The room inside was no longer pure white. It was a study, filled with books everywhere.
In the entire room, a middle-aged man in a white coat and glasses was pacing.
He held a book in his hand, but he had no intention of reading it. He just walked back and forth irritably, unable to calm down at all.
Seeing the group enter, especially when he saw Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, his face immediately showed a mix of surprise, excitement, and agitation. He hurried over to them.
"Kiyotaka, I finally see you again…!"
He extended his hand, a warm smile on his face, as if to embrace them.
But halfway there, he stopped, a complex and surprised expression on his face. After hesitating for a while, he finally spoke, asking with an uncertain tone: "Are you… Ayanokoji Kiyotaka?"
Finally, someone who recognized him!
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka felt a sense of relief and said to the kidnappers behind him: "You heard that, right? I told you, I'm not Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, you got the wrong person!"
"You're really not Ayanokoji Kiyotaka?" The man was stunned. Until just now, he had thought it was Ayanokoji's excuse.
He didn't want his efforts to be in vain and said unwillingly, "Hey, Professor, are you sure you didn't make a mistake? I went through a lot of trouble to kidnap him…"
"Absolutely not mistaken! Do you doubt my judgment?!"
The professor glared at the man in dissatisfaction, getting angry: "The person you should be looking for is Ayanokoji Kiyotaka! If you were looking for Kiyotaka, would we even need you? He's always been studying in Tokyo; there's no need to go to such great lengths to see him!
You are all useless! I don't know what good it is for the employer to spend a lot of money hiring you!"
Ever since he was kidnapped, he had been mistaken for Ayanokoji Kiyotaka. Seeing this professor scold these kidnappers on his behalf, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka felt a little relieved.
After scolding them, the professor's gaze turned to Ayanokoji and he sighed, "Kiyotaka is always so cold; no matter what happens, his emotions don't fluctuate much. If it's not him, then it can only be Kiyotaka. It's been ten years since I last saw you. I didn't expect, Kiyotaka, that you've changed so much…"
He looked at Ayanokoji with a sigh, his eyes very complex.
As he spoke, he reached out, wanting to touch Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's head.
"Who are you? Why do you know about me?" Ayanokoji took a step back, refusing his touch.
Ayanokoji's attention was now focused on the professor in front of him, who seemed to know him and his older brother very well.
The professor looked surprised: "Kiyotaka, don't you recognize me? I watched both you brothers grow up!"
Ayanokoji's heart stirred.
Watched him grow up... Could this professor be someone involved in the White Room project?
"I have amnesia. I've forgotten everything from before, so I don't know what you're talking about," Ayanokoji said calmly.
He had transmigrated after losing his memory, so he knew nothing about the original owner's experiences. Although he had learned a lot from Ayanokoji Kiyotaka today, his past was still shrouded in mystery.
He was pretending to be ignorant now, hoping to trick some information out of this professor.
"Kiyotaka... are you really suffering from amnesia? Do you really not recognize me?"
He saw Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's gaze, like he was looking at a stranger, and he adjusted his glasses, sighing painfully.
"When I first heard from your father that you had amnesia, I thought it was just an excuse he casually made up. I didn't expect that something had really happened to you. I said back then that you shouldn't have been sent to that artificial island...!"
"...Artificial island? What are you talking about?"
He didn't answer Ayanokoji's question, but instead looked at the others: "You all go out first. I need to talk to Kiyotaka for a few minutes."
"Do I have to go out too?" Ikishima Midari was a bit displeased. She had never heard Ayanokoji Kiyotaka mention "amnesia" before. This was a new discovery, and she wanted to listen!
The man persuaded: "Miss Ikishima Midari, don't you want to play with real guns? Right next door, we have Glock G17 pistols, Beretta M92F pistols, Colt M1917 revolvers..."
"I want to go!" Ikishima Midari's eyes lit up.
Compared to real guns, Ayanokoji's forgotten past, while interesting, had to take a backseat!
The others left one after another, but only the bodyguard remained.
"Aren't you leaving?" the professor asked, surprised.
"I need to protect you here," he said in a deep voice. "I must ensure your safety. Don't worry about me eavesdropping; I'll wear earplugs."
As he spoke, he went to the corner of the room, took out earplugs, and put them in his ears.
The professor didn't insist on him leaving. Looking at Ayanokoji, he sadly recalled the past.
"Kiyotaka, I have been by your side since you were born. I watched you grow up, and I have very deep feelings for you.
I have no children, and sometimes, I treated both you and Kiyotaka as my own family. I invested a lot of emotion in you two.
When your father wanted to send you away, I strongly advised him against it, saying that even if it meant cutting the institute's expenses, he must keep you two brothers.
But he didn't listen to me at all and acted unilaterally, handing you over to the Momobami Family people..."
"Are you a researcher? What do you research?" Ayanokoji asked.
This question seemed to touch upon the professor's pride. He adjusted his glasses, a confident smile on his face: "I am an expert in behavioral psychology. From the moment infants are born, I have been observing and recording their behavioral patterns.
I have recorded the growth trajectories of hundreds of infants and summarized a set of methods that can effectively improve infant IQ, which I have put into practice. If our research could be made public, I could even win the Nobel Prize in Medicine!"
The professor was very proud of his research.
As he spoke, he pulled out a photo album from a nearby bookshelf and brought it to Ayanokoji Kiyotaka for him to see: "Look, these are all the children from the White Room back then."
"This girl is called Amazawa Ichika, and this girl is called Sakayanagi Arisu... Besides your brother, you had the best relationship with them when you were little. Don't you recognize them?"
"No," Ayanokoji shook his head.
He had never even heard these names.
Then, the professor pointed out several more people, and Ayanokoji Kiyotaka shook his head each time.
Although he shook his head in denial, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka still kept a mental note, writing down all these names.
"Sigh..." Seeing Ayanokoji keep shaking his head, the professor regretfully closed the photo album.
"Kiyotaka, your amnesia is truly thorough. However, it's also good that you have amnesia. Although you've lost your talent, you've also forgotten your inherent psychological disorders. This is quite good; at least you can live as a normal person..."
"Wait, psychological disorders? What psychological disorders do I have?" Ayanokoji Kiyotaka interrupted him.
The professor looked troubled, seemingly reluctant to speak, but under Ayanokoji's persistence, he finally spoke.
"Kiyotaka, although you were smart from a young age, with talent far exceeding ordinary people, you also had many flaws—
You suffered from autism, were taciturn from a young age, and didn't interact with other boys your age; you lacked self-care abilities, couldn't even dress yourself at four or five years old and needed other girls to help; you had a maternal dependency, needing young and pretty female researchers to accompany you, otherwise you wouldn't cooperate with experiments..."
"Finally, after our diagnosis, we determined that you suffered from congenital Savant Syndrome..."
The professor slowly began to recount what he knew about Ayanokoji Kiyotaka.
His words perfectly matched what Ayanokoji Kiyotaka had said. By cross-referencing their statements, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka pieced together his past.
From birth, he participated in the White Room project, growing up in the research institute until he was six years old.
For six years, he was observed as an experimental subject.
From the professor's words, it could be learned that the original owner of this body, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, was extremely intelligent, even more so than Ayanokoji Kiyotaka.
However, his IQ was unstable. Sometimes, he could solve complex problems, but other times, he couldn't even complete tasks that a normal child could, and he also had psychological defects.
After several years of diagnosis, they concluded that Ayanokoji Kiyotaka was a patient with "congenital Savant Syndrome."
Savant Syndrome refers to an individual who has a psychological disorder, abnormal personality, or some emotional impairment in one aspect, but whose cognitive ability in another aspect is extraordinary.
Kim Peek, the autistic "genius" who was the prototype for the Hollywood film "Rain Man," was a Savant Syndrome patient.
He possessed extraordinary memory, astonishing computational and recall abilities for numbers, and was proficient in 15 subjects from literature to history, able to recite the contents of at least 9,000 books verbatim...
Corresponding to his intelligence, he appeared somewhat "mentally challenged" in some other areas, unable to even dress himself independently.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka was also like this, possessing intelligence far exceeding his peers, but unable to complete even some minor tasks.
In contrast, his brother, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, although not as proficient in certain tasks, was well-rounded and had no weaknesses.
Precisely for this reason, when the investor faction needed a research outcome, his father unhesitatingly chose Ayanokoji Kiyotaka from the two brothers—because he was a defective product...
Savant Syndrome, huh...
It took Ayanokoji Kiyotaka some time to digest this fact.
Although his pre-amnesia self was not him, he still felt a bit embarrassed.
Autism aside, he wasn't a three-year-old child, but four or five, and still needed girls to help him dress? And he had a maternal dependency, needing young women to please him to cooperate with experiments?
Now that he thought about it, when Ayanokoji Kiyotaka recounted these details, he merely glossed over it with a phrase like "Kiyotaka was uncontrollable," which really saved him face.
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