Chapter 1258
"Dad told me to take good care of Chicago," Charles said, giving Chicago a reassuring pat on the back. "If he finds out you've been crying and I couldn't cheer you up, I'm in trouble."
"Okay, I won't cry all the time! Just today, alright?" Chicago said, clearly upset.
She had been missing Darwin and Fiona a lot these past few days.
She kept counting down the days until they would return. Now Fiona was back, but Darwin wasn't. Chicago had no idea when he'd be back, and it made her really sad.
Fiona squatted down, looking at Charles with a guilty expression.
Charles met her gaze, his face emotionless.
That evening, Fiona spent a long time trying to get Chicago to sleep.
Even after Chicago fell asleep, her eyelashes were still wet with tears.
Leaving Chicago's room, Fiona went straight to Charles's door and knocked.
"Come in." Fiona pushed the door open.
She smiled at Charles, who was still sitting in front of his computer. "Still up?"
"I knew you'd come find me." Charles turned off his computer screen and swiveled his chair to face Fiona. "What's up with him?"
"He really went to get treatment," Fiona replied, "But it's pretty complicated."
"Because the Mitchell Family has a history of inbreeding, their genes are messed up, leading to hereditary mental illnesses," Charles said calmly.
"How do you know that?" Fiona blurted out.
Charles sat quietly, looking at the surprised Fiona, waiting for her to figure it out.
Fiona quickly realized.
Then, she slumped into the beanbag chair in Charles's room, covering her face with her hands. "I forgot you're a genius hacker."
"I'm a legit engineer now," Charles corrected.
"Yeah, Engineer No. 7," Fiona replied weakly, "What made you look into this?"
"Jessie is a good dog," Charles answered seriously, "He always loved Dad, but when we were in North Alabama, Dad's negligence caused Chicago to get hurt once. Since then, Jessie's attitude towards Dad completely changed. She became wary, defensive, even aggressive."
Fiona looked at Charles in surprise, thinking, 'He noticed something was off so early.'
"Dogs have a different sense of smell than humans; they can pick up on a lot of pheromones. That's why they're often used as companion and therapy animals for people with mental illnesses," Charles continued, "There are many cases where dogs sense their owners are seriously ill before the owners themselves realize it. So when Jessie started acting strange, I got suspicious."
"When did you find out about the hereditary disease?" Fiona asked.
"At first, I didn't think of it. But when he started getting injured frequently, I combined some symptoms from books and suspected he might have schizophrenia."
The brains of geniuses were sometimes really different. Just because of frequent injuries, Charles could think of schizophrenia.
"And mental illnesses, besides being influenced by the environment, have a high chance of being hereditary. So I did some digging and found that many in the Mitchell Family within three generations had died from mental illnesses. A deeper look confirmed it." He paused. "I got the results while you were in Cyberia these past few days."
Fiona felt like her heart was heavy.
She said, "Charles, come give me a hug."
She didn't know why she felt so sad.
She looked at Charles and started to choke up.
Charles lowered his eyes, got up, and walked over to Fiona. He hugged her first, gently patting her shoulder. "Our genetic test results show no similar defects. You don't have to worry about us."
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