Shen Yuchuan learned for the first time that when someone was forgotten by the world, they didn't disappear right away.
At least, not physically.
She was still standing in front of him.
Still breathing.
Still crying.
She could even hold his hand.
But her name was already gone.
As if someone had reached into some invisible place in the world and taken away a puzzle piece.
And everything connected to that puzzle piece was being erased, little by little.
“What’s your name?”
Shen Yuchuan asked again.
The girl looked at him.
She opened her mouth.
No sound came out.
After a long time, she shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“Where’s your phone?”
She handed it to him.
Shen Yuchuan took it.
The lock screen showed a photo of the beach.
There was only a blurry figure seen from behind.
He opened her contacts.
Twenty-seven contacts.
No notes.
No family.
No friends.
Nothing that could prove her identity.
He opened her album next.
There were more than four hundred photos.
Scenery.
Food.
Streets.
The sky.
The ocean.
But she wasn't in a single one of them.
Shen Yuchuan frowned.
“That’s impossible.”
The girl didn't answer.
“You should at least have some selfies on your phone, right?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about your social media accounts?”
“I don’t know.”
“Student ID?”
“Don’t have one.”
“Wallet?”
“…Don’t have one.”
The more Shen Yuchuan asked, the more terrified he became.
She hadn't lost her memory.
Because even someone with amnesia at least knew what they didn't know.
But her current state was more like—
Her life was being deleted.
Not all at once.
Little by little.
First her name.
Then her photos.
Then her contacts.
And finally, she might even forget who she had once been.
Shen Yuchuan glanced at the time.
3:18 A.M.
Eighteen minutes had passed since 3 A.M.
Suddenly, something occurred to him.
“Do you still remember me?”
The girl raised her head.
“I remember.”
“What’s my name?”
“Shen Yuchuan.”
She answered quickly.
Shen Yuchuan let out a breath of relief.
At least someone still remembered him.
“What about you?”
The girl fell silent.
“I…”
She lowered her head.
“I don’t know.”
Shen Yuchuan looked at her.
“Let’s leave first.”
“Where are we going?”
“My place.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to confirm something.”
“What?”
Shen Yuchuan picked up his notebook.
“I need to find out where Mom really went.”
After he said that, the girl didn't ask anything else.
The two of them left the convenience store.
The rain outside had eased up a little.
The street was deserted.
The streetlights stretched their shadows long across the ground.
After walking a few dozen yards, Shen Yuchuan suddenly stopped.
The girl nearly ran into him.
“What is it?”
Shen Yuchuan looked behind them.
The convenience store was still there.
But its sign had changed.
It had clearly said FamilyMart before.
Now there was only a blank white sign.
Not a single word on it.
He walked back.
He pushed open the door.
The doorbell rang.
Ding—
There wasn't a single person inside.
The shelves were still there.
The drinks were still there.
The register was still there.
But every brand name had vanished from every product package.
As if someone had erased all the words from the world.
The girl stood in the doorway.
“This place…”
“What about it?”
“I think I’ve been here before.”
Shen Yuchuan turned around.
“When?”
The girl knitted her brows.
“I don’t know.”
She walked over to the coffee machine.
She reached out and touched it.
“I think I used to come here every night.”
“Alone?”
“No.”
“With who?”
The girl fell silent.
She began rubbing her temples.
“I don’t know.”
Shen Yuchuan looked at her.
“You might have lived around here before.”
The girl shook her head.
“But I don’t remember.”
“It’s okay,” Shen Yuchuan said.
“We’ll look for the answers slowly.”
The girl looked up at him.
“Why are you helping me?”
Shen Yuchuan froze for a moment.
He didn't know the answer to that question either.
Maybe it was because she was the only person still standing beside him.
Maybe it was because he didn't want to watch another person disappear.
Or maybe…
He was simply afraid.
Afraid that if even she disappeared,
then he really would be next.
“Because I don’t want you to disappear,” he said.
The girl stared at him for a long time.
“But you don’t even know my name.”
“Then we’ll find it.”
“What if we can’t?”
“Then we’ll give you a new one.”
The girl smiled for the first time.
It was faint.
“How good are you at coming up with names?”
“Terrible.”
“Then I might end up being a really weird person.”
“It’s okay,” Shen Yuchuan said.
“You don’t have a name right now anyway.”
The girl lowered her head.
Her smile gradually softened.
“Then for now… call me Xiaoyu.”
“Xiaoyu?”
“Because it’s been raining all day.”
Shen Yuchuan thought about it.
“Sure.”
“What about you?”
“Don’t I already have a name?”
“I mean…”
The girl raised her head.
“If one day everyone forgets you,
what would you want me to call you?”
Shen Yuchuan fell silent.
The question sent a strange chill through him.
He looked at her.
“Shen Yuchuan.”
“Hm?”
“As long as you still remember, call me Shen Yuchuan.”
Xiaoyu nodded.
“Okay.”
The two of them walked out of the convenience store.
Neither of them noticed.
The sign above the door behind them quietly disappeared at that very moment.
4:12 A.M.
Shen Yuchuan returned home.
The living room lights were off.
He stood in the entryway without going in right away.
At this hour, Mom would have been asleep already.
There should still have been a glass of warm water on the living-room table, half-finished from where she had been drinking it.
There should have been clothes she'd only folded halfway on the couch.
The TV remote should have been in its usual spot.
The fridge should still have been full of fruit she'd bought.
Those things should all have been there.
But now—
The living room was terrifyingly empty.
The table was still there.
The couch was still there.
The fridge was still there.
But there was nothing to prove that a woman had ever lived here.
Shen Yuchuan walked to the fridge.
He opened it.
Only a few bottles of water remained inside.
He clearly remembered that the top shelf had always held the yogurt Mom bought.
The second shelf had cut fruit.
There had been homemade pickles at the bottom.
All of it was gone.
“Where’s your mom?” Xiaoyu asked from the doorway.
Shen Yuchuan didn't answer.
He walked to the bedroom.
He opened Mom's closet.
Empty.
There wasn't a pillow on the bed.
There was nothing in the drawers.
Even half the hangers were gone.
As if she had never lived there.
Shen Yuchuan stood in the middle of the room.
Suddenly, he felt cold.
“She really disappeared.”
Xiaoyu said nothing.
Shen Yuchuan sat down on the edge of the bed.
“She was still here yesterday.”
“Yeah.”
“She told me to go to bed early last night.”
“Yeah.”
“She even asked if I wanted to come home for dinner tomorrow.”
“Yeah.”
Shen Yuchuan lowered his head.
“But now…”
He couldn't finish.
Xiaoyu walked over.
She sat beside him.
The two of them stayed silent for a long time.
Finally, Xiaoyu asked, “Have you ever thought that maybe she didn't disappear?”
Shen Yuchuan raised his head.
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe everyone just forgot her.”
“What difference does that make?”
“It makes a difference.”
Xiaoyu looked at him.
“If she was only forgotten, then she might still be somewhere.”
Shen Yuchuan shot to his feet.
“Right.”
He suddenly remembered the notebook.
“There has to be somewhere.”
He spread the notebook open.
“If this thing knows who will disappear, then it has to know where they went.”
Xiaoyu looked at the pages.
“Have you found the answer?”
“Not yet.”
Shen Yuchuan began turning the pages.
One page.
Two pages.
Three pages.
They were all dates.
3 A.M. every day.
Each page had one name.
But strangely, most of the names belonged to people he didn't know.
August 1—Wang Zhiming.
August 2—Zhou Yi'an.
August 3—Li Chengyu.
August 4—Zhang Yating.
All the way to August 15.
Shen Yuchuan stopped.
There was only one name on that page.
Someone he didn't know.
Chen Boyu.
Shen Yuchuan's breathing stopped instantly.
“It’s him.”
“Who?” Xiaoyu asked.
“The person I told you about before.”
“The one in the photo?”
“Yeah.”
He quickly flipped back through the earlier dates.
August 10.
August 9.
August 8.
Every page had a name.
But he had never known any of those people.
Suddenly, something occurred to Shen Yuchuan.
“If Chen Boyu disappeared on August 15…”
He flipped to August 16.
The first name written there was:
Shen Yuchuan's mother.
The second:
Blank.
The third:
Shen Yuchuan.
“What about August 14?” Xiaoyu asked.
Shen Yuchuan flipped to the previous page.
The name was:
Xu Qing.
He froze.
“Xu Qing?”
“You know her?”
“She was my college classmate.”
Shen Yuchuan immediately pulled out his phone.
He opened his contacts.
Searched.
Nothing.
He opened his messaging app.
Nothing.
Social media.
Nothing.
Photos.
Nothing.
Shen Yuchuan went completely rigid.
“Impossible.”
Xiaoyu looked at him.
“She disappeared?”
Shen Yuchuan didn't answer.
He started flipping backward.
August 13.
The name:
Zhou Zihao.
The color drained from Shen Yuchuan's face.
Zhou Zihao.
His best friend from high school.
From high school through college, they had been in touch almost every day.
He immediately called him.
“Brrring—”
The call connected.
Shen Yuchuan's heart pounded wildly.
“Hello?”
A man's voice came from the other end.
Shen Yuchuan froze.
“Zihao?”
“You've got the wrong number.”
The other person hung up.
Shen Yuchuan called again.
This time, the phone was turned off.
He stood where he was.
The phone slowly slipped from his palm.
Xiaoyu walked over.
“He doesn't remember you either?”
“No.”
Shen Yuchuan shook his head.
“It’s this number…”
“What about it?”
“It used to be his.”
“And now?”
Shen Yuchuan stared at the screen.
“Now it belongs to someone else.”
He finally understood.
People forgotten by the world didn't simply disappear.
The traces they had left behind would be replaced by the world.
Phone numbers would change owners.
Houses would change owners.
Social media accounts would vanish.
Photos would be rearranged.
Everyone would accept it all as perfectly natural.
Everyone except him.
Only Shen Yuchuan still remembered.
“Why?” Xiaoyu asked.
“Why are you the only one who remembers?”
Shen Yuchuan had no answer.
But then he suddenly remembered something else.
His notebook.
Where had this notebook come from?
He remembered seeing it for the first time three days ago.
But…
He didn't remember buying it.
He didn't remember who had given it to him.
He didn't even remember when it had appeared in his room.
Shen Yuchuan flipped to the back.
On the inside of the back cover, he felt something hard.
He tore open the lining.
A photo was hidden inside.
It showed a classroom.
Written on the blackboard were the words:
Senior Year Class 7.
A lot of students stood inside the classroom.
The teacher was at the front.
At the back…
Shen Yuchuan saw himself.
And Chen Boyu.
And Zhou Zihao.
And Xu Qing.
But the strangest thing was—
There was also a girl standing in the corner of the photo.
She wasn't looking at the camera.
Her head was lowered.
Long hair covered half her face.
Shen Yuchuan turned the photo over.
There was a line of writing on the back.
“Don’t trust anyone who still remembers you after 3 A.M.”
Xiaoyu's face changed the instant she saw the sentence.
“Who wrote this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know the girl in the photo?”
Shen Yuchuan stared at the photo.
“I don’t.”
Xiaoyu fell silent.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“But…”
She pointed at the photo.
“She’s wearing the same clothes I am.”
Shen Yuchuan's head snapped up.
The girl in the photo.
She was wearing a gray hoodie.
Exactly the same as Xiaoyu's.
His hands began to tremble.
“Impossible.”
Xiaoyu took the photo.
She studied it for a long time.
“Who is she?”
Shen Yuchuan didn't answer.
Because the girl's face in the photo was becoming clearer and clearer.
The profile that had originally been hidden by her hair gradually emerged.
Her nose.
Her lips.
Her eyes.
And finally—
Her entire face came into focus.
Shen Yuchuan stared at the photo.
His whole body went rigid.
The person in the photo.
It was Xiaoyu.
Exactly the same.
Xiaoyu saw it too.
She took a step back.
“That’s me?”
Shen Yuchuan nodded.
“But…”
Xiaoyu looked at the picture of herself.
“Why would I be in your high school classroom?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where did I go to high school?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did I know you before?”
“I don’t know.”
Her breathing grew rapid.
“Then who am I?”
Shen Yuchuan grabbed her shoulders.
“Calm down.”
“How am I supposed to calm down?”
She shouted at Shen Yuchuan for the first time.
“At least you know who you are!”
“What about me?”
“I don’t even have a name!”
Shen Yuchuan froze.
Tears spilled down Xiaoyu's cheeks.
“What if I never existed in the first place?”
“What if someone created me just to make you believe this?”
“What if I’m not even human?”
Shen Yuchuan said nothing.
Because he had thought about it too.
But he refused to admit it.
Xiaoyu wiped away her tears.
“Are you starting to suspect me too?”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“Then why do you keep staring at my hand?”
Shen Yuchuan lowered his head.
Only then did he notice the black line that had appeared on the back of Xiaoyu's hand.
It looked like ink.
Starting at her wrist,
it slowly extended up her arm.
“What is this?” Shen Yuchuan asked.
Xiaoyu lowered her head.
“I don’t know.”
The black line was moving.
Little by little.
Like some kind of countdown.
Shen Yuchuan suddenly remembered the notebook.
He quickly flipped to the last page.
Beside the original three names, another line had appeared at some point.
“She isn’t the second.”
Shen Yuchuan stared at the sentence.
There was another line beneath it.
“She is zero.”
Xiaoyu walked over beside him.
“What does zero mean?”
Shen Yuchuan shook his head.
He turned to the next page.
This time,
for the first time, the notebook contained a complete passage.
Not a name.
Not a date.
A sentence.
“If you can read this, it means you’ve already begun remembering people who never existed.”
Shen Yuchuan's hand stopped.
The next sentence:
“That’s why I chose you.”
He jerked his head up.
“Me?”
The next sentence:
“You aren’t the only one who remembers.”
Shen Yuchuan's heart gave a heavy thump.
“There are others?”
Xiaoyu moved closer.
The two of them kept reading.
The final line contained only six words.
“Find the person at 3 A.M.”
The room was silent except for the ticking clock.
4:59 A.M.
Shen Yuchuan raised his head.
The clock on the wall suddenly stopped.
The second hand didn't move.
The minute hand didn't move.
The hour hand didn't move either.
The entire room seemed to have been paused.
The next second,
the clock on the wall suddenly began moving backward.
4:59.
4:58.
4:57.
Time was moving in reverse.
Shen Yuchuan stood up.
“Xiaoyu.”
“Yeah?”
“Look.”
The clock kept counting backward.
3 A.M.
2 A.M.
1 A.M.
Finally, it stopped at:
00:00.
All the lights went out at once.
In the darkness,
a man's voice came from the corner of the room.
“Shen Yuchuan.”
Shen Yuchuan spun around.
“Who are you?”
No one answered.
The voice sounded again.
Closer than before.
“You shouldn’t remember her.”
Shen Yuchuan shielded Xiaoyu.
“Who the hell are you?”
A low laugh came from the darkness.
“Me?”
“I’m the first person the world forgot.”
Shen Yuchuan's heart stopped instantly.
“You…”
The voice said:
“And you are the thirteenth.”
The lights came back on.
There was no one in the room.
Only the notebook on the table had been flipped to the last page.
The original list was gone.
In its place was a new countdown.
13
12
11
Shen Yuchuan stared at the numbers.
Suddenly, he understood.
3 A.M. wasn't the beginning.
It was the end.
The real countdown—
was only starting now.
And the first person the world forgot was waiting for him.
Chapter Two—The End