Clown Game
Chapter 206 - 194

Chapter 206: Chapter 194

What does Chen Xiao look like in our eyes?

He dawdles every day without purpose, always eager to act recklessly at any opportunity, playing cute, stirring things up, in short, he lacks goals and dreams, going wherever seems fun... Compared to intellect, his emotional intelligence and social experience are so low that he resembles a child. Add to that his disdain for using serum, so his physical strength is exceptionally weak; apart from a bit of knowledge about firearms, his understanding of other combat weapons also barely scratches the surface of "knowing what they are used for."

Such a person, compared to Bai Xiong, who is heavily nurtured by the Foundation, or Lin Fan, who is endowed with an important mission by a mysterious organization, falls far short, practically like a side character in a story...

And the real Chen Xiao... he really is just like this.

It seems he doesn’t care at all about the things most people in stories strive for; he doesn’t want to seek out powers that surpass the ordinary, nor is he willing to pursue a higher meaning of life. Saving the world or seeking the truth are even less appealing, as if he’s already tired of these things.

Ha, such a person who could be smashed into a wall with a slap and couldn’t be scraped off, actually tired of these?

It’s just laughable.

...

Well... who knows?

...

But speaking of which, he’s not so bored he’s just drinking water waiting to pee, he’s also doing some things.

Just as Bai Xiong has said, Chen Xiao is investigating. Investigating himself, his past, those vanished memories.

"Who am I, really?"

This question is quite intriguing for someone whose memory is a blank slate.

Of course he would investigate, although there’s a forbidden zone in his mind... that he can’t touch, can’t think about.

But that can’t hide everything.

Just like a black hole... We can’t see it because it even devours light, but we can still see it... because we can see the things around it.

The same goes for Chen Xiao, although he can’t see those sealed things, he’s already outlined the contour of the forbidden zone from many other things.

...

...

Chen Xiao’s memory starts six months ago... waking up in a mental hospital, like a fresh life newly hatched with innate knowledge, without any past memories, yet possessing numerous kinds of knowledge that normal people would never have.

This knowledge is too jumbled, lacking any connection, like randomly scooping several puddles from the ocean of knowledge, then pouring them into a big vat and stirring wildly.

He knows how to use a disposable straw and toilet paper to kill someone and make it look like suicide, how to squeeze a dying person’s heart to make it beat again after cutting open their chest. He can clearly deduce someone’s home address from their hair and calculate the distance and speed of a vehicle by sensing alone. His mind holds extremely detailed blueprints of continental plates and the manual assembly process of clockworks. He can distinguish the shades of various lipstick series and identify the artist from the style of the drawings in a book.

In short, such chaotic knowledge is far too unusual for a severely mentally ill patient who’s been clad in a straitjacket, isolated in a solitary room for over a decade without seeing the outside world.

Chen Xiao has looked through his own medical records. He’s also traced many related clues, things that are a piece of cake in the eyes of an external operative of the Foundation, but the answers he found were the same as those Bai Xiong found.

That is... logical, without any doubt, meticulously detailed, as if deliberately placed there waiting for someone to dig it up. So Chen Xiao didn’t continue to investigate. He knew it was already meaningless, that everything would only become more real the more he probed.

And what he doubts is the reality itself.

Therefore, this extreme subtlety of reality is like walls, firmly entrenching Chen Xiao within the predetermined story, so he could only give up and turn his gaze inward.

...

Now let’s talk about Chen Xiao himself. We’ve already talked about his brain that’s filled with all kinds of knowledge yet not very practical, so let’s talk about this body... This body, far from being "fresh." Weak, pale, with atrophied muscles and a bent spine, stacking up to a slender, hunched figure, not even as good as those malnourished beggars.

But Chen Xiao doesn’t dislike this body... It’s a very subtle feeling, something only a person who has lost their memory can appreciate. The comfort of the height of his field of vision, the familiar stride of his step, every casual little move, every subconscious command, fits with his body to an extreme degree. He can simulate the feeling of running into the wind, imagine the body movements to protect vital parts when taking a beating. Extending an arm should reach so far, jumping should take him so high, these are long-formed habits, embedded deep in his consciousness, not changing much even with the loss of memory.

That shows that the current self, should indeed be the true self. It’s a clunky sentence, but I’m sure everyone understands the meaning.

But there were differences,

such as the two scars at the corners of the mouth...

Stretching from the corners of the mouth to the sides of the cheeks, they even reached the roots of the ears when the muscles stretched. These two scars... were awkward, uncomfortable. Whether speaking, eating, or looking in the mirror, they simply shouldn’t have belonged to his body. Yet somehow, they had merged closely with him, like some kind of totem that couldn’t be discarded, branded on his face, and even the powerful healing abilities of the regeneration pod could not erase them.

Equally awkward were the actions of licking his lips, the occasional sharp laugh, and the inexplicable habit of chewing his own tongue when bored... All these movements, although he didn’t feel any discomfort doing them... But he knew they weren’t his own; they were traces left behind by an invisible force that had secretly seeped into his soul.

"Who... am I really?"

Or rather,

"Am I... still just myself?"

Chen Xiao had already been exploring this question for some time.

The first time... when he was still a so-called "volunteer" at the orphanage door... That was a gap in his memory, a moment of trance before which everything about him was normal, but after which, his hand was nearly broken. At that time, he attributed this to an outburst of his mental illness.

Then, in the D-level containment area of the Foundation, the memory-eating old man who hadn’t shown his face again, and the rapidly decreasing number of guards – these details were surely not overlooked by Chen Xiao, and now he was quite certain... they all had something to do with him.

The wall blasted open at the top floor of the Jinding Tower, the giant eye that opened amidst the blood and flesh, the moments on the way to the Institute of Abnormal Research with C-207, every mental no-go zone harbored events of grave significance.

All these events... had something to do with him.

So... what exactly had he done during those trances? No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t find out; those records were tightly hidden by the powers at higher levels.

...Someone didn’t want him to know,

that much was easy to guess~

But it seemed that someone else wanted to tell him the truth.

Like the woman who hadn’t shown herself for a long time and claimed to be a writer.

Chen Xiao was quite certain that when she appeared before him again, many puzzles would be unraveled.

Hehehe...

He chuckled softly; these things couldn’t be rushed. Just wait a little longer, a little longer... Everyone knew that the longer one endured, the more intense the pleasure would be.

...

Suddenly!

"Buzz"

Chen Xiao’s phone vibrated once

Then,

it vibrated again

"Buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz——————"

The vibrations continued one after another, making Chen Xiao’s crotch tingle~

"What’s this now?" Chen Xiao muttered. He wasn’t about to immerse himself in this strange sensation, and quickly pulled out his phone.

Immediately after,

"Holy shit!!!!??"