Chapter Three: The Absent Director

Xu Zhi’s statement lasted until dawn. Three years ago, she said, she had volunteered for her university film club and been asked by a researcher to sort old reels in the archive basement. There was an unnumbered projector there. The researcher called it Echo. It did not play films. It played the one minute a viewer least wanted to remember. “Before the fire, a man told me to run,” Xu said, looking at Shen with frightened confusion. “He had your face, but he called himself the Director.” Lin paused the recording. The interview room became still. She had assisted with the fire autopsies. The official basement inventory listed no projector and no experiment.