Chapter Four: The Man Without a Shadow

At midnight on September 38, every lamp in Intercalary Lane went dark. Lin Mo's shadow remained. It detached itself from his shoes and crawled against the moonlight toward Su Mi. Hers stretched the opposite way, toward Ye Guanlan. Ye raised his white umbrella. Beneath it, he cast no shadow. Fresh ink surfaced on the back of the calendar record: *The shadow knows its former master, not its present flesh. Follow not the shadowless man.* One of Ye's officers stepped on another man's shadow. Blackness entered the second man's heel. Both spoke the same childhood memory at once. Then one forgot his name while the other acquired a past that was not his. Shadows carried memory, not shape.