Chapter 518: Confession in a Dream Tonight (Part 3)

When the two returned to the Shining Alliance base again, the atmosphere became a bit different, but from the outside, there was no change. Stark was still focused on selecting the target path, and Steve stood beside him with his arms crossed.

"I guess... it should be this one." Stark frowned. Steve didn't know if he had found some patterns or was relying purely on intuition, but he still chose to believe Stark.

Flashing again, they found themselves in an open space. Both of them made a move together, which was to look up. Appearing above their heads were endless high towers.

At this very moment, Stark seemed to lose his strength and could no longer straighten his back. Steve also covered his face with his hands and said: "Fortunately, I knew... I knew... he couldn't be so easy..."

"Wait." Stark frowned. He looked around with his head raised and then said: "Why is it so quiet here? Where is Schiller? Where are they?"

Steve also recalled the situation when he first came to this high tower. At that time, it could be said to be crowded with people, and the corridors were full of Schillers coming and going. But at this time, the high tower looked much quieter. Although some figures could be vaguely seen in the high places, the corridors below were completely empty.

Steve and Stark were both a bit hesitant. Professor X had repeatedly warned them that some rooms in this high tower were very dangerous. Combining Schiller's previous abnormal performances, the two felt that Professor X's warning was reasonable.

But even so, they still had to explore here. The two walked from the ground floor to the first floor along the stairs. At this time, it was empty, the doors were closed, and the corridor was pitch black.

Neither Steve nor Stark had carefully explored the first floor here. Even if they paid for membership to play games, they were all teleported directly to the reception hall on the high floor.

The two who walked up the stairs found that the first floor of the high tower looked a bit simple. The ground was not even a floor, but a cement floor, and the walls looked a bit old, even the wall paint was peeling off, and the rooms were not as dense as the high floors. They turned around in the corridor of the patio and didn't see a room.

Just then, Stark suddenly heard movement in the corridor ahead. He quickened his pace and walked over. Steve followed behind him. The two had just arrived at the corner of the corridor when a black shadow was knocked down by them with a "bang."

The small black shadow stood up, rubbed his forehead, and then opened his eyes wide to look at the two intruders. His expression was very shocked, seemingly not knowing why they appeared here.

That was a young version of Schiller, very young, wearing very ordinary children's clothes. Stark stared at him for a while, then squatted down, touched his head and said: "Schiller? The other you?"

Young Schiller blinked and shook his head. Stark asked: "Don't know, or can't say?"

Young Schiller shook his head again. Stark asked a series of questions, but young Schiller didn't answer at all. Steve walked over, patted Stark on the shoulder and said: "He doesn't seem to be able to speak."

Stark stood up, looked at young Schiller's back as he turned and left, and frowned. He said: "The good news is that Schiller should still be alive, and the bad news is that some special situation has indeed occurred, causing a part of his personality to disappear. We have to find him."

Saying that, Stark stepped to follow young Schiller, and Steve walked behind him. Young Schiller didn't seem to care that they were following, but walked slowly into that corridor.

Arriving in the corridor, Stark discovered the abnormality. This corridor was different from the kind of corridor he had seen on the high floor. This seemed to be a stairwell, and it was a very old stairwell, with cement ground with traces of smearing, dilapidated walls with peeling wall skin, messy wires and mailboxes, and small advertisements stacked layer upon layer...

Steve stopped in front of those small advertisements with text and said: "This should be Chinese, right? Do you recognize what is written on this?"

"Rent, lock picking, document processing..." Stark translated into English and read it to Steve. Steve raised his eyebrows in surprise and said: "You also know Chinese?"

"I know almost all the languages in the world." Stark stepped over the debris piled in the corridor and continued to follow young Schiller forward.

Although this corridor looked dilapidated, it was still tidy, so they soon arrived at the only door. That door was also different from the doors the two had seen. It was a dark blue iron door with a square-shaped lock and keyhole.

Young Schiller opened the door with some effort with a key, pulled the door open, and walked in, changing his shoes next to the shoe cabinet at the entrance.

After changing into slippers, he walked into the house, and Steve and Stark stood outside the door, looking at the room.

"This should be an ordinary residential building in China." Stark judged: "My company has employees of Chinese descent, and the indoor layout in the photos left by their parents' generation is like this."

"They have a large living room, the kitchen is on the other side, and it must have a door. The frosted glass door is carved with flowers, and there is the 'Fu' character pasted on the bedroom door..." Stark pointed to the scene in the house and said, and Steve had already started changing his shoes.

After he opened the shoe cabinet, he looked at the shoes inside and said: "This should be a family of three, the shoes of the male host and the female host, and the child's..."

"This should be Schiller's childhood memory." Stark also changed into men's slippers. The two walked into the house together and found young Schiller sitting on the sofa watching TV.

"It's not good for us to rummage through other people's houses, right?" Steve said a bit hesitantly, but Stark said very firmly: "Special circumstances, special handling. We want to save Schiller, so finding some intelligence here is nothing."

Steve finally nodded, and they split into two groups to start searching for clues in the house.

Stark, who was searching in the living room, was the first to see a photo frame on the TV cabinet. It was a golden photo frame with European-style patterns. Stark picked up the photo frame and saw that it was a photo of a family of three, and standing between the parents was young Schiller.

This photo was a full-body shot, so the face could not be seen clearly. After Stark put the photo down, he started searching again. At this time, Steve's call came from the master bedroom:

"Tony, come quickly, look here!"

Stark walked in quickly and saw Steve holding an album. They opened the album, and most of them were photos of the family of three. Stark commented: "Very ordinary, very happy family. It seems Schiller's childhood was not bad."

And suddenly, Steve's fingers flipping through the album stopped. Stark looked at that photo. It was a man holding a baby. Steve frowned and said: "No, his father is not ordinary."

"Why? Where can you see it?" Stark asked.

Steve pointed to the hand closest to the lens in the photo with his fingertip and said: "Look here, gun calluses."

"His father might be a soldier or an agent, and the kind who fights all year round." Steve judged based on his rich experience.

He flipped the album back a few pages, stared at the details in the photo, and said: "His mother is not ordinary either. Judging from the muscle direction, the body fat rate is very low, obviously having undergone professional training..."

"Maybe his parents were soldiers." Stark shrugged, didn't care, and started looking for other clues.

Pulling open the drawers and flipping through the bookshelves, there were all kinds of books inside, with no directionality. And just as Stark took out a thick history book, a few pieces of paper tucked inside fell out.

Stark picked up the papers, unfolded them, and said with some confusion: "Sensory integration training?"

Steve leaned over, and Stark pointed to those papers and said: "This is a record of sensory integration training. Sensory integration training is generally aimed at children. Look here, it says, sensory integration disorder, the reason is... autism? Is Schiller an autistic patient?"

"This is not unexpected. I remember he seemed to mention that he has high-functioning autism." Stark said, touching his chin.

He flipped the record papers back again, flipped to the end, and said: "According to the records here, the sensory integration training progressed to the later stage, the subject's limb coordination improved significantly, there was preliminary language ability, and the language ability was improving rapidly..."

"Stepping Alone to Immortality"

Stark flipped the paper over, and on the back was the handwriting left by a ballpoint pen. He read: "July 24, able to call out names to toys... August 19, able to read a fairy tale... December 2, first conscious call of Dad and Mom... April 6, able to clearly express which storybook he wants..."

Steve said with some emotion: "It seems Schiller's parents loved him very much, tried hard to treat him, and even recorded the process of him learning to speak."

"Wait..." Stark frowned, looking at those notes and said: "As of April, he was already able to clearly express which storybook he wanted, so it was no different from the language ability of ordinary children before, but..."

Stark turned his head to look at the living room, put down those papers, walked quickly, squatted in front of young Schiller, and started asking young Schiller some questions, trying to arouse his interest through language and body movements. But young Schiller just looked at him and didn't speak at all.

After a while, Stark stood up. He said to Steve who walked over: "He really can't speak. He can understand what I'm doing, but he just doesn't say anything..."

"The treatment should have been successful, so why is this child, who is a manifestation of Schiller's childhood memory, still unable to speak?"

Stark turned around and picked up the photo of the family of three again to observe.

And just then, the light outside the window began to dim gradually. Stark realized that there was day and night in this room.

Young Schiller, who was sitting on the sofa watching TV, suddenly stood up. Stark and Steve's eyes followed him, watching him walk into the bedroom. Stark shrugged, followed young Schiller to the bedroom door, and said: "It seems he has been used to going to bed early since he was a child."

"Okay, sleep, child, we can go find clues elsewhere..."

Just as Stark turned around and wanted to leave the bedroom, he saw that young Schiller, who wanted to sleep, did not walk to the bed in his room, but walked into the closet.

Opening the cabinet door, climbing into a grid about the same height as him, hugging his legs and curling up, and then closing the cabinet door.

Stark saw that in the gap between the two cabinet doors, young Schiller's eyes staring at him were just exposed. ===== CHAPTER 519 =====