7:58 p.m.
Lin Wanqing stood outside No. 18, Alley 4, Lane 12, Xiqiao Road, gripping the brass key tightly in her hand.
The place was even older than she'd imagined.
Not the kind of old someone had deliberately preserved, but the kind crushed beneath time and dust until it was almost impossible to recognize what it had once been. The exterior walls were mottled. Paint peeled badly from the iron gate. Only half the red lettering remained on the number plate's 18, like a person on the verge of losing their voice, forcing out one last breath.
She stood before the door without opening it right away.
Because she couldn't shake the feeling that a place like this shouldn't be known to her alone.
The photograph on her phone was still on the screen.
The window.
The white shoes.
The black coat.
And the cardboard box.
UNCLAIMED
She stared at those words several times.
Suddenly, she was terrified of eight o'clock tonight.
Not of going inside.
She was afraid that once she did, she'd discover the answer she'd been looking for wasn't the kind of answer she wanted at all.
Exactly eight o'clock.
She inserted the key into the lock.
Turned it once.
The door opened.
There were no lights inside.
Only a heavy damp smell, like moisture from water that had collected in a basement for years, seeping out little by little from unseen corners.
Wanqing turned on her phone's flashlight.
The white beam illuminated a narrow hallway first. Old tiles covered the walls, their grout blackened as if something had once seeped into them.
She walked in.
A door stood at the end of the hallway.
It was half open.
A sliver of light shone through the gap.
Not warm yellow.
White.
A cold, stark white.
Wanqing stopped.
It wasn't the kind of lighting an ordinary home would use. It was too bright, so bright it held no emotion at all—like a hospital, an evidence room, some place that didn't belong to human beings.
She slowly pushed the door open.
Inside was a large, empty room.
A table stood in the center. On it sat an old-fashioned desk lamp with a white shade. The entire room was cast in alternating patches of light and darkness, as if someone had deliberately made sure she couldn't see everything clearly.
Three things sat beside the table.
A stack of photographs.
A voice recorder.
And a black cardboard box.
Wanqing stood in the doorway without entering at once.
First, she looked at the wall.
It was covered with photographs.
One after another.
All secured with nails.
Some of them she'd seen before.
Room 217.
301.
1704.
The white rose bathtub.
The birthday cake.
The white shoes.
The alarm clock.
And herself.
The photographs showed her at different ages.
Sixteen.
Twenty-six.
Her in the hospital.
Her standing outside a hotel.
Her by the window.
There was even one of her picking up a package in the management office earlier that day.
Wanqing froze.
“These…”
She murmured to herself.
“Who took them?”
No one answered.
She lowered her gaze to the photographs on the table.
The one on top showed the interior of the house on Xiqiao Road.
A section in the corner had been circled, with two words written beside it:
Basement.
She frowned.
She was clearly standing on the first floor.
But the staircase drawn on the photograph extended downward, as if another level were hidden beneath the house.
She flipped to the next photograph.
It was a group photo.
Seven people.
Wanqing stared at it, stunned.
It was a photograph from her sixteenth birthday.
Her mother, her father, Gu Yan, Su Rui, Officer Zhou…and herself.
The seventh person.
The photograph she'd looked at countless times.
This time, she finally saw it clearly.
The contents of the photograph hadn't changed.
A section that had been cropped from the corner had been restored.
A man stood there.
He wore a black coat.
He wasn't looking at the camera.
He held a cardboard box in his hands.
The box was marked:
UNCLAIMED
Wanqing stared at the man.
Something inside her seemed to tear open.
She couldn't make out his face.
But that stance, the line of his shoulders, the angle of his tilted head…
They were familiar.
So familiar she didn't want to admit where she'd seen them before.
She turned the photograph over.
Only one sentence was written on the back:
“You've been looking for him all this time, but he's been waiting for you.”
Wanqing's breathing hitched.
“Waiting for me?”
She set the photograph down and reached for the voice recorder.
She pressed play.
Static came first.
The interference continued for several seconds before a woman's voice emerged.
It was soft and exhausted, as if she'd traveled a very long way before finally finding the strength to speak.
It was her mother.
Wanqing's shoulders went rigid.
“Wanqing.”
“If you've really found this place, then you've already seen the ninth photograph.”
She froze.
The ninth photograph?
She looked down at the table.
She'd only seen seven or eight photographs just now.
Her mother's voice continued.
“I know you must be desperate to find out what you've lost.”
“But some things will only put you in greater danger if you learn them now.”
Wanqing couldn't help whispering:
“Mom, where are you…?”
There was a pause in the recording.
As if someone nearby was watching her mother, keeping her from saying more.
Then her mother continued.
“You're going to hate me.”
“But I can only leave the most important thing with you for now.”
“The black box contains the name you've been searching for all this time.”
Wanqing jerked her head up and looked at the box on the table.
The recording was still playing.
“Don't open it yet.”
“Wait until you've seen the white light in the basement. Then decide whether you want to believe me.”
The recording stopped there.
Wanqing stood where she was, her heart pounding so hard she could hear it in her ears.
“The white light in the basement…”
She repeated it under her breath.
The next second—
The white light in the room suddenly flickered.
Snap.
Then it came back on.
Wanqing went completely still.
She hadn't touched that light.
She looked up.
The desk lamp on the table was still on.
But another white light suddenly came on in the opposite corner.
Then a third.
A fourth.
It was as if someone were turning on the lights one by one, illuminating the space from somewhere deeper inside.
Wanqing turned around.
Where there had been nothing but a solid wall at the back of the room, a staircase had appeared.
Leading down.
Really leading down.
She hadn't seen it before.
Now a white glow shone from the stairwell.
It was steady—too steady to be natural light, as if someone had deliberately illuminated the basement this way so she could see every step.
Wanqing moved closer.
The staircase was narrow and steep, its railing cold beneath her hand.
Standing before the first step, she was suddenly struck by a terrifying thought.
This hadn't just appeared.
She'd simply failed to see it all this time.
Just like those memories from her past.
They hadn't ceased to exist.
They'd only been hidden away.
She slowly descended.
One step.
Two.
Three.
With every step she took, the white light grew brighter.
At the bottom of the stairs stood an iron door.
It was unlocked.
She pushed it open.
Inside was a basement.
It wasn't large.
All four walls were white.
In the center stood an iron bed frame that looked like a hospital bed. There was no mattress, only a white sheet folded with meticulous precision.
A row of cabinets lined the wall.
They were covered with labels.
Each label bore a date.
7/14/2016
7/15/2016
7/20/2016
8/02/2016
1/11/2017
…and onward, all the way to the present.
Wanqing walked inside, her fingers growing cold.
One of the labels read:
Lin Yaqin.
Her mother's name.
The label beside it read:
Lin Wanqing.
Her own name.
She stood there blankly, as if someone had nailed her in place.
This wasn't an ordinary basement.
It was like a warehouse of memories, carefully organized.
Every name, every date, every fragment that shouldn't exist had been sorted, preserved, and archived.
Someone had put her life away, piece by piece.
She went to the cabinets and pulled open a drawer.
The first compartment.
Inside was a box of colored candles.
The second.
A silver bracelet.
The third.
A packet of white shoe buckles.
The fourth.
A hospital wristband.
She picked it up.
Her name was written on it.
The date was ten years earlier.
And the room number was—
301.
Wanqing's breath caught.
She turned the wristband over.
A faint character was written on the back, as if someone had hurriedly scrawled it there with a pen:
Wake.
She stared at it.
Then she opened the next drawer.
Inside was a photograph.
It showed her lying in a hospital bed with her eyes closed, an IV inserted into the back of her hand.
Three people stood beside the bed.
Her mother.
Officer Zhou.
And a man in a black coat.
Wanqing stared at the man.
That figure…
It was the same person she'd seen in the group photo.
He was looking down at her.
As if he were waiting for her to wake up.
Wanqing turned the photograph over.
Written on the back were the words:
“When she wakes up, don't let her remember yet.”
Her legs went weak.
“I woke up?”
She murmured.
“What happened to me?”
Just then—
A very soft sound came from inside the basement.
Not from outside the door.
From behind the cabinets.
Knock.
Like someone had tapped the wall with a knuckle.
Wanqing spun around.
“Who's there?”
There was no answer.
She slowly approached.
The sound came again.
Knock.
She reached the cabinets and felt behind them.
Her fingers touched a raised panel.
She shoved it hard.
The panel sank inward slightly.
There was another space behind it.
Darker.
Deeper.
She took out her phone and shone the light inside.
The instant the beam reached the back, Wanqing sucked in a sharp breath.
It wasn't empty.
Someone was sitting inside.
A woman.
Her long hair fell over her shoulders. She wore a white top and a silver bracelet around her wrist.
She raised her head.
And looked at Wanqing.
Wanqing's mind exploded with a roar.
“Mom…?”
The woman didn't answer right away.
She only looked at her, her gaze so still and quiet it was heartbreaking.
Wanqing took a step forward, her throat tight as if something were blocking it.
“What are you doing here?”
The woman slowly opened her mouth.
“I've been here all along.”
Wanqing's eyes instantly reddened.
“You lied to me…”
The woman lowered her head, as if she couldn't bear to face her.
“I'm sorry.”
“Where have you been all this time?”
The woman didn't answer.
She only raised a hand and pointed at the black cardboard box behind Wanqing.
“Open it.”
Wanqing turned around.
“You said not to open it yet.”
“You can now.”
Wanqing stood there, her hands trembling violently.
She glanced at her mother, then finally walked back to the table.
The black box was very light.
She lifted the lid.
There were only three things inside.
An old document.
A key.
And a photograph folded into a tiny square.
She picked up the document first.
The cover read:
Intake Record.
She frowned.
Then she looked down.
Name:
Lin Wanqing.
Age:
Sixteen.
Disposition:
Memory Isolation.
Her hand instantly went limp.
The document fell to the floor.
She stared at those four words, her mind erupting as if something had exploded inside it.
Memory isolation.
What did that mean?
She jerked her head up and looked at her mother.
“What is this?”
Her mother didn't avoid her gaze.
She only said quietly:
“That night, you saw things you weren't allowed to remember.”
Wanqing's breathing quickened.
“So you hid me away?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you just tell me?”
“Because the moment you remembered, they'd find you.”
Wanqing froze.
“Who would?”
Her mother didn't answer.
She only looked at the key.
Wanqing lowered her gaze to it.
It looked familiar.
But it wasn't the key she'd used to open the house.
This one was smaller, its tip polished smooth, as if someone had held it often.
She picked up the photograph.
It showed a door.
Written on the door was:
Basement No. 2.
She turned the photograph over.
There was only one sentence on the back:
“The tenth person isn't in the photograph.”
Wanqing's fingers went rigid.
“The tenth person…?”
Her mother slowly closed her eyes.
“Wanqing.”
“Yes?”
“What you're seeing now still isn't everything.”
Wanqing stared at her.
Her mother raised her head, exhaustion in her eyes unlike anything Wanqing had ever seen before.
“Ten years ago, I hid you here for more than just the sake of making you forget.”
“I did it so you could stay alive.”
Wanqing looked at her, her voice beginning to tremble.
“Then who is the tenth person?”
Her mother was silent for a long time.
So long that even the white light in the basement seemed to grow colder.
At last, she said:
“When you meet him, you'll understand why you lost ten years.”
Wanqing was about to ask another question.
But at that moment, a heavy sound suddenly came from above.
Bang.
It sounded like the front door slamming shut.
Then came a second bang.
A third.
Someone was moving around outside.
Slowly.
One step at a time.
Toward the basement entrance.
Wanqing whipped around.
The white light outside the iron door suddenly dimmed by half.
A shadow fell across the stairwell.
Tall.
Thin.
Holding a cardboard box.
Four words were written on it:
UNCLAIMED.
Wanqing went completely still.
She recognized that box.
It was the one that had appeared in today's photograph.
The shadow stood at the stairwell without coming down.
It simply waited there, as if waiting for something.
Or rather—
As if waiting for her to remember first.
The basement was terrifyingly quiet.
Her mother sat in the dark room without making a sound.
Wanqing stood beneath the white light, her hands and feet icy cold.
She finally understood that this hadn't begun when she was sixteen.
It had started even earlier.
So early that she didn't even know when she'd been pulled into it.
At last, the person on the stairs spoke.
His voice was low, so low it seemed to come from a distant place.
“Wanqing.”
She looked up sharply.
She'd heard that voice many times.
On the phone.
In the recording.
Beyond the photograph.
But she'd never dared to be sure.
Until now.
The person spoke again:
“You finally found the basement.”
Wanqing's breath stopped for a beat.
Because she recognized it.
It wasn't Officer Zhou.
It wasn't Gu Yan.
And it wasn't her mother.
It was—
Her own voice.