Chapter One: Beyond Seven Minutes

In the next frame it was 9:07; the knife lay on the floor, and she stood beside the window. “The whole city is like this,” she said. “But I remember a sound. A shutter.” At home, they locked the door and drew the curtains. A damp strip of black film protruded from the flash. Shen Yan eased it out with tweezers and placed it on Lin Wan's portable light table. The negative did not show He Xiao. It held the city inside the seven minutes: rain suspended in the air, a bus crossing the junction, Lin Wan walking from cutting board to window. Countless forgotten motions lay compressed into the film like people trapped under ice. Deep in the image stood a man in a long black coat. Everyone else was blurred.