Chapter Three: A Wedding in the Clouds

When Lu Chen returned home, hundreds of photographs covered his floor. Their webs formed the face of an older man: gray at the temples, one cloudy eye, and a scar across the brow identical to Lu Chen's. In the central image, the man raised a hand behind the web. Every line in his palm matched Lu Chen's. The back bore a date twelve years in the future, followed by one sentence: “Thank you for growing my body back for me.”