Chapter Eight: The Years That Were Taken Away
I didn't say anything right away.
Neither did the woman on the screen.
She only stared into the camera.
The adult Chen Yuzhen looked nothing like the ten-year-old girl in my memories.
Her face was thinner.
Her hair was shorter than before.
Her eyes looked exhausted.
But some things hadn't changed.
Whenever she said “Bro,” her voice rose slightly at the end.
That voice was like a rusted key, forcing its way into some long-sealed place in my mind.
A scene suddenly came back to me.
It was brief.
The two of us were sitting on the floor.
She held a box of jigsaw puzzles, deliberately hiding the last piece behind her back.
I kept asking where she'd hidden it.
She laughed happily.
The next second, the scene broke apart.
I braced myself against the metal cabinet beside me.
Ruoqing immediately came over.
“You remembered?”
“A little.”
“What?”
“The puzzle.”
She clearly didn't understand.
I didn't explain.
I didn't even know whether it was a real memory or something the screen had triggered in my imagination.
I looked up at the ceiling.
“Liao Shihao.”
The intercom didn't answer right away.
“Aren't you watching?”
A few seconds later, his voice came through again.
“I am.”
“I want to talk to her.”
“Not right now.”
“You just said she wanted to see me.”
“Yes.”
“Then let her talk to me.”
“She can see you right now.”
“So?”
“But what you're hearing is prerecorded.”
I stared at the screen.
Sure enough.
Yuzhen was no longer moving in the video.
The image had frozen at the instant she turned around.
“When was this recorded?”
“Today.”
“What time?”
“After you left Taipei.”
“Where is she now?”
“Keelung.”
“Is the address real?”
“Yes.”
“Why should I trust you?”
A soft laugh came through the intercom.
“You don't need to trust me.”
“You only need to decide whether you want your memories back.”
Zhou Jingchuan came to stand beside me.
“Don't touch the equipment here.”
Liao Shihao immediately replied.
“Zhou Jingchuan, you're still as cowardly as ever.”
“Shut up.”
“You said the same thing two years ago.”
I turned around.
“I did something here two years ago?”
Zhou Jingchuan didn't answer.
Liao Shihao answered for him.
“You did.”
“What did I do?”
“Memory restoration.”
I frowned.
“Then why did I lose my memory again afterward?”
“Because after you watched it, you asked Zhou Jingchuan to seal it again.”
Zhou Jingchuan looked grim.
I stared at him.
“Is that true?”
He was silent for a few seconds.
“Yes.”
Anger flared up inside me.
“So you've kept the most important thing from me all day?”
“Because I didn't want you to go through it again.”
“That wasn't your decision to make.”
“That was exactly what you said last time.”
I stopped.
Zhou Jingchuan looked at me.
“Two years ago, you stood here too.”
“You were just as convinced you had to know everything.”
“And then?”
“You watched it.”
“What did you see?”
He didn't answer.
I took a step forward.
“Tell me.”
“I don't know everything.”
“You weren't there?”
“I was in another room.”
“Then how much do you know?”
Zhou Jingchuan looked toward the six machines.
“When you restored the part up to age twenty-six, you started having an emotional breakdown.”
Ruoqing asked quietly, “Why?”
“Because he discovered that finding Yuzhen wasn't the first time.”
I turned around.
“What does that mean?”
Zhou Jingchuan said, “You found her once when you were twenty-two.”
It felt as if all the air had suddenly been sucked out of the room.
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
“Didn't you just say I'd found her?”
“I only saw the restoration records.”
“Yuzhen definitely appeared in the memories you restored that time.”
“And then?”
“When you were twenty-six, you found her a second time.”
I stared at him.
“So she wasn't completely missing all those years.”
“At least not for part of that time.”
“Then why didn't I bring her back either time?”
Zhou Jingchuan said nothing.
But Liao Shihao added through the intercom, “Because she didn't want to come back.”
I looked up.
“Why?”
“That's for you to remember.”
I gritted my teeth.
“You really love telling things one half at a time, don't you?”
“If I told you directly, you'd think I was making it up.”
“Then give me evidence.”
“Sure.”
The huge screen on the wall lit up again.
The image changed to an old recording.
Time:
2017.
That was the year I turned twenty-two.
In the video, I was sitting in a car.
The camera was pointed at me in selfie mode.
There were injuries on my face.
The skin at the outer corner of my right eyebrow was split open.
I was breathing heavily.
“I found her.”
The younger me spoke to the camera.
“But she refuses to come with me.”
I stared at the screen.
The me in the video continued.
“She told me I shouldn't look for her anymore.”
“Because as long as I keep digging, 3741 will never end.”
A pause.
“She told me to forget her.”
My fingers slowly curled into fists.
The me on-screen kept his head lowered for a long time.
When he finally looked up, his eyes were red.
“But I can't.”
The video ended.
I looked toward the place where Liao Shihao's unseen voice was coming from.
“What happened after that?”
“There isn't anything else.”
“What about when I was twenty-six?”
The image changed.
2021.
This time, it was in a hotel room.
I was sitting on the edge of the bed.
I looked a little older than in the previous clip.
The same red cord lay on the table.
I spoke to the camera.
“She ran again.”
“This time, I got the truth out of her.”
My breathing stopped for a moment.
The me in the video continued:
“They're not keeping her locked up.”
“She’s helping them.”
Ruoqing looked up.
Cai Mingzhe froze too.
But Zhou Jingchuan looked as if he'd known all along.
I turned toward him.
“You knew?”
“Only part of it.”
“What does ‘she’s helping them’ mean?”
Liao Shihao said, “Keep watching.”
The me in the video pulled out a sheet of paper.
“3728 became an observer at sixteen.”
“She films other people.”
“And she selects people, too.”
“I don't know whether she's doing it willingly or under coercion.”
“But she knows how the website operates.”
I stared at the screen.
This was completely different from what I'd imagined.
I'd always thought of Yuzhen as a victim.
Filmed.
Taken away.
Hidden.
But by twenty-six, I'd already discovered that she'd become part of the system.
The me in the video continued:
“She told me she didn't disappear back then because she'd been kidnapped.”
“She left with that man of her own accord.”
I couldn't help speaking.
“Which man?”
Liao Shihao replied, “Keep watching.”
The scene cut to another clip.
Security-camera footage.
June 20, 2009.
It was still the day Yuzhen disappeared.
This time, it wasn't the subway platform.
It was outside the station.
Yuzhen walked out through another exit.
She hadn't been grabbed.
No one pulled her along.
She wasn't even running.
A black sedan was parked by the curb.
The door opened.
Yuzhen stood there for a few seconds.
Then she got into the car on her own.
Someone inside reached out.
A wrist came into view.
I spotted the very old black digital watch on it immediately.
The image froze.
Liao Shihao asked, “Do you remember that watch?”
I didn't.
But Cai Mingzhe suddenly said in a low voice, “Xu Wensheng.”
Zhou Jingchuan looked at him.
“Are you sure?”
“I've seen him.”
“He wore this style for years.”
I stared at the screen.
“So Xu Wensheng was the one who took Yuzhen?”
“Very likely,” Liao Shihao said.
“Not very likely.”
“It was him.”
“Evidence?”
“3728's own statement.”
“Where is it?”
“You'll see it after you finish restoring your memories.”
I didn't want him leading me around by the nose anymore.
“Tell me about the equipment first.”
“Can it really bring back memories?”
Zhou Jingchuan answered.
“Partially.”
“How does it work?”
“It doesn't download memories into your brain like in a movie.”
“It uses images, sounds, smells, and environmental cues from your past to stimulate memories that already exist.”
“So if those memories were interfered with—”
“They may open again.”
I looked at the six machines.
“Is it dangerous?”
“Yes.”
“What are the risks?”
“Confusion.”
“Insomnia.”
“Emotional collapse.”
“Misidentifying the source of a memory.”
“In serious cases, you may no longer be able to tell what really happened from what you saw in a recording.”
That was important.
If the restoration process itself could create false memories, I couldn't treat everything I saw next as fact.
“How long did I do this two years ago?”
“More than three hours.”
“How far back did you restore?”
“Most of everything before 2024 was unlocked.”
“Then why did I still choose to have it sealed again?”
Zhou Jingchuan looked at me.
“You saw what happened in 2024.”
“What?”
He was silent for a long time.
“You handed Yuzhen back to Liao Shihao yourself.”
I didn't understand.
“Who did I hand her to?”
“Liao Shihao.”
Cai Mingzhe immediately turned toward the intercom.
“You?”
Liao Shihao didn't deny it.
I stood there.
“Why?”
“That was why you broke down at the end two years ago,” Zhou Jingchuan said.
“You'd always thought you were saving her.”
“But in 2024, you were the one who brought her back to the system.”
A deep buzzing began in my head.
“Why would I do that?”
“I don't know.”
“You—”
“I really don't know!”
It was the first time Zhou Jingchuan had raised his voice.
“After the restoration, you drove me out.”
“When I came back half an hour later, you'd already asked to have the memories sealed.”
“You said only one thing.”
“What?”
“If you remembered Yuzhen, you'd hurt her again.”
I said nothing.
That sentence hurt more than everything else that had come before.
Because it didn't sound like an accusation from someone else.
It was a judgment left behind by my former self.
Ruoqing came to stand beside me.
“Zian.”
I raised a hand, signaling her not to speak yet.
I needed to sort everything out first.
2009.
Yuzhen left with Xu Wensheng.
She later became an observer.
2017.
I found her.
She told me to stop.
2021.
I found her again and learned that she'd become involved with the system.
2024.
I personally sent her back to Liao Shihao.
From 2024 until two years ago, I kept investigating.
I eventually came to this sanitarium.
I restored my memories.
Then I chose to seal them again.
This wasn't a simple rescue story.
Every time I met her, our relationship seemed to be worse than before.
I looked up.
“Liao Shihao.”
“I'm here.”
“In 2024, when I handed her over to you, was it because she asked me to?”
The intercom fell silent.
I caught it immediately.
“Answer me.”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes for a moment.
“Why?”
“She wanted to stop you.”
“Stop me from doing what?”
“Publishing the website.”
“Didn't she hate that thing too?”
“She doesn't hate it.”
I opened my eyes.
“What?”
“3728 doesn't think the way you do.”
Liao Shihao's voice was flat.
“You think being watched is harm.”
“She thinks being watched is protection.”
I frowned.
“Protecting whom?”
“Everyone.”
“Bullshit.”
“Wait until you've restored your memories before you start cursing.”
He sounded completely unconcerned.
“She saw extensive records of crimes on the website when she was a teenager.”
“Domestic abuse.”
“Child abuse.”
“Sexual assault.”
“Fraud.”
“Signs that someone was preparing to kill.”
“She discovered that if someone watched long enough, a lot of things could be stopped before they happened.”
I said bluntly, “That's a surveillance society.”
“She knows.”
“And she still supports it?”
“Partially.”
This finally stopped being a simple story of good versus evil.
Yuzhen hadn't been brainwashed into total obedience.
She might genuinely believe in something.
And I didn't.
That was why we kept ending up on opposite sides.
Ruoqing suddenly asked, “What about Transparency Day?”
“Does she support that too?”
The intercom paused.
“The original version, yes.”
I turned around.
“What?”
“When the system was designed in 2016, 3728 provided information.”
“At the time, she believed that if everyone knew there might be one day when they could be watched, people would restrain themselves more in everyday life.”
Cai Mingzhe let out a cold laugh.
“And it turned into a giant secret-filming festival.”
“Yes.”
Liao Shihao actually admitted it.
“The system became completely corrupted.”
“Then why are you still playing along?”
“I'm not playing.”
“You call putting bounties on people and following them not playing?” Cai Mingzhe snapped.
“That was done by another group of administrators,” Liao Shihao replied.
I immediately asked, “Aren't you the site's primary administrator now?”
“I used to be.”
“Not anymore?”
“No one has complete control of the website anymore.”
That made me stop.
“What does that mean?”
“After 2019, the system was split into many nodes.”
“Different people manage different regions.”
“Temporary permissions are even opened on Transparency Day.”
“So those bounties today weren't yours?”
“No.”
“Then whose were they?”
“I don't know.”
Another I don't know.
But this time, it wasn't an evasion.
The website had grown so large that even the people who created it could no longer control it.
That made more sense—and it was even more frightening.
I looked at the six machines.
“If I do the restoration, how long will it take?”
Zhou Jingchuan said, “At least two hours.”
“Too long.”
“It can't be rushed.”
“Then I won't do the whole thing.”
“I want the 2024 segment.”
“Just the key memories.”
He frowned.
“That carries a higher risk.”
“Why?”
“Because you'll have no context.”
“You could misunderstand what you see.”
“Then start with 2021 through 2024.”
“At least ninety minutes.”
I checked the time.
3:41 p.m.
There were about four hours left on the countdown the website had given me.
The address was in Keelung.
There was enough time for the drive.
“Do it.”
Ruoqing immediately said, “Are you sure?”
“No.”
I looked at her.
“But going to see Yuzhen right now would be more dangerous.”
“At the very least, I need to know why I sent her back last time.”
Zhou Jingchuan didn't try to stop me again.
He walked over to the equipment.
Cai Mingzhe suddenly said, “It's not safe to do this here.”
“The door is locked.”
“And Liao Shihao is controlling everything.”
The intercom immediately replied, “If I wanted to hurt him, I wouldn't need to wait until now.”
Cai Mingzhe looked up.
“You think I'm going to believe that?”
“You don't have to.”
I cut him off.
“Cai Mingzhe.”
He looked at me.
“Guard the door for me.”
“Ruoqing, stay here.”
“Zhou Jingchuan, operate the equipment.”
“Liao Shihao.”
“Yeah?”
“Turn off all the livestreams.”
He gave a short laugh.
“I can't shut down the entire network.”
“The ones here.”
A few seconds of silence passed.
The red indicator lights on the wall went out one by one.
The upper-right corner of the screen displayed:
“LOCAL FEED OFFLINE.”
I didn't completely trust it.
But it was a start.
Zhou Jingchuan pulled out a chair.
“Sit.”
I sat down.
He took out a headset.
It wasn't completely light-blocking.
There were two small displays inside.
He put the headphones on me.
Then he attached sensors to my wrist.
“I won't give you any drugs,” he said.
“Only visual, auditory, and light stimulation.”
“If you can't take it, tell me to stop.”
“What if I can't tell what's real?”
“Don't rush to judge.”
“Tell me everything that comes to mind.”
“I'll record it.”
I nodded.
Ruoqing stood directly in front of me.
She squeezed my hand.
I didn't pull away.
“I'm right here,” she said.
Zhou Jingchuan began counting down.
“Three.”
“Two.”
“One.”
White light flared inside the headset.
First came the house from 2009.
The living room.
The kitchen.
My childhood bedroom.
Yuzhen's laughter.
Then the images began flashing rapidly.
2017.
A parking garage.
I saw a somewhat older Yuzhen standing behind a pillar.
I called her name.
She turned around.
My chest contracted violently.
I wasn't watching a video.
My memory was coming back.
I remembered the smell.
The gasoline fumes in the basement.
I remembered the gray coat she was wearing.
I remembered rushing over and hugging her.
And I remembered that her first words weren't “Bro.”
They were:
“How did you find me again?”
The image jumped.
2021.
A hotel.
She was sitting on the edge of the bed, crying.
We were arguing.
She said:
“You don't understand at all.”
“If no one watches, a lot of people would already be dead.”
I replied:
“That doesn't mean you can treat everyone like a criminal.”
She looked at me.
“I'm not watching everyone.”
“I'm looking for people who will hurt others.”
The image jumped again.
2024.
A rainy night.
I was driving.
Yuzhen sat in the passenger seat.
Her hands were covered in blood.
It wasn't hers.
I asked, “Who died?”
She didn't answer.
I asked again.
Finally, she said, “Number 4189.”
“Who killed him?”
She looked out the window.
“I did.”
My heartbeat instantly went haywire.
In the real world, Zhou Jingchuan's voice came through the headphones.
“Zian, breathe.”
I couldn't pay attention to him.
The memory continued.
The car stopped in front of a warehouse.
Liao Shihao walked out.
The 2024 version of me got out of the car.
I opened the passenger door.
Yuzhen didn't resist.
She only said to me, “Bro, don't look for me again. Please.”
I grabbed her.
“You killed someone.”
She nodded.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he was going to kill three people today.”
“How did you know?”
She looked at me.
“I watched him for eight years.”
I froze.
She continued.
“The police can't arrest someone just because he looks like he's going to kill somebody.”
“But I knew.”
“So you killed him first?”
“Yes.”
I remembered being completely unable to accept it.
“This isn't protection.”
“This is you deciding who gets to live.”
Yuzhen cried.
But she didn't deny it.
“That's why I can't leave.”
“I know I've crossed the line.”
“Let them keep me here.”
I looked at Liao Shihao.
“You're going to lock her up?”
“She asked to be isolated,” Liao Shihao said.
Yuzhen grabbed my hand.
“Bro.”
“I'll hurt someone again.”
“Don't take me with you.”
And then—
I really did let go.
She went inside with Liao Shihao.
That was what it meant for me to “hand her back.”
It wasn't betrayal.
And it wasn't because I had hurt her.
She had killed someone.
And I didn't know how to save a sister who had already become a perpetrator.
The memory suddenly cut off.
I gasped for air.
Zhou Jingchuan removed the headset.
The red lights of reality came back into view.
Ruoqing was crouching in front of me.
“What did you see?”
I didn't answer right away.
My hands were still shaking.
“She really killed someone.”
The room fell silent.
Zhou Jingchuan asked, “Which one did you remember?”
“4189.”
His expression told me he already knew.
“Did that person really die?”
“Yes.”
“Yuzhen killed him?”
“The police never caught the killer.”
“But she admitted it herself.”
“Yes.”
I asked, “Did the investigation later confirm that 4189 really planned to kill someone?”
Zhou Jingchuan was silent for a moment.
“That’s what makes this so complicated.”
“What do you mean?”
“After his death, the police found three sets of tools in his home.”
“Restraints.”
“Knives.”
“Schedules for three people.”
“And a crime plan that had already been written.”
I said nothing.
“So she was right,” Ruoqing whispered.
“Yes,” Zhou Jingchuan answered.
“But she still killed someone.”
That was where Yuzhen had gotten stuck.
She wasn't a madwoman killing at random.
She might really have prevented three people from being killed.
But the way she did it made her the judge.
And this observation system had given her an extremely dangerous kind of power.
Watch someone for eight years.
Know everything they do.
Everything they search for.
Everything they prepare.
Finally know what they're going to do before the police do.
Then decide the outcome yourself.
I finally understood why I'd broken down in 2024.
I'd always wanted to save Yuzhen from those people.
Only to discover in the end that she wasn't trapped inside the system.
She believed in the system.
She'd even gone farther than the people who built it.
“There’s more,” I suddenly said.
“What?”
“I still haven't seen why I chose to seal my memories two years ago.”
Zhou Jingchuan looked toward the equipment.
“Do you want to continue?”
I checked the time.
4:58 p.m.
There were about three hours left.
“Continue.”
This time, we followed only what happened after 2024.
The headset went back on.
White light.
Images.
2025.
I was back at the same sanitarium.
Yuzhen wasn't being isolated.
She was working.
She sat in front of more than a dozen screens, watching different people's lives.
I shouted at her, “You promised you wouldn't do this anymore.”
She didn't turn around.
“I can't stop.”
“Why?”
“Because 4189 wasn't the only one.”
She clicked open a list.
A row of identification numbers.
Some had notes beside them:
“High risk.”
“Action imminent.”
“Intervention complete.”
I said, “Turn them over to the police.”
She replied, “There isn't enough evidence.”
“Then keep gathering evidence.”
“By the time there's enough to arrest them, some people will already be dead.”
I had no answer.
She finally turned around.
“Bro.”
“If you knew today that a man was going to kill a child tomorrow.”
“You were ninety-nine percent certain.”
“But the police couldn't arrest him.”
“What would you do?”
The me in the memory didn't answer.
Yuzhen smiled faintly.
She looked exhausted.
“You see?”
“You don't know either.”
The image changed.
Two years ago.
I came to the sanitarium again.
This time, I wasn't there to save her.
I was going to shut down the entire system.
I'd stolen the master data and was preparing to make it public.
Yuzhen stopped me.
She said:
“Once you make it public, everyone who's being watched will know.”
“They have the right to know.”
“That includes the high-risk subjects.”
“It includes abusers, stalkers, and people preparing to kill.”
“They'll disappear immediately.”
“Change their identities.”
“Erase the evidence.”
I said, “That's not a reason.”
She asked me, “Then can you accept the people who will die after that?”
I didn't answer.
Then came the truly important memory.
I saw a folder in the master system.
Its name was:
“3741 PROJECTION.”
I opened it.
There were no secret-filming videos inside.
It was a predictive model.
Using every image, choice, relationship, and emotion from my past seventeen years, the system had built a behavioral model of me.
It could predict what I would do in different situations.
Accuracy:
93.7%.
I saw one entry:
“If 3741 learns that 3728 is continuing high-risk interventions.”
“Prediction: 74% chance of assisting 3728.”
“18% chance of exposing the system.”
“8% other.”
I didn't believe it.
So I looked through the previous records.
It had guessed right about me again and again.
When I would start investigating again.
When I would go to 4-1.
When I would choose to seal my memories.
It had even predicted when I would start dating Ruoqing.
Everything had been predicted.
The final entry.
Date.
Transparency Day, 2026.
“3741 will restore his memories again.”
“Prediction: will go to 3728.”
“High probability of taking over observation permissions.”
I stared at that line in the memory.
Then I made a decision.
I found Zhou Jingchuan.
“Seal it.”
He asked, “Which part?”
I said, “Everything.”
“Even Yuzhen?”
I was silent for a long time.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I answered, “Because I don't want to know whether that final prediction will come true.”
The memory ended there.
The headset suddenly went black on its own.
It wasn't Zhou Jingchuan who stopped it.
All the equipment lost power at once.
The basement was plunged into darkness.
The next second, the emergency red lights came back on.
The voice on the intercom was no longer Liao Shihao's.
It was a woman's voice.
I knew who it was without needing an introduction.
Chen Yuzhen.
She was really online.
“Bro.”
This time, it wasn't prerecorded.
Her voice was trembling.
“Don't watch anymore.”
I stood up.
“Where are you?”
“Don't come to Keelung.”
“Why?”
“Because that address is fake.”
Everyone froze.
I asked, “Who posted it?”
“I did.”
“Why would you—”
She cut me off.
“I was trying to lure you away.”
“But they changed my location status.”
“Who?”
She was silent for two seconds.
“The people who really control today's Transparency Day.”
I frowned.
“Not Liao Shihao?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Yuzhen was breathing hard.
Knocking sounded in the background.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
She lowered her voice.
“The prediction you saw two years ago wasn't the most frightening part.”
“There was another line you didn't finish reading.”
“What?”
The pounding outside the door grew heavier.
She spoke quickly:
“The model predicted that you'd take over the system not because you'd eventually believe in it.”
“Then why?”
She paused for a moment.
“Because before eight tonight—”
“I'll be dead.”
It felt as if a hand had suddenly crushed my heart.
“Where are you really?”
She didn't give me an address.
She only said:
“Bro.”
“If I die.”
“You'll definitely want to find the killer.”
“And they know—”
“As long as you want to find someone.”
“You'll need the eyes of the entire world.”
The connection abruptly cut out.
Static returned to the intercom.
The screen lit up on its own.
The countdown on the black website was gone.
In its place was a new title.
“Transparency Day Final Event.”
Below it was a time.
8:00 p.m.
And one line:
“3741 takeover countdown: 2 hours 57 minutes.”