Chapter 1183: Trajectory Change
This statement made Xu Huo frown, but the young Xu Huo trapped in the memory didn't react much; he calmly accepted Dr. Zhang's explanation.
Chang Bei asked Dr. Zhang how to turn the pen back to its original shape, and Xiao Liang along with a few other children said they wanted to learn too.
Dr. Zhang looked at them, his eyes full of fondness, and said gently, "People and things all have their original trajectories. From birth to death for a person, from creation to destruction for an object, the trajectory can usually be seen as a straight line—that is, the shape of a pen."
As he spoke, he demonstrated again, splitting the pen into two segments and then fusing them back together.
"Can the trajectory be changed?" Chang Bei asked.
Dr. Zhang gave an affirmative answer. Xiao Liang then asked, "Then how do you change a person's trajectory?"
Dr. Zhang raised his hand to signal him to come forward, had him face the other children, placed one hand on top of his head, and then slowly lifted his arm. A thread-like white filament emerged from Xiao Liang's hair, trembling slightly with his guidance. Although Xiao Liang's eyes were open, he seemed to have lost consciousness, standing there with a vacant stare.
The thread was pulled out to a length of thirty centimeters. Dr. Zhang stopped and gently snipped the thread in the middle with his other hand. The thread broke into two segments but still floated above Xiao Liang's head.
Then he conjured another white thread out of thin air and connected it to the half-segment attached to Xiao Liang's head.
The entire operation took less than ten seconds, but when the white thread returned to Xiao Liang's brain, the person who opened his eyes had undergone a subtle change.
The way he looked at Xu Huo was like looking at a complete stranger he had never met before.
"You changed his memory," Xu Huo said.
"Memory cannot be changed," Dr. Zhang said to him. "They are stored completely in the human brain; only selective forgetting or deepening occurs. However, memories can be grafted. By placing memories that don't belong to him inside, he will accept them and treat them as real experiences."
"Will he never remember again?" Xu Huo reached out and patted Xiao Liang's head, earning a look of disgust from him.
"It depends on the situation." Dr. Zhang pushed Xiao Liang aside and signaled Xu Huo to come forward.
Xu Huo walked over and, at his request, extended his hand.
Dr. Zhang injected him with a medicine and then gently rubbed his head. "Some people can remember."
Xu Huo covered his head. "Don't add other people's memories to me."
Dr. Zhang smiled and took his hand down. "You're a smart child; you should know you can't resist me."
"I can start cultivating this habit now," Xu Huo said. "When I have the power one day, I will definitely succeed in resisting."
From the perspective of teacher and student, this kind of talk could be considered Dr. Zhang's failure, but instead of being displeased, he smiled and said, "That's a very good idea."
"But it's not needed right now."
He let the other children leave the office. "Today, Xu Huo will do the test."
Under the jealous and envious gazes of the other children, Xu Huo remained in the office. As the office door closed, the Xu Huo who had sunk to the bottom of the water was also shut outside.
Opening his eyes, he was back in the previous darkness. Xu Huo swam up from underwater and stepped back onto the surface of the water.
Although he hadn't felt like he was drowning in the water, his clothes were wet when he came up, and his body felt less light than before.
Wringing the water out of his clothes, he turned back toward the broken bridge, but the bridge remained in its misaligned state, with no sign of approaching or aligning... The memory fragment just now wasn't enough to reconnect his rewritten memories.
After lingering in place for a moment, he made a counterclockwise rotating gesture with his hand, then returned to the drowning spot and sank down again.
This time, the first thing he felt was pain. His head felt like it was splitting open, forcing him to kneel and struggle. But the next second, his head was lifted by someone. Dr. Zhang pressed him in front of a square frame floating in mid-air, forcing him to stare directly at the intense light shooting out from within the frame. His tone remained gentle: "Look clearly at what's inside. People can only glimpse things through their eyes. If you can't see, you're no different from a blind person."
"My eyes hurt so much..." Xu Huo shed tears.
"This is not real pain," Dr. Zhang said coldly. "Your eyes are deceiving you. Open your eyes!"
Xu Huo was forced to open his eyelids, but the surging intense light stabbed his eyeballs again. Liquid flowed from the corners of his eyes—he wasn't sure if it was tears or blood.
Dr. Zhang seemed very displeased. After releasing him, he gave him another injection and said, "You can only leave after completing today's task."
With that, the sound of footsteps faded into the distance. The kneeling Xu Huo took a long time to adapt before gradually regaining his ability to see.
After resting for a few minutes, he walked back to the floating square frame, opened his eyes wide, and looked inside.
What the young Xu Huo saw was nothing but a bright white expanse, but the current Xu Huo could see through the light to discern what was inside. It was an eye, looking almost identical to the vertical pupil in his spiritual realm. However, this eye was spinning. Thousands upon thousands of identical eyes were arranged together, changing at a speed unbearable for human eyes. At times, they formed many indescribable objects like pixels; at other times, they resembled dense writhing worms, causing a physiological urge to vomit.
Little Xu Huo threw up.
Xu Huo knew Dr. Zhang was outside the door, but he didn't come in.
After vomiting, Little Xu Huo got up again. This time, he also saw the eyes within the white light, and after adapting to the shifting eyes, he quickly captured the moment when countless eyes overlapped—the overlapping eye patterns formed a long, winding passage. Passing through this passage, the eyes could effortlessly see farther places. At the same time, the floating eyes in the white light slowed down considerably, each one clearly visible. One layer of eyes was like one layer of space, slowly and calmly bringing their vision into a space that didn't belong to this world.
Xu Huo's spiritual realm was greatly impacted. He could endure the first half, but not the second half. The pain caused him to convulse uncontrollably, but the separation of his body did not pull out his consciousness. He himself still followed the young Xu Huo, sinking into those eye spaces!
Sensing the gradual separation of his body and consciousness, Xu Huo tried to forcibly activate his spiritual realm to pull himself out, but before he could succeed, his hand was covered by another hand.
With a blink, his view switched back to the treatment room from earlier. Tang Guangbo was still sitting in front of him, but all the players outside had disappeared.
"The treatment isn't over yet," Xu Huo said, looking at Tang Guangbo.
Tang Guangbo kept his left hand covering the back of Xu Huo's hand and handed him a glass of water with his right. "It's not over. Consider this a halftime break."
A halftime break didn't mean Xu Huo had woken up from the hypnosis; they were just in another spiritual realm.
"I didn't expect you could actually pull me out," Xu Huo said, taking the water glass. "I want to obtain the opportunity for a third spiritual evolution from the memories."
(Chapter End)