another... me inside my body!"

"I don't know him well. He exists independently."

"He killed my parents!"

"I don't know where that piece of flesh in my mouth came from."

"But in the end, I swallowed it!"

"Because I wanted to remember every bit of it!"

The boy's words were shocking.

He had laid bare the secret buried deepest in his heart.

But the boy in the nutrient pod could not answer.

Much less the nanny robot.

At that moment, Qin Yiguan looked toward the glass curtain wall beside him. His reflection appeared eerily strange amid the overlapping light and shadows.

Rage churned inside him, but he had nowhere to unleash it.

Hah...

Hah...

The boy gasped for breath, taking a long time to calm down.

He quietly watched the nutrient pod. Since the metaverse could extract his consciousness on its own, then someday, technology would advance far enough to...

Drag out the other me inside my body!

I'll make it repent. I'll make it confess. I... will destroy it in the end!

The air fell strangely still.

Only when the cigarette burned Officer Wang's fingers did he snap out of his silence and flick away the butt.

That scene had shaken the veteran officer just as deeply.

Steadying himself, Officer Wang said, "Xiao Li, you should know that driving a dagger like that through an adult's skin and cutting into bone, to that depth, meets about as much resistance as piercing three layers of tanned cowhide."

"A six-year-old child simply wouldn't have the strength."

"Let alone to do it twenty-three times."

"And strangely enough, as the home of Gemini employees, the place was filled with technological equipment. Yet every surveillance device failed that day."

"By the time the footage came back, the murders were already over."

"When I questioned Qin Yiguan as a child, he just shook his head. He couldn't remember anything."

His assistant, Xiao Li, looked horrified. "Th-then... how was the case handled in the end?"

"We had evidence, but we couldn't make logical sense of it."

"Besides, Qin Yiguan had only just turned six."

Officer Wang paused in thought. "In the end, we sent him to an orphanage in Rust City. As you know, many people with brain disorders live there."

"Of course, it wasn't an ordinary orphanage."

"Several leading psychologists were stationed there."

"We spent ten years observing... monitoring... testing the young Qin Yiguan."

"We collected data on everything he did."

"Every behavioral measure, psychological indicator, even his microexpressions, was recorded in detail."

"Then we combined all kinds of assessment algorithms..."

"The island nation's Anger Concealment Test, the European nation's WDT Psychological Test, and countless psychological testing algorithms from our own country-we used them all on him."

Utterly engrossed in this unbelievable history, Xiao Li swallowed. "And the results?"

Officer Wang's brow furrowed, then relaxed again. "The results showed no violent tendencies whatsoever in Qin Yiguan's personality. Not even the slightest trace."

"No signs of criminal tendencies."

"Not in the past, and not in the future."

"He was like a monk ringing a temple bell, or a rabbit lying quietly in the grass."

"He wouldn't hurt anyone."

"The complete opposite of how he acts when he uses [Shadow Syndrome] to imitate criminals."

At that moment.

Officer Wang lit another cigarette. He was a "half-person" now anyway, so he could enjoy the sensation without nicotine harming his real body.

"So no matter how many killing techniques Qin Yiguan learns, I'll still trust him from the bottom of my heart. He won't hurt anyone."

"After all, for those ten years, his true nature... was always so quiet and harmless."

"A child couldn't keep up an act for ten years."

"As for..."

"The explanation we gave him..."

Officer Wang paused. "The doctors at the orphanage discovered that he'd lost his memories of the murder scene. It was probably some kind of selective amnesia. After all, the event was far too traumatic for such a young mind."

"So when he was little, we wove a beautiful fantasy for him: his mom and dad had ascended to heaven with the Gemini Superbrain... He still believes that to this day."

His assistant, Xiao Li, took a long while to digest this before finally asking, "Then the truth behind his parents' murder..."

A trace of helplessness showed in Officer Wang's expression as he said, word by word, "An unsolved case. Still no answers."

At that moment.

Inside the mansion in Central City.

The boy dabbed up a little more chocolate sauce and, with great patience and care, drew a smile on the pod's glass for "Ninth Brother."

The nanny robot was about to wipe it off when it suddenly announced that its battery was low. It promptly returned to its charging area, watching longingly.

The boy smiled. "Whatever burdens you carry, you have to keep living with hope, even if it's only for a moment."

The boy stood up.

He opened the schoolbag he had brought with him and stuffed it full of food.

Then he filled his pockets as well.

With his back turned, he waved to the boy in the nutrient pod.

"My friend, I'll take this food with me for now. I remember a great sage once said something, though I don't know who that sage was."

"But he put it well."

"When a scholar takes something, it isn't stealing. It's borrowing."

Qin Yiguan retraced his steps and climbed the towering city wall again.

He glanced back at Central City No. 003.

The scenery was magnificent, like an enormous work of art.

Though the humans here were immersed in the metaverse, they also used the technology they created there to benefit the real world.

For instance, this City No. 003 had actually recreated the world's eight architectural wonders.

The Egyptian Pyramid of Khufu, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Temple of Artemis, the Colossus of Rhodes...

These vast, majestic monuments from a hundred years ago now stood scattered throughout the heart of the city like sculptures in a park.

There was even a vast stretch of ocean adjoining the city's western side.

Now, every ocean in the physical world was crystal clear, free of pollution and garbage.

That was because people had developed genetic recombination technology in the metaverse.

Then, in reality, they had created a kind of soft-bodied animal that reproduced asexually and swam through the oceans, specifically consuming marine garbage.

Who said humanity's future would be destroyed by environmental degradation?

The truth was precisely the opposite.

People in the past had simply been shortsighted.

Used properly, technology could always benefit humanity.

"It's just a shame..."

"Even with such a wonderful environment and such beautiful scenery, they still refuse to wake up."

The boy shook his head. "Better head back to my Rust City. It should be waking up by now."