Chapter Two: Selling Moonlight to Strangers

Gu Ye remembered the warning and her question. "What's your name?" "A-Li." "Where do you live?" She pointed to a closed children's hospital across the street. Half its sign had been removed. Tang Ke watched Gu Ye speak to empty air. "Who are you talking to?" Through his phone camera A-Li was clear. To Tang Ke's eyes, there was only a streetlamp. Gu Ye's account had gained two hundred thousand followers from the trending clip. Thousands entered when he went live. Yet when he aimed the camera at A-Li, chat split. [What girl?] [The one in white.] [Are you all repeating a joke? There's nobody there.] Every few seconds fewer people could see her. Accounts that had described her soon insisted they had never done so. Zero came online.