Jiang Yu ran all the way home.
He didn't stop until he reached the front door.
The girl leaned against the wall.
Her face was even paler than yesterday.
"That old man..."
Jiang Yu panted.
"Who was he?"
The girl shook her head.
"I don't know."
"Didn't you tell me to run when you saw him?"
"Because..."
The girl lowered her voice.
"He smelled just like me."
Jiang Yu didn't understand.
He pushed open the front door.
"I'm home."
Mom poked her head out of the kitchen.
"Why are you home so early today?"
"The teacher let us out early."
Mom smiled.
"Go wash your hands. Dinner's almost ready."
Everything was normal.
So normal that Jiang Yu began to wonder
if everything that had happened that morning had just been a hallucination.
"Bro!"
His younger sister ran out of her room.
She had just finished her homework.
A comic book was tucked under her arm.
"Bro, the one you lent me yesterday—"
She stopped.
Standing there, she stared at Jiang Yu.
As if she'd suddenly forgotten what she was about to say.
"What's wrong?"
His sister frowned.
"You..."
"Yeah?"
Her mouth opened and closed.
What finally came out was:
"Uncle."
The whole living room fell silent.
His sister froze.
Mom froze too.
"What are you calling him?"
Mom smiled and lightly tapped her.
"That's your brother."
His sister immediately lowered her head.
"Sorry."
"I don't know why."
"I just suddenly..."
She rubbed her eyes.
"felt like my brother was a stranger."
Jiang Yu said nothing.
He only lowered his head
and looked at the number above his sister's head.
Yesterday.
96.
Today.
93.
Only one day had passed.
Three points were gone.
The girl stood at the door.
She didn't come inside.
She only watched the scene
and softly said,
"It's started."
That night,
Jiang Yu lay in bed, unable to sleep.
He picked up his phone
and scrolled through his chat history with his sister.
Last year.
The year before that.
Three years ago.
It was all there.
Every day, his sister had called him
Bro.
Bro.
Bro.
There wasn't anything unusual.
But then,
at exactly 10:21 p.m. that night,
the chat history
moved on its own.
The latest message
had originally read:
Bro, can you buy me some milk?
It slowly changed into:
Can you buy me some milk?
"Bro"
was gone.
It hadn't been deleted.
It hadn't been edited.
It was as if
it had never existed.
Jiang Yu's hands began to tremble.
He locked the screen.
The room went dark.
One second.
Two seconds.
Then he lit it up again.
The message was still there.
"Can you buy me some milk?"
There was no "Bro."
He locked it again,
then opened it again.
Still gone.
He stared at the line of text,
as if waiting for it to change back on its own.
He waited a long time.
The screen went dark automatically.
This time, he didn't light it up again.
Because he knew.
No matter how many times he looked,
it would be the same.
The girl stood behind him,
watching the phone.
She said nothing.
Because
she knew.
It wasn't the chat history that had changed.
It was that his sister was starting to forget he was her brother.