43: The Medical Boundaries of Amnesia Testing

The blue light was still pulsing.

Lin Wanqing's eyelashes fluttered three times, and the monitor's waveform simultaneously surged to a peak for 0.8 seconds. As she sat up, her work chair emitted a soft sound; the friction of the metal frame against the floor overlapped precisely with the trailing hum of the server.

Cheng Mo didn't look back. His left hand still rested on the edge of the main console, his fingertip stained with a bit of undried fluorescent yellow—just like before the lights were turned off in the previous chapter, unwashed.

Lin Wanqing looked down at her hands. Her right palm had faint blue fluorescent paint, left from brushing against a wall; yet her left hand was already holding a pencil, sketching rapidly on the white paper on her lap. The lines were decisive, not hesitant or probing; each stroke formed precise interlocking arcs and right angles. She drew quickly, but every turn seemed measured with a ruler, the proportions perfectly aligned, even the spacing between star points conforming to some invisible grid.

When finished, she looked up.

Her gaze swept over that wall—the inverted triangle area was covered in red, blue, yellow, and purple color blocks, explosion frames, sticky note formulas, and Cheng Mo's note that read, 'Extremely brain-burning here, do not imitate.' She looked for two seconds, her eyes level, without pause, without recognition, without reaction. Like looking at an unfamiliar subway map.

Cheng Mo finally turned around.

He didn't approach, only switched his tablet to the real-time brain map interface, zoomed in on the hippocampus heat map, circled the brightest cluster area in red, and saved a screenshot. The motion was like opening a bottle of cola—practiced, crisp, without extra rhythm.

He walked over and took the paper from Lin Wanqing's lap. He turned it face down, scratched a shallow mark on the corner with his fingernail, then flipped it over.

On the paper was a star chart. Seven primary stars were arranged in an irregular diamond shape, surrounded by twelve auxiliary stars, two of which were marked with tiny arrows pointing to a slightly distorted ring structure in the third quadrant. He stared at it for three seconds, then wrote on the back with a marker: 'Two more auxiliary stars than the Big Dipper, gravitational lensing distortion in the third quadrant.'

He handed the paper to the Medical Team Leader in a white coat at the door.

The team leader, wearing gloves, didn't take it, only leaned in to look. His mask was pulled down to his chin, revealing his jawline. He stared for seven seconds, took off his mask, and said, 'Traces of hippocampal overclocking operation.'

No explanation, no elaboration, no looking up for confirmation.

Cheng Mo nodded, folded the paper neatly, and stuffed it into his hoodie pocket. The fluorescent yellow pigment smeared onto the paper's edge, leaving a thin line.

He walked toward the main console.

The keyboard had mechanical switches, blue switches, with crisp keystrokes. He paused all audio streams, retaining only the first-frame image cache area. A resource loading queue window popped up, the progress bar stuck at 99%, with 'Waiting for UI resource injection' displayed below.

He opened the local assets folder and dragged in a scan: the star chart drawn by Lin Wanqing. The cursor blinked in the rename field; he typed: 'LOADING_STARFIELD_V1'.

Enter.

After the filename was confirmed, he opened the UI configuration file, selected the image in the default loading background field. Then, he typed a line in the code comment field:

'// This image is not decoration; it is the coordinate origin of the first checkpoint.'

He didn't save, didn't test, didn't call anyone to verify.

His right hand hovered over the Enter key, his left hand pressed on the F5 key. The silver earring in his right ear reflected the screen's cold light; the bit of fluorescent yellow on his sleeve was still wet, emitting a matte glow with the slight movement of his wrist.

Lin Wanqing still sat in the testing chair.

The white paper was spread open on her lap, the star chart completed. The monitor's waveform had fallen back to the baseline, her breathing steady. She didn't speak, didn't get up, didn't look at Cheng Mo. Her fingertip slowly traced the lines on the paper, her finger pad pressing over the pencil marks, leaving an extremely faint gray trace.

Cheng Mo didn't move.

His gaze locked onto the lower left corner of the screen—where a line of small text had just appeared:

'LOADING_STARFIELD_V1 → ACTIVE'

Time displayed: 02:14.

His finger didn't press down.

To the right of the main console sat a cup of cold lemon tea, water droplets condensed on the cup wall. Half a torn sticky note was pressed under the cup, with a neat summary of the morning's test log written by Lin Wanqing: 'After the thirteenth death, signs of cognitive system collapse appeared; after recovery, missing the most recent three minutes of memory.'

Cheng Mo didn't touch that note.

He stared at that line of text in the lower left corner for four seconds.

Then, his left hand released F5, moved to the arrow keys, and moved the cursor to the 'Start Preload' button.

His right hand still hovered.

Lin Wanqing suddenly spoke, her voice very soft, as if afraid to disturb something: 'When I was drawing, I wasn't thinking of a star chart.'

Cheng Mo didn't respond.

She continued: 'My fingers moved on their own. It was like someone was inputting coordinates into my brain.'

Cheng Mo pressed the spacebar.

Preload started. The screen refreshed, the first-frame image loaded—not a black screen, not a progress bar, not a logo animation. It was that star chart, filling the entire interface; on a dark blue background, the seven primary stars emitted a faint light, and the ring-shaped distortion in the third quadrant was slowly rotating at a rate of 0.3%.

Load time: 0.8 seconds.

Cheng Mo's right hand descended, pressing Enter.

The program began compiling a new version resource pack. The background log scrolled, the first line was:

`[UI] LOADING_STARFIELD_V1 injected at 0x7F2A1C`

He didn't look at the second line.

Lin Wanqing's fingertip stopped on one of the auxiliary stars on the paper, her finger pad applying slight pressure, smudging a small patch of pencil graphite.

Cheng Mo's left hand reached for his earring, twisting it once.

His right earlobe felt a bit itchy.

He didn't scratch it.

A prompt box popped up in the upper right corner of the main console screen, titled 'Live Stream Connection Preparation,' with a countdown below:

22:00:00

He didn't click it open.

Lin Wanqing flipped the white paper over, blank side up. She picked up the pencil, the tip hovering two millimeters above the paper, paused for three seconds, then lightly tapped down.

A dot.

Another tap.

Another dot.

The distance between the two dots was exactly the same as between those two auxiliary stars in the star chart.

Cheng Mo caught it in his peripheral vision.

He didn't make a sound, nor did he turn his head.

He picked up that cup of cold lemon tea and took a sip. The tea was slightly sour, the bubbles long gone, leaving only a bit of astringency clinging to the back of his tongue.

He put down the cup; the bottom clicked against the console surface, making a 'tap' sound.

Lin Wanqing didn't look up.

She drew the third dot.

Cheng Mo's right index finger tapped the desk twice, the rhythm half a beat off from the monitor's beeping.

He pulled up the physics engine parameter table for the current version of 'leap platform nightmare,' the cursor stopping at the 'Gravity Coefficient' field. The value was 9.81.

He didn't change it.

He just moved the cursor away, clicked into the 'UI Response Delay' settings page, and changed the default value from 16 milliseconds to 12.

Enter.

A new line appeared in the background log:

`[UI] INPUT_LATENCY_ADJUSTED_TO_12MS`

Cheng Mo stared at this line for two seconds.

Lin Wanqing finished drawing the seventh dot.

Seven primary stars, all on the paper.

She set down the pencil, gently tapped the paper twice with her knuckle, the sound very soft, like testing the thickness of the desktop.

Cheng Mo finally moved.

He opened a drawer, took out a roll of black electrical tape, tore off a piece just long enough to wrap around the cup once. He stuck the tape onto the outer wall of the lemon tea cup, wrapped it twice, pressed it tight, and cut it.

The tape edge was neat, not peeling.

He pushed the cup back to its original position, directly opposite the lower right corner of the keyboard.

The black tape on the cup body reflected a faint matte glow under the screen's cold light.

Looking at the seven dots she had drawn, Lin Wanqing suddenly asked, 'Will it move?'

Cheng Mo said, 'Yes.'

She didn't ask how it would move.

Nor did she ask when it would move.

She just folded the paper once, then again, folding it into a fingernail-sized square, pinching it between her thumb and forefinger.

Cheng Mo's left hand returned to the F5 key.

His right hand hovered over the Enter key again.

In the lower left corner of the screen, that line of small text was still there:

'LOADING_STARFIELD_V1 → ACTIVE'

Time displayed: 02:14.

His finger didn't press down.

To the right of the main console, a water droplet slid down the wall of the cold lemon tea cup, hitting the console surface and spreading into a small dark patch.

Cheng Mo didn't look.

He stared at the screen, his pupils reflecting that line of text and the jumping numbers in the countdown box:

22:00:00

Lin Wanqing put the folded paper square into her work pants pocket and zipped it shut all the way.

Cheng Mo's right index finger joint gently pressed against the Enter keycap.

The keycap was slightly cool.