I stared at the photo on my phone.
Zhou Jingchuan was standing in my bedroom.
That silver-and-black case was sitting on the desk.
He wasn't looking at the camera.
And he didn't look like he was hiding, either.
It was more like he was deliberately standing there, waiting for someone to take his picture.
I zoomed in on the photo.
The bed.
The curtains.
The nightstand.
Everything was real.
That was my home.
And the angle was from the same camera that didn't belong to Cai Mingzhe's system—the one from this morning.
"He's at my place right now."
I said it out loud.
Cai Mingzhe stood up immediately.
"You can't go back."
I turned to him.
"Why not?"
"Because he's waiting for you."
"Then I have even more reason to go back."
"If you go back now, you're following the exact same path you took two years ago."
I frowned.
"What do you mean?"
Cai Mingzhe walked over to another computer and quickly switched between files.
"After you left Four-One two years ago, the first place you went was home."
"Didn't you say I got into the accident not long after I left?"
"There were still forty minutes in between."
"Why didn't you mention that just now?"
"Because I didn't know where those forty minutes went."
He opened a file.
"It wasn't until last year that we found an old backup of a private parking-lot security recording."
The footage appeared.
The date was Transparency Day two years ago.
6:43 p.m.
I walked out of the entrance to a residential building.
I recognized the place.
It was the building we lived in now.
I was wearing the same black T-shirt from the photo.
The white envelope was still in my hand.
But I was walking unsteadily.
Like I was drunk.
I braced myself against the wall and stopped for a few seconds.
Then I raised my head and looked at the camera.
There was no expression on my face.
The next second, the me on-screen suddenly started laughing.
It wasn't a happy laugh.
It was the kind of laugh someone gave when they finally learned something.
I stared at the video.
"What happened next?"
Cai Mingzhe dragged the timeline forward.
6:47 p.m.
I walked into the parking lot.
6:50 p.m.
I rode away on my scooter.
7:02 p.m.
Another traffic camera caught me.
7:06 p.m.
The accident.
"So how long was I home?"
"About twenty-five minutes."
"What happened inside?"
"There was no footage."
"What about the camera in my apartment?"
"You had already turned it off by then."
"When did I turn it off?"
"After you went back."
I looked at Zhou Jingchuan in the photo on my phone.
"So someone was waiting for me at home two years ago, too?"
Cai Mingzhe didn't answer.
Ruoqing did.
"It's possible."
I turned toward her.
"You were there then, too?"
"No."
"Then how do you know?"
"Because after you were discharged, one thing was missing from the apartment."
"What?"
She looked at the photo of the silver-and-black case.
"A piece of equipment you used to keep in your own possession."
It took me a moment to process that.
"Something like this?"
"Not something like it."
She paused.
"This exact one."
The room suddenly fell silent.
I looked at the photo.
"Are you sure?"
"I checked the serial number."
Cai Mingzhe frowned.
"You never told me."
Ruoqing looked at him.
"I only found out later, too."
"When?"
"Last year."
"Who told you?"
She didn't answer.
I looked at her.
"Zhou Jingchuan?"
She nodded.
I couldn't help giving a short laugh.
"So you've been in contact with him for a year?"
"Not constantly."
"How often?"
"It wasn't regular."
"Did he contact you, or did you contact him?"
"Both."
"You kept it from me?"
"Yes."
She answered so directly that I suddenly didn't know how to get angry.
"Are you helping me, or are you helping him?"
Ruoqing looked at me.
"I want you to live a normal life."
"Normal?"
I pointed at the wall of screens.
"My home has been rigged with cameras for more than ten years, my girlfriend has been secretly contacting the person secretly filming me, and now someone is sitting in my home waiting to make me forget everything. You call that normal?"
"That's why I didn't want you to start investigating again."
"That's not your decision to make."
"I didn't make the decision."
Her voice suddenly rose.
"You did!"
I stopped.
Ruoqing walked over to me.
"Before what happened two years ago, this wasn't the first time you wanted to stop."
"What do you mean?"
"You stopped once when you were twenty-four."
I frowned.
"I don't remember that."
"You stopped again at twenty-six."
"I don't remember that, either."
"Because every time you stopped, you went on to live a normal life for a while."
She looked at me.
"Then one day, you'd see a photo, a video, or an account, and start investigating all over again."
"So what?"
"So this isn't the first time you've forgotten."
Those words brought me to a complete halt.
"What did you say?"
Cai Mingzhe turned toward us too.
From his expression, he clearly hadn't known.
I stared at Ruoqing.
"Explain."
She took a breath.
"Two years ago wasn't the first time you experienced a gap in your memory."
"How many times?"
"At least three times that I know of."
"Which three?"
"At twenty-two, twenty-six, and twenty-nine."
I was thirty-one this year.
That meant every few years, I lost another stretch of memory related to this whole thing.
"Were they all connected to Zhou Jingchuan?"
"I don't know."
"Weren't you in contact with him?"
"He only admitted to the incident two years ago."
I seized on that immediately.
"He admitted it?"
Ruoqing nodded.
"He said he really did perform memory interference on you two years ago."
Cai Mingzhe swore.
"You didn't tell us until now?"
"I had no proof."
"He admitted it to you. How is that not proof?"
"It wasn't recorded."
"You could've at least told me."
"What good would that have done?"
Ruoqing turned toward him.
"After Zian woke up two years ago, his first request was that we stop investigating. All of you agreed."
"That was because we thought the accident had caused his memory loss."
"But it didn't."
I cut them off.
"Wait."
They both looked at me.
I pointed at Ruoqing.
"Zhou Jingchuan said I agreed to it myself?"
"Yes."
"I agreed to let him alter my memories?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
She shook her head.
"He wouldn't say."
I immediately thought of the Zero Video.
When I was fourteen, I had arranged for someone to follow and film me.
Until they captured me discovering it.
This whole thing had never looked like a simple case of victim and perpetrator.
I looked more like I was chasing a trap I had set for myself.
And every time I got close to the answer, I cut away my own memories again.
"That equipment."
I looked at the photo.
"If it really can interfere with memory, why is it back in my home now?"
No one answered.
I checked the time.
11:14.
Forty-six minutes remained until midnight.
I suddenly thought of the man who delivered the letter.
He said he'd been waiting for me for two years.
And the middle-aged man buying breakfast at the mouth of the alley.
"Leave before noon."
"Because after noon, they won't be filming the apartment anymore."
"They'll be filming the people who leave."
I took out my phone and opened the anonymous account.
"This noon deadline wasn't random."
Cai Mingzhe looked at me.
"What do you think will happen at noon?"
"I don't know."
"Then we can't just wander out."
I shook my head.
"No."
I looked toward the black website.
"Check today's uploads."
Cai Mingzhe sat back down.
The profile page was still on 3741.
The latest video count had increased again.
2,871.
Seven more had appeared in just a few minutes.
There was footage of me entering Four-One.
Footage of me watching the Zero Video.
Footage of me arguing with Ruoqing.
Every clip was from a different angle.
Someone was filming inside this building.
There wasn't just one camera.
I clicked "Live."
A huge number of different IDs appeared.
Pedestrians.
Couples.
The elderly.
Delivery drivers.
I scrolled down.
A category tag suddenly caught my eye.
"12:00 EVENT"
I stopped.
"What's this?"
Cai Mingzhe leaned over.
Forty-seven subject IDs had been placed in this category.
3741 was one of them.
I clicked it open.
There was only a countdown on the page.
00:43:12.
Below it, three lines read:
"This year's subjects: 47"
"Reclaimed: 0"
"Public release rate: 12%"
I frowned.
"What does 'reclaimed' mean?"
Cai Mingzhe shook his head.
"I've never seen this page before."
"This is the first time?"
"Yes."
Ruoqing said quietly,
"It wasn't there last year."
I scrolled down.
All forty-seven IDs had names after them.
Some were real names.
Some were only nicknames.
I found 3741.
"Chen Zian."
Status:
"Awakened."
The next field read:
"Awaiting reclamation."
My hand stopped on the mouse.
"Awakened?"
Ruoqing looked at me.
"It might refer to you seeing the Zero Video."
I opened several other profiles.
Some had the status "Not awakened."
Others said "Refused."
Some said "Lost contact."
Two were marked in red.
"Reclamation failed."
I clicked one of them.
A video popped up.
A middle-aged woman was running through a subway station.
Someone was chasing her.
The footage shook violently.
The date was last year's Transparency Day.
At the end of the video, she ran into the crowd.
Then the camera cut out.
At the very bottom of the data page, it said:
"Death confirmed the following day."
Cause of death:
"Fall from a building."
Ruoqing gripped the edge of the desk.
I clicked another one.
A man in his twenties.
He left a building at 12:07 p.m. last year.
The footage cut out at 12:22.
He died the next day.
A traffic accident.
My mind instantly went to myself two years ago.
Leaving.
Going home.
Going back out.
The accident.
"Was I reclaimed two years ago, too?"
No one spoke.
I opened my old records.
I searched for "reclamation."
Nothing.
Then I searched the dates of Transparency Day.
2016 through 2025.
There were thousands of videos.
I quickly noticed a pattern.
Every year, some subjects would suddenly leave their usual surveillance zones around noon.
Then the footage would switch to following and observing them.
Some people made it through the day safely.
Some had accidents.
Some people's files were changed to "Completed" the next day.
"Completed doesn't mean the filming ended."
I said it.
Cai Mingzhe stared at the screen.
"It means they died."
I clicked the "Completed" category.
Sure enough.
Hundreds upon hundreds of subject files.
Each one had a start year and an end year.
The final footage was usually an accident.
A fall from a building.
Drowning.
Sudden death.
Disappearance.
There were even suicides.
I suddenly understood why Transparency Day had existed for so many years without anyone exposing this.
Every death looked reasonable when viewed by itself.
One day a year.
Tens of millions of people across Taiwan.
A few dozen accidents wouldn't draw any attention.
And the following itself was legal.
You couldn't even prove that the people filming had anything to do with the deaths.
"This isn't a secretly filming website."
I said.
"They're picking people."
Cai Mingzhe opened one of the subject profiles.
"They've been observing them for a long time."
Ruoqing looked at the list of forty-seven names.
"Then why these people this year?"
I looked back through the data.
The observation start time was different for every subject.
Some had been watched for two years.
Some for five.
Some for more than ten.
But they all had one thing in common.
This year, every one of their statuses had changed to "Awakened."
I opened the profile of a man named Zhang Yuhao.
"Awakening content: childhood videotape."
Another one.
"Awakening content: anonymous letter."
Another.
"Awakening content: lost photograph."
I looked at mine.
"The Zero Video."
An idea surfaced in my mind.
"They didn't just find us today."
"They followed and filmed us for years, then waited until one day to throw the earliest evidence back at us."
Cai Mingzhe continued.
"To make the subjects start investigating."
"Exactly."
I stared at the screen.
"That's what 'awakening' means."
Ruoqing asked,
"Then what does 'reclamation' mean?"
I had no answer.
My phone rang at that exact moment.
It wasn't an anonymous account.
It was Gao Wei.
I'd almost forgotten about him.
I answered.
"Hello?"
"Where the hell are you?"
His voice was urgent.
"What is it?"
"Did you go to that apartment on Songjiang Road?"
I looked out the window.
"How do you know?"
"Someone's looking for you."
"Who?"
"No idea. A whole bunch of people."
"What do you mean?"
"My friend just saw a job posted on the Transparency Day platform."
"What kind of job?"
"Film you."
I said nothing.
Gao Wei continued.
"Someone's offering money."
"How much?"
"Five thousand every time someone gets you on camera."
I looked at Cai Mingzhe.
"Two hundred thousand if they can film you leaving that apartment at noon."
I asked immediately,
"Who posted it?"
"Anonymous."
"Which platform?"
"A bunch of them."
"Send me the link."
"One of them's already been taken down. There are others."
A message popped up on my phone.
I opened it.
The page title was brutally direct.
"3741 Live Bounty."
The photo showed me leaving home that morning.
Reward:
Five thousand for a standard photo.
Ten thousand for entering a vehicle.
Two hundred thousand for leaving the designated Songjiang area.
Thirty thousand every ten minutes for continued following and observing after noon.
The final line was in red:
"NO CONTACT."
I stared at those four words.
They weren't trying to capture me.
They weren't trying to hurt me.
They only wanted to film me.
Gao Wei was still on the phone.
"Zian, did you piss off someone important?"
"Where are you now?"
"Near Taipei Main Station."
"Don't come here."
"Fuck, of course I'm not coming."
He paused.
"But I just saw something even crazier."
"What?"
"Someone posted old pictures of you."
"What year?"
"Middle school."
I clenched my teeth.
"What else?"
"Someone said you were the first test subject of Transparency Day."
My breath caught for a beat.
"Who said that?"
"No idea. The comments keep getting deleted."
I immediately looked at Cai Mingzhe.
"The first test subject."
His expression changed.
Ruoqing had heard it, too.
I asked Gao Wei,
"Send me the original post."
He screenshotted it quickly.
The comment contained only two lines.
"3741 isn't an observer."
"He's Transparency Day's earliest test subject."
Someone below had asked:
"Testing what?"
The anonymous account replied:
"Testing whether a person will change their life after learning they're being watched."
I stared at the words.
When I was fourteen, I had arranged for someone to follow and film me.
Until they captured me discovering it.
Suddenly, all of it had a terrifying explanation.
Maybe I wasn't looking for the person secretly filming me.
Maybe I'd known from the beginning that someone would film me.
Maybe I'd even agreed to it.
"Cai Mingzhe."
I turned around.
"Why was I in that room in 2009?"
"I don't know."
"You really don't know, or you're afraid to tell me?"
He looked at me.
"I hadn't joined the website yet."
"What about Zhou Jingchuan?"
"He might know."
"Then I'm going home."
Cai Mingzhe immediately said,
"No."
"He's there right now."
"Then you definitely can't go."
I picked up the memory card from the desk.
"What happens at twelve if I don't go?"
"At least you're still somewhere we can control."
"You can control this?"
I pointed at the wall of cameras.
"Hundreds of people outside have put a bounty on filming me, and you're telling me you can control things?"
He had no answer.
I looked at Ruoqing.
"When you saw him this morning, did he mention noon?"
She thought carefully.
"No."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
I started toward the door.
Ruoqing grabbed me.
"You can't go back alone."
"Then come with me."
She froze.
"Didn't you keep saying you wanted to protect me?"
I looked at her.
"Then come with me now."
She didn't refuse.
Cai Mingzhe swore and started gathering his things, too.
"I'll drive."
I looked back.
"You're coming, too?"
"If you die, then the past ten-plus years of my work will have been for nothing."
It was a harsh thing to say.
But at least it sounded more honest than "I'm doing this for your own good."
11:26.
The three of us left Four-One.
The moment we reached the stairs, I knew something was wrong.
The entire apartment building was too quiet.
The cameras at the stairwell landings were still there.
But there wasn't a sound behind any of the doors.
When we reached the third floor, one of the doors suddenly opened.
I stopped immediately.
A young woman in her twenties stepped out.
When she saw us, she wasn't surprised.
She simply raised her phone and took my picture.
Click.
I ignored her.
Someone opened a door on the second floor.
An old man.
Click.
The first floor.
Two men stood at the entrance.
They were filming, too.
We walked out through the metal security gate.
The entire side alley looked completely different from before.
There were at least thirty people.
Some had cameras.
Some had phones.
Some had live-streaming equipment set up.
They were all waiting.
The moment I appeared, the shutter sounds suddenly grew dense.
Click-click-click-click-click.
There was no screaming.
No chase.
The silence was far more disturbing.
Everyone was simply filming.
Like a rare animal had suddenly walked out of its cage at the zoo.
Ruoqing moved closer to me.
"Don't talk to anyone."
Cai Mingzhe's car was parked at the mouth of the alley.
We moved forward.
The crowd automatically parted.
But the cameras never stopped following us.
Every step I took, someone stepped backward to keep their distance.
No contact.
They were really following the rule.
When we reached the car, a young man suddenly shouted,
"3741!"
I turned around.
He looked like an ordinary college student.
"Do you remember June 20, 2009?"
I didn't answer.
Another woman shouted,
"Are you really going back at noon?"
I paused.
"Going back where?"
She smiled.
"You don't know?"
I took one step toward her.
She immediately backed away.
"Where?"
She held up her phone.
"The starting point."
"What starting point?"
She didn't answer.
She only looked at the time.
11:31.
"You're almost out of time."
Cai Mingzhe opened the car door.
"Ignore her."
I got into the back seat.
Ruoqing followed me in.
The car pulled away.
More than a dozen scooters immediately followed us.
There were two cars, too.
Cai Mingzhe looked in the rearview mirror.
"These people are insane."
I said,
"They're not insane."
"Two hundred thousand."
"It's perfectly normal."
The car turned onto a main road.
More and more people joined the pursuit.
I opened the black website.
Twenty-eight minutes remained on the countdown.
3741's status updated.
"In transit."
It even displayed our approximate location.
"They know where we're going."
Ruoqing said,
"Your phone?"
I turned off location services.
It didn't help.
The status kept updating.
"No."
Cai Mingzhe glanced at the rearview mirror.
"It's the people outside."
Every person following us was a free GPS tracker.
There was no way to shake them.
11:42.
We were about ten minutes from home.
My phone suddenly received a message from Zhou Jingchuan.
The first one.
It wasn't from an anonymous account.
His name appeared directly.
"Zhou Jingchuan."
I didn't know how he had my number.
The message contained only one sentence:
"Don't bring Cai Mingzhe upstairs."
I looked up at the front seats.
A second message arrived immediately.
"And don't let Lin Ruoqing touch that equipment."
I looked at Ruoqing beside me.
A third message.
"If you still trust them, what happened two years ago will happen again."
I replied,
"Who are you, really?"
His answer came almost immediately.
"Someone who's kept your promise for seventeen years."
I stared at the words.
"What promise?"
He sent me a photo.
2009.
Fourteen-year-old me.
Zhou Jingchuan stood beside me.
A document lay in front of us.
The photo was too blurry to make out the contents.
But the signature at the bottom was clear.
My name.
Chen Zian.
Written in my fourteen-year-old handwriting.
Zhou Jingchuan sent another message.
"Come back before midnight."
"This time, you get to decide whether you want to know why you started 3741 back then."
I checked the time.
11:47.
We were almost home.
The car turned onto a familiar street.
From far away, I could already see the building entrance packed with people.
At least a hundred.
Phones.
Cameras.
Live-streaming rigs.
Every lens turned toward us at once.
Cai Mingzhe muttered a curse.
The car stopped.
I opened the door.
The crowd automatically formed a path.
No one touched me.
No one even moved too close.
They only filmed.
Step by step, I walked toward the entrance.
The countdown on my phone read:
00:11:46.
Eleven minutes and forty-six seconds.
Before I entered the lobby, I looked back.
Everyone on the street was watching me.
Then I suddenly saw the young man in the black vest who had been the first to film me in the alley in Chapter One.
He was in the crowd, too.
I walked toward him.
Ruoqing tried to grab me.
I dodged her.
"You knew from the beginning?"
He looked at me.
He wasn't smiling.
"I knew some of it."
"What happens at twelve?"
He was silent for two seconds.
"It's not about what will happen."
"Then what is it?"
"It's about what you'll do."
I frowned.
He raised his phone.
The screen showed a live-stream announcement.
Title:
"3741: The Final Choice of Year Seventeen"
Start time:
12:00.
I looked at him.
"Who started the stream?"
"I don't know."
"Where is it streaming?"
"Everywhere."
"What's the content?"
He looked toward our building.
"Your home."
I immediately turned around.
11:52.
The elevator went up.
None of the three of us—me, Ruoqing, or Cai Mingzhe—said a word.
When we reached my door, it wasn't locked.
I pushed it open.
The living-room light was on.
Zhou Jingchuan was sitting at the dining table.
He was in his fifties, wearing glasses, with graying hair.
He looked much older than he had in the photos.
The silver-and-black case was sitting on the tabletop.
He looked up at me.
His first words weren't an introduction.
"You remembered sooner than I expected again."
Cai Mingzhe stepped forward.
"Zhou Jingchuan."
Zhou Jingchuan looked at him.
"Didn't I tell you not to bring him here?"
I closed the door.
"Cut the crap."
"What was that thing from 2009?"
Zhou Jingchuan glanced at the time.
11:54.
"Are you sure you want to know now?"
"I came back to hear it."
He opened the case.
Inside wasn't the medical equipment I had imagined.
On top was an old laptop.
Under it was a pair of headphones.
And a device that looked like an eye mask.
He took out a document sealed in plastic and placed it in front of me.
"June 20, 2009."
"You were fourteen."
"You volunteered for a behavioral study."
I picked up the document.
Study title:
"The Effects of Long-Term Awareness of Being Observed on Personality and Behavioral Decision-Making."
I looked down.
Subject ID.
3741.
My name.
My signature.
But the guardian field was blank.
"How could this be valid if I was a minor?"
I asked.
Zhou Jingchuan said,
"Legally, it obviously wasn't."
"Then why did you do it?"
"Because this wasn't a formal study."
"Then what was it?"
He looked at me.
"An experiment you proposed yourself."
No one spoke in the room.
"I proposed it when I was fourteen?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because you wanted to prove something."
"What?"
He opened the old laptop.
The screen lit up.
It showed a recording from 2009.
Fourteen-year-old me was sitting in front of the camera.
Unlike the Zero Video, this time I knew I was being recorded.
The younger me looked into the camera.
His first words were:
"If you're watching this, it means you've forgotten again."
My hand slowly tightened.
The boy on-screen continued.
"It's okay."
"Forgetting was part of the plan."
Ruoqing sucked in a breath beside me.
Even Zhou Jingchuan wasn't looking at us.
He was only staring at the video.
Fourteen-year-old me said:
"Starting today, I'll have people film me constantly."
"But the ordinary version of me won't know."
"Every so often, someone will show me the footage."
"We'll record whether my life starts to change after I learn I'm being watched."
"If the change is too drastic, make me forget and start over."
I felt as if I had been nailed to the spot.
The boy in the video paused for a few seconds.
Then he smiled.
"I want to know what a person's real self is: who they are when no one is watching, or who they are when they know someone is."
"I'll do it many times."
"Until the result stops changing."
I looked at Zhou Jingchuan.
"So for seventeen years?"
He nodded.
The video continued.
"There's one last rule."
"Every time I rediscover 3741, if I decide to stop, then I really stop."
"If I decide to continue, then this life becomes part of the record, too."
I asked quietly,
"Did I ever choose to stop before?"
Zhou Jingchuan answered,
"Every time."
I froze.
"What?"
"At twenty-two, you said stop."
"At twenty-six, you said stop."
"At twenty-nine, you said stop, too."
"But every few years, you found the clues again on your own."
"We weren't the ones awakening you."
I immediately pointed at the website.
"Then why does it say 'awakened'?"
"The website isn't controlled by the same people anymore."
"What does that mean?"
Zhou Jingchuan looked at Cai Mingzhe.
"That's why I told you not to bring him here."
Cai Mingzhe's expression darkened.
"What are you trying to say?"
"After 2018, the original observation data was leaked."
"Someone turned this experiment into entertainment."
I understood at once.
"Underground websites?"
"Not just those."
Zhou Jingchuan continued,
"Then the Transparency Day system appeared, giving these people the perfect cover."
"They started choosing other people and replicating 3741."
The list of forty-seven subjects.
The pieces instantly fell into place in my mind.
"So those people never agreed to it?"
"No."
"Only I did?"
"At first, yes."
I looked at the countdown on the black website.
00:02:11.
Only two minutes left.
"Then what is twelve o'clock?"
For the first time, Zhou Jingchuan's expression turned grim.
"This year, they're going to release your complete file."
"What?"
"Seventeen years."
"Every video."
"Every record of memory interference."
"Every life you've forgotten."
My phone vibrated.
The countdown changed to one minute.
Zhou Jingchuan pushed the old laptop toward me.
"So you have only two choices now."
"First."
"I perform the interference one more time."
"You leave this place and go back to living your life."
"Second."
He looked at me.
"You press play yourself."
A file appeared in the center of the screen.
"3741_Full Version."
Size:
18.7 TB.
"Once you finish watching, you can never return to the life you're living now."
Ruoqing stepped up beside me.
"Zian, don't watch it."
But Cai Mingzhe said,
"Watch."
I looked at him.
Zhou Jingchuan sneered.
"Of course you want him to watch."
"Once that data is released, your people will get the biggest traffic spike of their lives."
Cai Mingzhe's expression changed.
"Don't you dare—"
Midnight struck.
Every phone rang with a notification at the same time.
Mine.
Ruoqing's.
Cai Mingzhe's.
Zhou Jingchuan's.
Even the crowd below sent up a massive chorus of alert tones.
The livestream had begun.
Viewers:
31,482.
Five seconds later.
84,103.
Ten seconds.
170,000.
A line of white text appeared on-screen.
"SUBJECT 3741"
"Final stage begins."
The next second, the livestream switched.
It wasn't our living room.
It was an old video I'd never seen before.
Date:
June 19, 2009.
The day before the experiment began.
Fourteen-year-old me was standing in a hospital hallway.
A little girl stood beside me.
She was about ten.
She was holding my hand.
The footage was blurry.
But the moment I saw her face, something exploded inside my head.
I knew her.
I had to know her.
But I couldn't remember her name.
In the video, the little girl looked up at me and asked,
"Big brother, what if you forget me one day?"
Fourteen-year-old me looked down at her.
"Then I'll find a way to remember you again."
The video froze.
The livestream chat exploded.
And at that exact moment, the title changed.
It was no longer "3741: The Final Choice of Year Seventeen."
Instead, it read:
"Why Did Chen Zian Volunteer to Be Secretly Filmed for Seventeen Years?"
A second line appeared beneath it.
"Answer: To find someone the entire world forgot had ever existed."