Location: Lin Feng’s Apartnt, 2:03 AM
The rain ca without thunder — a fine mist falling over Rootlight’s rooftops, soft enough to muffle tires, heavy enough to blur neon.
Lin Feng sat on the edge of his couch, staring at an envelope that hadn’t co through any official channel.
No sender.
No seal.
Just a na written in pencil on the front.
"Lin Feng (13)"
That number.
It wasn’t his age.
It was the number written on a bed fra in a governnt orphanage, one he hadn’t seen in over a decade — and never spoken of since the system ca.
Inside the envelope:
A photo. Torn edges. Yellowed.
Five children, standing behind a crumbling school wall.
One of them was him.
But he wasn’t looking at the cara.
He was looking left — toward a girl with half-cut sleeves and shoes too big for her feet.
No na on the back.
Just one line:
"We still rember you. Do you rember us?"
System Prompt (glitching)
"...Host... alert... Unauthorized file breach... mory loop trigger..."
"Source: Unknown. Likely physical. Cannot auto-erase."
"Emotional Stability Index: Dropping. Recomndation: Investigate manually."
P.S. This photo slls like burnt chalk. Weird.
Lin Feng folded the photo slowly. His fingers were steady. But the ache in his chest wasn’t.
"Soone’s digging," he said aloud.
He looked at the rain-slick window.
"And they’re not looking for business leverage."
The next day, Lin Feng walked alone.
No driver. No entourage.
Just quiet shoes and a mory guiding him past the closed markets and sagging eaves of Old Sector 4.
He stopped before a building that no longer had a na — just iron bars and peeling paint.
Old West School.
The system was silent.
Even it knew this place wasn’t data.
This was scar tissue.
Flashback Fragnt
A laugh.
A broken bowl.
Soone covering for him when food went missing.
A voice:
"I don’t need your thanks, Lin. Just draw sothing tomorrow."
Then the mory faded.
Back in the Present
Inside the school, the rooms were empty — but not untouched.
Soone had been here recently.
Dust was disturbed.
Footprints too clean.
And on the wall, drawn in faint charcoal:
"LF RX"
He stared at it for a long ti.
"...Ruoxi?"
The na hadn’t crossed his mind in years.
Not since before the system.
Not since before he learned silence could be a weapon.
The rain was still falling.
Lin stood by the glass, expression unreadable, eyes distant.
The system didn’t speak.
Because sotis, even code knew when to be quiet.
"They’re not coming for my money anymore," he said quietly.
"They’re coming for my history."
His hand tightened around the photo.
"Fine. Let’s see how much of it I’ve forgotten... and how much I buried for a reason."
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l
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