Chapter Two: Twenty-Three People, Nobody Missing

“The audience loves your loneliness, Lin Wu. Don't invent an owner for it.” After he left, silver dust floated in the bottom of the water. It cut her finger like powdered mirror. Gu Chenzhou knew far more than he admitted. At four, Lin Wu reached Lujiang Road. Glass towers loomed like cold gravestones in the river fog. Number seventeen was an old laundromat wedged between a convenience store and a shuttered theater. Only two characters glowed on its neon sign: LONG NIGHT. Helan Ye sat on a washing machine reading. Behind every round door, human shadows tumbled instead of clothes. “Forty-seven minutes until sunrise,” he said. “Then the invitation expires.” “Where is Shen Yan?”