Chapter 36: The Truth About to Be Unveiled

As the game progressed bit by bit, Dong Zhen began to feel somewhat uneasy.

But Dr. Neil and Dr. Eva were still striving hard to make Johnny's dream of becoming an astronaut and landing on the moon come true.

After all, in real life, they had already signed the contract.

No matter what, they had to help Johnny fulfill this dream.

Time continued to advance, and now it reached Johnny's high school years. From Johnny's words, they learned why he liked Liva.

Because Johnny felt that Liva was special.

Here, Johnny appeared somewhat selfish, to the point that even his best friend Nicolas criticized him.

‘Silently sympathize with Liva!’

‘Suddenly find Johnny so annoying!’

‘+1, selfish jerk!’

‘But I feel something seems off—maybe there will be a twist later?’

The bullet comments in Dong Zhen's live stream room kept exchanging opinions.

But at this moment, Dong Zhen’s attention was no longer on the comments. He had been completely absorbed by the game’s story.

Indeed, Johnny’s behavior in this segment was extremely selfish—even detestable.

Yet Dong Zhen couldn’t shake the feeling that something here was off.

Admittedly, this explanation could account for why Liva kept folding origami bunnies.

But Dong Zhen still found it somewhat forced. What exactly was wrong?

Time continued forward, now arriving at Johnny’s teenage years.

At home, Johnny headed out to school, but his mother didn’t address him as Johnny—she called him Joey.

Using football as a medium, Dr. Eva and Dr. Neil advanced once again.

But what followed was completely different.

Dong Zhen leaned slightly forward in front of the computer, his eyes wide open.

On the screen appeared a vast expanse of white. Within this memory, Dr. Neil and Dr. Eva could even smell the stench of dead animals.

Before Johnny’s next memory segment, there was only emptiness.

This meant that a part of Johnny’s childhood memories was damaged.

And within this damaged memory, there seemed to be the bloody scent of dead animals.

Unable to proceed, Dr. Neil and Dr. Eva decided to stick to their original plan.

They would implant the dream of becoming an astronaut into Johnny. Then, through the special machine, Johnny could continuously move toward this goal.

However, clearly, the players were not happy with Dr. Eva and Dr. Neil’s approach.

‘What the heck, how come the memory is damaged? You haven’t even figured out what happened in Johnny’s childhood yet!’

‘How can you act like this?’

Dong Zhen looked dissatisfied. Compared to going to the moon, he was now far more curious about the secret behind it all.

Based on the game’s current progression, he had a premonition—every puzzle so far would be solved in Johnny’s childhood.

But these two damn doctors, resorting to any means necessary, focusing only on superficial fixes—what the hell was their intention?

Yet, contrary to the two doctors’ expectations, an accident occurred again.

No matter how much Dr. Neil and Dr. Eva tried to guide and hint to Johnny—

Adding astronomy courses in his elementary and middle school years, changing the movies Johnny watched at the cinema to space-themed films—

Every effort constantly suggested that Johnny should become an astronaut.

Yet none of it changed Johnny’s subsequent memories.

In fact, Johnny showed absolutely no interest in going to the moon.

It wasn’t just the two doctors in the game—players were equally bewildering.

In Johnny’s subconscious, there wasn’t even a trace of desire to go to the moon.

But then why was visiting the moon Johnny’s final dying wish?

What on the moon was attracting him?

Time was running out. Johnny’s body could not hold on much longer.

If they wanted to fulfill Johnny’s wish, then those missing childhood memories might be crucial.

Dr. Neil consulted the company, asking why this situation had occurred.

Meanwhile, Dr. Eva analyzed why implanting memories into Johnny failed to change his true intentions.

If the machine wasn’t malfunctioning, then clearly, going to the moon was secondary for Johnny.

There must be a more significant factor that had altered Johnny’s desires.

And Liva played a vital role in Johnny’s life.

They had been together since high school.

But what exactly was the key element that caused Johnny’s desires to change?

While Eva was pondering, Neil received the results.

Johnny’s memory loss was due to his having taken massive amounts of Beta-blockers as a child.

Propranolol, a type of Beta-blocker, was believed to prevent the brain’s proteins from re-storing memories in their original form.

In other words, Johnny’s missing childhood memories were not erased, but hidden and suppressed due to his childhood use of large quantities of Beta-blockers.

However, this didn’t mean the memories were completely gone—merely buried.

Therefore, to use the machine to further explore Johnny’s childhood, a medium would be required.

At this moment, Dong Zhen had an idea.

“Blood smell, the stench of rotting corpses? Wait—didn’t the doctor run over a squirrel at the beginning!? Could the squirrel’s scent serve as the medium!”

Seeing the in-game hint, Dong Zhen immediately understood.

It was all planned from the start!

‘So that’s it—the squirrel was important right from the beginning!’

‘You could say this squirrel died for a purpose! It was destined to die! Thank you, noble squirrel, for your outstanding contributions.’

As Dong Zhen spoke, he controlled the in-game character to the roadside to collect the squirrel’s scent.

Meanwhile, the live stream room’s bullet comments flooded in.

‘Squirrel: Oh, thank you very much!’

‘One of the most tragic characters: the squirrel!’

But beyond the joking comments, most viewers shared Dong Zhen’s sentiment.

Anticipation and curiosity filled them—what would Johnny’s childhood memories reveal next?

Amid the live stream’s chorus of urging comments,

Dong Zhen used the scent as a medium and successfully entered the chaotic segment of Johnny’s past.

It was an extremely chaotic memory, with various time points overlapping.

On the street, multiple young Johnnies could be seen.

Among them, Dong Zhen noticed a young Johnny playing with a football.

This football was one of the previous mediums.

The two doctors searched the town everywhere but found nothing.

At that moment, Johnny’s mother finished talking with someone and prepared to start the car and leave.

But no one noticed—‘Little Johnny’ was chasing his football and had moved behind the car.

The car started. With a ‘bang,’ ‘Little Johnny’ was struck and fell to the ground.

What happened? Did Little Johnny get hit by a car?

Was this the reason for his memory loss?

But wasn’t it said that he had taken excessive Beta-blockers?

Confused, Dong Zhen, like the two doctors in the game, assumed the one hit was Johnny.

But the next moment, the real Johnny appeared.

Instantly, previous confusion was resolved!

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