S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 3 Chapter 72

Lucky Murderer 03 – Genetic Memory

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Bai Yutang, Zhan Zhao, and the others drove to the psychiatric hospital near the ancient tomb site. After getting out of the car, the group split up; Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao went to the psychiatric hospital to find a doctor to ask questions, Qin Ou and Bai Chi went to the ancient tomb, and Ma Han and Zhao Hu went to the nearby village to ask the villagers.

This psychiatric hospital was opened in such a remote place because most of the people living here were seriously ill and could sometimes hurt people. It was quiet and deserted… and the cost was relatively cheap.

"But the doctors here live an inhuman life all day long." The attending physician of those three whose surname was Fan, named Fan Mingda, greeted Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang as they entered the office, while taking out Zhan Zhao's book for him to sign.

Zhan Zhao was a little surprised, "Elder Fan also likes psychology?"

"Yes, I've learnt a lot." Doctor Fan nodded, "Sometimes we treat patients that, beyond medication, require a lot of psychological intervention as well."

Zhan Zhao nodded and looked around Doctor Fan's office; it was clean and tidy, and the key was that there were a lot of messy knick-knacks hanging on the walls, mostly crooked paintings, fabric art, paper cutouts…

"They're all made by patients." Doctor Fan smiled, “Usually, there's not much going on, so I like to do some crafts with them, as doing crafts can calm people down."

Zhan Zhao smiled, "You seem to have quite a good relationship with your patients."

"Oh, they all treat me like an old man." He replied half-jokingly.

Doctor Fan is very old, close to seventy years old. In his own words, he did not have enough to fill his stomach nor starve to death, but he was happy to see them leave one by one, so after retirement, he agreed to return to work.

Zhan Zhao is an expert in psychology. Just by the way the old doctor speaks, he can feel that although he talks quite casually, he actually cares a lot about this job. Being so old and still maintaining this kind of enthusiasm, this should be a caring person

"Those three patients…" Bai Yutang brought up the subject.

"Ugh…" Doctor Fan pounded his head lightly, "Those new nurses don't have any experience at all, that's why they were accidentally allowed to run out. I don't know what they did out there, and I heard that they even injured people who later died… You guys have to believe me, it can't be! It's absolutely impossible!"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at each other, and the old doctor was a little excited.

"Elder Fan, I would like to ask, did they have any health problems?" Zhan Zhao asked, "Our forensic examination revealed that something seems to have gone wrong with their health."

"Oh, I know, skeletal ageing right?"

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao both raised an eyebrow, there was indeed a cause for the illness.

"That's right, as you know, they wore clothes like that and their bones were over a hundred years old." Zhan Zhao was a little helpless, "We were really shocked at first."

"Oh… haha!" After thinking about it, the old doctor couldn't help but laugh, shaking his head, "This… ah, how can I say it, there are very few people in this world who are particularly lucky, but there are even fewer who are as lucky as they are!"

"Tell me about it." Zhan Zhao was interested in these few patients.

"These people were not born nicely, their parents also have this disease." Doctor Fan dug out their cases for Zhan Zhao and handed them over, "Their skeletal ageing is hereditary."

"Hereditary?"

"In our area, there are many people whose grandfathers went to Nanyang to work. Most of the people in this village had worked in the old power plant, which was exposed to radiation. A good number of them have after-effects, so most of them have this problem, and other ailments as well, and don't live long. Many children are born mentally underdeveloped because of this as well."

"Oh…" Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang sort of understood.

"Then… do the three of them live in hallucinations all the time, or do they have occasional episodes and are generally normal?" Zhan Zhao then asked.

"Occasional episodes!” Doctor Fan said, "The three of them are still young and I've always wondered about the notion of them thinking they're from the Qing Dynasty, huh…” Having said this, he laughed embarrassedly, then took out a thick letter from the drawer and handed it to Zhan Zhao. "How nice do you think it would have been if I'd had the courage to send it earlier?"

Zhan Zhao was a little puzzled to find that the letter was actually addressed to the police station and that he was asked to sign for it.

Bai Yutang asked him with some confusion, "Doctor Fan, you are…"

“For something like delusional disorder, to be cured, you have to find the cause!" Elder Fan sat down and said to Zhan Zhao, "The delusions of belonging to the Qing Dynasty may have something to do with the fact that they had been living near a theatre group. But I couldn't find the cause. The scenes they repeatedly performed didn't look like any repertoire or drama, but more like real scenes, such as the enthronement, the coronation celebration of the new emperor, and even the everyday speech and actions, all of which were very realistic. The language and the manner of speech were just like that of the ancients."

"Oh?" Zhan Zhao felt even more incredulous and asked with a smile, "So, do the things they acted out exist in reality?"

"Yes!" Elder Fan stored a lot of information on a wall of bookshelves, all of which were very detailed with information on individual patients and were recorded by hand.

Zhan Zhao took those three people's information and compared it with the historical information that Elder Fan had specifically gone to find, and indeed they were all things that had happened before.

"In that case, it's more like listening to what their ancestors said." Zhan Zhao said, opening the envelope, "What did Elder Fan want to ask?"

"I wanted to send you this letter before, and what I wanted to inquire about… is whether memories can be inherited?" Doctor Fan said seriously.

Zhan Zhao froze and asked, "Elder Fan has read Ma Lei's thesis 《Memory and Genetics》, right?"

"Right right." Doctor Fan nodded, "After I had this idea, I started looking for books on the subject, I didn't expect that there really was one!"

"What memory and genetics?" Bai Yutang asked Zhan Zhao in confusion.

"There are many paranormal phenomena in our normal lives, one of the very famous ones is memories of past lives, have you heard of it?" Zhan Zhao asked with a smile.

Bai Yutang immediately nodded, "Of course I've heard of it! Retaining memories from a previous life, isn't that a hoax?"

"It's hard to say if it's a hoax or not, but humans do have memories that are preserved. According to the laws of biological evolution, theoretically, the memories of people's ancestors are preserved generation to generation! Inside that unexplored 95% of the human brain." Zhan Zhao habitually crossed his legs and interlocked his hands on his knees, a posture he would often adopt when seriously thinking and analysing things, "We are born with the ability to forage for food, court, and nurture, including the language of babies that scientists have been studying before, which is also a universal genetic phenomenon."

"Imagine that the vast majority of the human brain is blank, and that it resembles a warehouse. All the retained and not commonly used memories are sealed inside, while a small part of the space outside is used to house some of the knowledge and memories we need to use in our daily lives. There is also a portion of blank space that is sufficient for us to record the memories of this life." Zhan Zhao graphically analysed the human brain, "If the brain is fully developed, we are likely to remember the memories of our ancestor's generation or even the generation of apes or monkeys, imagine what that would be like?!"

"Crazy that's for sure!" Bai Yutang shook his head to himself, "I see, the so-called past life memories are most likely due to opening a part of the memories inherited from the previous generation, however, the person who retains the memories is the participant of the event, so it feels as if he remembers what happened in his previous life!"

"There are indeed such arguments in the scientific community, but of course, it is still being fiercely debated, and for such things, if some people believe that it can be inherited, there must be others who believe that it can't." When Zhan Zhao finished, he looked at Doctor Fan, "Elder Fan, do you think that the three of them are actually mentally ill because they possess a part of their genetic memories, causing their brain to be dysfunctional and thus unable to distinguish between reality and hallucinations?"

"Yes, yes!" Doctor Fan hurriedly nodded, "That's what I thought."

"Are there any other patients like them?"

"No, just the three of them." The more Doctor Fan thought about it, the more he felt sorry for them, and he stomped his foot.

"You seem very distressed." Bai Yutang could see that Doctor Fan's mood didn't seem quite right, so he asked, "Is something wrong?"

Doctor Fan looked at the two of them, stood up, went to the office door and closed it, then lowered his voice and said, "I did something that was somewhat against my professional ethics."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at each other, what professional ethics did such an old doctor violate?!

"I gave them a treatment that was not in line with the procedure." Doctor Fan spoke with some tension, "I told them that those fantasies were memories left behind by their ancestors, and forged documents and data in an attempt to make them believe it."

"Is this a violation?" Bai Yutang asked Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao nodded gently, "Because the theory has not been proven for use in treatment, it is considered an experiment, not to mention that a forged proof was made, so it is indeed a violation."

"What about the results of the treatment?" Bai Yutang asked.

"They got better." Doctor Fan whispered, "It took them about a month to distinguish between their ancestral memories and their current memories, and gradually they began to return to normal, with fewer and fewer moments of delusion and confusion!"

“I see." Zhan Zhao thought that it was possible, even if those weren't the memories of their ancestors, it was still good to get such a therapeutic effect.

"What about after that, why did they escape and appear in the ancient tomb?" Here, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang deliberately concealed the matter of winning the lottery.

"This, I really don't know. I've been thinking, could it be that the treatment went astray? In any case… I should have had nothing to do with it."

"Not necessarily." Zhan Zhao reassured him, "Any more clues you can offer?”

The old doctor shook his head and gave all the materials to Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, "This is all there is for now, the rest is gone."

"Okay." The two men stood up and asked if they could go and see the deceaseds' room and their belongings.

Doctor Fan took the two men there at once.

Zhao Hu and Ma Han wandered around the village, which was a small village with small buildings. Many families rented houses to migrant workers, and common hardware shops opened on the streets, which made them feel like they should be very wealthy.

"Brother Ma, if you won 10 million, how would you spend it?" Zhao Hu suddenly asked Ma Han.

Ma Han looked at the shops and houses around and shook his head, "I haven't thought about it."

"Why haven't you thought about it?"

Ma Han was a bit powerless, "This kind of thing is impossible, so what's the point of thinking about it?"

"Why not!"

"Because I don't even buy lottery tickets." Ma Han said, and suddenly reached out and pointed ahead. Zhao Hu followed his finger and saw that there was a welfare lottery betting shop in front of him, and a somewhat old banner was hanging on the shop front, advertising a ten million dollar jackpot.

"That lottery ticket was bought here?"

"It's possible." Ma Han took out a cigarette and lit it, asking Zhao Hu, "Got any change?"

“I do." Zhao Hu dug into his pockets, took out some change and asked, "How about buying a lottery ticket?"

"I think there are only a few people who buy lottery tickets here, so if the winning ticket was bought by a local, the boss should remember."

"That's true." Zhao Hu nodded and walked into the lottery shop with Ma Han.

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: March 22, 2022 by Angel