Chapter Four: The Drawer at 3:17

Lin fired. The bullet passed through his shoulder and shattered the glass of a drawer. He bleached, curled, and shrank like overexposed film until only a charred strip lay on the floor. Zhou woke. His fingers were ice-cold on Shen’s sleeve. “Echo does not project memories,” he whispered. “It records them into things that can keep living. You said the dead should not be reduced to photographs.” “What did I do?” Before he could answer, the clock struck 3:17 and end-credit music filled the morgue. Letters surfaced on the burnt strip. Preserved character: Zhou Jiming. Deleted memory: Lin Wu’s first kiss. Shen knew what the sentence meant but could not summon a single image. Beside him, Lin’s face drained. She did not ask whether he remembered.