Chapter Three: The Deleted Thirteen Minutes

The newest layer was vivid but coarse. A daughter who had never existed returned from overseas, ate with Lin every day, then tearfully persuaded her to sign the trust agreement. The edges were different. Real scenes lived in decades of wear upon the jade. The false memory sat on top like fresh paint. [GRAFTED MEMORY DETECTED. TRUE SOURCE DESTROYED. FALSE SOURCE DERIVED FROM REPEATED TEMPLATE. CROSS-SEARCH NEARBY OBJECTS?] Chenzhou accepted. Capacity plunged as the core sampled matching emotional structures from hundreds of nearby possessions. Seventeen elderly clients. Seventeen children “returning from overseas.” Even their words during each embrace were identical.