Joshua noticed Cedrick’s unusually stern expression. “What’s on your mind, Cedrick?”
Cedrick was staring at the cover of the book, Abnormal Psychology, and thinking about what Benedict
had said to him earlier in the ward.
“Benny told me a professor in the lab gave it to him, so I came to ask you since you were with him the
most. Who else spends that much time with him?”
He wanted to know if it was a coincidence or a deliberate act to give a five-year-old child something so
disturbing.
“I’ll look into it,” Joshua promised. “I wouldn’t be too worried, though, Cedrick. It must have been a
coincidence.”
Cedrick nodded.
Five minutes later, Joshua found out from the professors on duty in the laboratory that it was given by a
biochemist named Eugene Yortz.
Eugene was an elderly professor of about sixty, with a snow-white beard, a straight nose, and chiseled
features.
He was not Chanaean. Instead, he was sent from Astoria as part of a collaborative project.
Joshua led Cedrick to Eugene’s office to pay the professor a visit.
“Eugene is a strange fellow,” he warned Cedrick in a whisper along the way. “Aside from having a funny
character, he’s withdrawn, easily irritable, obsessed with research, and has zero regard for
interpersonal communication skills. The things he does sometimes are bizarre.”
Behind his back, the other professors called him Professor Nuts.
After listening intently, Cedrick mulled it over for a while.
It appears that researchers and doctors are weirdos. Wasn’t Kieran initially an oddball? After he got
married, he now shares a stable and loving relationship with Inez. Compared to the earlier version of
himself who had devoted his life to research, he seemed to have become an entirely different person.
However, Eugene is different. He is sixty years of age. Having had enough of his eccentricity, his ex-
wife left him long ago. As he has no children and did not bother remarrying over the past decade, he
may never amend his reclusive nature.
While he was thinking, the pair found themselves outside Eugene’s office.
Before they opened the door, Joshua repeated gingerly, “Try not to be too blunt when you speak to him,
Cedrick. He’s a man who never flatters anyone. He does what he wants and speaks his mind when
something displeases him. He doesn’t care who you are or what power you wield. Everybody is
subjected to the same disdain.”
Cedrick frowned and thought that he quite liked people like Eugene.
However, why would somebody like that give Benedict as strange a journal as Abnormal Psychology?
Narrowing his eyes, Cedrick knocked on Eugene’s door.
Knock, knock, knock.
He knocked thrice in a row.
There was no sign of movement in the office, nor was there the sound of someone coming to open the
door.
“Perhaps he’s out on business,” Joshua said. “Why don’t I keep an eye here and let you know when he
comes back?”
Cedrick appeared stern. “Nobody saw him leave the lab during work hours. He must be in there.”
With greater force, he rapped the door twice.
“All you do is knock.” A raspy, irritated voice sounded from the office. “What good would knocking do?
Why won’t you say why you’re here? Your mouth is not something you use just to eat, you know.”
Joshua was sweating profusely on the other side of the door.
We have already gotten an earful before we even stepped inside.
He glanced at Cedrick and cleared his throat. “This is Prof. Mallory. I have something urgent to talk to
you about. Open up, please.”
After a moment’s silence, the doorknob twisted with a click.
The office door opened and revealed Eugene, still bleary-eyed, glaring at them. “If you come knocking
again without stating your intention, Joshua, I’ll assume you’re mute. It’s a waste for you to have a
mouth and not use it.”
Joshua paid no attention to the admonishment as he saw his colleague as an elder who was his
father’s age. Being familiar with his temperament, he thought it was unnecessary to take it personally.
However, Cedrick said, “You work in a premier laboratory in Chanaea, Professor Yortz. How could you
be taking a nap during work hours?”
Eugene turned to Cedrick and scanned him up and down before fixating his gaze on his face. “I opened
the door like you wanted, and you’re telling me off,” he said huffily. “Feel free to make an anonymous
report about me if you think I’m not professional enough.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Cedrick replied. “Like you, Professor Yortz, I am merely grumbling.”
Eugene could not resist another glance at Cedrick. “I know who you are. You look a lot like the boy in
the lab ward, the one who has the S404 RNA virus in him. You must be his…”
Here, he deliberately paused before saying, “Grandfather. Am I right?”
Joshua failed to stifle a laugh. That’s another way of calling the handsome Mr. Jenson old.
He had never thought he would see the day when Cedrick, who was usually treated with the utmost
respect, get lambasted by an eccentric old man.
Cedrick scowled. No longer intending to continue discussing that subject, he said straightforwardly, “I
am Benny’s father. I’m here today because of him.”
In just a minute, Cedrick told Eugene about the incident regarding the copy of Abnormal Psychology he
had found.
Eugene stroked his beard as he sat down on the couch. “Have a seat.”
His office was a mess. Apart from dirty laundry, newspapers, and unfinished books, expired biscuits,
yet uneaten, littered the couch.
Cedrick had his hands in the pockets of his military uniform. He found that there was no place to sit and
so did not even consider doing so.
Eugene could tell they did not want to, but it did not embarrass him. He picked up his kettle from his
cluttered coffee table and poured three glasses of water. There was no telling how long the kettle had
been sitting there.
As he did so, he began to recount his encounter with Benedict.
“I took a liking to the boy the moment I met him. He was sitting obediently in bed, getting a drip in his
left hand and holding a pencil in his right answering the Mathematical Olympiad workbook with utmost
seriousness. I found it fascinating how such a young child possessed such prodigious mathematical
faculties, so I began chatting with him. He told me how bored he was as his parents were too busy to
see him, so I took the time to drop by his ward and chat with him and bring him some books on
Mathematical Olympiad that I thought he would like.”
After he poured the drinks, he pushed two glasses to Cedrick and Joshua, then leaned back against
the couch to peruse the copy of Abnormal Psychology that Cedrick had brought.
“This copy belongs to me. I dropped by his ward the day before. I was reading while he was doing
some math problems. I didn’t expect him to take an interest in this journal, so I lent it to him. It’s as
simple as that.”
Cedrick frowned. “Have you wondered if a book like this would be accessible to him at his age?”
“Benny is only five, Professor Yortz,” Joshua added. “Psychology is dangerous stuff. Would you want
him to turn out like one of those weirdos he read about?”
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