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

When the two returned to the base of the Shining Alliance again, the atmosphere became a bit different, but from the outside, there was no change. Stark was still focused on choosing 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 made the same action, which was to look up. Appearing above their heads were endless towering 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 it... I knew it... It couldn't be this easy for him..."

"Wait." Stark frowned. He looked up and turned around, then said: "Why is it so quiet here? Schiller? Where are they?"

Steve also recalled the situation when he first came to this tower. At that time, it could be said that there were people everywhere, and the corridors were full of Schillers coming and going. But at this time, the 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 tower were very dangerous. Combined with Schiller's previous abnormal performance, 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 had paid for a membership to play games, they were all teleported directly to the reception hall on the upper floors.

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

Just then, Stark suddenly heard movement in the corridor ahead. He quickened his pace, and Steve followed behind him. Just as the two reached the corner of the corridor, with a "bang," a black shadow was knocked down by them.

The small black shadow stood up, rubbed his forehead, and then looked at the two intruders with wide eyes, his expression very shocked, as if he didn't know 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? Where is 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 this, 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 upper floors. This seemed to be a stairwell, and it was a very old stairwell, with cement floors with smearing marks, mottled walls with peeling paint, 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 it?"

"Rent, lock picking, document processing..." Stark translated it 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 lock and a keyhole.

Young Schiller struggled a bit to open the door with a key, pulled the door open, and walked in. He changed 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: "Among the photos left by the parents of my company's Chinese employees, the indoor layout 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 master and the mistress, 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. They split into two groups and began to search for clues in the house.

Stark, who was searching in the living room, was the first to see the 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 faces couldn't be seen clearly. After Stark put the photo down, he began to search 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, which mostly contained photos of the family of three. Stark commented: "Very ordinary, a very happy family. It seems Schiller's childhood was not bad."

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

"Why? Where can you tell?" Stark asked.

Steve pointed with his fingertips to the hand closest to the lens in the photo 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 with 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 began to look for other clues.

Pulling open the drawers and flipping through the bookshelves, there were all kinds of books inside, with no direction. 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. Stark pointed to the 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? Schiller is an autistic patient?"

"This is not unexpected. I remember he seemed to mention that he had high-functioning autism." Stark stroked his chin and said.

He flipped the record papers back again, and when he turned to the end, he said: "According to the records here, the sensory integration training was carried out to the later stage, the limb coordination of the subject was greatly improved, there was preliminary language ability, and the language ability was improving rapidly..."

"Dupo Chengxian"

Stark turned the paper over. On the back were traces left by a ballpoint pen. He read: "July 24, able to call out names for toys... August 19, able to read a fairy tale... December 2, called dad and mom consciously for the first time... April 6, able to clearly express which storybook he wants..."

Steve said with some emotion: "It seems Schiller's parents loved him very much, worked 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 could clearly express which storybook he wanted, so his language ability was no different from ordinary children before. But..."

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

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 were 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, didn't walk to the bed in his room, but walked into the closet.

He opened the cabinet door, climbed into a compartment as tall as him, curled up holding his legs, and then closed 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 =====