Chapter Three: Gu Yan Is Dead

There was no wind, but cold touched the back of Gu Yan's neck. Ye Ning moved to capture the screen. He covered the lens. “Don't share it. The more people who see it, the harder its meaning becomes to control.” “It's already public.” “Not promoted. Only thirty-seven users online. We still have time.” He forced himself not to define dead as a stopped heart. A title bounded a result, but language allowed several results: biological death, legal death, account termination, deletion of a system object. In those four characters, Gu Yan seemed unambiguous and therefore might be the weakness. A name could indicate a man, an account, a file, or an identifier. “Twenty-four hours?” Ye Ning asked.