12:17 a.m.
Lin Wanqing sat in the living room until dawn, unable to fall asleep again.
The photograph lay in front of her.
Her six-year-old self.
And the man whose face had been blacked out.
There was only one sentence on the back:
“The seventh person was never someone else.”
She no longer knew how many times she had read those words.
Every time, it felt as if someone had deliberately placed the answer right in front of her.
Then, just as she was about to see it clearly, they hid it again.
She picked up her phone.
Su Rui still couldn’t be reached.
Officer Zhou hadn’t contacted her again, either.
All night, everyone seemed to have vanished without a trace.
She was the only one left behind.
She opened her photo gallery.
One photo at a time.
Ten years ago.
Six years ago.
Three years ago.
This year.
Suddenly, she noticed something.
The photos on her phone…
There was a gap.
It wasn’t that the photos had been deleted.
An entire year of photos was missing.
2016.
There was July 13.
The next photo was July 15.
July 14 didn’t exist at all.
Wanqing stared at the date.
That was the day she turned sixteen.
And the day her mother disappeared.
She suddenly remembered what Su Rui had said.
“You didn’t lose a few hours.”
“You lost ten years.”
She had always thought it was just a figure of speech.
Only now did it begin to frighten her.
Maybe that day…
she really had disappeared.
It was just that everyone had told her she had been alive the whole time.
8:42 a.m.
Wanqing received a text message.
This time, it wasn’t from an unknown number.
It was from a hotel.
Your reserved room will be held until midnight tonight.
She froze.
She had never booked a hotel room.
She called immediately.
“Excuse me, I’d like to ask who booked the room under my name?”
The front desk checked the records.
“Ms. Lin, the reservation was made three months ago.”
“Three months ago?”
“Yes.”
“Who made it?”
“The guest herself.”
Wanqing’s hand slowly turned cold.
“Are you sure?”
“The system has the identification information.”
“Can you send it to me?”
“Certainly.”
A few minutes later, the reservation details arrived on her phone.
Name:
Lin Wanqing.
Last four digits of ID number:
Exactly the same as hers.
Reservation date:
Three months ago.
Check-in date:
Today.
Room:
1704.
Wanqing stared at the four digits.
Then she suddenly thought of something.
July 14, 2016.
Ten years ago.
And now it was some day ten years later.
Yet the room number was:
1704.
17.
04.
Seventeen candles.
Four in the morning.
The numbers were connected again.
She didn’t hesitate.
She grabbed her coat.
10:26 a.m.
The hotel was on the other side of the city.
It looked completely ordinary from the outside.
Seven stories.
Gray walls.
There were barely any guests in the lobby.
Wanqing walked up to the front desk.
“Ms. Lin?”
The receptionist seemed to have known she was coming.
“Here’s your room key.”
The key card was placed on the counter.
Room:
1704.
Wanqing took it.
“Who booked this room for me?”
The receptionist smiled faintly.
“The system doesn’t show.”
“Was there any note left with the reservation?”
The receptionist checked.
“Yes.”
“What does it say?”
The receptionist looked at the screen.
Her expression slowly grew strange.
“It says…”
She paused.
‘She’ll know for herself.’
Wanqing said nothing.
She picked up the key card and stepped into the elevator.
The display climbed upward.
First floor.
Second floor.
Third floor.
Seventh floor.
She watched the numbers.
The room was clearly 1704.
But the hotel only had seven floors.
The elevator didn’t stop.
The numbers continued rising.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten.
Eleven.
Twelve.
Thirteen.
Fourteen.
Fifteen.
Sixteen.
Finally,
seventeen.
Ding.
The elevator doors opened.
Outside was an extremely long hallway.
The carpet was dark red.
Lights came on one by one along the walls.
Wanqing stood inside the elevator.
She didn’t step out.
“This… isn’t the seventh floor?”
No one answered.
She turned to look at the floor buttons inside the elevator.
There was no seventeenth-floor button.
Only a small red dot.
She suddenly thought of the elevator from the night before.
It had been the same.
A floor that didn’t exist.
She stepped out.
The elevator doors closed behind her.
At the end of the hallway was a door.
1704.
Wanqing walked over.
She held the key card near the lock.
Beep.
The door opened.
The lights were off inside.
The curtains were completely closed.
A faint floral scent lingered in the air.
She stepped inside.
The room was spotless.
A bed.
A sofa.
A table.
A bathroom.
It looked no different from an ordinary hotel room.
But something had been placed on the bed.
A bouquet of roses.
Exactly twelve.
Red.
Fresh.
Dew still clung to the petals.
Wanqing approached.
There was a card beside the roses.
She picked it up.
It read:
“For you today.”
She didn’t touch the roses.
She only stared at them.
Her phone suddenly rang.
Su Rui.
Wanqing answered immediately.
“Where are you?”
There was no answer from the other end of the line.
“Su Rui?”
After a few seconds, her voice finally came through.
“You went into the room?”
“Yeah.”
“You saw the roses?”
Wanqing froze.
“You knew?”
“I knew.”
“What is this room?”
Su Rui fell silent.
“Wanqing, leave. Now.”
“Why?”
“Because this is the room of the person from ten years ago.”
Wanqing’s heart sank.
“Who?”
“Gu Yan.”
The call suddenly ended.
Wanqing stared at her phone.
Gu Yan.
Gu Yan again.
She examined the room carefully.
A painting hung on the wall.
It depicted an old house.
She moved closer.
In the lower-right corner of the painting was a line of tiny text:
2016.07.14
She reached out and touched it.
The frame unexpectedly came loose.
She took the painting down.
A small compartment was hidden behind it.
Inside was a box.
Several photographs lay inside the box.
The first.
Gu Yan.
The second.
Her mother.
The third.
Her father.
The fourth…
Wanqing stopped.
It was a photograph of a bathroom.
The bathtub was filled with roses.
Petals floated on the surface of the water.
There was no one in sight.
Written on the back was:
“The place where she saw her mother for the last time.”
Wanqing frowned.
She turned to the next photograph.
It was still the bathroom.
But this time…
A woman stood beside the bathtub.
Long hair.
White clothes.
Wanqing recognized her at a glance.
It was her mother.
She held a rose in her hand.
And beside the bathtub…
stood someone else.
Gu Yan.
Wanqing’s hands began to tremble.
She turned to the next photograph.
The two people in the photograph were gone.
Only a man remained in the bathroom.
His back was to the camera.
He held a box in his hand.
Written on the box was:
“Wanqing.”
Her breath caught.
“Why…”
She turned another page.
This time, the photograph showed her at sixteen.
She stood at the bathroom door, looking inside.
Her expression was terrified.
And behind her…
stood another version of herself.
Two Lin Wanqings.
One inside the doorway.
One outside.
Wanqing’s finger stopped on the photograph.
She began to gasp for breath.
Written on the back was:
“Don’t let her go inside.”
She flipped the photograph over violently.
Which one was really her?
She had no idea.
3:15 p.m.
The bathroom door suddenly opened by itself.
Wanqing stood in the living room, staring at it.
She didn’t approach.
It was dark inside.
But she could smell roses.
The scent grew stronger and stronger.
Slowly, she walked over.
There was no water in the bathroom.
No flowers.
Only a large mirror.
A small box sat in front of it.
She opened it.
Inside was a silver bracelet.
The one her mother had once worn.
Wanqing reached in and picked it up.
A string of numbers was engraved on the inside:
0714.
She stared at it.
Suddenly, she remembered a scene.
That day, when she was sixteen.
Her mother stood in front of the bathroom mirror.
Wanqing stood in the doorway.
Her mother took off the bracelet and placed it in a box.
Then she said to her:
“Wanqing, if one day I’m gone…”
“Don’t put it back on.”
The little girl asked:
“Why?”
Her mother smiled faintly.
“Because it isn’t mine.”
Wanqing froze.
The memory abruptly broke off.
She braced herself against the sink.
A violent headache began to pound.
Her reflection in the mirror blurred.
She saw another scene.
The bathtub was filled with roses.
Her mother stood beside it.
Gu Yan stood across from her.
Her father stood in the doorway.
The three of them were arguing.
She couldn’t hear what they were saying.
She could only read her mother’s lips.
She said:
“She isn’t my daughter.”
Wanqing’s eyes flew open.
There was only herself in the mirror.
She stood frozen.
“She isn’t my daughter…”
What did that mean?
Was she not her mother’s biological daughter?
Or…
had her mother been talking about someone else?
She didn’t dare think about it any further.
Just then,
water suddenly sounded inside the bathtub.
Whoosh.
Wanqing turned around.
The bathtub was clearly empty.
But water was slowly appearing.
One drop.
Two drops.
Three drops.
The water level began to rise.
Then…
rose petals began floating up through the drain, one after another.
Wanqing backed away.
“Impossible.”
More and more water poured in.
Red petals began to fill the entire tub.
She stared at the scene before her.
Then she suddenly remembered the first chapter.
“Don’t trust the crime scene.”
She immediately took out her phone.
She photographed the bathtub.
But the photograph showed something else entirely.
A woman.
The woman stood inside the bathtub.
Long hair covered her face.
She wore white.
There was no bracelet on her wrist.
Wanqing stared at the photograph.
Slowly, she raised her head.
There was nothing in the bathtub.
But in the photograph…
the woman was still there.
She zoomed in.
The woman’s face slowly came into focus.
Wanqing stopped breathing.
That face…
was her own.
7:48 p.m.
Wanqing sat on the edge of the hotel bed.
She had thrown all the roses into the trash.
The water in the bathroom had disappeared, too.
The room had returned to normal.
But the photograph was still on her phone.
The woman in it…
was her.
She didn’t know what to believe.
Then her phone received an email.
Sender:
Lin Yaqin.
Her mother.
Wanqing stared at the sender address.
Impossible.
Her mother had been missing for ten years.
How could this email account still be active?
She opened it.
There was only one sentence:
“Wanqing, you’ve finally found the place where I died for the last time.”
Her hands began to tremble.
There was another line below it:
“The roses in the bathtub weren’t prepared for me.”
The final sentence read:
“They were for you.”
Wanqing froze.
She stared at the three sentences.
A terrifying thought suddenly formed in her mind.
If her mother really hadn’t died…
then who was the person in the bathtub ten years ago?
Just then,
footsteps sounded outside the door.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Someone stopped outside Room 1704.
A man’s voice came from the other side.
“Ms. Lin.”
Wanqing didn’t answer.
The man spoke again.
“Someone asked me to give you something.”
An envelope was pushed through the gap beneath the door.
Wanqing didn’t touch it.
The man didn’t leave.
He stood outside the door.
After a while, he suddenly said:
“Your mother asked me to tell you something.”
“That night, the person in the bathtub wasn’t her.”
Wanqing’s head snapped up.
“Who was it?”
There was silence outside for several seconds.
The man said:
“You.”
Wanqing went completely rigid.
The next second, the footsteps hurried away.
She rushed to the door.
When she opened it, the hallway was empty.
Only a white rose remained on the floor.
At the center of its petals lay a small note.
It read:
“Eighth way to die: dying inside the truth you refuse to admit.”
Wanqing stood in the doorway.
She didn’t move for a long time.
Because she was finally beginning to fear one thing.
Maybe in all thirty stories…
the “victim” who most needed to be found
had never been someone else.
It was her sixteen-year-old self.