Chapter Five: Nine Loves

The new tower pressed downward like transparent film covering an old negative. Ye Lan spread the cinema schedule across the control desk and labeled B7 as a midnight screening with no tickets. Then she assigned it to Auditorium Thirteen, a room that had never existed. “A screening without an audience still exists in the schedule,” she said. White screen-light enclosed the deleted residents. When the new tower crushed the studio, they fell safely between the seats of the imaginary auditorium. There was still a cost. Ye Lan forgot the title of the first film she had ever seen. The loss was survivable, but Wen Que's accounting missed nothing. Lu remained behind, holding the ceiling with light. Ye Lan pulled him through and locked the door.