Chapter 9: Memory Disorder

He didn’t answer.

I didn’t wait for him to. I continued on my own.

“It sounds ridiculous, but… I have this feeling that we’re living inside a novel.”

“Your older brother is the male lead. Lian Rong is the heroine. You’re the second male lead, and Mingxing is the third. And me…” I pointed at myself. “I’m the villainous female lead.”

He remained silent, only reaching up to touch my forehead as if checking for a fever.

I slapped his hand away and held it firmly.

“In the original plot, Lian Rong breaks up with Mingxing, then starts getting close to you. But because you’re already married to me, she eventually backs off. Then your older brother appears, and she ends up with him.”

“She has a few other men orbiting around her, too, but in the end, she’s still in a one-on-one relationship with your older brother.”

His brows furrowed.

“What kind of nonsense have you been reading?”

I raised a hand solemnly. “None. When these memories suddenly came back to me, I didn’t even know who Lian Rong was.”

His expression turned serious.

“Keep going.”

I continued, “After that, she marries your older brother. You and Mingxing both withdraw from the picture and quietly protect her from the sidelines.”

His voice dropped.

“And what happens to you?”

I sighed.

“I die.”

His arm tightened around me.

“A really horrible death,” I continued, my voice catching slightly. “I loved your older brother, but he didn’t love me back. So, out of spite, I got involved with Mingxing. But he was even worse. He insulted me, humiliated me, and even wanted to have me thrown in jail.”

“Then I decided to give up and go back to living peacefully with you. But you handed me divorce papers. No matter how much I begged, you wouldn’t change your mind.”

He didn’t interrupt. He simply rubbed my back.

“After the divorce, my family cut me off completely. Everyone in our social circle laughed at me. I had no choice but to leave Haicheng. When I finally reached some small city, everything I had was stolen. Even when I called the police, nothing came of it.”

“In the end, I starved to death in a rented room. I was still clutching half a scallion pancake I’d picked out of a trash can…”

I lightly smacked the mattress, annoyed.

“And the worst part? I was still picky about food! I was literally dying, and I still couldn’t bring myself to eat it…”

He laughed.

“And then what?”

I paused.

“Then I died.”

He leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead.

“That’s awful. How could you have a dream like that?”

He still didn’t believe me.

I let out a breath.

“I don’t want to die young either. So from now on, I’m going to stay away from all of you. If you want a divorce, just tell me early. I won’t cling to you.”

His fingers immediately caught my chin.

His gaze was intensely serious.

“No divorce.”

“Jiang Yueling, I don’t care what’s going through your head right now. But remember this clearly. We made a promise on our wedding day. We’re supposed to stay together for the rest of our lives.”

He stared straight into my eyes.

“I’m not divorcing you. And you’re not allowed to bring it up again.”

I froze.

A promise?

Had we really… made one?

Lu Mingqi tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. His eyes slowly reddened.

“I’m sorry.”

I immediately shook my head.

“I don’t blame you.”

But he still looked weighed down by guilt.

“It’s my fault. I should have taken better care of you. I should never have let you get hurt.”

That had even less to do with him.

I had simply been careless and hadn’t watched where I was going.

“I should have realized something was wrong sooner.”

He lowered his head and kissed my lips lightly, as though trying to reassure me.

“Don’t worry. I’ll take you for a full examination tomorrow. Everything will be fine.”

I paused.

What did he mean by that?

Was he actually starting to suspect there was something wrong with me?

…Well, technically, there really was something a little wrong with me.

This time, Lu Mingqi took me to a different hospital.

The diagnosis was memory disturbance caused by a concussion.

The doctor adjusted his glasses and explained patiently, “This is quite rare. A concussion usually causes memory loss. A patient may forget some memories from before or after the accident, or even lose an entire period of memory. But the kind of memory disturbance Mrs. Lu is experiencing is something I’ve never encountered before.”

I stared blankly, still trying to understand what was happening.

Lu Mingqi, sitting beside me, suddenly asked, “She reads a lot of novels. Could that have anything to do with it?”

He had already told the doctor the entire “tragic experience” I had just described.

The doctor nodded.

“It’s highly possible. The two of you should go through Mrs. Lu’s reading history. You may be able to find a clue.”

I… liked reading novels?

Maybe I did.

After all, I didn’t have a job. Reading novels when I was bored seemed perfectly normal.

The doctor at the private hospital was extremely patient. He and Lu Mingqi began going through my browsing history together. They moved quickly, sometimes skipping a story after reading nothing more than the synopsis.

Apparently, I really had been addicted to online novels.

It took them nearly an hour to narrow it down to one particular book titled Cinderella Reborn: From Forgotten Girl to Everyone’s Darling.

The title itself didn’t seem particularly strange.

But hearing two grown men seriously read it aloud somehow made me feel… embarrassed.

Come to think of it, online novels had gotten increasingly elaborate with their titles over the past few years. The problem was, they all started sounding alike. Usually, I would read the synopsis and the first few chapters, then give up.

I still vaguely remembered this one.

The plot was fairly familiar, and the writing was light and easy to read. But I couldn’t remember the details.

Lu Mingqi and the doctor patiently read through it chapter by chapter.

Then they reached Chapter 33.

That was where the villainous female character, Jiang Yueling, made her first appearance.

The atmosphere in the room immediately grew heavy.

Well…

Looks like we’d found our clue.

The doctor calmly analyzed the situation.

“According to her reading history, Mrs. Lu has read up to Chapter 97, which is exactly the point where the character Jiang Yueling’s storyline comes to an end. That also happens to coincide with the day she had her accident. After regaining consciousness, it’s possible that she confused her memories with the contents of the novel.”

But those memories…

They had felt so real.

So real that it was difficult to believe they were fiction.

I shook my head.

“It doesn’t feel that way. In my memories, the heroine’s name is Lian Rong, and she looks exactly like my younger brother’s ex-girlfriend. Before this, I had never even heard of her.”

The doctor looked at me.

“Are you certain you saw Miss Lian’s face clearly?”

I hesitated.

Actually…

No.

Now that I thought about it, I wasn’t sure at all.

It seemed that her image only became clear after Xiao Li gave me Lian Rong’s résumé.

The doctor nodded.

“That makes this theory even more likely. In Cinderella Reborn: From Forgotten Girl to Everyone’s Darling, the heroine has relationships with three brothers early in the story. The fact that she also happens to resemble your youngest brother’s ex-girlfriend could easily have caused your brain to merge the fictional memories with reality.”

I immediately objected.

“But that still doesn’t explain everything. My friend had something similar happen to her. She said her male idol recently started seeing a woman named Lian Rong… but I’ve never met that man. I only know that my friend is also a villainous female character, and her storyline is practically identical to mine.”

The doctor asked, “Did your friend actually mention the name Lian Rong?”

I reopened my messages with Zhang Yong and went through our chat history.

Oh, God.

From beginning to end, she had never once mentioned the name “Lian Rong.”

I hesitated.

“Maybe… she doesn’t know the woman’s real name either.”

The doctor suggested, “You should call your friend and confirm.”

Lu Mingqi spoke up as well.

“Zhang Yong has seen Lian Rong’s picture before. If they’re the same person, she wouldn’t simply refer to her as ‘another woman.’”

That made sense.

I immediately messaged Zhang Yong and asked if she had a picture of the woman she’d been talking about.

She replied almost instantly.

Then she sent me a whole series of photos.

The angles were… incredibly strange.

I stared at them carefully.

The woman in those pictures wasn’t Lian Rong at all.

I fell silent.

For the first time, a strange sense of doubt began creeping into my mind.

Was I actually losing my grip on reality?

Meanwhile, the doctor and Lu Mingqi had already moved on to discussing possible treatment.

The doctor was straightforward.

“There’s no guaranteed treatment at the moment. The memories may eventually return on their own, or the condition could last for the rest of her life.”

He recommended that my family regularly remind me of my past and take me to familiar places from before the accident.

I suddenly interrupted.

“Doctor, there’s one more thing. I’ve never heard the name Lian Rong before. Is the heroine in the novel also named Lian Rong?”

The doctor shook his head.

“No. The heroine’s name is Wan Mei. Her character is written as someone who loves lotus-seed mooncakes.”

I stared at him.

“…Does the universe really have coincidences like this?”

The doctor answered calmly,

“If there were no coincidences, we wouldn’t call them coincidences.”

I was speechless.