Autistic genius, a flourishing era of scientific research

"As for the relationship between my mother and them, it is her personal matter." In fact, she didn't feel any need to ease the situation. She didn't notice anything unusual in the relationship between Zhao Fangfang and the Zhao family.

Jiang Yan put aside the relationship between family members and relatives, and only analyzed everything based on the current actual situation of the Zhao family. It was obvious that every word and sentence made sense and could not be refuted.

But it makes people feel boundless ruthlessness and indifference.

The car is very quiet inside, with only the friction between the car and the road, or the sound of the car body, doors and windows vibrating when the car shakes on the bumpy road.

Si Cizhan clenched his hands slightly on his legs in silence and said:

"Don't you really need any family affection or other feelings?"

Jiang Yan tilted her head to look at him. Si Ci Zhan seemed to remember something and smiled at her with some difficulty. The words on Jiang Yan's lips turned into another sentence: "If you can't laugh, you don't have to laugh."

Then he continued what he had just wanted to say: "If I could understand what emotions mean to me, maybe I would need them."

The meaning of emotions…?

"Have you ever thought about what would happen if Lu Qinghuan stopped being your friend one day?" Si Cizhan couldn't help but start to hypothesize, wanting her to awaken to this experience. "What would you do?"

"I'll ask her why."

Si Cizhan: “…”

"If she can't tell you why, does that mean she doesn't want to be your friend anymore?"

"Then she can leave and we're no longer friends. That's why."

Her thinking was very clear. The reason was not necessarily some specific thing or direction. She just wanted a reason to leave.

At this moment, Si Ci Zhan felt that Jiang Yan was truly invincible in some aspects.

It reminded him of an idiom: A man without desires is strong.

"You should know that there are very few people who can be friends with you without any grudges like Lu Qinghuan. Will you regret not trying to keep her?" Si Cizhan said.

Jiang Yan thought carefully about his words and said:

"Why would you regret it? Normally, I rarely go back on my word."

Well, Jiang Yan didn’t understand what regret was at all. Si Ci Zhan only realized belatedly that this was actually also an emotion.

After careful consideration, she obviously understood regret and going back on one's word to mean the same thing.

In terms of the effects of behavior, this is indeed true. However, when it comes to emotions, regret is very different from pure behavior.

It not only represents the regretful person's intention to "go back on his word" in his behavior, but also hides the regretful person's awareness of the mistakes he has made, as well as many complex emotions that cannot be expressed.

He finally understood that Jiang Yan would not understand.

The care, love and attention from his grandparents, as his mother Song Yuwei said, would be a warm and meaningful experience in the world of ordinary people. Even when he grows up and leaves his family, he will often feel warmth and joy, and then miss his loved ones.

But for Jiang Yan, this was all a meaningless experience.

He finally understood again what Jiang Yan had meant when she said to him, "The world is empty."

In her world, there is no one except herself, the rules, and everything she wants to study.

That was the true meaning that he didn't understand at the time. At that time, he only felt that Jiang Yan was lonely.

Rules are just tools for her to understand and navigate the world. What she studies and learns is the basis for her to feel that the world is fulfilling.

So, when Jiang Yan didn't get together with Xia Fei and the others to discuss research that day, Si Ci Zhan saw emptiness in her eyes. For a moment, he even felt that Jiang Yan's eyes were numb, as if she had no soul and no life.

She was different from the autistic children he knew. She saw the world, but she still couldn't feel it, so she was the same as the autistic people he specifically tried to understand.

She is in the world and yet far beyond it.

Is this the world of Jiang Yan that he wants to know?

It was not as he had initially thought, filled with strange yet inexplicably interesting rules. The rigid rules and her careful analysis of other people's emotions made her look cute.

This place is desolate. There is really nothing in this world except Jiang Yan.

Si Cizhan stopped asking questions, thinking the topic was over. He raised his hand and rubbed Jiang Yan's head with a distressed look, then glanced out the window. "It will take about ten minutes to get to Changhe Village. You can rest and relax for a while by the car. Once we get to Changhe Village, we still need to walk a little further."

Jiang Yan didn't know what Si Ci Zhan was thinking. She only knew that he was silent for a long time, and then suddenly became gentle for no apparent reason.

His movements were gentle, his voice soft, and there was a genuine smile on his face—although not as obvious as others'.

"Not asking anymore?" He didn't ask, but Jiang Yan still had questions.

Si Ci Zhan has not yet answered why she regrets it.

"I won't ask anymore. You make the decision. Even if you don't know what regret is, the people around you will know. If you are inseparable, you will always be together again."

Because, even if her world is indeed as desolate as she shows, having Jiang Yan around is enough.

He thought, she deserves everything.

Seeing that the two of them had finally finished their discussion, Jiang Xiaowen, who was driving in front, couldn't help but express his own confusion.

"If you make friends with Zhao Xin and Zhao Xian, you won't be able to avoid their grandparents, your maternal grandparents, and your uncle and his people."

Si Cizhan leaned against the car and criticized Jiang Xiaowen: "The questions you ask are even less meaningful than mine."

At least his question was equivalent to discussing the philosophy of life with Jiang Yan. Jiang Yan didn't even need to answer Jiang Xiaowen's question, Si Ci Zhan knew what Jiang Yan was thinking.

"When that day comes, the Zhao family will just be 'friends' of the family', familiar strangers."

"You can visit your friend's family if necessary, but most of the time it's not necessary."

The despised Jiang Xiaowen: "...did I ask you?"

Jiang Yan turned to look at Si Cizhan: "You are very smart."

She confirmed Si Cizhan's words, and Jiang Xiaowen suddenly felt a sense of urgency that his brother's position was in jeopardy. "I'm your brother, too, very smart. When I was a kid, the adults in the compound all said so."

Si Cizhan had to mention the tricks Jiang Xiaowen did when he was a child, which were clever tricks that occasionally caused accidents and became jokes.

Jiang Yan watched with curiosity the childish bickering between Jiang Xiaowen and Si Cizhan.

Song Yuwei was amused by Jiang Xiaowen's twisted logic.

Si Ci Zhan always paid more attention to Jiang Yan. When she found that he was looking at her and Jiang Xiaowen, she couldn't help but curl her lips and raise her hand to rub her head.

It was not until Jiang Yan grabbed his wrist and refused him another move that Si Ci Zhan restrained himself a lot. He moved his fingers impatiently, pulled his hand out of hers, and watched her straighten her high ponytail that he had messed up a little.

He laughed and reminded Jiang Xiaowen to concentrate on driving.

……

These days, few people can drive cars, and even fewer drive to the countryside. So when Jiang Xiaowen's car stopped on the main road of Changhe Village, some people in the village noticed it, and soon people came to watch the fun.

It is cold in winter and the work in the fields is not that hard. This is one of the few times of the year when farmers can relax and rest.

Someone had seen Si Cizhan and Jiang Xiaowen and thought they looked familiar, so they went up to ask. After hearing what Jiang Xiaowen and Si Cizhan said, someone among the onlookers sighed:

"I just said I was here to burn incense and pay respect to the old president's grave, right?!"

At this time, someone noticed that Jiang Yan, who was walking beside Jiang Xiaowen and Si Cizhan, didn't look familiar, but the teardrop mole at the corner of her eye and her rare appearance quickly reminded people of her:

"Is this the little girl Zhao Fangfang took away three or four years ago?"

"It does look a bit like it."

"She's getting more and more beautiful. So beautiful, even prettier than Zhao Fangfang!"

"Of course not. Both Zhao Fangfang and Jiang Jingnian are extremely good-looking. Their daughter, apart from anything else, is definitely beautiful."

"Can a flower produce cow dung?"

Some people were pleasantly surprised to find that the girl in front of them not only looked very different from what they remembered, but also gave people a completely different feeling.

"You don't seem as stupid as before."

"Come to think of it, last time I was at the market at the supply and marketing cooperative, I seemed to hear the name Jiang Yan mentioned on the radio."

"Did you hear that correctly?"

During the discussion among the villagers, Jiang Xiaowen and his friends took out all the things they had brought for tomb sweeping.

Seeing this, the others stopped blocking the way, and one person kindly said:

"Hurry up and go. Tomorrow is New Year's Day. President Hongqi just came to burn incense for the old president. I guess he has a lot to say. If you go now, you might even run into them."

Among the crowd that was leaving, someone sighed and said:

"Co-chairman Jiang Hongqi has finally found his happy ending after all the hardship he's endured. Now the commune won't let us disband. Even those of us who can't get a share of land don't know what to do in the future. Other communes have gotten much better with their land. If it weren't for the old co-chairman—"

This was interrupted by someone who cursed the person who was complaining and sighing. The farmer's curse was rough, but the person being cursed didn't seem too embarrassed to talk back. Instead, he walked away quickly, turning back to argue, "I didn't say anything bad about the old president! Even a few words are not allowed!"

Jiang Yan was about to catch up with the man when Jiang Xiaowen pulled him back and asked him to walk the other way: "You're going the wrong way. The cemetery is this way. Where are you going?"

Jiang Yan said: "The old president is grandpa, we should ask him what he wants to say to grandpa."

She still remembers that her grandfather was often called the old president.

The man's unfinished words certainly didn't sound good, but Jiang Xiaowen shook his head: "Never mind, let's go to the grave first. There are always people who gossip, are you going to go up and beat them up?"

"Besides, the villagers have already scolded him, so there's no point in chasing him."

"Go to the cemetery and ask Jiang Hongqi." Jiang Yan nodded and followed Jiang Xiaowen. The man's words sounded like the people's commune here had not been disbanded yet and it was related to her grandfather, so Jiang Yan wanted to ask for details.

"Okay. We haven't been here long enough, so since we've met today, let's find out what's going on."

Just as the villagers said, they walked along the gently sloping mountain road to the cemetery and saw people visiting and sweeping the graves in front of them.

The two men had completed the previous process and were using sickles to trim the weeds and new saplings around the grave.

When they saw the people coming, especially Jiang Yan who came with three adults, the middle-aged woman in thick clothes said:

"Is this Jiang Yan? You really went back to Xiaoyu City? Are you studying in Liufeng City now? Tomorrow is New Year's Day, and you came back today to visit the old president's grave?"

As she spoke, a smile appeared on her face. "You've grown so big? You're taller than me now. How's your mother, Zhao Fangfang? Back then, Hongqi and I wanted to keep her. At least we could take care of her in the commune. I took you out to work alone. If anything happened, you wouldn't be familiar with Canghai City, and you wouldn't have any relatives or friends around. You would have just followed Fangfang and couldn't do anything. But she dared to take you out. How could she be so brave? Now you've grown up. Hongqi even brought back a newspaper with your name on it from the city a while ago."