Chapter Three: The Deleted Man

The testing room returned. The cut on Lin Wan's finger remained. So did the carving beneath the desk. The paper in the ink bottle had gone blank, but a black residue refused to disperse at the bottom. The terminal downloaded the hidden object: seven seconds of surveillance footage. Fire consumed a corridor. A young man pushed the child Shen Zhou toward rescuers outside a window, then turned and lifted an unconscious girl. Her profile was Lin Wan's. At the end, the man looked directly at the camera. His cracked watch flashed white. The committer's name appeared below the image: Shen Huaichuan. Shen Zhou's father, missing for seventeen years. One final message arrived from `root-0`: