Chapter Three: You Were Painted Too

“Shen Zhou never had a daughter,” a top comment immediately replied. Qi Xia smiled faintly. “Not anymore.” She approached Lin and pressed cold fingertips to his forehead. Images stabbed through him: the museum basement seven years ago; rows of screens displaying the same city; white-coated technicians closing streets and names like layers in an image file; Shen Zhou painting amid fire. The young man on Shen's canvas was Lin Mo. Beneath the frame were the words: WORK ZERO. REPLACEMENT VESSEL COMPLETE. “I can read memories that were erased,” Qi Xia whispered. “Memories in objects, in this city, and in you. Lin Mo, you have no life before the age of ten. Someone painted those recollections into you.” “Stop.”