The storm that came without warning left just as abruptly.
Sunlight broke through the clouds. Puddles glittered.
Qi Zhimu folded the oil-paper umbrella, shook off the water, removed his shoes caked with mud, and changed into clean sandals.
"Go dry your clothes," he said.
"Mm."
Clarisse had visited in the rain before. She headed into the cottage, activated the special "dryer" placed in its usual spot.
Apparently Mr. Qi had built it himself, and couldn't be bothered to name it—so he simply called it the dryer.
Warm air flowed through her dress, circling along her skin, drawing out dampness and turning it into a faint mist.
Meanwhile, Qi Zhimu returned to his room, changed clothes, habitually put on the lab coat, and entered the treatment room.
The session was nearing its end.
Clarisse stood beside him, her lively presence stilled, eyes fixed on her mother inside the pod. Her fingers interlaced unconsciously, as if in prayer.
"Relax. Everything is normal."
When the countdown reached zero, the pod opened. Mrs. Durand slowly opened her eyes.
Seeing faces that were both familiar and unfamiliar, the emptiness in her eyes lessened slightly.
"…Clarisse… and this gentleman…"
"Mother!"
Clarisse carefully helped her sit up and hugged her—then froze, shock flooding her face.
"Mother… you… don't remember Mr. Qi?"
"Mr. Qi… Mr. Qi…" Mrs. Durand searched her mind and said uncertainly, "…Is he the doctor treating me?"
A shadow of gravity passed through Qi Zhimu's eyes.
He met Clarisse's frightened look and gave her a subtle signal.
"Mrs. Durand, please allow me to examine your current brain state."
"Alright."
Qi Zhimu attached electrodes and started the scan.
Streams of data Clarisse couldn't decipher filled the display. Qi Zhimu read every line, missing nothing.
Minutes later, he shut down the device and removed the electrodes.
"There has been a small unexpected development, but it remains controllable. Please don't worry. In two months, your amnesia will be fully cured."
"Oh… good. Thank you for your effort."
Though she couldn't remember him, Mrs. Durand could still sense his goodwill.
"You may go home now. Please return in twenty-four days for follow-up treatment."
The number meant nothing to Mrs. Durand.
To Clarisse, it meant everything.
Her mother had never forgotten the treatment interval after a session before.
And the time until the next visit had shortened again.
Sooner or later, it would reach a point where even daily treatment would change nothing.
And then—
Even she might be forgotten.
When a person loses all memory, even if the body still lives, it's no different from death.
A line her mother once said surfaced in Clarisse's mind:
Life is a winding labyrinth. Without memory, we have nothing.
For the first time, Clarisse began to understand what it meant.
…
After the mother and daughter left, Qi Zhimu exported the session data to a record terminal and began deeper analysis.
In most worlds—even those with advanced medicine—memory-related disorders remained a hard problem.
Take the people of the Xianzhou, for instance.
Their descent into mara was deeply tied to memory.
Those struck by mara had their senses inverted and their humanity stripped away.
Teacher had once researched a cure.
Qi Zhimu didn't know whether she'd succeeded.
The Xianzhou person who volunteered as subject and testbed was taken away one day by a star skiff.
Success or failure, life or death—back then, at only twenty-two, Qi Zhimu never learned the outcome.
But afterward, Ruan Mei assigned him a new research branch: memory.
Because he'd immersed himself in it for so long, he now had the ability to treat Mrs. Durand's amnesia.
For now, nothing had exceeded his expectations—good.
Qi Zhimu had confidence. And he would keep the promise he'd given Clarisse.
At some point, he had started valuing promises immensely.
Sometimes even he didn't understand why he would spend so much effort to honor words he could tell were spoken casually.
Long ago, Yu Qingtu had once told him:
"If you can make pastries that satisfy me, I'll unconditionally do one thing for you—and solve one problem for your teacher."
"But since I admire A-Ruan, even if you fail, I'll still help her."
Qi Zhimu had solemnly agreed, swearing he would not disappoint.
He remembered Yu Qingtu's look that day—pure astonishment.
It was obvious: a genius had only been joking. That second sentence had been a way out, offered in advance.
Qi Zhimu's acceptance should never have happened.
Yu Qingtu recovered, lifted her lips into a smile, and her eyes gained a spark of interest—and faint expectation.
It took Qi Zhimu seven full years to develop a peculiar flavor additive.
Mix it into pastries, and it automatically "fit" the taster's preferences, becoming the taste they loved most.
It was a kind of cheating—but it earned Yu Qingtu's approval.
After that, whenever Yu Qingtu came to see Ruan Mei, Qi Zhimu made an extra portion of pastries.
At first he used the additive. As years passed, he stopped.
"Mrs. Durand's amnesia is not caused by brain trauma or a conventional disease…"
"It is definitely not the same type as Alzheimer's—something long since conquered."
"Therefore, stem cell transplantation won't work."
"Remove DNA methylation markers via CRISPR-dCas9 to reactivate memory-associated genes, supplemented by a CCKBR receptor modulator…"
Qi Zhimu opened a storage cabinet and took a special dose from a chilled shelf wreathed in cold mist.
This was the CCKBR receptor modulator.
Strictly speaking, it had no direct effect on Mrs. Durand's condition. It was a safeguard.
If treatment caused neural damage, the modulator would activate immediately.
To cure Mrs. Durand, the core relied on his own long-term research:
Memory decoding and backfilling.
An implanted device would simulate hippocampal function and replicate memory-related neural signals.
It would capture and amplify residual hippocampal electrical signals, digitize them, then feed them back through a brain–computer interface.
"…If a Memokeeper from the Garden of Recollection were here, they might have an easier method…"
Unfortunately, he hadn't walked the Path of Remembrance.
He could only rely on himself.
This research had reached its final stage.
Only one step remained:
clinical trials.
Qi Zhimu drank the receptor modulator and prepared to verify the efficacy personally.
-------
My : pat*eon*com/RuneA
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