Chapter Five: The Type Tower

The hand was slender, with a mole between thumb and forefinger. It was not Gu Yan's. A live proof sprang from the well. In reality, Gu Lan had enlarged the oldest family portrait to the scale of individual silver grains. GU YANN had faded from her wrist, but professional instinct guided her along the photograph's composite seams. Beside three-year-old Gu Yan's white silhouette, she found another excised figure. Only one hand remained on the child's shoulder. A mole marked the web of its thumb. “I didn't make the original signature,” Gu Yan said. “Not the first stroke, at least,” Zero murmured. Applause rose from below. Shen Zhuo ascended a staircase made of copyright pages.