Inside the bamboo house, Ruan Mei entered the folded space Rrakavasha had left behind.
The puppet acted with Rrakavsha's memories as its primary directive, which meant there had to be corresponding records somewhere in the system.
Unless her student had violated protocol and risked losing his own memories, memory data transmission would always require backups for safety.
If the puppet's database had no relevant memories, then she would search for them herself.
"Formatted, huh..."
Whatever. That wouldn't stop her.
Ruan Mei forcibly suppressed the turmoil in her heart, focused her mind, and placed her slender fingers on the central console.
Time passed second by second as torrents of data flickered across the screen in cascading lines of code.
She didn't know how long it took before she tapped the final key, successfully restoring all deleted data, pulling it back from digital oblivion.
Among them was Rrakavasha's digitized memory backup, preserved like a treasure.
For her, this only required time and wasn't really difficult. The encryption was sophisticated but ultimately predictable.
After all, almost everything Rrakavasha knew was taught to him by Ruan Mei. But it wasn't everything she knew.
She selected the period covering the final year before his death and immediately began reviewing it, bracing herself.
Then she discovered an unavoidable problem.
Digitized memories could only be viewed visually. Aside from the visuals, everything was silent.
There was no voice, no thoughts, no context. It was like watching a lifelong movie with no sound, no dialogue, and no subtitles.
An extremely frustrating experience.
To give these memories sound and thoughts, one would need either the original owner or a suitable carrier.
Although Ruan Mei could trace the process by which Rrakavasha created the puppet before his death, she still couldn't understand why he had done so.
He owed her nothing. Any emotional bond should have ended with his death. Why leave behind a puppet to maintain the one thread still connecting them?
Was it merely because she was his saviour? The one who had pulled him back from the brink of death?
Ruan Mei couldn't understand.
Was it love and respect for her?
When she compared it to herself, she didn't even recall the faces of her childhood teacher, let alone their names.
All respect and love stayed in the past once their paths divided. That was natural, wasn't it?
A student's love for a teacher couldn't be compared to the love between family.
Ruan Mei believed she understood love long ago.
Her life from childhood and onward had been inseparable from love, so she could discern its subtle differences, its different "scents" and textures.
She wasn't Vash's family. The love Vash held for her should have been the same as the love she herself once held for her teachers, respectful but distant.
Gradually, Ruan Mei sank into confusion, the pieces refusing to fit together.
Rrakavasha's actions once again exceeded her expectations and defied understanding.
Just like back then, when he suddenly touched her foot at the age of eighteen, an incident she'd almost forgotten.
She had no similar experience to compare with, so she attributed it to a biological instinctual attraction toward the opposite sex, even though such behavior, given their relationship, was wrong.
There should be no such desire between student and teacher.
After brief consideration, she corrected him.
A few days of confinement were enough. He didn't repeat the offense and continued being a rule-abiding student, which satisfied her. At least, he was following her every word until that incident when Vash deleted her data without permission, urging her to stop the so-called forbidden research.
But at its core, that too had only been a cautious instinctive response to the unknown.
It was concern, a form of a student's love for their teacher, misguided but well-intentioned.
It wasn't a mistake, so she hadn't punished Vash.
Their ideals diverged, and his aptitude was no longer sufficient to comprehend more complex knowledge. Forcing him to stay would have been bad for both of them.
With the knowledge he had already mastered, in most civilizations across the universe, he could live a rich and fulfilling life.
So in order to fully devote her time to her research, she let him graduate and leave. It was the logical choice.
Lost in thought, Ruan Mei looked at the screen, at the central console glowing before her.
With the original owner gone, only one option remained: finding a carrier.
Her first thought was the puppet.
Implanting the memories into the puppet's core would effectively provide a carrier, and with some program adjustments, they could be viewed properly.
There were drawbacks. The efficiency would be very low, and processing speeds couldn't match organic neural pathways.
Memokeepers from the Garden of Recollection might have more efficient methods or rely on certain curios designed for this purpose.
If using the puppet as a vessel was unsatisfactory, then only one option remained.
She herself would become the carrier.
Ruan Mei acted immediately; her decision was made.
For someone outside the memory-related disciplines, carrying another person's memories was no trivial matter. It was difficult and extremely dangerous.
If mishandled, the lighter outcome was mental confusion, losing track of who one truly was, and identity dissolution.
Emenators of the Rememberance even possessed the ability to forge memories and implant them into a target's mind, turning them into another person based on false memories.
The concepts were similar, just inverted.
At worst, memory disorder could lead to permanent neural damage.
Fortunately, her research direction already involved memory. Reviving her parents required this step anyway; she'd have to master it eventually.
Her fingers rattled across the central console as she rapidly completed the compilation of the transfer program, her expertise showing.
Then she found the equipment and affixed the electrodes to her temples with steady hands.
Without any hesitation, she pressed the start button.
She didn't fall asleep, but operated while fully conscious, monitoring every stage of the transfer.
An unbearable pain surged through her brain like several rapiers piercing her brain tissue.
"Is the transfer too fast...?"
Ruan Mei realized she had been too impatient. Trying to receive an entire lifetime of Rrakavasha's memories within five minutes was basically impossible; the neural pathways couldn't adapt that quickly.
She had no choice but to adjust the program on the fly, extending the duration to twenty minutes.
...It still hurt, like her skull was splitting.
After an hour, the discomfort eased slightly, barely tolerable though far from pleasant.
All that remained now was to wait for the transfer to complete.
Ruan Mei began browsing Rrakavasha's memories, starting from the year he became her student, the logical beginning point.
Even after the full transfer was complete, this process would still be unavoidable. Like reading a new book, without turning the pages, you couldn't reach the next one.
Skipping pages would cause crucial information to be missed. It had to be done step by step, sequentially and thoroughly.
...
That year, Rrakavasha was eleven years old, and the illness in his body had mostly been overcome.
At such a young age, his family was gone, his homeland reduced to cosmic dust, with nowhere to go and no one to turn to.
"I can take you as my student. Are you willing?"
"I am."
Hearing this, Ruan Mei nodded lightly and took Rrakavasha's hand, small and fragile in her grasp.
"Then come with me."
"Where are we going, Ms.?"
"To a world with only the two of us. This place isn't suitable for conducting research. Also, from now on, call me Teacher."
"Oh... then what about your home? If no one takes care of it, it'll be covered in dust."
"The relocation curio isn't in my possession right now, so I can't move it for the time being. I'll retrieve it later and relocate it then."
"I understand... then when the time comes, let me help you, Teacher, and bring your home to that world with just us."
The little Rrakavasha looked up, a clean and pure smile on his face, untainted by loss or grief.
"Home is the most important thing one has. I don't have a home anymore. You shouldn't be like me."
Ruan Mei was momentarily distracted, as if something lightly clawed at her heart, an unfamiliar sensation.
She had almost completely forgotten this memory, buried beneath centuries of her research.
She had even forgotten... where her home was. When had that happened?
Combined with Rrakavasha's memories, those long-forgotten fragments of the past became clear again, surfacing like objects pulled from deep underground.
Later, Rrakavasha never returned to relocate her home.
Not because he didn't want to, but because she herself had said there was no need.
The IPC had every kind of product, including portable mobile estates for living, and luxury accommodations that could be deployed anywhere.
As long as one had enough credits, any size was possible. There was no need to have a student run back and forth multiple times for something so replaceable.
At that time, he had said:
"When I graduate in the future, I'll go back and watch over your home."
And she had replied:
"Do as you like."