I have a life simulator.

However, as news spread that Kitagawa Ryo had gained the Kitagawa family's recognition and become the sole heir, Amasawa Ichika's situation, who had been intimate with Kitagawa Ryo in the white room, changed once again.

She was allowed to revert to her surname "Tianze".

"I really want to cool off this summer."

Tianze Yixia still wears her hair in pigtails, and she stretches out her arms to hug Kitagawa Ryo tightly.

Among the test subjects in the White Room, the fifth generation had the healthiest mental state. Except for a child named "Takuya" who could not accept the fact that Ayanokoji Atsuomi had left and the White Room had been disbanded, most of the children adapted to the outside world quite quickly.

Tianze Yixia is one of the best among them. Judging from her appearance and her communication skills, she is no different from the child outside the white room.

They are even more emotionally rich than children outside.

In Kitagawa Ryo's view, what she is showing now is more of a childlike, natural dependence and closeness.

Especially those eyes that were the same color as Hotaru's; to Kitagawa Ryo, Amasawa Ichika was more like a younger sister.

However, from President Tianze's perspective, he prefers to understand the intimacy between the two as another level of emotion. Rather, this is the scene he wants to see, and this is the reason why he is willing to acknowledge Yixia.

"Since Ichika is here too, let's go see the snow together."

After exchanging a few casual words with Amaze Ichika, Kitagawa Ryo didn't forget the purpose of his visit. He nodded to President Amaze and then started walking towards Yuki's hospital room again.

The two adults exchanged a meaningful glance, each with their own thoughts, before President Tianze spoke first:

"We won't go."

"I also have some things to discuss with President Tianze outside."

So the two of them headed toward the exit, but unexpectedly ran into Sakayanagi Arisu at a corner.

"Miss Sakayanagi?"

Both of them looked surprised, but Sakayanagi Arisu reacted quickly and spoke first to explain:

“My father asked me to come and find Liang, saying that the police still have some specific questions to ask.”

"I see."

"No wonder."

Both President Tianze and President Chun were somewhat embarrassed, because in truth they both wanted to do the same thing, and the person in charge of that thing was standing right in front of them.

"Kitagawa is in my daughter's hospital room."

After pointing in a specific direction, President Tsubaki and President Amasawa hurriedly left.

Meanwhile, Sakayanagi Arisu, who had been standing still, quickly followed in the direction the other person had given her. A strange unease lingered in her heart, like a faint, ethereal thread.

-------------------------------------

Xue sat on the bed, wrapped in a blanket embroidered with a blooming white cherry blossom. She was enveloped in the cherry blossoms and snow.

Then a slender hand reached out from among the flowers and touched the phone that was placed to the side.

Xue hesitated for a moment while holding her phone, put it down, then hesitated for a while before picking it up again.

The screen lights up, dims, lights up, dims.

She kept pressing the raised button on the phone, the screen flickering in and out of Xue's palm, like lips that wanted to open but were about to close.

I'll come see you tomorrow.

After all that fuss, Xue finally opened her chat history with Kitagawa Ryo, then peeked half her small face out from under the covers, staring at the sentence with only her exposed eyes.

Just as she was hesitating whether to send a message to ask where the other person was, the door to the ward was finally pushed open.

It's Kitagawa Ryo.

The moment he appeared, you could feel your heart overflowing with intense emotions.

But in reality, they might not even know themselves which intentions are genuine and which are just derived illusions.

The feelings of yesteryear, the feelings of this moment.

"It looks like the recovery is going quite well."

The ward was quite spacious. After Ichika Amaze greeted Yuki, Ryo Kitagawa took the remote control and turned on the TV for her, letting Ichika sit on the sofa next to him to watch the program. Then he walked over to Yuki's bedside, sat down, pulled up a chair for himself, and said with a smile.

"Yes, my father and mother are very good to me too."

Xue nodded obediently, loosened the blanket she was wrapped in a little, and leaned against the headboard to talk to Kitagawa Ryo.

If Kitagawa Ryo was the most tormented experiment in the White Room, then Yuki was undoubtedly the second.

In fact, Kitagawa Ryo himself only learned about what the White Room had done to Yuki afterward.

Moreover, judging from Suzuki Kabuki's testimony, Yuki's fate was entirely due to Kitagawa Ryo's existence.

If it weren't for him giving Suzuki the inspiration for the rhesus monkey experiment, Yuki wouldn't have been selected from the fourth generation, and she wouldn't have experienced the series of events that followed.

However, all of this had become irretrievable memories of the past, so Kitagawa Ryo shook his head, letting go of all those thoughts, and continued to ask with concern:

"Snow—what are your plans after this?"

In fact, judging solely from her performance in the white room, Yuki is definitely a genius by all accounts, and could even be said to be more outstanding than Amaze Ichika.

"...I don't know, my father said he would send me abroad to study or something."

When the topic of the future came up, Xue suddenly became somewhat lost. Not only her, but every child who came out of the white room showed this emotion. After all, for them, everything in the white room represented their entire past life.

Therefore, Xue could only laugh with a mixture of confusion and distress at the question.

Her first smile was natural, but every smile she gave afterward was learned from Kitagawa Ryo.

"Has your father ever mentioned anything related to me?"

"They just told me to get closer to Ryo, but I feel like we're already very close."

Xue answered honestly, and as if to prove her point, she reached out and poked Kitagawa Ryo's face, which was very close to hers.

"It's so good to see Ryo like this now."

Her fingertips transformed into her entire palm, and Yuki stroked Kitagawa Ryo's profile with a happy smile.

She had seen Kitagawa Ryo's blood, and even slept on it for a whole night.

Compared to Kitagawa Ryo during the White Room era, Kitagawa Ryo's health has undoubtedly improved significantly, a change that is clearly visible to the naked eye, which makes Yuki genuinely happy.

"In a few days, there will be a chance to meet Suzuki Kagetsugi, the assistant in the White Room. Would you like to go?"

Kitagawa Ryo did not resist Yuki's closeness. He remembered what Yuki's father had said about her and took the initiative to speak.

In Kitagawa Ryo's view, rather than being bound by the past, it is better to try to overcome the fear in one's heart.

The assistant in the White Room, Suzukage Kager himself, was secretly transferred to the Kitagawa family at their insistence.

Since the White Room case wouldn't be made public anyway, the Naoe faction was happy to do the Kitagawa family a favor.

Incidentally, it was Tsukishiro Tsuneshige who found and captured the escaped Suzuki Blacksmith.

After all, this is the kind of business he's always been in.

Upon hearing the name Lingxuan Forging, Xue's face paled, and her expression became somewhat strained.

"You need to go see him."

Just as Xue was pursing her lips and not saying anything, a voice suddenly came from outside the door.

The person who pushed open the door and walked in was Sakayanagi Arisu, who had caught up with them.

Excluding Tianze Yixia, who was watching a dating reality show with great interest while propping her head up, the remaining three people formed a stable and almost solid triangle.

The first to extricate himself from this love triangle was Kitagawa Ryo, who smiled in the direction of Sakayanagi Arisu:

"Why is Arisu here today too?"

"If you want to take this further, you have to see him."

But Sakayanagi Arisu ignored Kitagawa Ryo's words. She simply walked up to Yuki and spoke to her in an almost provocative tone.

"Only by getting past him can you truly understand yourself; otherwise, he will always be the guy who can shatter your entire life with just one sentence."

Sakayanagi Arisu didn't hold back in bringing up the topic of the past. Even though she hadn't participated in that time at all, perhaps it was because she had never participated that she was able to speak so frankly.

"Or perhaps, you're afraid to see the other person because you're admitting that all the feelings you have are fabricated by that person?"

"That's not the case!"

The sudden increase in volume made Amaze Ichika, who was engrossed in a dating reality show, turn around and look curiously at Kitagawa Ryo.

Xue clutched her chest, as if feeling her heart pounding there, and replied:

"No, I don't believe that. I would never, absolutely not."

Anyone who sees those videos will feel that her feelings for Ryo were artificially created, and even her father was just trying to make the fake relationship real and establish a connection with the Kitagawa family.

Suggestive, repetitive brainwashing; a suspension bridge effect artificially created in a confined environment—who would call the emotions born under such circumstances normal?

The TV on the wall is replaying the first episode of the popular dating reality show, "The Daily Life of Geniuses".

Two sets of footprints walking side by side on the beach recede into the distance in the upward-sweeping camera shot, while a voiceover reads in a heartfelt tone:

Others may be your hell, a place where armor formed from the scars of the soul, swords forged from defensive gazes, labyrinths of language, and traps concealed by smiles. Behind all that, of course, a lonely heart still trembles, and an unquenchable yearning for communication remains.

"I want it too……"

"I also want to openly tell Ryo that I like her, and like an ordinary girl, every smile and every move I make is for the person I like."

“But every time this happens, there’s always a voice in my head telling me to ‘fall in love with him,’ even when I don’t even know what liking someone means.”

"I... want to be like you too."

Yuki looked at Sakayanagi Arisu with the eyes of a wounded animal.

The other person's gaze reminded Sakayanagi Arisu of the first time she went to the white room.

She followed her father, walking step by step down the long corridor, peering curiously through the one-way glass into the rooms on either side, and enthusiastically discussing the living, moving creatures inside.

It's so similar!

It's just like a child visiting the zoo for the first time.

Chapter 117: The Well of Despair

As she spoke, Xue's eyes filled with glistening tears, which rolled down her face and onto her clothes and blankets.

Humans are creatures that learn to cry before they learn to laugh, because the birth of life is accompanied by a cry.

We laugh when we are happy and joyful, and we cry when we are sad and scared. Although there are also situations like crying tears of joy, the act of crying itself is something that can make those around us feel a strong emotion.

A smile is essentially an expression made by the facial muscles, the orbicularis oculi muscle around the eyes, and the corrugator supercilii muscle around the eyebrows. Once you've smiled, it's hard to find any trace of it anymore, and the upturned corners of your mouth can return to normal in just one second.

But crying is different. Just like sadness, which has a lasting effect, every cry is not something that can be easily erased or eliminated.

Yuki is a child whose smile warms people's hearts, and her tears can also easily convey sadness.

"Did you feel relieved after saying those words?"

Faced with Yuki's question, Sakayanagi Arisu simply closed her eyes and looked at the other person seriously as she answered.

At the moment she first went to the white room, she did not deny the pride she once held as a genius, nor did she deny the kind of bloodline-like argument she had once been obsessed with.

Sakayanagi Arisu was shaped by her unique family environment and congenital physical defects before the age of seven, but all of that became a thing of the past as she recovered and got to know and date Kitagawa Ryo.

So after hearing Yuki's thoughts, a strange anger welled up in Sakayanagi Arisu's heart.

This anger quickly hijacked her voice:

"What are you saying? You want to be like me."

"Sometimes I've thought about what would have happened if my father had sent me into the white room back then..."

"You've spent your entire life in the white room, but haven't I spent most of my life in the 'white room' as well?"

"Everyone, please be quiet for a moment."

Kitagawa Ryo reached out to stop the two who were getting increasingly agitated. He himself was also feeling a bit of a headache. The last time he encountered two people who were so incompatible was Karuizawa Megumi and Ichinose Honami during the second simulation, and the end result was a bloody fight at the fireworks festival.

It must be said that Kitagawa Ryo's words carried a lot of weight for Sakayanagi Arisu and Yuki, and they tacitly stopped talking, keeping their eyes fixed on him.

Rubbing his temples, Kitagawa Ryo showed a slightly tired expression:

"What I want to say is that everything you've said is already an unchangeable fact that has already happened."

"Moreover, the White Room incident is not completely over yet. Both Arisu and Yuki want to see its final outcome with their own eyes. That's the most important thing right now."