Memory

Lin Yan’s eyes grew hot, and emotion surged through her heart; at Nan Changgeng’s words, the dormant hope buried deep inside her suddenly stirred awake.

“It would have been nice if I’d had the chance to talk to you earlier. Unfortunately, with my ability, I couldn’t reach you before now.”

“It’s not too late now. She’s still young.”

Nan Changgeng smiled wryly. If this had happened any earlier, she might not have had the energy to deal with something so complicated; more than that, she might not even have been willing to shoulder the risk of Yu Mao growing up and growing emotionally distant.

No one but her could know how deeply Yu Mao’s utterly pure feelings attracted her. Her present composure was only because that was simply her nature; even if a meteor were about to smash down on her head, she would not allow herself to scream or cry, and she would insist on maintaining her dignity until the very last moment of her life.

They still had to wait a while for the food delivery, so they took the chance to talk about the important matter.

“Do you know where the video recordings of Yu Mao from when she was little are now? I want to show them to her.”

“They’re with me.” Lin Yan looked a little surprised. “Back then, the dean wanted to give all of that to her, but she only took the inheritance. She had no interest in anything else at all. I was afraid she’d misplace it and lose it, so I put it away.”

“Why do you suddenly want to show her those?”

“To see if it can help her remember a little of the past.” As she said that, Nan Changgeng thought of something else. “Right, when you first met her more than ten years ago, did she still remember things from her childhood?”

“Yes. Those memories were lost gradually afterward. The more she came into contact with things related to you, the more memories of everything else she lost. By now, she only remembers the most deeply imprinted things.” Lin Yan nodded, then couldn’t help asking suspiciously, “Will this really help? She remembered everything before, and it didn’t seem like she was in any better condition.”

At this, Nan Changgeng relaxed a little more. She had indeed suspected as much; knowing that remembering those things wouldn’t affect Yu Mao much was what made her dare to let her try recovering her memories.

“I’m not sure. Let’s try first. Her emotional isolation from the outside world is too severe; having more memories will at least deepen the connection a little.”

Lin Yan nodded thoughtfully. Although after so many years together, she undoubtedly knew Yu Mao better, when it came to Nan Changgeng, she trusted her almost blindly.

Without hesitation, she got up and took a USB drive out from under the TV cabinet, then turned back and asked, “Do you want to watch it now?”

“Mm, now. Once we go back, I probably won’t have much time.”

Lin Yan turned on the TV and plugged in the USB drive, then randomly opened a video.

The AI assistant detected that it was surveillance footage; a prompt popped up asking whether to skip the meaningless shots and filter out the clips with useful information.

The remote clicked “Yes.”

The first clip that appeared was little Yu Mao refusing to eat the meal her mother had made. The woman flew into a rage, smashing the bowl and yelling at the child, practically losing her mind.

The sharp crash of porcelain on the floor startled Lin Yan, who was standing close by; she hurriedly turned the volume down.

[What exactly do you want!! Isn’t it enough that I apologized to you!? I already said it was just a joke; I never really meant for you to drink only milk, don’t you understand?!]

Lin Yan explained, “This should have been when she was seven. After spending a long time with that big orange cat, she ended up copying its picky eating habits too. I remember that a few days before this scene, Yu Ran... her mother, had just discovered that she only drank milk and didn’t eat anything. She thought it was because she’d seen how gentle she was with the cat in its old age, when it had become increasingly picky about food, so she deliberately got jealous and said sourly that she might as well just drink milk. She never expected Yu Mao to actually take it to heart.”

“Yu Ran was going pretty crazy. She only thought the child just wasn’t hungry enough and let her drink nothing but powdered milk for several days, only gradually starting to panic by this point.”

In the video, the woman still wanted to beat little Yu Mao like she had before, but the seven-year-old was no longer helpless. She jumped down from the chair and quickly ran back to her room.

The woman chased after her for only a couple of steps before giving up. Crying and shouting, she collapsed to the floor, grabbed the broken shards of porcelain, and threw them everywhere; she cut her palm open and splashed blood all over the floor.

“Love and hate tangled together; human nature really is complicated...” Nan Changgeng furrowed her brows and sighed, unable to bear watching any longer. “I think that if the child hadn’t had any responsibility for becoming like this, she wouldn’t have been warped to this extent. Guilt with no end in sight is more torturous than pain.”

Lin Yan nodded in agreement. “Still, she was a little better than her father. The gene-editing program was something he urged Yu Ran to sign up for after hearing about it. That one million was a pretty big temptation for an ordinary family; he probably wanted to take a gamble and ease the burden of raising a child. But once something went wrong, he just dumped them and hid away on his own.”

“The most pitiful one is still the child. She had no power to choose whether to be born, and she suffered through all of it.”

Nan Changgeng glanced sideways at Yu Mao, who was sitting quietly beside her, and asked softly, “Do you feel anything? Do you remember a little?”

Yu Mao nodded, her expression quite calm. “I remember all of this. It’s like the memories weren’t really forgotten; they were just hidden somewhere I couldn’t see.”

Looking at the woman on the screen, who had collapsed and was now picking herself up to clean the mess after the breakdown, she recalled for a moment and said, “I remember that she hated her, feared her, but also loved her deeply. Every time she was hurt, she was in great pain; when the pain couldn’t be relieved, she would die once.”

Nan Changgeng’s heart jolted, but she caught one key point. “...She?”

Yu Mao turned her head and met her gaze steadily. She answered with a serious explanation: “She’s not me. She’s already dead. I was raised by you... perhaps I count as... her remains.”

“I don’t have a mother, and I don’t have a father. I came at your summons; I belong only to you.”

“..."

Nan Changgeng was momentarily speechless.

In the shock of it, the muscles at the corners of her lips twitched uncontrollably. She tried to force out a natural smile and make herself relax, but failed.

“But you’ve also ‘died’ once before. Are you still the same you now as you were then?”

Lin Yan suddenly turned around, her expression somewhat stunned.

Yu Mao tilted her head. “I feel like... there’s no change.”

“Maybe it’s because last time, I was about to dissipate before you came; this time, you woke me up very quickly.”

The long waiting in the void had erased most of Yu Mao’s former self-awareness. The more richly colored the part, the easier it was to fade; the first thing to be worn away was her feelings toward her mother. A child’s consciousness could not withstand much consumption, and by the end, there really wasn’t much left.

“That’s good.”

Nan Changgeng relaxed her shoulders and neck, letting out a breath like someone who had just survived a disaster.

Lin Yan saw it clearly, but frowned. “Why do I feel like you’re very happy?” And not just happy; she looked almost like she was about to lose control of it.

Yu Mao also nodded along, as if in agreement, her gaze burning bright. “Happy.”

Nan Changgeng was silent for a moment, then still couldn’t help the small upward curve of her lips.

Well, after all, she wasn’t an actress; her acting skills were lacking.

Of course she was happy. It was like gaining, out of nowhere, something bound to her soul; a seed she had personally given birth to, even closer than a biological child, with no one else dividing the bloodline, no gradually developing independent consciousness.

Completely, utterly, belonging only to her.

She almost wanted to stop right there and let Yu Mao remain a broken attachment keeping her company, filling her... but she couldn’t suppress that greed at the deepest part of her heart.

She had thrown out trust in such an almost mad way, willing to gamble that Yu Mao wouldn’t let her lose.

The three of them watched the video with very different thoughts.

Only Yu Mao remained utterly free of distractions, faithfully carrying out Changgeng’s instructions and seriously picking up her past memories.

Even though she didn’t think those childhood memories would have any impact on her at all.

It was only when the doorbell rang, and Lin Yan went to fetch the takeout and brought it back, casually setting it on the coffee table, that she also turned off the TV; otherwise, such a tragic story might affect their appetites.

“When you have time, come back and keep watching.”

The takeout came with disposable chopsticks; there were only two pairs, implicitly assuming Yu Mao wouldn’t be eating.

Lin Yan had originally planned to go to the kitchen and make her a cup of milk, but Nan Changgeng stopped her.

“I still want to try getting her to eat normal food.”

“These aren’t made by you; will it work?” Though she said that, Lin Yan had already begun looking forward to a miracle, briskly opening the containers.

Three dishes and two boxes of rice; for two people with big appetites, there was even a little left over.

Nan Changgeng took a small bowl, scooped out a little rice, added a piece of braised pork rib that had been stewed until tender and falling off the bone, mixed it into the rice, and tossed in two pieces of potato.

Lin Yan watched her while eating and couldn’t help joking, “Looks like dog food.”

“It’s cat food.” Nan Changgeng corrected her, then turned with a smile to glance at the girl sitting dazedly beside her, holding the small bowl under her eyes.

“Do you see it?” she asked, guiding her with the question.

Yu Mao nodded.

“What is it?”

“Food.”

“Hold it.”

She placed the bowl into Yu Mao’s outstretched hands, then dropped a spoon into it.

“Scoop up a spoonful and put it in your mouth.”

Yu Mao obeyed, like a little robot receiving one command and moving once. She smoothly scooped up the rice and meat mixture and stuffed it into her mouth, then stared blankly at her with wide, round eyes.

“Chew.” Nan Changgeng was brief and to the point.

So she mechanically made chewing motions, and when the other side gave the order to “swallow,” she swallowed as well; she looked somewhat strained and dry.

Nan Changgeng poured her a glass of water, letting her wash down the food left in her mouth, then said, “Keep repeating what you just did until you finish the rice in the bowl.”

Once these actions were linked together, Yu Mao looked as though she were naturally and smoothly eating by herself.

Lin Yan watched, stunned again and again, and muttered, “You really do have a way...”

“Just a preliminary attempt. I didn’t expect it to go this smoothly.” Nan Changgeng smiled, and even the gloom from the series of accidents she’d encountered today seemed to fade quite a bit.

Yu Mao set down the bowl, her eyes lighting up as if she’d been rewarded, and leaned closer to stare at her smiling face.

Nan Changgeng raised her brows; the upward curve of her lips grew even more pleased, and she reached out to wipe away a grain of rice stuck at the corner of Yu Mao’s mouth.

“What does rice taste like? Can you taste it?”

The girl’s eyes went blank at once. She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Looks like that still won’t do.” Her brows tightened slightly; her mood sank a little.

Lin Yan wasn’t affected. She was already quite satisfied with this result. “This is pretty good already. Eating is just about replenishing the body’s nutrition; as long as the goal is achieved, that’s enough.”

“That alone isn’t enough.”

Nan Changgeng didn’t want Yu Mao to stop here.

She hoped to break the inherent form left behind by this body; every time the past was overturned, it would be a kind of rebirth. Besides, taste also played an important role in how a person perceived the world.

After thinking for a moment, she suddenly remembered, “You can taste fruit, right?”

“Yes.”

Yu Mao felt sad whenever Nan Changgeng worried over her. She likewise desperately wanted to become a “normal person” as soon as possible, and she cooperated very actively.

She recalled the contents of Lin Yan’s records and asked in puzzlement, “Why is there such a change? At first, wasn’t it only that you could drink milk?”

Lin Yan immediately looked up. She had asked this question before as well, but never gotten an answer.

Yu Mao lacked the habit of thinking about herself, and, dazed, she offered an answer given by instinct: “I don’t know. I just want your taste.”

Avoiding all food except milk was the body’s inertia; swallowing the taste belonging to her was the desire of the soul.

“...Mine?”

Nan Changgeng couldn’t help but be startled. She subconsciously smelled herself, catching a faint, fresh citrus-peel scent; in an instant, understanding dawned, and she felt a little dazed.

“It’s the smell of my perfume..."

She really did favor perfumes and scents with various fruit notes, finding them refreshing and pleasant to the nose.

“...I’m actually not that surprised.” Lin Yan looked somewhat speechless. She had finally understood that whenever something was odd about Yu Mao, in the end it always had to be related to Nan Changgeng.

Nan Changgeng pressed her lips together, the pleasure coming at an inopportune time, and lowered her eyes to hide her emotions.

Because she smelled like fruit, Yu Mao could break through her lingering limitations on her own and taste the flavor of fruit... she came to a deep realization that she was Yu Mao’s only channel for receiving the real world.

Then...

“Why don’t you try finding a perfume that smells like food and spray it on?” Lin Yan blurted out without thinking.

Her train of thought was interrupted, and Nan Changgeng couldn’t help laughing once. Lin Yan also realized after speaking that the idea was absurd, and smiled awkwardly before lowering her head to take a mouthful of rice.

But Nan Changgeng had indeed thought of a method.

She picked up her chopsticks and calmly lifted a shrimp from the stir-fried shrimp dish. She brought it to her mouth but didn’t chew; then she turned to look at Yu Mao, whose gaze had never left her. With a slight smile, she reached out and pinched her chin, and the moment Yu Mao opened her mouth in mild surprise, Nan Changgeng leaned in and kissed her, using the tip of her tongue to push the shrimp into the girl’s mouth.

With a loud clatter, Lin Yan’s chopsticks fell to the floor and bounced away two meters. She stood there, stunned.

Nan Changgeng was startled too; she reflexively let go and straightened up.

But Yu Mao seemed unaffected by any of it, frozen in place without moving, her mouth still slightly open and unable to close.

Fireworks-like flames erupted inside her body, surging from her abdomen all the way up to her head; her blood ran hot as though in boiling waves, scorching her body from the inside.

Her brain buzzed, stars burst before her eyes, and she could no longer see clearly.

Nan Changgeng watched as, from her neck and ears all the way to her entire face, she flushed red in an instant, so red it looked as though blood might drip from her; her originally pale flesh was filled to the brim with color, and even her gaze went vacant.

Because the reaction was so exaggerated, it looked nothing like shyness; rather, it looked as though she had gone into a fit and was about to explode from within, which was somewhat frightening.

Her heart gave a hard thump.

“This is bad.”

It seemed she had stimulated her too much.

Sure enough, barely two seconds later, two bright red lines slowly spilled from beneath Yu Mao’s nose.

Nan Changgeng hurriedly snatched up a few tissues and, half nervous and half helpless, wiped the blood for her. “...Are you okay?”

Lin Yan was still in shock, her expression slow and wooden, her right hand still loosely holding the phantom of chopsticks in the air. “You don’t need to be too nervous. It’s just a nosebleed; it’s not a big problem.”

She truly hadn’t expected that this woman, who looked so rational and gentle, would act so directly... and so wildly.

Not to mention Yu Mao; even a normal person might not have been able to take that.