Shen Yuchuan stared at the numbers on the table.
13.
12.
11.
They weren't moving.
At least, not on the surface.
But for some reason, he had a powerful feeling—
The countdown had already begun.
He just didn't know whether it was counting down time or the existence of certain people.
“What happened to that person just now?”
Xiaoyu asked.
Shen Yuchuan didn't answer.
He looked around the room.
The windows were closed.
So was the door.
Other than the two of them, there wasn't a third person here.
But that voice had been too real.
Too real to be a hallucination.
“He said he was the first person the world forgot.”
Xiaoyu slowly sat down.
“Do you believe him?”
“I don't know.”
“Then what do you believe?”
Shen Yuchuan looked at her.
“I believe one thing.”
“What?”
“This didn't start yesterday.”
Xiaoyu fell silent.
Shen Yuchuan picked up his notebook.
“I thought everything started three days ago, with Chen Boyu.”
“But it doesn't look that way now.”
He flipped back through the earlier pages.
August 1.
August 2.
August 3.
There was a name on every day.
And suddenly, he noticed something he had completely missed before.
There was a tiny black dot beside every name.
He held the notebook closer to the light.
The dots weren't ink.
They looked like some kind of mark.
Some names had one black dot beside them.
Some had two.
Some had already become three.
“What is this?”
Xiaoyu asked.
“I don't know.”
Shen Yuchuan took out his phone and snapped a picture.
The moment the screen focused on the notebook, the image suddenly went black.
The phone froze.
He pressed the buttons several times.
Nothing happened.
“Your phone broke too?”
“Yeah.”
Xiaoyu took out hers.
Same thing.
Black screen.
They looked at each other.
The room was silent for several seconds.
Then Shen Yuchuan suddenly stood.
“We're leaving.”
“Where?”
“School.”
Xiaoyu froze.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“Didn't you say we'd go tomorrow?”
“We can't wait.”
Shen Yuchuan grabbed his jacket.
“If that notebook is real, then Xu Qing and Zhou Zihao have already disappeared.”
“I need to confirm it.”
“Confirm what?”
“Whether they still exist.”
5:43 A.M.
The city hadn't fully woken up yet.
Only a few street sweepers rolled slowly down the streets.
Shen Yuchuan and Xiaoyu walked along the roadside.
Neither of them said a word the entire way.
Not until they reached an intersection.
Xiaoyu suddenly stopped.
“Shen Yuchuan.”
“Yeah?”
“Have you noticed something?”
“What?”
“We've been walking for almost twenty minutes.”
“Yeah.”
“But I'm not tired at all.”
Shen Yuchuan stopped too.
He had noticed it as well.
Under normal circumstances, it should have taken at least thirty minutes to walk from home to school.
But they had walked for twenty minutes and were already near the school.
Even stranger—
There wasn't a single person along the way.
No breakfast shops.
No taxis.
No early-rising commuters.
The entire street looked hollowed out.
“What time is it?”
Shen Yuchuan checked his watch.
05:43.
Xiaoyu looked toward the roadside.
“Then why is it still dark?”
Shen Yuchuan looked up.
The sky was still pitch-black.
There was no dawn.
No first light.
Even the clouds looked frozen in place.
A bad feeling suddenly came over him.
“We might not be in the original timeline.”
“What do you mean?”
“That man from before made time rewind to midnight.”
“You mean...”
“The time we're seeing now might not be real.”
Xiaoyu didn't say anything else.
They continued forward.
The school gate was just ahead.
The iron gate was open.
The guard booth beside it was lit.
Shen Yuchuan walked over.
He knocked on the glass.
No one answered.
He pushed the door open.
There wasn't anyone inside.
A cup of tea sat on the desk.
It was still warm.
Beside it lay a newspaper.
Shen Yuchuan picked it up.
Date:
August 17.
He froze.
Today was supposed to be August 16.
“Isn't today the sixteenth?”
Xiaoyu asked.
“I don't know.”
Shen Yuchuan turned the newspaper over.
There was only one story on the front page.
No photo.
No reporter's name.
Only a single headline.
“Person Twelve Disappears.”
Shen Yuchuan's fingers instantly went rigid.
“Person twelve?”
Xiaoyu came over.
“Wasn't it thirteen?”
Shen Yuchuan didn't answer.
He read on.
The article was only a few short lines.
“3 A.M.”
“Another resident of the city has disappeared from all public records.”
“Police are currently unable to confirm the person's identity.”
“To date, twelve residents have exhibited the same condition.”
The final sentence read:
“Police urge the public not to attempt to search for those who have disappeared.”
Xiaoyu stared at the sentence.
“Why?”
Shen Yuchuan didn't answer.
Because he thought of the notebook.
13.
If the newspaper said twelve people had disappeared,
then the next one—
would be number thirteen.
And the last name to appear in the notebook
was his.
“We need to hurry.”
Shen Yuchuan stuffed the newspaper into his bag.
“To the classroom.”
Senior Year, Class Seven was on the third floor.
But after Shen Yuchuan entered the school building, the farther he walked, the more wrong everything felt.
All the class signs on the walls had no names.
Only numbers.
The room on the far right of the third floor should have been Senior Year, Class Seven.
Now it had become:
307.
“Has your school always been like this?”
Xiaoyu asked.
“No.”
Shen Yuchuan answered.
“There used to be class names here.”
He walked up to the door.
It wasn't locked.
He pushed it open.
Inside was an ordinary classroom.
The desks and chairs were neatly arranged.
Yesterday's chalk writing was still on the blackboard.
But there were no students.
No teacher.
Even the schedule on the wall had vanished.
Shen Yuchuan walked to the last row.
He remembered his seat.
By the window.
Second from the back.
Zhou Zihao had sat beside him.
He pulled out the chair.
There was no name on the desk.
No carvings.
Nothing at all.
“Zhou Zihao really did disappear,”
Shen Yuchuan murmured.
Xiaoyu walked to the blackboard.
She stared at it for a long time.
“Shen Yuchuan.”
“Yeah?”
“Look.”
There was a line of writing in the lower-right corner of the blackboard.
Very small.
Like something a student had written in secret.
“Don't let them find out you still remember.”
Shen Yuchuan walked over.
“Who are they?”
Xiaoyu shook her head.
There was a second sentence on the blackboard.
“After 3 A.M., all memories are fake.”
A third sentence.
“If someone says they remember you, don't believe them.”
Shen Yuchuan suddenly thought of the mysterious man.
He had said:
“You shouldn't remember her.”
“She isn't the second.”
“She is the Zero.”
Could it be...
Was the “remembering” he had mentioned actually a trap?
Shen Yuchuan turned to Xiaoyu.
She was looking at him too.
Their eyes met.
She suddenly asked,
“Do you believe me?”
Shen Yuchuan didn't answer right away.
“Why are you asking that?”
“Because the blackboard says not to trust anyone who remembers you after 3 A.M.”
“But I met you before 3 A.M.”
“Are you sure?”
Shen Yuchuan froze.
Xiaoyu slowly approached him.
“When did you first see me?”
“At the convenience store.”
“What time?”
“2:57.”
“How do you know?”
Shen Yuchuan hesitated.
“Because I checked the time.”
“Do you remember my face?”
“Yes.”
“Then do you remember where I was before I entered the convenience store?”
Shen Yuchuan fell silent.
He didn't remember.
“Do you remember how I knew your name?”
“...No.”
“Do you remember why I picked up that bottle of water?”
“No.”
Xiaoyu drew closer, one step at a time.
“You don't even know where I came from.”
“No.”
“Then why do you believe me?”
Shen Yuchuan said nothing.
Xiaoyu looked at him.
“Because you're afraid of being alone.”
The words were a knife.
They stabbed straight into Shen Yuchuan's heart.
He suddenly thought of his mother.
Chen Boyu.
Zhou Zihao.
Xu Qing.
One after another.
He was afraid of everyone disappearing.
So when Xiaoyu appeared, he instinctively held on to her.
Because she was the only person who could still talk to him.
But that didn't mean—
she really existed.
“Who are you?”
Shen Yuchuan asked.
Xiaoyu didn't answer.
She simply turned around.
Then she walked to the blackboard.
She reached up and erased the third sentence.
“If I tell you,”
she said with her back to Shen Yuchuan,
“you might regret it.”
“I've regretted plenty already.”
“Then you still want to know?”
“Yes.”
Xiaoyu slowly turned around.
“I didn't first meet you at the convenience store.”
Shen Yuchuan frowned.
“Then where?”
“In this classroom.”
“What?”
“Right here.”
She looked around.
“Ten years ago.”
Shen Yuchuan froze completely.
“Ten years ago?”
“Back then, I still had a name.”
“What was it?”
Xiaoyu was silent for a long time.
“Su Wanqing.”
Shen Yuchuan's pupils contracted.
That name...
He felt as if he had seen it somewhere.
Not now.
A long time ago.
A scene suddenly flashed through the depths of his mind.
A classroom.
Summer.
Afternoon sunlight.
A girl asleep with her head on the windowsill.
Someone placed a drink on her desk.
When she woke up, she smiled and said:
“Shen Yuchuan, you stole my stuff again.”
Shen Yuchuan clutched his head.
A violent headache suddenly struck.
“Ah—!”
He collapsed to his knees.
Xiaoyu immediately crouched beside him.
“What happened?”
“I... saw it.”
“Saw what?”
“You.”
“Where?”
“In this classroom.”
Xiaoyu's expression changed.
Shen Yuchuan gasped for breath.
“You weren't meeting me for the first time.”
“No.”
“We knew each other before.”
“Yes.”
“Then why don't I remember?”
Xiaoyu didn't answer.
Because she knew the answer.
“Because you've already forgotten me once.”
Shen Yuchuan looked up.
“What?”
“Ten years ago.”
“You remembered me back then.”
“And then...”
She looked at her hands.
“You forgot.”
Shen Yuchuan stared at her blankly.
“Why?”
“Because I died.”
The air went instantly still.
“You... died?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Ten years ago.”
“How did you die?”
Xiaoyu said nothing.
A bird suddenly cried outside the window.
Then, all at once,
every window in the classroom slammed shut.
Bang!
Shen Yuchuan shot to his feet.
“What happened?”
Xiaoyu looked up.
Her face was pale.
“He's here.”
“Who?”
“The first one.”
The classroom's back door slowly opened.
Creak—
A man stood in the doorway.
He wore a black coat.
His face was impossible to make out.
He didn't come inside.
He only stood there.
“Long time no see.”
Shen Yuchuan stared at him.
“Who are you?”
The man let out a laugh.
“You really don't remember?”
Shen Yuchuan fixed his eyes on him.
The man reached up and slowly removed his hat.
At last, his face was revealed.
Shen Yuchuan's breath stopped.
That face...
He had seen it before.
In a photo.
In the notebook.
In those memories the world had erased.
Chen Boyu.
“Impossible.”
Shen Yuchuan backed away.
“Didn't you already disappear?”
The man smiled.
“I did disappear.”
“Then why are you still here?”
“Because I'm not the first.”
“What?”
Chen Boyu looked at Xiaoyu.
“She is.”
Xiaoyu's body went rigid.
Shen Yuchuan turned to her.
“You said...”
“I didn't lie.”
Xiaoyu's voice was low.
“I really did die ten years ago.”
Chen Boyu slowly walked into the classroom.
“But death is only the first stage.”
“True disappearance is when everyone forgets you.”
Shen Yuchuan looked at him.
“What about you?”
Chen Boyu smiled.
“I'm waiting.”
“For what?”
“For the world to forget the last person.”
“Who?”
Chen Boyu raised his hand.
He pointed at Shen Yuchuan.
“You.”
Shen Yuchuan's heart sank.
“Why me?”
Chen Boyu didn't answer.
Instead, he took another notebook from his pocket.
It had a black cover.
It was exactly like the one in Shen Yuchuan's hand.
He opened it.
The first page had only one name.
Su Wanqing.
The second page.
Chen Boyu.
The third page.
Xu Qing.
The fourth page.
Zhou Zihao.
Shen Yuchuan stared at the names.
“You wrote all of them down?”
“No.”
Chen Boyu shook his head.
“They wrote me down.”
Shen Yuchuan didn't understand.
“What does that mean?”
Chen Boyu handed him the notebook.
The last page.
There was no name.
Only a photo.
The photo showed a group of children.
One of them was Xiaoyu.
Another was Shen Yuchuan.
But...
There was also someone in the photo whom he didn't recognize at all.
Someone standing at the very edge, their face painted over in black.
Written on the back of the photo were the words:
“The Zero.”
Shen Yuchuan looked up.
“Who is the Zero?”
Chen Boyu didn't answer.
He only looked at Xiaoyu.
Xiaoyu closed her eyes.
“Him.”
“Who?”
“It's not a person.”
Shen Yuchuan froze.
“Then what is it?”
Xiaoyu opened her eyes.
“A memory.”
“A memory... that eats people.”
At that moment,
every light in the classroom flickered at once.
New writing suddenly appeared on the blackboard.
It wasn't written in chalk.
Line by line, it seeped out from inside the blackboard.
12.
11.
10.
Shen Yuchuan stared at the numbers.
“The countdown has started again.”
Chen Boyu shook his head.
“No.”
“This isn't a countdown.”
“It's the number of people remaining.”
Shen Yuchuan froze.
“What?”
Chen Boyu looked at him.
“When the last person is forgotten,”
“the world will start over.”
“And you—”
He paused.
“Are the last person in this cycle.”
A girl's sob suddenly came from outside the classroom.
Shen Yuchuan turned around.
Xiaoyu was gone.
Only the spot where she had been standing remained.
A photo lay on the floor.
In the photo,
the girl was slowly turning transparent.
Shen Yuchuan rushed over.
“Xiaoyu!”
The girl in the photo raised her head.
Her lips moved slightly.
Shen Yuchuan couldn't hear her.
But he understood what she was saying.
“Don't forget me.”
The next second,
the girl in the photo disappeared.
Nothing remained but a blank white space.
Shen Yuchuan gripped the photo.
He stood frozen in place.
Chen Boyu walked up behind him.
In a low voice, he said,
“You still have ten people you can save.”
Shen Yuchuan turned around.
“What if I can't save them?”
Chen Boyu looked at him.
“Then it'll be your turn.”
“And this time...”
He smiled.
“No one will remember you.”
Outside the classroom,
the bell suddenly rang.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Shen Yuchuan looked up.
The clock on the wall read:
02:59.
One minute left.
The world was about to lose someone again.
And this time—
he had no idea who it would be.
Chapter Three—End