Chapter Two: Migration Confirmation

A blank page requested a password. Cheng entered Nanqiao417. Video filled the screen. Several bodies lay on the platform under red alarm lights. A younger Lin Sui knelt beside a stretcher, clutching someone's hand. “Remember,” someone behind the camera said. “Nanqiao, four-one-seven. If he retains the index, we can attach the other pieces.” “Will he still be my son?” Lin asked. No one answered. Images pierced Cheng's mind: disinfectant, white helmets, four identity cards, people calling him by different names. April seventeenth was not a birthday. It was the date of an accident—four dead, one survivor, identity sealed. “Was I the survivor?” “That's what I believed,” Xu said.