The mother keeps staring at his back in confusion

He thinks that since the room has been changed and does not awaken his memory, he would look at those items to see if he could remember anything.

"Things left before? hum, I don't know where your dad put them. If he didn't throw them away, they're probably in the basement. You can go and have a look. All the useless things in our house are piled up there and I'm still wondering when to clean them up."

"Okay, I see. Then you continue to enjoy your beauty treatment, I'll go and have a look."

After hanging up the phone, Alex goes straight to the basement which is very large and full of things and turns on the light. There is a layer of dust on it. It is obvious that no one has been in this place for a long time and it really should be cleaned up.

There are too many things piled up, so Alex could only look at them from the door. Fortunately, his parents are not sloppy people. They piled things neatly, saving him a lot of trouble.

As Alex is flipping through the things, he sees suddenly a wooden stick wrapped in something like cowhide, with many teeth marks on it.

When Alex sees this strange wooden stick, a large number of memories suddenly emerges in his mind. This is the most memory since he traveled through time. Then his body begins to tremble like a conditioned reflex.

At night, in the utility room, a boy dressed as a junior high school student bit the strange wooden stick tightly, holding a book in his hands and placing it on his chest. A middle-aged man stood in front of him and beat the book hard with a stick, each time so hard.

The boy couldn't help but groan and retreated after being beaten, but after retreating two steps, the boy would continue to move forward and stand in the same place again, allowing the middle-aged man to continue beating him.

Over and over again, until the boy couldn't hold on anymore and fell down.

This boy was the original owner when he was a child, and the middle-aged man was his father.

…

The reason why Alex trembles is because he thinks of these memories. He frowns. He knows why the original owner held the book, because this way there would be no marks on his body after being beaten.

This memory seemed to be about his father domestic violence against the original owner, but he knew that it was not the case, because Alex could clearly feel that the original owner was willing to do it at that time, that is, the original owner acquiesced to his father's behavior, or even asked for it.

In this case, why did the original owner torture himself so much? Because of murder?

This doesn't make sense. The original owner killed voluntarily, or instinctively, and he was not supposed to punish himself for this.

Or did his father punish him because the father knew that he killed someone?

This reason seems to make sense, but Alex just feels very contradictory. What kind of person is the original owner? To put it bluntly, he is a demon who kills people without blinking an eye. Would such a person allow others to torture him?

Alex indeed thinks that it wouldn't happen, even if that person was his father.

And this happened not just once, but many times in the memories, which was too contradictory.

Alex continues to search, hoping to find more useful stuffs or get more memories. After a while, Alex searches the entire basement, and luckily he finds some special things at the end, all tools used to torture himself.

The memories in his mind gradually increase, but they are almost the same, and there are no other new discoveries. Alex only knows that the original owner had the habit of torturing himself.

"So perverted? Not satisfied with killing people? Still torturing yourself? holy shit."

"Alex!"

Alex suddenly hears someone calling him upstairs, and he thinks that it might be his mother who comes back from the beauty salon. He puts all these things away casually and go upstairs.

"Mom, why does you come back so soon today?"

"It's because I know that you're home alone and I can do beauty treatments anytime. You don't come back here often and I really want to spend as more time as possible with you together. Look at how dusty you are right now. Go wash up quickly."

Alex nods patiently, and after washing up, his mother asks,

"Did you find it?"

Alex looks at her and asks in confusion, "What?"

"Aren't you asking me about the utility room? I have thought that you probably want to find some stuffs there."

Alex suddenly realizes and lies calmly,

"Oh, I didn't find it and I guess that I threw it away a long time ago. It's not an important thing anyway. I just suddenly remembered it and wanted to take a look before."

"What is it?" His mother asks curiously.

"Nothing, nothing special." Alex waves his hand perfunctorily.

The mother curls her lips and stops asking, then says,

"Are you hungry now? I'll make something you like and we will eat soon."

Alex nods, "I am indeed a little hungry, but it doesn't matter. Don't bother too much, just make something casually."

Looking at his mother preparing the food materials in the kitchen, Alex thinks about it, did his mother know about these things? She probably didn't know, otherwise she would have shown it when he mentioned the utility room.

After his mother prepares the meal well, Alex pretends to ask her casually while eating,

"Mom, can I ask you one question? what kind of person do you think my dad is?"

Then his mother smiles happily and starts a really long speech, all praising his father. In her eyes, his father is simply a perfect man, a perfect father and a perfect husband. Alex interrupts helpless,

"Okay, okay, I know my dad is extremely excellent and super awesome, but you don't have to praise him like that, right? What I mean is that in your eyes, my dad has no shortcomings at all?"

His mother shakes her head, thinks for a while and responses mysteriously, "If you want to say a shortcoming, there is indeed one."

Alex hurriedly asks, "What? Which shortcoming?"

"You know that your dad is a well-known psychologist, so I am unable to guess his mind, and I don't know what he thinks about exactly."

"This...Well, alright."

Alex gets really speechless. Aren't all women like this? Do they have to know what men are thinking?

Since there is no problem existing with his father in his mother's eyes, the problem may be with himself. Then Alex asks again,

"What about me? Do you still remember what I was like when I was a child?"

The mother smiles and says,

"How can I not remember that? When you were a child, you were also good-looking, well-behaved, and smart. I don't know how many people envied me for having a son like you. Moreover, you were extremely kind and nice and warmhearted since you were a child. When you saw injured kittens and puppies, you would..."

Hearing this, Alex interrupts directly and asks in disbelief,

"Stop, stop, stop, Mom, wait a second. you said that I was kind when I was a child, seriously?"

The mother looks at Alex in confusion, not knowing why he suddenly gets so surprised,

"Yes, of course. you have rescued many stray cats and dogs, lovely son."

"..."

Alex frowns tightly. The original owner rescued small animals, seriously? He truly didn't believe it at all. He prefer to believe that the original owner took them back to torture them secretly in the name of rescue.

"What about those kittens and puppies? Where did they go? Why don't we have any at home? I've rescued so many small animals, so I should be able to find one that I like and keep it, right?"

The mother asks in confusion,

"Your father doesn't like pets, don't you know that? As for those kittens and puppies, I guess you let them go at that time, don't you remember it at all?"

The mother's expression becomes serious as she speaks,

"Son, you acted a little strange today. First, you went to the long-demolished utility room to look for something for no apparent reason, and you didn't tell me what you were looking for exactly.

Now you're asking about your father and your childhood, and you act like you don't remember anything right now. What's wrong with you?"

Alex laughs awkwardly,

"Ah, it's okay, I just ask to see what I am like in your eyes. Nothing is going wrong and I'm just curious."

Alex knows that his inexplicable actions has made his mother feel strange, and if he tries to ask more, he would probably be exposed, which is also the reason why he doesn't want to stay at his parents' house.

"Fake" is fake after all, it can't become "real". Not to mention that the memory left is incomplete, even if Alex remembers all the memories of the original owner, he still can't become the same person as the original owner.

A person's living habits and life details cannot be changed by a memory, unless he is a movie emperor, but unfortunately Alex doesn't have this accomplishment.

The mother smiles happily, "Of course you are the best in my eyes."

After dinner, Alex is going to go back to his room to rest on the pretext of being tired. It's not a pure lie and what happened just now truly makes him feel stressed.

What Alex doesn't know is that when he returns to his room, his mother keeps staring at his back with a puzzled expression.

…