Chapter One: One Million Words

The final memory was recent. A man in a cap stole the watch from a drawer. “The old hag's son never visits anyway.” [READ COMPLETE: 462 WORDS. REMAINING: 999,538. DISCERNIBLE FORMER OWNERS: 3.] Chenzhou snatched his hand back. The odors, pain, and shame were nauseatingly real. Yet he could distinguish observed events from each owner's assumptions. The watch did not tell stories. It preserved traces left under intense emotion. “How much?” “Broken. Two hundred.” He forced his voice flat. “Eighty. The silver's worn through.” They settled at ninety. Chenzhou borrowed a tool and pried up the twelve marker. Beneath it lay a paper ticket thin as an insect wing, stamped with the seal of a secret Linlan ferry route from a century before.