Chapter 211: Intermittent Amnesia

Human memory is a fragile thing that gradually blurs with the passage of time.

Time flows, fleeting like a white horse passing a crack in a wall. The various experiences of life accumulate in the mind, more and more, like audio and video files deep in a hard drive that have been repeatedly compressed over and over to save space. They haven't disappeared, nor have they been blocked; it's just that the bitrate gets lower day by day.

How many people can completely remember what happened in their childhood? Basically none. Most people, when recalling their childhood, see fragments of memories pieced together from different scenes. Only the most profound memories can withstand the erosion of the river of time and remain fresh in the depths of the mind.

If the rainy season of youth is a 720p film reel plus some artistic editing, then childhood events are just a slide deck that only retains the key content. It's no surprise when there are gaps.

But the "gaps" in Bai Zhi's memory... are a bit too many.

Not just a little too many.

Bai Zhi's childhood basically lacks long, continuous segments of memory. There are only fragmented scenes piled up layer by layer: learning and playing in kindergarten, being held by her mother to sleep at home, looking up at the blue sky outside the car window in the passenger seat...

One by one, piece by piece, scene by scene, they are connected to each other, yet there is no chronological relationship. It's like editing all the highlight fight scenes from the entire Naruto Shippuden series together; who is in front and who is behind doesn't matter at all. You simply can't piece together a complete timeline.

Bai Zhi herself might not think there is anything strange about such a fragmented childhood memory; after all, she has no way to compare it with other people's memories, and without comparison, there is no difference.

But Ning Zhe knows his memory is not like this.

He remembers watching "Shenzhen Renting" with Chen Yaming in front of the TV when he was a child, remembers fishing by the Tao River with his grandfather for the first time and returning with a full catch, and remembers being bullied by several classmates in elementary school, then, with blood flowing down his head, picking up a brick and smashing their knees one by one...

Ning Zhe's memories are an old photo album spread out along a timeline, while Bai Zhi's childhood is a long stream of consciousness film clips, chaotic and disorganized.

"Bai Zhi's memory was deleted and modified. From the time she became conscious until she went to elementary school, she would have intermittent amnesia every few days, forgetting certain things on a schedule."

Ning Zhe took off his eye mask, took a sip of warm milk from the flight attendant, and closed his eyes again.

The sound of wind whistled in his ears. Bai Zhi sat quietly in the passenger seat of the vehicle, watching the streetscape receding outside the car window. This was her first day of elementary school, and the one driving was her mother.

And not her father.

Ning Zhe frowned slightly, discovering something strange.

Since she had memories, the role of "father" had never appeared in Bai Zhi's memory. Whether it was learning to walk for the first time, learning to speak for the first time, going to kindergarten for the first time, or now, going to elementary school for the first time, Bai Fugui, as her father, had never appeared.

The role of "father" was missing from Bai Zhi's childhood. Since she had memories, she had always been taken care of by her mother, Feng Yushu, alone. Not to mention love, her father hadn't even appeared.

If Ning Zhe didn't know her, he would suspect Bai Zhi was from a single-parent family after seeing this memory.

"... Right, intermittent amnesia."

Bai Zhi had intermittent amnesia when she was a child, which was the main reason her childhood memories were fragmented.

Combined with the absence of the father figure, Ning Zhe had a bold guess:

"Bai Zhi's memories of her father when she was a child were all deleted." It's like a celebrity committing a principled error, causing the variety shows he participated in to have to uniformly delete and censor all the footage he appeared in, resulting in a disastrous collapse of the narrative rhythm of the show, where nothing matches up.

Bai Zhi's childhood memories were in this situation, but the father in her memories wasn't censored; he was directly "deleted."

Ning Zhe carefully examined Bai Zhi's elementary school memories.

After entering elementary school, Bai Zhi's intermittent amnesia occurred much less frequently. Normal school attendance, eating, and resting—except for having no interaction with classmates—Ning Zhe was finally able to piece together a relatively complete timeline.

But the situation of intermittent amnesia still existed, just with a lower frequency.

Bai Zhi was very likable when she was a child; teachers and the little boys in the class all liked her, although the way they liked her was a bit different.

The Chinese, math, and English teachers all wanted to designate her as the study committee member for their subjects. The little boys who wanted to be friends with her but were shy would deliberately stuff plastic snake toys or small snacks into Bai Zhi's desk drawer, causing her to develop the habit of cleaning out her desk every time she got to her seat.

Perhaps because of the frequent intermittent amnesia when she was a child, Bai Zhi's temperament was as calm as water. Not only did she have no communication with her classmates, but even when she lay in her mother's arms at night listening to stories, she wouldn't express any thoughts, like a doll with only body temperature.

Bai Zhi would still occasionally lose her memory in elementary school, like returning home directly before getting into her mother's car after school, or finishing the cake and going to brush her teeth before making a wish on her birthday. It didn't have much impact on her life, and she was already used to it.

The plain time passed quietly, and she was in the first year of junior high.

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This year, Bai Zhi started keeping a diary.

"The grown-up Bai Zhi already had the ability to think independently. She realized her intermittent amnesia and started using a diary to record her life."

A doubt in Ning Zhe's heart was resolved.

When he heard Feng Yushu say she had peeked at Bai Zhi's diary, he felt it was a bit strange. Who keeps a diary if they are a serious person? It turns out Bai Zhi was indeed not a serious person.

At the age of 14, Bai Zhi had just entered the first year of junior high. This year, she started trying to keep a diary, and it was also this year that she started having nightmares.

"Huh?"

Feeling his consciousness beginning to sink into deep sleep, Ning Zhe was a bit surprised. So Bai Zhi hadn't lied to him?

The hazy sleepiness wrapped around Ning Zhe's consciousness, presenting Bai Zhi's first nightmare at the age of 14 before his eyes.

Bai Zhi's first dream was in a mental hospital. She fell asleep on the bed in her room and woke up on a hospital bed in the mental hospital, wearing blue and white striped hospital clothes, with her hands and feet tied to the iron bars on the edge of the bed.

A nurse whose face couldn't be seen brought breakfast, replaced the bedpan under the bed, and urged her, "You must be well-behaved today."

Bai Zhi asked, "Why?"

The nurse said, "A manic patient downstairs broke free from control and escaped the ward. Now he doesn't know where he is hiding. You'd better be well-behaved and don't learn from him."

After the nurse left, Bai Zhi finished breakfast, confused, and watched the dirty ceiling while tied to the hospital bed.

Click, click, click, click. A faint movement suddenly came from the ventilation duct on the wall. Bai Zhi followed the sound and saw a pair of bloodshot, red eyes behind the grille of the ventilation duct.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 212 =====