Chapter 60: Fragments of Memory

Shi Rang fell over as he rushed out of the apartment building, and nearly crashed into a pedestrian when he turned his electric scooter onto the main road.

The curses and complaints of the pedestrian meant nothing to him.

Yingshang’s scream kept replaying in his mind, striking his heart and echoing through his chest.

"The number you have dialed is switched off..."

"The number you have dialed..."

He twisted the throttle of the electric scooter to the maximum, and amid blaring car horns and chaos, sped toward the art studio where Yingshang worked.

Yingshang’s phone could no longer be reached.

Where would she go?

The background noise on the phone call had been very quiet at first—where could she possibly be?

If she needed to take leave for a few hours, what would it be for? Was she kidnapped? Mugged?

Was she still alive?

All his usual anxious fantasies felt real at this moment. Shi Rang could not remember how he arrived downstairs at the art studio, nor how he grabbed the receptionist to ask about Yingshang’s whereabouts. It was only then that he remembered he could have called the studio to ask, but it was already meaningless.

Everyone gave the same answer: "She asked for leave and went out," "She didn't say where she was going," "You're her husband, how could you not know?"

Shi Rang rushed out of the art studio in a panic, riding his electric scooter along the streets like a headless fly in search of her. He knew the efficiency and condescending attitude of District 10's police, and he knew he had almost no leads or evidence in his hands, but he had to do something!

It was too hard to find the sound of a gunshot in this city. The people on the street were as idle as any other day; no one looked like they had heard a gunshot.

He replayed the contents of the phone call over and over in his mind, finally distinguishing what she had shouted into the phone at the very end:

"Central Park!"

The place where Yingshang had encountered a pickpocket yesterday.

His body reacted faster than his mind, turning the scooter around to head in that direction.

There were gunshots coming from the direction of the park, very dense. A crowd fleeing the gunfire appeared ahead, crowding and blocking the street.

He darted into a winding alley and twisted the throttle all the way.

Outside the exit of the alley was the park. Shi Rang swerved past two trash cans and was about to accelerate when the bright light at the mouth of the alley was blocked by a figure.

A tall, slender shadow stretched into the alley, enveloping Shi Rang.

The person did not dodge the speeding electric scooter at all. Shi Rang had to slam on the brakes, trying to push the person aside.

"Move aside, I have an urgent matter—"

"You have no urgent matters to attend to."

The figure, backlit, pulled down the brim of a cowboy hat, their trench coat flapping in the wind blowing through the alley.

"Forget about this. Go back to where you belong. Leave now."

This sounded nothing like a threat, nor did it carry any coercive or commanding tone.

Yet it sounded like the absolute truth.

Shi Rang stared at the ethereal yet tangible figure, withdrew his hand, and nodded numbly.

Holding onto the scooter, he backed up and retraced his path.

When he reached home, the sun had already sunk below the horizon.

He stood by the window, watching the table full of food grow cold, and waited for Yingshang to return as the night gradually took over the city.

-----------------

Shi Rang woke up with a start.

He fumbled blindly for his phone, brought it close to his eyes, and took a full blast of light straight from the phone screen.

The room was pitch black; he had no sense of whether it was day or night—fearing someone might see the miniature people from outside the window, he had drawn the curtains tightly shut.

He hooked his toe to pull open a crack in the curtains, letting a sliver of sunlight fall into the bedroom, finally pulling himself completely out of the dream.

The phone that held so many memories of him and Yingshang had long since been soaked in mud.

Yet he had previously checked the call logs, and on the day of the incident, he had not received any calls from Yingshang.

That dream did not vanish the moment he woke up; it lingered in his mind, replacing the muddled, false waiting.

Shi Rang threw off the quilt, rushed to the desk, tore off a sticky note, and quickly jotted down the clues, terrified they would slip away into the haze in the blink of an eye.

[Cowboy hat, about 1.7 meters tall, male, probably in his thirties, wearing a trench coat, capable of making people lose their memories/believe what he says]

Yes, this was an anomalous world.

This person had tamtampered with Shi Rang's memory.

The hidden truth was now surfacing, likely an unexpected side effect of accelerated healing, perhaps involving the recovery of brain structure, or perhaps...

Who was this person?

Was Yingshang kidnapped by them? Why? Why her?

Was she still alive?

"Shi Rang?" holding a charging cable, Jack climbed onto the desktop, sleepy-eyed. "What's wrong?"

The big man ignored him, got up on his own accord, and yanked the curtains open. The glare was so bright that Jack covered his eyes and let out an "ouch."

There was anger and gloom in Shi Rang's back as he stood by the window, and Jack had no idea what he was actually looking at. He felt a bit glum, but figured a reliable adult like Shi Rang must have a reason for doing this. So he climbed back down the way he came, found the newly awakened sheriff, hoisted this weighty "tiny adult" onto his shoulder, and climbed up along the curtains.

Other awakened tiny people below were making a fuss, wanting Jack to take them along, but Jack had already run off.

After shrinking, Jack had become very adept at climbing. He climbed all the way to the vicinity of Shi Rang's head, stepped on the decorative cord of the curtain, and shouted into his ear with all his might.

"Did you have a nightmare? What are you doing?"

"Quiet, kid, he's investigating," the sheriff said.

"Investigating what?"

"The wall."

In Jack's impression, the wall by Shi Rang's bedroom window really was plastered with collages. After shrinking, things high up or far away looked very blurry to him, but now looking straight across, he could finally make out those posted items. A multitude of sticky notes appeared before Jack’s eyes, their curling bottom edges making the wall look furry, dotted in the center with numerous photographs, interwoven with a web of many threads...

Jack had only ever seen things like this in cartoons.

"Is this a clue wall?"

He gazed in awe toward the center, where there was a photo of an auntie. She was flashing a peace sign and smiling shyly at the camera, holding a bouquet in her arms. All the lines radiated outward from her as the source, connecting countless sticky notes and photos along the way, proving that she was both the starting point and the end of everything—only her photo was not pinned by thumbtacks, but held on the wall by a crisscrossing web of threads.

Shi Rang was holding a sticky note in his hand, checking it against the left side of the clue wall.

There were a great number of photos on the left, most of which were surveillance footage stills. The auntie in the photos walked out of a building in the static video stills, crossed in front of a store, and turned into a street corner...

At that moment, Shi Rang picked up a photo with his fingernail. It showed a blurry figure walking into a train station.

The person's clothing was identical to that of the auntie in the surveillance.

Shi Rang tore off the photo, threw it into the trash can, placed a new sticky note into the empty space, adjusted the yarn, and turned it into the second focal point.

"Help me ask him: how long has he been doing this?" the sheriff said.

So Jack relayed the question.

"Ever since the day she disappeared until now."

Shi Rang raised his finger, moved it toward that large patch of crossed-out sticky notes in the upper right corner, and tapped a photo labeled [Greyhound].

"I used to investigate the upper right corner all the time, but now I realize I was dead wrong. This guy is a thief, but now I know he is a victim—at least in this matter, he is a victim. His memory was tampered with too."

The miniature sheriff climbed to the top of Jack's head, leaped with all his might, and landed on Shi Rang's auricle. "These photos... you suspected someone tampered with the surveillance from the very beginning?"

"She would never leave without a word, I know she wouldn't, so I don't believe a single clue pointing to her 'leaving on her own.' The police station was sick of me and tried to brush me off with that photo, telling me she had enough of me and ran away from home, but I knew that wasn't her. They all said my mental health was failing, but I didn't, I knew I didn't."

Shi Rang seemed utterly exhausted, leaning forward against the clue wall, his forehead resting beside his wife's figure, gazing sincerely at the beloved in the photo as if lying in her embrace.

After enduring so many years of torment, he had finally found the truth.

It turned out the evidence had been in his own head all along.

"My memory was tampered with. Someone deleted my call logs, stole her passport and photos from home, disguised themselves as her to leave at the station and go to a foreign land, making everyone... and sometimes even myself, doubt that she walked away on her own accord. But these are all lies."

The sheriff: "That must be a remarkably powerful force—do you already have a suspect?"

Shi Rang closed his eyes, his face suddenly chilling as if putting on a mask.

"Of course."