Memory inheritor

Chapter 48 Traces of Memory

"Your father and I are friends."

"When you were little, I taught you to play the whistle."

As Wei Hongsi looked at the photo in the album, the old man's words seemed to echo in his ears again. A strong sense of fear welled up from the bottom of his heart, quickly filling his body and making him shiver.

Wei Hongbo had noticed his younger brother trembling for a while before, and assumed it was a reaction to drinking ice-cold beer. He thought that going to the toilet would solve the problem.

At this moment, however, he realized that something was wrong. Turning his head to take a closer look, he saw that Wei Hongsi's face had turned pale and his lips were tightly pressed together, and he couldn't help but frown.

He reached out and placed his palm on Wei Hongsi's shoulder, and the other man's body trembled violently, a typical stress response.

"Change your clothes, I'll take you out for a walk." Wei Hongbo stood up and said, picking up the photo album from Wei Hongsi's hand, closing it and placing it aside.

"Where to?" Wei Hongsi looked up and asked, somewhat bewildered.

"You'll see when you get there," Wei Hongbo said with a smile. "Hurry up, I'll be waiting for you in the living room."

Wei Hongsi sat there for a moment, then got up and changed into his outdoor clothes.

Wei Hongbo told his wife, and after Wei Hongsi came out, the two of them went out.

I went downstairs to the entrance of the residential area and got into the ride-hailing car that Wei Hongbo had called. It was already 9:30 p.m., and there were few pedestrians and vehicles on the street.

Yuecheng seems to have always been like this; apart from a few landmarks and some special holidays, the streets are practically deserted after 9 p.m. If you see a large number of cars parked haphazardly in a certain section of the road, it's only because there's a school nearby.

The two brothers did not speak to each other on the way. Twenty minutes later, they arrived at their destination—a very famous martyrs' cemetery in the city.

Wei Hongsi had studied in Yuecheng for seven years and had been here several times, so it wasn't unfamiliar to him. However, the park was already closed at this time, and he didn't understand why his older brother had brought him here.

But he didn't ask any more questions. He followed Wei Hongbo to the front door and saw him sitting on the curb outside. So he sat down next to him.

After sitting quietly for a while, Wei Hongbo said, "When you were little, there was a period when you often had nightmares at night."

Upon hearing his older brother's opening line, Wei Hongsi instinctively wanted to stop him. He knew what he was afraid of, so he didn't want to face it, feeling that he wasn't mentally prepared enough.

However, for some reason, after sitting down here with my brother, I felt inexplicably at peace. The words I was about to say to stop him just came out as a simple "hmm".

"During my freshman year winter break, I often went out with classmates and came home quite late at night. Basically, every time I came back, I saw you sleeping very restlessly, gritting your teeth, frowning, and sometimes covered in sweat. Your mental state was not very good during that period."

"Mom said you had worms in your stomach and gave you deworming medicine, but it didn't work at all. Twice you woke up in a fright, and I asked you if you had a nightmare. You said yes, but you couldn't remember what you dreamed about, you just felt scared."

"One day I came home very late, and as soon as I got home I saw you waking up from a nightmare. I must have drunk too much at the time, and in a moment of impulse, I made you get dressed and then secretly took you out of the house to a martyrs' cemetery in our Xicheng. Of course, we stayed right at the entrance."

"It was already past midnight, and the wind was blowing fiercely outside, whistling and seeping into our clothes. I had just finished drinking and didn't feel cold, but you kept shivering. I wrapped my down jacket around you, but you were still shivering."

"You asked me why I came here. I said, don't you admire heroes the most? Everyone who lies buried here is a hero. Coming here, you don't have to be afraid, because they can protect you."

"You ask me, don't heroes ever feel fear? I say, heroes are human too, of course they feel fear, but they always manage to overcome it, and that's what distinguishes them from ordinary people."

"You asked me if they could become heroes because they could overcome fear? Your question almost stumped me. If it were in a different place or at a different time, I might have gotten confused."

"I say, it's not about conquering fear to be a hero. When a person has lofty ideals, they gain extraordinary courage, and thus the ability to overcome fear. Such a person will be a hero wherever they are!"

As Wei Hongbo spoke, he couldn't help but feel a surge of emotions.

At that time, he had just entered the police academy and was at the most passionate and energetic age. He often said some very immature things, especially after drinking.

Years later, looking back on his past boasts, he's often so embarrassed he could practically dig out a three-bedroom apartment. Now that he's older, he would never say something like that again.

But he has never felt ashamed of what he said, because those were his truest thoughts. For the past thirteen years as a police officer, he has been living up to the ideals he held in his youth.

He sighed softly and continued, "You asked me again if the loftier the ideal, the stronger the courage one gains. I said, 'Yes.' Then I watched as your trembling slowly stopped and your eyes hardened. So I asked you, 'What lofty ideal have you set your mind on?'"

"You said you wanted to become someone who would contribute to human society. Wow, that's quite an ambitious statement. But after that, you didn't seem to have any more nightmares, and your mental state improved quickly. Later, I heard from Mom that you wrote an essay on the same topic, and it was even published in the newspaper."

Wei Hongsi listened quietly, outwardly calm, but his thoughts were like a turbulent sea, surging with waves.

However, the fear that had been weighing on his mind had largely dissipated, allowing him to confront the gaps in his memory and the confusion in his cognition, and to carefully analyze the problems that had occurred to him.

Even the person with the best memory cannot remember everything from the past. The brain actively eliminates redundant or low-value information through synaptic pruning, protein degradation, and other methods to optimize cognitive resources.

The brain judges the value of a memory based on two main indicators: whether the memory is accessed frequently enough and whether the memory contains strong emotions.

It's like two people dating; one is fully invested, while the other is casual. Faced with the same situation, the former might remember it vividly, while the latter might forget it the next day.

Let's look at the story my brother just told us from this perspective.

Clearly, it was an extremely profound memory for the older brother, one that remains vivid even after more than a decade.

Logically speaking, it should have been a memorable experience for Wei Hongsi as well. The fact that they ran to the entrance of the martyrs' cemetery in the middle of the night was a special event that carried strong emotional connotations, especially since Wei Hongsi was also filled with inexplicable fear that day.

But Wei Hongsi had no recollection of the incident at all. It was as if his older brother had simply taken him out for some barbecue that night; they did this kind of thing so often that only a very few instances left any memory.

However, to say that no trace of memory was left behind is clearly inaccurate. The lofty sentiment he erected at the entrance of the Xicheng Martyrs' Cemetery, reflected in the "system's" prompts, is the best evidence of that.

Similarly, it's not a problem that Wei Hongsi doesn't remember his father having a friend surnamed Zhang; the problem is that Uncle Zhang taught him to play the whistle.

Wei Hongsi was very certain that he was tone-deaf. He could not distinguish the differences in melody between different pieces of music, so he could not sing or enjoy music.

But why was the older brother so sure he could play the whistle?

In fact, if we set aside all the emotional factors and look at the problems happening to us from an outsider's perspective, the answer is already obvious.

Wei Hongsi believes that only dissociative identity disorder can explain all those abnormalities.

His memory gaps are caused by the switching between multiple personalities; and his second personality has musical talent.

Dissociative identity disorder is often associated with severe childhood trauma, which corresponds to the fact that he had nightmares every day for a period of time.

As for who inspired his creation, Wei Hongsi felt that his father's friend surnamed Zhang was highly suspicious.

That Uncle Zhang is definitely not a mentally challenged man; the ages of these two people don't match.

Uncle Zhang was only two years younger than my father. He died five years ago, when he was about fifty-four years old, while the mentally ill uncle was at most thirty-seven.

However, there must be some connection between the two.

The mentally unstable man believes he is nineteen years old and a sophomore in college, which fits perfectly with the time of Uncle Zhang's death.

After Wei Hongbo finished recounting his past, Wei Hongsi appeared deep in thought, seemingly considering some major problem. Seeing that his previous anxiety had disappeared, Wei Hongsi didn't disturb him, got up, walked to the trash can, and lit a cigarette.

Before he could finish his cigarette, Wei Hongsi walked over and asked, "Brother, how much do you know about that Uncle Zhang?"

Wei Hongbo said, "Well, he's a friend of my dad's, also a colleague, and we're quite close to our family, so we see each other a lot. Uncle Zhang is probably widowed and has a daughter who's about your age. That's all I know."

Wei Hongsi nodded slowly: "Let's go back."

Wei Hongbo stubbed out his cigarette, and the two took a taxi home.

Back inside, Wei Hongsi picked up the photo album and started flipping through it. Besides the picture of him running with a whistle, there were a few other photos taken during that trip.

There was a photo that captured Uncle Zhang quite clearly, and Wei Hongsi examined it closely.

The man in the photo, Uncle Zhang, appears to be in his early forties, of medium build, wearing a dark-colored crew-neck T-shirt and a light gray fisherman's hat, with a slightly chubby round face.

That morning, Wei Hongsi had a dream before waking up. He originally thought the person in the dream was a middle-aged man, but the middle-aged man had a square face and was more similar to Uncle Zhang in the photo.

This seems to prove that he did indeed meet this Uncle Zhang.

The mentally unstable man seemed to be cosplaying Uncle Zhang, suddenly appearing before him a dozen days ago and then suddenly dying—this couldn't be a coincidence. Especially since the mentally unstable man had given him a whistle and that novel full of suspicious details.

Wei Hongbo, who was standing nearby watching Wei Hongsi, asked, "Have you noticed anything wrong?"

"I recently met someone who looks a lot like Uncle Zhang in the photo." Wei Hongsi told his older brother about his encounter with the mentally unstable man and their few conversations. Then he said, "Just this Monday morning, that mentally unstable man ran into the road and got hit by a car and died. His behavior was almost suicidal. This is really strange."

Wei Hongbo listened with a frown, then asked, "Was he already mentally unstable when you first met him?"

"I think so," Wei Hongsi said, putting down the photo album. "Could you contact the police in Xicheng and ask about the details of Uncle Zhang's death in the car accident?"

"Do you take me for some big boss?" Wei Hongbo said with a wry smile. "Even within our branch, I can't get involved in cases that aren't my responsibility, let alone cases that are in other cities."

"You must have some classmates from the police academy in Xicheng, right? Ask someone you know to help you inquire," Wei Hongsi suggested. "When Uncle Zhang was in the car accident, it was a traffic accident, right? It wasn't a criminal case, and the responsibility and nature of the case have already been determined. Asking shouldn't hurt, right?"

Wei Hongbo thought for a moment and said, "Okay, I'll ask around tomorrow. But what valuable clues do you think we can find in the car accident file from five years ago?"

"I don't know either. We'll only know once we find out." Wei Hongsi made another request, "The car accident on Monday happened within your branch's jurisdiction. It should be relatively easy to find out information about the deceased, right?"

"That should be tomorrow. It's so late today, it's not good to bother them."

"Alright."

Wei Hongsi lay down and tossed and turned for a long time without falling asleep, which was extremely rare for him.

With my eyes closed, faces kept flashing past me: Li Yunxiang's, Peng Jun's, the middle-aged man's, and that Uncle Zhang's...

……

……

The next morning, Wei Hongsi had breakfast at his older brother's house and then went to work. Before leaving, he gestured to his brother, reminding him not to forget to ask around.

Upon arriving at the company, Wei Hongsi went into his temporary office and resumed his work.

Around noon, I received a text message from my brother: "I asked about Uncle Zhang's death, and the description in the file is very similar to the car accident you witnessed on Monday!"

Seeing the question at the end of the message, Wei Hongsi knew that his brother had finally become interested in this matter.

Not long after, another message was received: "The deceased in the car accident on Monday was named Han Tao, 36 years old. He was not from this province and had no history of living or working in Xicheng. No record was found of any possible connection between him and Uncle Zhang."

A minute later, the third message arrived: "Han Tao has a history of mental illness. He was admitted to a mental hospital two years ago, but his condition did not seem serious, and he was released not long afterward."