The trees of Returnwood do not lie.
The first time Yao heard those words, she was seven years old. Her father had told her.
It had just rained, and the soil was black with moisture. Wearing a pair of boots that were too large for her, she stepped into the forest, each footfall going squelch, squelch. Her father walked ahead, a short ax slung over his shoulder, his boots caked with mud. Every so often, he looked back to make sure she was still following.
“Why can’t they lie?”
She had asked him that then.
Her father stopped.
In front of them stood a very old tree. Its trunk was so wide that three people couldn’t have wrapped their arms around it. Deep black fissures split the bark again and again, like the lines on an old person’s face.
Her father pressed his palm against it.
“Because people forget.”
Yao copied him and placed her hand on the bark.
It was cold.
“Trees don’t?”
“Trees forget too.”
She looked up, confused.
Her father smiled.
“But trees forget more slowly than we do.”
Yao hadn’t understood then.
She only remembered that her father’s hand was very large, covering the back of hers, his palm carrying the scent of wood shavings and smoke.
The wind blew through.
The leaves rustled.
Her father said softly:
“As long as there’s still one tree that remembers you, you haven’t truly disappeared.”
Twelve years later, Yao stood before a tree that should not have existed.
The first thing she thought of was still that sentence.
The rain had been falling for three full days.
A thin layer of moss covered the stone steps outside Returnwood. One careless step could send someone sliding. Few people came in the afternoon. The gatekeeper sat beneath the eaves, drinking hot tea, and only raised his eyes when Yao passed.
“Today isn’t a memorial day.”
“I know.”
“The rain’s heavy.”
“I know.”
The old man watched her for a while, but in the end he didn’t ask anything else.
Returnwood did not forbid people from entering.
The dead were buried here.
Or, more precisely—the last stretch of memory they left behind was buried here.
After a person died, a seed would gradually condense beneath the breastbone. Some said it was the soul. Others said it was merely the residue death left behind. Yao had never believed in souls, but she believed in memory seeds.
She had seen one.
Twelve years ago, after her father died, she had held that seed.
At least, she remembered holding it.
Gray-white, about the size of her thumb, with a fine crack across its surface.
Later, that seed was buried in Returnwood.
After that, she never saw it again.
Because that was the year the fire happened.
The authorities called the fire “the Cleansing.”
Yao hated the name.
As if giving it a clean word meant the people burned to ash hadn’t died, the houses that collapsed hadn’t been destroyed, and the fire that raged through the forest for seven straight days had been nothing more than some necessary cleanup.
Her father died in that fire.
That was what everyone said.
And that was what she had always believed.
Until three days ago.
“Has anyone gone into the eastern section lately?”
Yao asked the forest ranger when she reached a fork in the path.
The young ranger frowned.
“Which section?”
“The old forest closure line.”
“There’s no path there.”
“There used to be.”
“Used to is used to.”
He gave her an irritated look.
Yao said nothing more.
She had known since childhood that some questions, asked twice, only made people start remembering you.
So she continued along the main path. Only after the ranger’s footsteps faded behind her did she step over the slick stone wall and slip into a patch of drooping ferns.
The fire twelve years ago had not completely destroyed the eastern forest.
That was something the official records rarely mentioned.
Most people thought only scorched earth remained there.
In reality, the forest had grown back.
It had simply grown back strangely.
The deeper she went, the thinner the new trees became, while their branches and leaves grew so dense she could barely see the sky. Rainwater fell through the gaps, dripping onto Yao’s hair and shoulders.
She followed the route by memory.
A fallen old oak on the left.
A dried-up stream ahead.
Beyond that, she should see a boundary stone split in two.
She stopped.
The stone was still there.
Moss covered the writing. Only two words could be made out:
No Entry.
Three days ago, she had come here for the first time.
She had only been looking for an old set of forest-planting records.
Instead, she found a line of fresh footprints behind the boundary stone.
Someone had come in before her.
She followed the footprints.
And then she saw the tree.
Today, she had come back.
Because she had not slept a single night in the past three days.
The tree stood ahead.
It was different from every tree around it.
Too straight.
Too tall.
Its bark was an almost black brown, yet there was barely any moss on its branches, as if someone cleaned it regularly.
Strangest of all, no other plants grew around it.
Within five paces in every direction, the ground was covered only by a layer of damp fallen leaves.
Yao stood where she was.
Even though this was her second time here, she still had the absurd feeling that it was waiting for her.
She slowly approached.
Near the base of the trunk was a mark carved by a knife.
Two characters.
Lu Heng.
Her father’s name.
Three days ago, when she saw those characters, her first thought was that someone was playing a prank.
Then she crouched down to examine the carving.
It wasn’t new.
The bark had already grown inward around the wound. It had existed for at least ten years.
Then she did the one thing she should never have done.
She measured the circumference of the tree.
She cut off a small piece of dead branch.
Finally, near the roots, she found an old wound where lightning had once split the tree open.
The crack exposed the wood inside.
She counted the tree rings.
Once.
Eleven.
A second time.
Eleven.
She had even gone home for a magnifying glass and counted them again today.
Still eleven.
Yao stood in the rain, staring at it for a long time.
Her father had been dead for twelve years.
A tree grown from her father’s memory seed could not be only eleven years old.
Unless—
She forced herself to stop the thought before it could go any further.
The forest was quiet.
Yao suddenly remembered why she hadn’t touched the tree three days ago.
Because she was afraid.
She had never admitted it.
But now she had to.
She was afraid of seeing her father.
A memory tree left behind by the dead was not the same as the person himself.
It was only a memory.
And memories could not answer questions.
You could only watch.
You could only accept the stretch of time the dead had chosen to leave behind.
Some people left behind their weddings.
Some left behind wars.
For some, the last thing they remembered before dying was an ordinary dinner.
She had once seen a woman’s memory—the woman was lying in bed, but what she remembered was her mother brushing her hair when she was eight years old.
People never knew what they would leave behind in the end.
So what about her father?
What had her father remembered last?
Yao raised her hand.
It stopped less than an inch from the bark.
Rainwater ran down her wrist.
She remembered the last morning her father had left home twelve years ago.
He had crouched down to tie her scarf.
She thought it was too tight and kept tugging at it.
Her father said the wind was strong outside.
Angrily, she threw the scarf onto the ground.
That was the last time she saw him.
If this tree was real—
She swallowed.
Then she pressed her palm against it.
The world suddenly went silent.
Not quiet.
Every sound was ripped away.
The rain vanished.
The wind vanished.
Even her own breathing vanished.
Then an enormous wave of heat slammed into her.
Yao’s eyes flew open.
Fire.
Fire everywhere.
She was standing in the forest.
No.
It wasn’t her.
She was inside someone else’s body.
A memory tree’s memory was never something viewed from the outside.
It placed the viewer in the position the dead person had once occupied.
So what she was seeing now was the world as her father had seen it.
She looked down.
A man’s hands.
His right hand held a torch.
Yao’s heart stopped for an instant.
The forest around her was burning.
Thick smoke obscured the sky.
People were running.
Shouts came from the distance.
“Hurry up!”
A man stood on the other side of the firelight.
Yao couldn’t see his face clearly.
“Lu Heng!”
He was calling her father.
Her father didn’t answer.
He only looked down at the torch.
Yao felt his hand trembling.
Not her hand.
Her father’s.
“There’s only one section left.”
The man said,
“Once it’s burned, everything will be over.”
Yao suddenly couldn’t breathe.
She knew what day this was.
Twelve years ago.
The Cleansing.
She tried to pull her hand away from the trunk.
She couldn’t.
Once a memory began, the viewer usually couldn’t leave until the memory fragment of the memory bearer ended.
“You said we were only dealing with diseased trees.”
Her father finally spoke.
Yao had almost forgotten his voice.
It was lower than she remembered.
And more tired.
The man approached.
This time, she could make out his outline a little more clearly.
A long black coat.
A silver badge hanging over his chest.
Yao recognized the design.
The emblem of the Central Council Hall as it existed now.
But twelve years ago, that emblem had not yet appeared.
“Things have changed,” the man said.
“They know too much.”
Her father didn’t move.
Flames wavered before his eyes.
“Trees don’t know anything.”
“It’s precisely because you still believe that saying that we’ve ended up here.”
The man held out his hand.
“Give me the torch.”
Her father took a step back.
“Hesen.”
Yao’s entire body went rigid.
Of course she knew that name.
There wasn’t a single person in the entire city who didn’t.
Hesen Veyde.
The man who took control of the city after the Cleansing.
For twelve years there had been no war.
No major riots.
And not one more large-scale forest burning.
History textbooks called him:
The Rebuilder.
Firelight passed over the man’s face.
It was much younger than the face he had now.
But it was unmistakably him.
Hesen stared at her father.
“Lu Heng.”
“We’re out of time.”
A tremendous sound suddenly came from the distance.
Like a tree falling.
Or someone screaming.
Her father turned.
Yao followed his gaze.
Ahead stood a huge tree.
It was taller than every tree around it.
White strips of cloth wound around its trunk.
Several people knelt around its roots.
One person clung to the trunk and wept.
Others were dragged away by uniformed men.
For the first time, Yao felt genuine fear.
Not because of the fire.
Because she remembered that tree.
Everyone remembered it.
It was the mother tree of old Returnwood.
The official records said it had been burned because of the spread of white-ring disease.
Hesen said again:
“Make a decision.”
Her father was silent for a long time.
Then—
He raised the torch.
Yao’s stomach clenched violently.
No.
She thought.
Don’t.
Her father moved forward.
One step.
Two.
He reached the mother tree.
The people kneeling beside it began to shout.
“Lu Heng!”
Someone recognized him.
“You promised us!”
“Don’t!”
“There are still people inside!”
Yao didn’t know what “inside” meant.
Her father paused.
The next second—
He threw the torch.
It landed at the roots.
The dry oilcloth caught fire instantly.
Yao’s mind went blank.
She watched the fire climb up the roots.
Watched people scream.
Watched her father stand before the flames.
It wasn’t Hesen.
At least the first fire hadn’t been started by Hesen.
It was her father.
Her father.
The man she had always believed had died in the Cleansing.
He had started the Cleansing with his own hands.
Yao felt sick.
She struggled with all her strength.
Let me go.
She screamed inside her head.
Let go.
But her father suddenly turned around.
His gaze passed through the thick smoke.
And looked straight at her.
Yao stopped struggling.
The moment was so absurd that she almost believed her father could truly see her.
Not some person standing there twelve years ago.
Her.
Nineteen-year-old Yao.
Across twelve years of time.
Her father looked at her.
There was no surprise on his face.
Only a kind of sorrow Yao had never seen there before.
Then he said:
“Yao.”
All the blood in Yao’s body seemed to freeze at once.
“If you see this memory—”
An explosion sounded in the distance.
Firelight suddenly swallowed half her view.
Her father’s face turned deathly pale in the glare.
“Don’t trust the trees.”
The memory broke.
Yao fell onto the muddy ground.
The sound of rain came rushing back.
She gasped for breath.
Her right hand was still pressed against the bark.
She yanked it away as if she’d been burned.
Impossible.
She stared at the tree.
“Impossible.”
Her own voice sounded strange.
She stood, then stumbled.
Her father had called her name.
It hadn’t been a coincidence.
She hadn’t misheard him.
He had said:
If you see this memory.
Those words could only have been spoken to someone in the future.
But the dead couldn’t know the future.
Neither could trees.
That was a rule everyone knew.
Memory trees could only preserve.
They could not prophesy.
They could not change anything.
And they certainly could not answer the viewer.
Yao backed away.
Her foot stepped on something.
Metal struck with a clank.
She looked down.
It was the short ax she had brought with her.
She had only intended to clear vines from the path.
She stared at the ax.
Then she looked at her father’s name.
Lu Heng.
A perfectly clear thought suddenly came to her, one so frightening it made her afraid of herself.
Cut it down.
If she cut it down, that would be enough.
No one would know she had come here.
No one would know her father’s tree still existed.
There would be no memory.
No Hesen.
No torch.
She could still return to the world as it had been before yesterday.
Her father had died in the fire.
He was a victim.
She was the dead man’s daughter.
The world would still be what it had always been.
Yao picked up the ax.
She gripped it with both hands.
Raised it.
Rainwater ran into her eyes.
She didn’t wipe it away.
The blade was aimed at the place where the name had been carved.
Just one strike.
After the first, the second would be easier.
She knew that.
Her father had taught her how to chop down trees.
Don’t look at the whole tree.
Look only at the place where you want the ax to land.
Yao clenched her teeth.
She swung.
The ax stopped in midair.
Her arm trembled violently.
“Damn it.”
She raised it again.
Still, she couldn’t bring it down.
“Damn it!”
This time, she threw the ax with all her strength.
It struck a stone nearby with a harsh clang.
Yao crouched down.
She covered her face with both hands.
She didn’t know how long she stayed that way.
Then a branch snapped somewhere in the forest.
Very softly.
But it wasn’t the rain.
Yao looked up at once.
“Who’s there?”
No one answered.
She slowly stood.
Beyond the curtain of rain, someone seemed to be standing beside a tree.
Tall and thin.
Wrapped in a dark cloak.
Yao reached for the ax at her waist, then remembered she had just thrown it away.
“Come out.”
The person didn’t move.
“I can see you.”
After a moment of silence, the figure finally stepped out from behind the tree.
It was a young man.
He looked about her age.
Rain plastered his black hair to his forehead. An old leather bag hung over his shoulder.
He looked at her first.
Then at the tree.
Finally, at the ax lying on the ground.
“You didn’t cut it down.”
Yao’s body went instantly taut.
“Who are you?”
The young man didn’t answer.
He came a few steps closer.
“Were you the one who came here three days ago too?”
Yao said nothing.
He seemed to already know the answer.
His gaze fell on the name carved into the trunk.
Lu Heng.
His expression shifted.
Barely.
But Yao saw it.
“You know that name?”
The young man raised his eyes.
“Everyone in the city knows it.”
“That’s a lie.”
No one knew her father.
At least, no one should have known what he had done in the Cleansing.
The young man looked at her.
Rain dripped from his chin.
“What did you see?”
Yao stared at him.
“What’s it to you?”
“If you touched that tree, it’s my business.”
“Why?”
The young man was silent for a moment.
Then he took something from his leather bag.
A small piece of charred wood.
Half a name was carved into it.
Yao couldn’t make it out.
But she saw something else.
At the center of the wood was a pale circular ring.
White.
Not the normal color of wood.
The young man ran his thumb over the white mark.
“Because this isn’t the first one.”
Yao didn’t understand.
“What?”
“Memory trees with only eleven tree rings.”
Yao’s head snapped up.
The young man looked toward the depths of the forest.
It was pitch-black there.
“I’ve already found the fourth.”
The wind moved through the canopy.
The entire forest gave off a low, rustling murmur at once.
Yao suddenly felt as if countless people were speaking from somewhere far away.
The young man looked at her again.
“And they all have one thing in common.”
Yao didn’t ask.
She didn’t know if she wanted to know.
But the young man told her anyway.
“Their owners—”
“They all died twelve years ago.”
Yao’s fingers slowly tightened.
“The Cleansing?”
The young man nodded.
“The Cleansing.”
A bell suddenly rang in the distance.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
It was the bell announcing Returnwood’s closing.
The young man turned.
“You’d better leave now.”
“Wait.”
He stopped.
Yao asked,
“What’s your name?”
The young man stood with his back to her.
Several seconds passed before he answered.
“Cen.”
“Cen what?”
“Names that know too much aren’t necessarily a good thing.”
He walked toward the depths of the forest.
Yao watched his back.
“You just asked what I saw.”
Cen stopped.
Yao hadn’t intended to tell him.
But the words had been pressing against her chest for too long, nearly making it impossible to breathe.
“I saw my father.”
Cen didn’t turn around.
“He started the fire.”
The rain kept falling.
“And then?”
Yao closed her eyes.
She saw that face lit by firelight again.
“He called my name.”
This time, Cen finally turned around.
His expression changed for the first time.
Yao continued:
“He knew I would see that memory.”
“And he told me—”
She paused.
“Don’t trust the trees.”
The forest suddenly fell unnaturally quiet.
Cen stood in the rain and looked at her for a long time.
Then he asked quietly:
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Cen didn’t answer.
But his face slowly turned pale.
“What’s wrong?”
Yao took a step forward.
Cen took one backward.
As if what she had just said wasn’t a sentence, but something that should never have been awakened.
“Cen.”
“Go home.”
“What?”
“Go back. Now.”
“You know something?”
Cen turned away.
“Before sunset tomorrow, don’t touch any tree.”
“Why?”
“Especially this one.”
“Cen!”
He didn’t look back.
He quickly disappeared into the curtain of rain.
Yao stood where she was.
The closing bell rang for the ninth time.
The last echo gradually sank into the forest.
She looked at her father’s tree again.
Rainwater slid down the deep black bark.
Like some kind of slow-moving blood.
Eleven tree rings.
A father who had been dead for twelve years.
An impossible memory.
And the sudden fear of a stranger.
Yao suddenly realized that for the past three days, she had been asking the wrong question.
She had kept asking:
Was her father really the arsonist?
Now the question she truly needed to ask was—
If her father had really died twelve years ago, who had planted this eleven-year-old tree?