The next morning, Chi Feichi, who went to the hospital for a re-examination, decisively found himself accompanied by five bratty kids and an old man.
With brain scans, blood tests, and other physical examinations, plus some scale tests, Chi Feichi was busy all morning.
While the three kids were watching Chi Feichi take the tests, Professor Agasa quietly took Conan and Haibara Ai to talk to Fukuyama Chiaki.
The two were about the same age, both around fifty, with similar builds—round faces and round bellies. One look at the sparse-to-nonexistent hair on top of their heads...
They immediately felt a heartfelt sense of camaraderie with each other.
Fukuyama Chiaki led the three to sit down in his office. When asked about Chi Feichi's condition, he handed a report to Professor Agasa. "This is a summary of his last re-examination. As for more specific private information, I cannot show you."
Professor Agasa took it, and two small heads peeked from his left and right.
From the last re-examination, it could be confirmed that Chi Feichi's schizophrenia had been cured. However, regarding auditory hallucinations, the examining doctor marked it as cured, but Fukuyama Chiaki, the attending physician, later gave a conclusion of 'to be observed'.
Conan nodded secretly. It seemed this attending physician was very reliable.
He could confirm that Chi Feichi's auditory hallucinations were absolutely not cured!
Sometimes Chi Feichi would suddenly start chatting with Feichi. It wasn't the kind of confiding normal people do with pets, but rather like answering a question Feichi had asked, giving a reply out of nowhere.
"If he hallucinates animals and plants talking, is he still suitable for keeping pets?" Haibara Ai asked.
"It doesn't matter. Since the auditory hallucinations exist, even if he doesn't keep pets, he will hallucinate other sounds," Fukuyama Chiaki reminded. "However, you must absolutely not be misled by him. He has very strong observational skills and a deep understanding of animal states and animal taming. This comes from his university major and his own talent. In other words, his auditory hallucinations are actually information he obtained through prior observation and understanding, hidden deep in his consciousness, and then fed back to him through hallucinations. As for communicating with animals, he also uses taming methods."
Conan took the document from Professor Agasa, flipped through it, and directly sold Chi Feichi out. "Dr. Fukuyama, is Brother Chi's split personality really cured? his time perception disorder doesn't seem to be better, and the auditory hallucinations still exist!"
"Oh? Have you discovered other personalities?" Fukuyama Chiaki took out a small notebook ready to record. He felt this group of people was really good and cooperative.
Haibara Ai shook her head. "No other personalities were found. He seems to have always been the same."
"Hmm..." Fukuyama Chiaki lowered his head and scribbled quickly. "I'd better briefly explain to you. Each personality of a patient with multiple personality disorder is stable, fully developed, and has its own thinking pattern and memories. The split personalities can be of many types: different genders, ages, races, or even species. Personalities alternately take control of the body. The personalities may be aware of each other's existence, or they may not be."
Saying that, Fukuyama Chiaki took out a tape recorder from the drawer, rummaged out two cassette tapes, put one into the recorder, and skillfully pressed fast forward. It was obvious he had listened to it repeatedly many times.
"Mr. Chi's previous two personalities were easy to distinguish. You can listen to this."
From the recorder came a voice familiar to Conan and the others, but the gentle tone made it feel very unfamiliar to them:
"Dr. Fukuyama, according to what you say, he is a very strong person. That's great..."
"Yes. Have you never felt his existence?"
"No. That day I woke up and suddenly found the house had been tidied up. I thought my mother had visited, but I couldn't contact her afterwards. So I went to school as usual. But after class, I felt sleepy and slept for a while. When I woke up again, I was already in the hospital."
"It was a classmate who found you seemed to have lost your memory and contacted the hospital. At that time, it should have been him controlling the body. Do you want to talk to him?"
"Can I? I tried in the past two days, but it seems... I can't."
"Have you thought about eliminating him? If you want to, I can help you."
"Don't eliminate him."
"Don't you want ownership of the body?"
"No, the body can be given to him. I just want to chat with him..."
Fukuyama Chiaki pressed pause, changed to another cassette tape, and similarly pressed fast forward. "That was the personality with severe depression just now. Listen to this one."
Click.
A voice came from the recorder again. This time it was the cool tone familiar to Conan and the others:
"No memory."
"When you woke up, did you feel strange? Strange why you were in a certain place?"
"Strange at first, then understood later."
"Did you feel his existence?"
"Didn't feel it, just guessed there was another consciousness in the body."
"Want to eliminate him? If you want, I can help you."
"...No need, as long as he doesn't commit suicide."
"Don't you want dominance over the body? Sharing a body with someone else is unpleasant, right?"
"He should be even more unhappy."
"Do you feel you are an intruder?"
"Sort of."
"Want to communicate with him? Want to try leaving messages in a notebook?"
"Okay."
Fukuyama Chiaki pressed pause again and smiled. "Generally speaking, personalities fight for dominance over the body, but they are different. They both feel the body belongs to the other and are willing to communicate, just like... friends."
"Friends..." Conan felt a bit heavy-hearted.
Splitting a personality just to be friends with himself—how lonely was this guy Chi Feichi before?
"They were willing to communicate with each other, but unwilling to communicate with me. The chat content in the notebook was destroyed by them. I tried every way but couldn't see it," Fukuyama Chiaki smiled bitterly. "But this is a good thing. Under normal circumstances, multiple personality disorder is hard to cure, and treatment can take years. The treatment method is to find a personality among the multiple personalities who is familiar with the others, make them the core personality, then have them talk to the other personalities, find personalities with similar characters to integrate first. But his two personalities recognized each other and reached a consensus without my help. Judging from their intentions, it should be the strong personality integrating the one with severe depression."
Conan sorted it out. "In other words, the multiple personalities existed before because they didn't know of each other's existence. Once they knew, they quickly reached a consensus and cured themselves?"
"Mr. Chi is really..." Professor Agasa exclaimed. "Quite amazing!"
"Yes, judging from his past experiences, he has always been an excellent person. Even when sick, he is remarkable. As a doctor, I didn't help much," Fukuyama Chiaki smiled. "Judging from the results of the last re-examination, his two personalities integrated very well."
Conan flipped to a page, his pupils shrank. He put the document on the table and pointed to a line of text. "Dr. Fukuyama, why does it say the danger level cannot be determined? It could be extremely dangerous, or it could be harmless?"
Possibly extremely dangerous, what the hell is this!
This is clearly a person who struggled hard against his illness and succeeded quickly.
"Because both his personalities had problems. One personality had severe depression, and the other's condition was very complex. The symptom of auditory hallucinations was unique to him. I suspect this personality had more than one mental illness," Fukuyama Chiaki was a bit bemused. "Actually, at the beginning, I didn't know which personality to guide as the core. I planned to let them communicate first to alleviate each other's problems. If the severe depression was alleviated, I would help the depressed personality integrate the other. Or if the other personality's condition became clear and the severe depression couldn't be alleviated, I would let that personality be the core. But... they integrated too quickly. I was completely unprepared. After integration, even the severe depression was cured."
Conan: "..."
Haibara Ai: "..."
Professor Agasa: "..."
Okay, they understood.
Probably the doctor wanted to treat Chi Feichi's other illnesses first, then pick a suitable personality as the dominant one for integration. But before the doctor could choose, he integrated himself and even cured one illness on his own.
"But this should be a good thing, right?" Haibara Ai asked. "Even if there are other illnesses, at least the two major problems of split personality and depression are solved, aren't they?"
Fukuyama Chiaki nodded. "It is a good thing, but unrelated to my judgment that he might be dangerous. I judged his cause of illness to be family and childhood experiences. However, according to the test results, the current core personality, which is the current him, has no expectations of his parents, nor does he have expectations of visits and company from others."
Professor Agasa was somewhat surprised. "No expectations?"
"Yes. Plus, when watching movies, while my assistant and I were crying our eyes out at a tragedy, he didn't feel a thing. Watching comedies, he wouldn't laugh either," Fukuyama Chiaki frowned. "This is a very bad situation. I suspect it is emotional detachment disorder (alexithymia/apathy), and perhaps other mental illnesses."
If Chi Feichi were here, he would definitely be speechless. Those movie plots seemed clichéd to him; he could guess the development just by watching the beginning. How could he have any emotional fluctuations?
"Is it serious?" Professor Agasa thought for a moment. "Is it a lack of... feelings for others?"
"You could say that," Conan subconsciously took over the conversation, looking very grave. "People with emotional detachment disorder lack corresponding emotional responses to external stimuli, are cold to relatives and friends, lose interest in surrounding things, have stiff facial expressions, and lack inner experiences. Or they have rich inner thoughts but reveal very few externally, often showing an indifferent expression to things, holding an attitude of distrust and dissatisfaction towards the outside world, doubting touching events, and even refusing to be moved. I think Brother Chi might indeed have emotional detachment disorder. Dr. Fukuyama, you judged he might be extremely dangerous because his body temperature and heart rate are normal?"
"Little friend, you really know a lot," Fukuyama Chiaki was somewhat surprised. Seeing Professor Agasa looking at him with a confused face, he explained, "Emotional detachment disorder has two types of pathological reactions: physiological and psychological. People with physiological apathy are born with lower skin temperature and slower heart rates. But Mr. Chi's body temperature and heart rate are within the normal range, so he shouldn't belong to this category."
"Then is it psychological?" Professor Agasa asked.
Conan said in a deep voice, "Psychological emotional detachment disorder can also be of the extreme sadistic type, with torture and killing as main behaviors, having no sense of shame or morality for their actions, manifesting as obvious antisocial personality disorder!"
Professor Agasa: "..."
Uh... that's a bit terrifying.