Chapter 19: Big Sister’s Memory Restoration Technique

Lu Yiyi carefully placed the detector and the receipt back into the innermost pocket of her canvas bag.

Today’s mission was a complete success.

She’d snagged a record-breaking seventy-four points and unexpectedly found a wonderful fellow enthusiast.

This job was getting easier and easier.

She slung the bag over her shoulder, gave it two happy pats, and smoothed out her slightly wrinkled skirt.

“Miss Xia, that’s all for today’s session.”

Her eyes curved into crescents.

“I’ll bring new pastries to see you tomorrow. You can put in an order in advance.”

Xia Qimeng leaned back in her chair, holding the long-cold black tea in her hand, smiling as she watched her.

“Okay, I’ll be waiting.”

Lu Yiyi turned around and headed for the door.

Out of habit, she glanced at the electronic clock on the wall.

15:12.

Lu Yiyi stopped.

She blinked, thinking she’d misread.

She took two steps forward, tilted her head up, and stared at the clock again.

Still 15:12.

Three in the afternoon?

That was impossible.

Lu Yiyi scratched her head, her face full of confusion.

Was this clock… broken?

At nine thirty in the morning, she had been sitting at her desk answering calls.

Wang Li, covered in blood, had crashed through the door and died in the office.

She’d run against the crowd into the elevator and gone down to the seventeenth basement floor.

At the corridor corner, she saw Miss Xia crouching on the floor, digging through the trash can for an insulated lunch box.

The two of them had walked back to the room hand in hand, and Miss Xia had eaten four sandwiches.

Right after, Supervisor Zhao called on the intercom, and Miss Xia had spoken harshly into the communicator.

Adding it all up, at the very most, it would only be a bit past ten.

From ten in the morning to three in the afternoon.

A full five hours.

Where did those five hours go?

Lu Yiyi stood frozen, her brow furrowing deeper and deeper.

She tried to remember.

A very clear concept surfaced in her mind: chatting happily with Miss Xia while eating snacks.

Yes, they had talked happily.

But… what exactly had they talked about?

Nothing.

There was nothing.

Her mind was a blank expanse, like a formatted hard drive.

No specific dialogue, no action details, not even an image she could piece together.

Only “we had a great chat” hung there, four characters, stuck to her memory chain like a stiff patch.

Her head began to ache.

A daze she couldn’t explain.

Lu Yiyi pressed her temples, her breathing turning a little short.

Common sense told her this was absurd.

No one could talk for five hours straight and not remember a single concrete sentence.

Unless…

“Yiyi? What’s wrong?”

A clear, pleasant voice came from behind, cutting off her train of thought.

Lu Yiyi snapped back to herself and turned around.

Xia Qimeng still sat in the same pose, cheek propped on her hand, her black-and-colorful eyes calmly watching her.

The look in them was deep, so deep she couldn’t see the bottom.

“Miss Xia…”

Lu Yiyi swallowed, her voice floating.

“How long… did we talk?”

As she asked, she fumbled through her bag and pulled out her phone.

She swiped the screen open, and the harsh backlight blazed.

The numbers on the lock screen also read 15:13.

The clock wasn’t broken.

Five hours really had passed.

On top of that, her phone had several unread messages.

There was one from Li Qian: [Lu Yiyi, are you okay? Supervisor Zhao pulled the special task force, said you’re in full charge of that one. If you’re still alive, send word you’re safe.]

There was one from her mom: [Yiyi, are you tired from work today? Remember to take a nap (sunshine.jpg)]

The received times on these messages were all between eleven and two.

And she hadn’t even noticed her phone vibrating during that time.

“Mmm…”

Xia Qimeng put down the teacup, her white finger tracing a ring on the rim.

“We talked for quite a long time.”

She lifted her eyes, and the smile on her face faded a little.

The air in the room cooled.

Even the pleasant floral scent turned sharp.

“Is there a problem, Yiyi?”

Her tone had changed.

It was no longer as gentle and close as when they’d been talking about anime.

It carried a trace of grievance, and a kind of cold that made a person’s skin crawl.

“Or… are you annoyed with me?”

Lu Yiyi trembled all over.

That remark jolted her, and the fog in her head actually thinned.

Something was off.

Very off.

Before she and Miss Xia started talking about interests, she couldn’t recall the specifics of their conversation at all.

She only knew they’d been eating snacks and talking.

But every time she tried to focus on the actual content, her brain started to blur.

There was no concrete information she could grab.

It was as if…

Someone had carved this into her mind, forcing her to believe that was how she’d spent the time.

Lu Yiyi’s fingers around the phone went pale.

She might have social anxiety and a soft personality, but her reasoning wasn’t weak.

A memory gap this obvious couldn’t be explained by normal logic.

“I’m not annoyed at you…”

Lu Yiyi parted her lips, her voice unsteady.

“It’s just… I think time passed too fast.”

She stepped back half a step, her soles scraping the carpet.

“I seem to… not remember what we did before we talked about anime.”

She gathered her courage and voiced the doubt.

When the words fell, the containment room fell silent.

Even the sound of air moving stopped.

Xia Qimeng stayed in her chair.

Her gaze tracked Lu Yiyi as she inched backward, a glint of darkness sliding through her eyes.

She had miscalculated.

She’d underestimated this little rabbit’s logic.

A normal hypnotic suggestion could forcibly stuff in a false concept like “we chatted happily.”

But she hadn’t planted enough life details for Yiyi to support it.

No actual dialogue, no scene transitions.

Once the hypnotized person began to take the bait and question it, their subconscious would spontaneously reject such a logical conflict.

Yiyi’s current state was her subconscious fighting back against the crude suggestion.

Still, this wasn’t a problem.

Xia Qimeng rose to her feet.

Her pink tulle dress dragged across the carpet with a soft rustle.

She walked toward Lu Yiyi at an unhurried pace, her long steps measured.

With each step, the pressure in the room mounted.

Lu Yiyi had no more room to retreat.

Her back met the cold, pure gold blast-proof door.

She watched Xia Qimeng approach, her heartbeat spiraling out of control.

Wang Li’s disassembled body flashed through her mind.

Miss Xia was sick.

She was a calamity-class spirit master who couldn’t contain her own power.

Had she just asked a question she shouldn’t have, and made her angry?

“Yiyi really is a little scatterbrain.”

Xia Qimeng stopped right in front of her.

The distance between them was less than half a meter.

That faint, elusive floral scent swept over again, willfully engulfing Lu Yiyi.

“I remember it all. How could Yiyi not remember?”

Xia Qimeng stretched out a hand and pressed it against the door beside Lu Yiyi’s ear.

A textbook kabedon.

She leaned in slightly, her black-and-colorful eyes locking tightly onto Lu Yiyi’s flustered ones.

“Huh, Miss Xia… remembers…”

Lu Yiyi’s thoughts were even more scrambled.

She blinked her big eyes, forgetting to be scared.

Miss Xia remembered?

Then was it her own problem?

Had she been too worn out from work, spaced out during the conversation, letting everything go in one ear and out the other?

“Of course, silly.”

Xia Qimeng’s left hand touched Lu Yiyi’s cheek, lifting it with a little force, making her look straight at her.

“Look into my eyes… Yiyi…”

“I’ll help you… remember properly.”

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