The word “ACTIVE” made me more uneasy than any death certificate could have.
Because it meant one of two things.
One: Chen Yuzhen was really still alive.
Two: someone wanted me to believe she was still alive.
Either way, I couldn't stay here anymore.
“Give me the location.”
Zhou Jingchuan immediately shook his head.
“You can't go straight there.”
“You said I went there two years ago.”
“That was two years ago.”
“So?”
“It probably isn't even in the same place anymore.”
“The red dot is still on the map.”
“Websites can be faked.”
“Then I still have to go confirm it.”
Ruoqing looked at me.
“I'll go with you.”
Zhou Jingchuan frowned.
“No.”
I looked at him.
“Do you really like making decisions for other people?”
“I just know how dangerous this is.”
“I've been filmed for seventeen years.”
I pointed out the window.
“There are people all over Taiwan livestreaming my location right now.”
“You think hiding at home is safer?”
He didn't answer.
I looked at Cai Mingzhe instead.
“Do you have any information on that sanatorium?”
“Not the complete file.”
“Give me whatever you have.”
He immediately went back to the computer.
He searched through old backups.
The crowd outside still hadn't dispersed.
Shouts drifted up from downstairs every so often.
“3741!”
“Are you going to Shimen?”
“Chen Zian, look at the camera!”
Some people were even shouting 3728.
I walked to the window and looked down.
There were at least two hundred people filling the entire street.
The police had arrived, too.
But they weren't dispersing anyone.
Most of the crowd wasn't breaking any laws.
They were just filming in a public place.
That was the most disgusting thing about Transparency Day.
If today weren't Transparency Day, filming someone on this scale would have been stopped immediately.
But today, everyone had a legal-looking cover.
Zhou Jingchuan suddenly pulled the curtains shut.
“Don't let them see what you do next.”
I smiled faintly.
“You think that still matters?”
“At least a little.”
He walked to the corner of the living room.
He looked up for several seconds.
Then he climbed onto a chair.
He reached toward the ceiling beside the light fixture.
In less than half a minute, he pulled out a black camera smaller than a fingernail.
It was my first time seeing one of those things.
Ruoqing froze, too.
“You didn't install this?” Zhou Jingchuan asked.
She shook her head.
He tossed the camera into a glass of water.
Then he checked the router, the outlets, and the smoke detector.
In five short minutes, he found four cameras.
Two of them weren't even connected to our Wi-Fi.
“Someone came in and installed them,” I said.
Ruoqing's face had gone pale.
“I didn't know.”
“You said Zhou Jingchuan had been in my apartment before.”
“Yes.”
“Who else was there?”
“No one. Really.”
“Then who installed them?”
She had no answer.
Cai Mingzhe came out of the room with a tablet in his hand.
“I found something.”
He turned the screen toward me.
It was an old news report.
The headline read:
“Private Sanatorium on the North Coast Shuts Down; Property Abandoned for Years.”
The photo showed a four-story building.
It stood against a mountain.
The exterior walls were already peeling.
Only half of the sign remained.
“This one?” I asked.
Zhou Jingchuan glanced at it.
“Yes.”
“What was it called?”
“Yongkang Sanatorium.”
“What kind of sanatorium?”
“It used to take in psychiatric patients and provide long-term care.”
“When did it go under?”
“2011.”
“Yuzhen disappeared in 2009.”
“Yes.”
“Could she have been there then?”
Zhou Jingchuan shook his head.
“I don't know.”
I stared at him.
“You didn't know that when you gave me the address two years ago?”
“I only knew you'd traced the source of a batch of old footage.”
“Where did the footage come from?”
Cai Mingzhe kept scrolling.
One screenshot showed a surveillance camera feed.
The date was 2010.
Several people in hospital clothes stood in the hallway.
One figure had been circled in red.
It was blurry.
The face couldn't be made out.
But there was a small strip of red around the person's left wrist.
I immediately zoomed in.
“Is that her?”
Cai Mingzhe said, “You marked this yourself before.”
There was a note beneath the photo.
The handwriting was mine.
“Possibly 3728.”
“Source of the footage?”
“The sanatorium's old server.”
“Who got it?”
“You did.”
I started getting agitated again.
Every clue felt like something the old me had already followed once.
And yet the me standing here now could only walk the same path all over again.
“Is there anything after that?”
“There is.”
The next image.
2012.
The sanatorium had already closed down.
The same hallway.
There were no patients this time.
But deep in the frame stood a woman.
She looked about thirteen or fourteen.
The camera was too far away.
Her face was completely blurred.
“The date doesn't fit,” I said.
“If it's Yuzhen, she would've been around thirteen then.”
“Yes.”
“So it's possible.”
The next image.
2016.
It was still the same building.
An exterior security camera caught someone entering.
A black hat.
A face mask.
There was no way to tell whether the person was male or female.
The file note read:
“3728?”
2020.
2022.
2024.
Almost every few years, there was another possible sighting.
Not one image could prove it was her.
But every one of them was enough to keep someone searching.
Then I suddenly thought of something.
“This is too convenient.”
Ruoqing looked at me.
“What is?”
“Every time I'm about to forget, or I've stopped investigating, new footage appears.”
Zhou Jingchuan understood, too.
“Someone's feeding you clues.”
“Exactly.”
I pointed at the tablet.
“They let me into the system in 2009.”
“There was sanatorium footage in 2010.”
“She appeared again in 2012.”
“After that, they gave me a little more every few years.”
“Just enough to keep me from giving up.”
Cai Mingzhe was silent for a moment.
“This doesn't look like they're hiding someone.”
“It looks more like they're raising you,” he said.
The words were harsh.
But accurate.
It was as if someone had deliberately kept me, ever since I was fourteen, forever on the verge of the truth.
Never giving me an answer.
Never letting me completely lose hope.
I looked at Zhou Jingchuan.
“That website showing ACTIVE could be bait, too.”
“It's possible.”
“Then are we still going?” Ruoqing asked.
I said, “Now we have even more reason to.”
“Why?”
“Because if someone spent seventeen years just to get me to one place, then there has to be something there.”
Zhou Jingchuan said, “They could just be trying to kill you.”
I looked at him.
“Then don't come.”
He said nothing.
I took out my phone.
The red dot was still there.
A little more than five hours and forty minutes remained on the countdown.
A new line had appeared in the status bar:
“3741 has not departed.”
I couldn't help letting out a cold laugh.
Even their reminders looked like game quests.
“They're waiting for us to move,” Cai Mingzhe said.
“Then we can't take our own car.”
“Should we call a ride?” Ruoqing asked.
“We'd still be followed.”
I looked downstairs.
“It isn't a car problem.”
The moment I appeared in the lobby, everyone would know.
I asked Zhou Jingchuan, “Is there another exit from the basement?”
“You're asking me about your own house?”
“Don't you come here all the time?”
Ruoqing shot him a look.
Zhou Jingchuan ignored it.
“There’s a fire exit leading to the back alley.”
“Will anyone be blocking it?”
“Probably not yet.”
Cai Mingzhe immediately started packing his equipment.
I looked at him.
“You're really going?”
“I need to know whether Liao Shihao is there.”
“Didn't you just say no one had seen him in three years?”
“That's why I'm going.”
I suddenly felt that this group was actually just like me.
Everyone had their own reason.
Zhou Jingchuan wanted to stop something.
Cai Mingzhe wanted to find the website's administrator.
Ruoqing wanted to keep me safe.
And I only wanted to know whether Yuzhen was still out there.
We didn't trust one another.
But for now, we had no choice but to move together.
Before leaving, I put the red string in my pocket.
I didn't know why.
I just felt that I should take it with me.
12:43 p.m.
We left through the basement fire door.
The back alley was empty, just as Zhou Jingchuan had said.
He called for a rental car he'd parked nearby ahead of time.
It wasn't registered under his name.
Nor Cai Mingzhe's.
“You came prepared,” I said.
He opened the car door.
“I knew this was how today would turn out the moment you left this morning.”
I paused.
“So you predicted I'd go to 4-1?”
“It's not a prediction.”
“Then what is it?”
“You always go.”
I looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
“No matter how many times you lose your memory, once you see the first video again, you'll eventually find the same apartment building.”
“Because someone guides me?”
“Partly.”
“And the other part?”
“You.”
He pointed at my phone.
“You like hiding clues in places you'll be able to find yourself.”
I thought of that piece of paper.
Don't trust Ruoqing.
And the memory card.
The old me clearly had no confidence in the person I'd become.
He was afraid I'd give up.
Afraid I'd trust the wrong person.
Even afraid that one day I wouldn't know anything at all.
The car merged onto the expressway.
At first, no one really followed us.
The website on my phone didn't update our location, either.
“It works,” Ruoqing said.
I didn't relax.
Ten minutes later, the website still showed:
“3741 has not departed.”
For the first time, that gave me a little control.
I closed the page.
“Don't look at it again,” Zhou Jingchuan said.
“Why?”
“It knows you're online.”
“That doesn't mean it knows our location.”
“But it will know whether you're following the route.”
I shut off my phone completely.
Ruoqing did the same.
Cai Mingzhe hesitated, but eventually did it, too.
Only Zhou Jingchuan kept an old-fashioned keypad phone.
It had no internet access.
The car suddenly became very quiet.
I looked out the window.
Taipei slowly fell behind us.
The closer we got to the North Coast, the darker the sky became.
The sea began to appear in the distance.
I thought I would be nervous.
But I wasn't.
Maybe I'd already learned too much today.
The fourteen-year-old me.
Yuzhen's disappearance.
Seventeen years of recordings.
Three breaks in my memory.
Any one of them would've been enough to make someone break down.
With all of them piled together, my mind was left with only one direction.
Go.
Look.
Confirm.
Around two in the afternoon, we entered Shimen.
Zhou Jingchuan didn't head straight for the sanatorium.
He stopped at a small convenience store first.
“What are we doing?” I asked.
“We can't go straight in.”
“You know something else now?”
“You said after you went there two years ago that someone was keeping watch.”
“Who?”
“The people filming.”
“How many?”
“I don't know.”
Cai Mingzhe looked at the roads nearby.
“If someone is following and filming us in a place like this, it'll be easy to spot.”
We bought water.
We also switched to a cheap phone with only an offline map installed.
Zhou Jingchuan took an old paper map from his bag.
It was covered in handwritten markings.
I recognized the handwriting.
Mine again.
“You left this?”
“You gave it to me two years ago.”
I took it from him.
The sanatorium had been circled.
Beside it, someone had written:
“Don't use the front entrance.”
A route had been drawn around the mountain side.
“Drainage ditch.”
The final line read:
“The basement isn't just one level.”
I looked up.
“What does that mean?”
Zhou Jingchuan shook his head.
“You didn't explain it at the time.”
I folded the map.
I was suddenly starting to hate my old self.
He knew everything.
But he never explained anything clearly.
He only left riddles behind for me.
At 3:12 p.m., we parked the car almost a mile from the sanatorium.
We walked the rest of the way.
A light rain began to fall.
The mountain path was slippery.
There weren't many houses around.
After walking for more than twenty minutes, we finally saw the building in the distance.
It looked just like the photos.
Four stories.
Gray-black exterior walls.
Some of the windows were broken.
The yard was overgrown with weeds.
The metal security gate at the front entrance hung crookedly on one side.
Of the “Yongkang” on the sign, only the character for “Yong” was still hanging there.
I felt a sense of familiarity at first sight.
Not because I'd seen the photos.
Something more direct.
I knew there should be a small slope on the right.
I knew there was a parking shelter in back.
I even knew there would be a staircase to the right after entering the lobby.
But I clearly didn't remember ever coming here.
“I've really been here.”
Ruoqing looked at me.
“Did you remember?”
“No.”
“But I know how to get around inside.”
Zhou Jingchuan said nothing.
Cai Mingzhe, however, looked down at my feet.
“Don't go in yet.”
“What?”
He crouched down.
There were footprints in the mud.
A lot of them.
They weren't old.
The rain had only just started, and the edges of the prints hadn't been washed away yet.
At least six or seven people.
Some tracks led in.
Others led out.
“People have been here today,” Zhou Jingchuan said.
I looked toward the sanatorium's second floor.
A window suddenly moved.
It didn't look like the wind.
It looked as if someone had just stepped away from it.
“Someone's inside,” Ruoqing whispered.
We didn't use the front entrance.
Following the map, we went around to the mountain side.
Sure enough, we found a concrete drainage ditch hidden beneath the weeds.
We climbed upward.
At the end was a rusted wire fence.
Someone had cut an opening in the middle.
The cut was fresh.
“They know about this route, too,” Cai Mingzhe said.
I squeezed through.
There was a small basement door on the other side.
The lock had been broken for a long time.
It opened the moment I touched it.
A damp, moldy smell rolled out.
It was very dark.
Zhou Jingchuan turned on his flashlight.
The hallway stretched ahead.
The walls were peeling.
Water covered the floor.
I stood at the entrance, and suddenly a direction surfaced in my mind.
“Left.”
Ruoqing asked, “What?”
“Go left.”
“Do you remember?”
“I don't know.”
It just felt like we were supposed to go left.
We followed the direction.
We passed three empty rooms.
At the fourth corner, I stopped.
There was a number on the wall.
3728.
It wasn't an address plaque.
It had been written in black marker.
It looked fresh.
I reached out and touched it.
The ink hadn't even completely dried.
“It was written today,” Cai Mingzhe said.
There was a metal door at the end of the hallway.
My breathing began to slow.
This was it.
The door from that moment in my memory.
Two years ago.
The damp hallway.
Someone calling to me from behind the door.
Bro.
I walked over.
There had once been a label on the door.
It had already been torn off.
Only adhesive residue remained.
I gripped the doorknob.
Behind me, Ruoqing said, “Zian.”
“Yeah?”
“What if she isn't in there?”
I didn't turn around.
“At least I'll know today.”
I pulled the door open.
It wasn't a hospital room.
It was a huge underground space.
The lights were on.
Newly installed LED lights.
The walls weren't nearly as dilapidated as the ones outside.
Rows of metal cabinets filled the room.
There were at least a hundred of them.
Each cabinet had a number on it.
3691.
3692.
3693.
The numbers continued onward.
It was like a physical archive.
I walked farther inside.
3728 was at the very back.
The cabinet wasn't locked.
I pulled it open.
Inside were hard drives.
Photographs.
Audio tapes.
Medical records.
On top was the most recent photograph.
The date it had been taken:
yesterday.
The photo showed a woman around thirty years old.
She had short hair.
She was standing by the sea.
A red string was tied around her left wrist.
My hand stopped.
Even though she had grown up, I recognized her at a glance.
Chen Yuzhen.
An address was written on the back of the photo.
It wasn't for this sanatorium.
It was in Keelung.
Below it was another line:
“If you want to see her, come alone.”
Ruoqing had just reached my side.
Suddenly, all the lights in the basement went out.
A second later, emergency red lights came on.
A voice came through the speakers in the ceiling.
It wasn't an alarm.
It was a man's voice.
Calm and even.
“3741, welcome back.”
Cai Mingzhe looked up.
His expression changed instantly.
“Liao Shihao.”
The man on the speaker laughed once.
“Cai Mingzhe, you actually came, too.”
Zhou Jingchuan immediately backed toward the door.
But the metal door automatically swung shut at that moment.
Click.
It locked.
I took out the photograph.
“Where is Yuzhen?”
There was a two-second silence from the speakers.
“You say the same thing every time you come.”
I looked up.
“You've seen me before?”
“Many times.”
“Is she really alive?”
“Alive.”
The answer came too quickly.
So quickly that I didn't believe it.
“Proof.”
“The photo in your hand is proof.”
“Photos can be faked.”
“Good.”
The man sounded pleased.
“This version of you has improved since two years ago.”
I held back my anger.
“What do you want?”
“Me?”
The man on the speaker laughed.
“I don't want anything.”
“She wants to see you.”
My heart began beating faster.
“Then why not let her come here?”
“Because 3728 has a condition.”
“What condition?”
“She won't see the Chen Zian you are now.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Under the red lights, the rows of metal cabinets looked like a graveyard with no end.
The man on the speaker spoke slowly.
“She'll only see the one who remembers her.”
I said nothing.
“So before you go to Keelung...”
“You have to get back every memory that was taken from you.”
A wall beside us suddenly lit up.
It was an entire screen.
A chair appeared on the display.
Silver-and-black equipment.
It was the same kind Zhou Jingchuan had brought to my apartment.
But there were six of them here.
Then the image changed.
A woman sat in another room.
Her back was to the camera.
Short hair.
A red string around her left wrist.
As if she had heard something, she slowly turned around.
For the first time, I saw Chen Yuzhen clearly as an adult.
She looked into the camera.
Her eyes were red.
Then she said:
“Bro.”
Just one word.
A door in my mind seemed to open a crack.