Lin Ye stared at his phone screen.
There was only one word in the sender field.
**Archive**
No email address.
No domain.
No sender information of any kind.
He didn't open it for a long time.
His instincts told him that the moment he tapped it, some things would never go back to the way they were.
But...
If he didn't open it, he would never know what had happened to Chen Zi'an.
The room was so quiet that all he could hear was the second hand moving.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Lin Ye took a deep breath.
At last, his finger touched the screen.
The email opened instantly.
No image.
No signature.
Only a single line of black text.
> **If you still remember, the old library at eleven tonight.**
Below it was a string of numbers.
**23:00**
That was all.
Lin Ye frowned.
The old library?
That building had been closed off five years ago.
He'd heard it was because the structure wasn't earthquake-resistant enough. Once the new library was completed, the school sealed off the entire building.
Students couldn't get inside at all.
More importantly...
How did the sender know he still remembered?
The email hadn't been closed yet.
The screen suddenly flickered.
The next second, all the text began disappearing on its own.
As if someone were slowly erasing it, line by line, with a rubber eraser.
In less than three seconds, the entire email was blank.
Then it closed automatically.
The inbox no longer contained any trace of the message.
Lin Ye remained silent for a long time.
This wasn't the first time he'd encountered something he couldn't explain.
But it was the first time someone had known his secret.
Six o'clock that evening.
His mother knocked on his door.
“Dinner's ready.”
Lin Ye came back to himself and locked his notebook back inside the metal box.
“Okay.”
At the dinner table, everything was the same as usual.
His father looked down at the news.
His mother brought out the last dish, miso soup.
The television was broadcasting the evening news.
“The number of missing persons in our city has continued to decline in recent days...”
The anchor wore a smile.
“Police say the city has gone one hundred twenty-seven consecutive days this year without a single missing-person case...”
The chopsticks in Lin Ye's hand stopped.
Zero missing-person cases?
He had watched someone disappear with his own eyes just yesterday.
The anchor continued.
“Residents can live without worry...”
Lin Ye suddenly interrupted.
“Mom.”
“Hmm?”
“If one day I suddenly disappeared, what would you do?”
His mother froze for a moment.
Then she smiled.
“Why are you suddenly asking that?”
“Answer me.”
His mother set down her bowl and reached over to touch his forehead.
“Is the pressure from studying getting to be too much?”
“No.”
“If you really disappeared, your dad and I would be frantic. We'd search everywhere for you.”
His father chimed in with a laugh.
“You brat, you're not a little kid anymore. Stop saying things like that.”
Lin Ye lowered his head.
He didn't ask anything else.
He suddenly thought of Chen Zi'an.
If someone had asked a similar question before yesterday...
Would they have gotten the same answer?
But today, no one remembered him.
Ten twenty that night.
Lin Ye changed into a dark-colored jacket.
He quietly left the house.
The rain had stopped.
The streets gleamed, washed clean by the rain.
The convenience store was still lit.
People sat waiting for buses at the stop.
Everything was just as usual.
And yet something was different.
Lin Ye crossed the intersection.
A man in a suit brushed past him.
The instant they passed each other, the man suddenly stopped.
As if someone had pressed pause.
He stood there, completely motionless.
Lin Ye looked back.
The man still had his back to him.
Three seconds later, he continued walking as if nothing had happened.
Lin Ye frowned.
Was it a coincidence?
He kept going.
After he passed the convenience store, he saw the cashier ringing up a customer.
“Hello. Your total is one hundred thirty-two dollars.”
The moment the cashier went to make change, she stopped too.
She remained frozen with the coins extended.
So did the customer.
The two of them stood like statues.
Three seconds.
Another three seconds.
Then, in the next instant, time began moving again.
“Thank you. Come again.”
Everything seemed so natural that it was as if the whole thing had been a hallucination.
A chill slowly crept up Lin Ye's back.
It wasn't just one person.
That made two times.
He hurried away from the convenience store.
More people were beginning to fill the street.
Students heading home after school.
Office workers out for a night run.
Delivery riders on bicycles.
Suddenly, a little girl stopped walking.
She turned around.
And looked at Lin Ye.
Her face was expressionless.
She simply stared at him in silence.
The next second, there was a second person.
Then a third.
A fourth.
People in the street began stopping one after another.
They didn't say a word.
They simply turned their heads at the same time.
And looked at Lin Ye.
Dozens of pairs of eyes.
Like they had been copied and pasted.
No emotion.
No movement.
Only their gaze.
Lin Ye's heart clenched.
The next second, everyone returned to normal.
Some went on talking.
Some went on walking.
As if none of it had ever happened.
Lin Ye stood in the middle of the crowd.
For the first time, he felt true fear.
It wasn't that someone was chasing him.
It was...
As if the entire world were watching him.
He instinctively quickened his pace.
He made his way through the shopping district.
But the feeling of being watched never went away.
As if countless eyes were hidden behind every pane of glass, around every corner, and behind every security camera.
It wasn't until the school gates appeared ahead that the pressure finally eased a little.
The campus at night was so quiet it was nothing like daytime.
There were no lights on the sports field.
The classroom buildings were pitch-black.
Only the security office still glowed with a faint light.
Lin Ye circled around to the side entrance.
The wall was lower here, and plenty of students used to sneak over it.
He stepped onto a concrete pillar with practiced ease.
Braced both hands against the wall.
And climbed over.
He made a faint sound when he landed.
The entire campus once again fell into deathly silence.
His phone lit up.
**22:54.**
Only six minutes remained until eleven.
Lin Ye took a deep breath and headed toward the old library.
It was a four-story red-brick building.
The exterior walls were mottled and weathered.
The windows had been boarded shut.
A cordon had been pulled across the iron doors.
A long-faded sign still hung by the entrance.
**NO ENTRY.**
Lin Ye remembered coming here once when he was in elementary school.
Back then, this had been the school's biggest library.
Then, for some unknown reason, it was closed overnight.
No one ever mentioned why.
As if it had simply been forgotten by everyone, naturally.
He approached the iron doors.
Then suddenly noticed something.
The lock had already been opened.
As if it had been waiting for someone.
Lin Ye hesitated for a second.
Then pushed the door open.
Creeeak—
The iron door let out a grating shriek.
A thick moldy stench rushed at him.
The air was heavy with the smell of rotting paper.
His flashlight came on.
Its yellow beam swept across the surroundings.
Books lay scattered everywhere.
The bookshelves had fallen in every direction.
Rainwater dripped constantly from the ceiling.
The entire building looked as if time had abandoned it for more than a decade.
Just then—
Clack.
The iron door behind him closed on its own.
Lin Ye spun around.
The door was already locked tight.
“Is anyone there?”
No one answered.
Only the sound of dripping water echoed endlessly through the empty lobby.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
His phone suddenly vibrated.
The screen lit up by itself.
There was no notification.
Only an app he'd never downloaded had appeared on the home screen.
A black icon.
In the center was a single white folder.
Two words were written beneath it.
**Archive.**
Lin Ye's pupils contracted.
He had never installed this app.
He hadn't even touched his phone.
Yet the icon opened on its own.
The screen was completely black.
A few seconds later, a line of white text slowly emerged.
> **Beginning user identity verification.**
Then a second line.
> **Memory integrity: 100%.**
A third line.
> **World correction synchronization rate: 0%.**
Lin Ye couldn't make sense of any of it.
The next second, new text appeared on the screen.
> **Verification complete.**
> **Archive backup individual number A-017.**
> **Welcome back.**
Lin Ye went completely rigid.
Welcome...
Back?
Had he been here before?
Impossible.
He had never seen this app.
And he'd never been here before.
Just then, footsteps came from the second floor.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Very slowly.
As if someone were deliberately slowing down.
Coming down the stairs one step at a time.
Lin Ye immediately turned off his flashlight.
He hid behind a collapsed bookshelf.
The footsteps drew closer and closer.
Finally, they stopped on the first floor.
The surroundings fell silent again.
Lin Ye held his breath.
He even deliberately slowed his heartbeat.
Suddenly, a girl's voice rang out in the darkness.
“There's no point hiding.”
“If I wanted to kill you...”
“You'd already be dead the moment you came through the door.”
Lin Ye jerked his head up.
On the other side of the bookshelf stood a girl.
She wore the same high school uniform as he did.
Her black hair fell to her waist.
Her skin was so pale she looked almost bloodless.
Her light-purple eyes were striking in the darkness.
She stood there quietly.
As if she'd known all along that Lin Ye would come.
Lin Ye didn't lower his guard.
“Who are you?”
The girl didn't answer.
She simply looked at him for a long time.
As if confirming something.
A few seconds later, she suddenly smiled softly.
“Just as I thought...”
“You really haven't forgotten.”
She slowly walked closer.
Then stopped less than two yards away from Lin Ye.
After that, she extended her right hand.
“Nice to meet you.”
“I'm Xia Wei.”
“And I'm the only person in this world who's like you.”
Lin Ye didn't take her hand.
“You know Chen Zi'an?”
The girl nodded.
“I do.”
“Then where did he go?”
Xia Wei was silent for a moment.
Her gaze slowly shifted toward the mountains of bookshelves around them.
Her voice was very soft.
“He's not dead.”
“It's just...”
She paused.
Her expression turned more solemn than ever.
“He was deleted by the world.”
Lin Ye's pupils contracted sharply.
“...Deleted?”
Xia Wei nodded.
“Not dead.”
“Not missing.”
“And not vaporized.”
She looked at Lin Ye and said each word carefully:
“His very existence was erased from the world.”
Lin Ye frowned.
“How is that possible?”
“How could a person just disappear into thin air?”
Xia Wei didn't answer right away.
Instead, she crouched down and picked up a photo album covered in dust.
She opened it to a page.
The photo showed a group of students standing on the sports field for their graduation picture.
She handed it to Lin Ye.
“Count them.”
Lin Ye took the photo.
Twelve people in the first row.
Twelve in the second.
The third row...
He suddenly froze.
At the center of the third row was a strange empty space.
It wasn't that no one was standing there.
It was as if a piece of the photograph had been cut away.
The background remained.
The people on either side were still there.
Only the space in the middle was blurred.
“What is this...?”
“The trace left behind after the world was corrected.”
Xia Wei spoke calmly.
“Most people can't see it at all.”
“They just assume the photo was always like this.”
Lin Ye looked at the photo again.
The longer he stared, the stranger it seemed.
There was clearly space where a person should have been.
Yet his brain kept telling him:
**There's nothing wrong.**
Only his rational mind kept reminding him:
Someone...
Should have been standing there.
“Your brain is being corrected.”
Xia Wei suddenly spoke.
“I just don't know why it can't correct you.”
Lin Ye fell silent.
Everything that had happened that day flashed through his mind, scene by scene.
Chen Zi'an.
The milk drink.
The seat.
The photo.
The Academic Affairs system.
Everyone had forgotten.
He alone remembered.
“So...”
Lin Ye slowly raised his head.
“I'm not losing my mind?”
For the first time, Xia Wei gave him a faint smile.
“Congratulations.”
“You've finally started questioning the doctor.”
Lin Ye gave a bitter laugh.
For some reason, hearing that actually made him feel relieved.
At least...
He wasn't crazy.
Xia Wei turned and walked deeper into the library.
“Come with me.”
Lin Ye followed without hesitation.
They made their way through the collapsed bookshelves.
The farther in they went, the better preserved everything became.
There wasn't even any dust on the floor.
As if...
Someone had been using this place all along.
At last, the two of them stopped before a heavy iron door.
A string of strange English was carved into it.
**ARCHIVE ROOM**
The moment Lin Ye approached, the iron door emitted a low mechanical hum.
Click—
Click—
As if it were verifying his identity.
Then the door opened by itself.
Lin Ye froze.
There was no book repository behind it.
Instead, there was a massive circular chamber.
Hundreds of towering bookshelves extended outward in concentric circles.
A gigantic white tree stood in the center.
It had no leaves.
Only countless glowing branches.
A transparent card hung from every branch.
Tens of thousands of them.
Like stars in the night sky.
Lin Ye stared, transfixed.
“What is this...?”
Xia Wei gazed at the tree, her expression growing complicated.
“The Memory Tree.”
“It’s also where Archive stores the world's records.”
She walked over to one of the cards.
Then reached out and touched it.
An image instantly projected into the air.
A little girl ran through a park, chasing bubbles.
Beside her, a couple smiled as they took her picture.
The next second, the image began to shatter.
The couple disappeared.
The girl disappeared too.
In the end, the entire park was empty.
The projection went dark.
Lin Ye's scalp prickled.
“The people just now...”
“They were all Zeroed.”
Xia Wei spoke softly.
“Every time Zeroing occurs, Archive leaves behind one final backup.”
“Because if even this place doesn't have one...”
“That person truly disappears from the world completely.”
Lin Ye looked toward the forest of glowing cards.
A sudden feeling of suffocation seized him.
If every card...
represented someone erased from the world...
Then...
How many people had disappeared?
Just then, a cold electronic voice suddenly rang out through the entire chamber.
> **Warning.**
> **Unauthorized individual detected.**
> **Beginning correction procedure.**
Xia Wei's expression changed instantly.
“Crap.”
“They found us.”
The moment she finished speaking, the entire library began to shake violently.
Boom—!
Large amounts of dust fell from the ceiling.
All the glowing cards began swaying violently.
Then, one black crack after another appeared out of thin air in the center of the chamber.
From within the cracks, figures in long black coats slowly emerged.
They wore pure white masks.
The masks had no features.
Only a pitch-black circle.
As if their faces had been hollowed out.
For the first time, Xia Wei's expression became unmistakably grave.
She said in a low voice:
“Don't look into their eyes.”
“They aren't human.”
Before Lin Ye could react, one of the masked figures slowly raised its head.
From behind the featureless mask came a voice devoid of emotion.
“Abnormal backup detected.”
“Beginning recovery.”
Then all the masked figures looked toward Lin Ye at the same time.
As if...
He was the true target tonight.