For Clarice, as long as the person walking beside her was Rrakavasha, even the cold morning felt warm at heart.
As they drew closer to their destination, Clarice spoke with feigned casualness.
"Mr. Rrakavasha, let me help you later."
"That won't do. How could I make a visiting friend do such rough work?"
"Mr. Rrakavasha, may I ask, isn't it normal for friends to help each other?"
"...It is."
"Exactly! I'll help clean your teacher's home, and in return, you have to help me with a small favor. How about it?"
Clarice's lips curved upward, her eyes crinkling with her smile.
She'd anticipated Mr. Rrakavasha would refuse, which was precisely why she'd phrased it that way.
"What small favor?"
"I recently enrolled in a fashion design course and need body measurement data from male models of different heights..."
Saying this, Clarice looked Rrakavasha up and down.
"...You appear to be at least 180cm tall with a slender, well-proportioned build, perfectly meeting one of the requirement standards."
Knitting a scarf didn't require these measurements, but a sweater did.
She'd started learning hand knitting some time ago and was still in the stage of accumulating experience and proficiency; she could have waited.
But her progress was rapid. She could measure Rrakavasha's body data now and work toward the final product.
"Just providing body measurements hardly counts as a favor," Rrakavasha said.
Guessed it! Yes!
Her heart leaped with joy.
She felt she'd mastered a small portion of Mr. Rrakavasha's 'user manual.'
Now she could naturally follow up with the next step.
"Then Mr. Rrakavasha, please sacrifice a bit more and be my model...!" Clarice's eyes filled with anticipation as she stared intently at Rrakavasha's profile.
"..."
Rrakavasha thought about his situation, considered briefly, then agreed readily.
"Alright, though I can't be your model for long."
"That's fine, this winter is enough. Are you planning to handle some important matter?"
"...Mm, I'll be traveling for a while soon."
"Can I ask how long specifically?"
"Hard to say."
"Oh, then I won't ask."
Though she wanted to know, Clarice understood that pressing for details wasn't appropriate, Mr. Rrakavasha clearly didn't want to elaborate.
Between casual conversation, they reached their destination.
Rrakavasha deactivated the energy lock. "We can go in now."
The cleaning work wasn't complicated, merely sweeping and mopping floors, wiping furniture and decorations.
After finishing, Clarice took advantage of the break to measure Rrakavasha's shoulder width, chest circumference, waist, neck circumference, and other data.
She seemed somewhat hurried, not lingering long before quickly saying her goodbyes and leaving.
...
Three days later, evening.
Rrakavasha habitually sat leaning against the windowsill, cradling the zhongruan in his arms, his slender fingers rhythmically brushing across the strings.
The sky gradually darkened. He hadn't turned on the lights, and his form unknowingly merged into the shadows.
Rrakavasha's gaze held no clear focus. The melody had somehow slowed by several beats, each note distinctly drawn out, sounding particularly clear in the night.
Clearly, his thoughts were elsewhere, drifting to unknown places.
"Meow~~"
The rotund orange cat leaped up from the floor, landing precisely on Rrakavasha's thigh.
It arched its body, tucked its paws beneath itself, and curled into a fluffy terrestrial sea cucumber.
Its weight pressed down solidly. Looking from above, the outline of Rrakavasha's thigh had mysteriously disappeared.
Seemingly finding this insufficiently warm, Little Orange shuffled toward Rrakavasha's warm abdomen before finally settling down contentedly, eyes half-closed, emitting a soft purring sound.
Several minutes passed, and the slowed melody gradually returned to its proper tempo.
"Burning passion, a thousand cups of wine down my throat... what does the departed seek? Whose heart breaks inch by inch?"
Rrakavasha's eyes were downcast, his low voice melding into the deepening night as he unconsciously sang that song that seemed written for no one.
When Clarice arrived with Mrs. Durand, hearing the singing made them instinctively stop.
The bamboo house was completely dark. Both women tacitly chose not to speak and disturb him.
From that melody, Clarice seemed to hear the disappointment of love unfulfilled.
"..."
She fell silent, unconsciously wiping at her eyes, only then realizing they'd somehow become moist.
It wasn't that she'd never heard Mr. Rrakavasha play tunes, but hearing him sing was a first.
When the final note trembled in the air, the sorrowful melody finally fell silent.
"...Dr. Rrakavasha, we've arrived." Clarice adjusted her emotions.
The bamboo house remained quiet for a moment before the soft sound of an object being set down came, followed by lights turning on.
"Please come in."
"Meow~"
The voices of him and Little Orange emerged in succession.
Rrakavasha's tone returned to its usual warm composure. To fulfill the promise he'd made to the young woman, he'd prepared for this day for a long time.
The success rate for curing the amnesia approached 100%.
As Mrs. Durand lay in the medical pod, Rrakavasha attached various electrodes to specific positions on her head.
"Mrs. Durand, the procedure can begin at any time. Are you ready?"
"Thank you for your trouble, Dr. Rrakavasha. I'm ready."
"Drink this." Rrakavasha handed her a vial of medication.
Mrs. Durand drank it without hesitation, letting out a gentle breath.
"See you tomorrow, madam." As the words fell, Rrakavasha activated the program he'd prepared.
Mrs. Durand's vision rapidly blurred as her consciousness sank into a calm darkness.
Seeing the trace of worry on Clarice's face, Rrakavasha spoke with gentle reassurance. "There won't be any accidents. I promise you."
"I believe you, Mr. Rrakavasha."
For the following period, Rrakavasha entered a busy state, his attention extremely focused.
The procedure certainly wouldn't fail, but that was predicated on the first half of treatment being error-free.
He needed to integrate the memory backups left from Mrs. Durand's previous treatments, then digitize and back them up.
What followed was the same treatment method he'd used when serving as his own clinical trial subject.
The automated program he'd written then had never produced problems in any experiment.
But everyone's memories were different. Despite having Mrs. Durand's memory backups, he still felt manual operation was more reliable.
Clarice's gaze remained on Rrakavasha most of the time.
The code composed of numbers and letters on the screen, she couldn't understand half of it.
She could only watch Rrakavasha's slender ten fingers constantly moving across hundreds of different keys on the central control panel.
During previous treatments, Rrakavasha hadn't been nearly this busy.
Right now, Rrakavasha performing treatment radiated the intellectual aura of a scholar.
Clarice simply watched, her gaze growing increasingly tender.
She didn't know how much time had passed when Rrakavasha's slender fingers lightly tapped a certain key, and a green progress bar appeared in the screen's center, starting to climb from 1%.
"There we go. The only risky phase of treatment has been safely passed. Now we just need to wait nine hours."
Only then did Clarice look at the time, discovering three hours had already passed.
"Thank you, Mr. Rrakavasha..."
Finally reaching this day, Clarice's heart filled with mixed emotions.
"The night is long. Go get some sleep." Rrakavasha said gently.
"I can't sleep."
Clarice looked at her mother's face, her expression serious.
"Mother is at a crucial moment for her future. Of course, her daughter should keep watch."
"Fair enough."
"Mother once told me: Life is a winding labyrinth, with memories, our sole companions... How do you understand that statement, Mr. Rrakavasha?"
"..." Rrakavasha fell silent.