Jiang Yao.

  Lin Duo wrote the name again and again, each stroke layered over the last until the ink blurred into a smudged, gray blot—like a shadow in his mind he couldn’t erase.

  He sat in the northernmost reading room of the D City Library and Archives.

  The furthest corner from the windows.

  The light weakest there.

  Scattered across the desk were several paper-bound student registries.

  The pages smelled of aged paper and forgotten years.

  A clock ticked in the corner—an old mechanical one, its rhythm a constant reminder:

  Time was passing.

  But it didn’t belong to this moment.

  His coffee had long gone cold.

  A film of dried foam clung to the bottom—

  like remorse curdled in memory.

  Jiang Yao.

  That name had been nailed to a death record three years ago.

  Senior at Gongtong High School.

  Cause of death: suicide—jumped from a building.

  And yet her student ID had appeared—

  just days ago—

  at the site where Train 034 vanished.

  Even stranger: yesterday at dawn, that same ID reappeared.

  On the control room desk.

  Quiet. Undisturbed.

  But Lin had never boarded that train.

  There was no system log.

  And yet, the timestamp was exact.

  Unnervingly exact.

  “If this is a prank…” Lin murmured to himself,

  his voice dampened by the fabric of his coat,

  “...it’s too precise.”

  He flipped open an old yearbook, fingers gliding page by page.

  Students in this city were cataloged like leaves—

  stacked row by row in administrative order.

  Jiang Yao—not an uncommon name.

  There were nine others.

  But only one matched.

  Jiang Yao.

  Female. Born March 2004.

  Resident of D City.

  Died November 7, 2021.

  Jumped from West Bridge No. 2.

  No history of mental illness.

  Official conclusion: suicide triggered by emotional disorder.

  Lin stared at the photo.

  A ponytail.

  Clear eyes.

  Delicate features.

  It was the same face he’d seen on the student ID.

  He pulled up the photo he’d taken—compared it again.

  The folds matched.

  Every crease, every scuff,

  identical to the record.

  A record that, by all accounts, had long been processed and sealed as evidence of death.

  But now—

  in the upper-left corner of the ID—

  a new line had appeared.

  Faint. Barely visible.

  “Observer is off-track. Behavioral data not archived.”

  Lin traced the words with a fingertip.

  The card felt cold.

  He didn’t remember seeing that line when he took the photo.

  But now—

  it was unmistakably there.

  This wasn’t a glitch in the picture.

  Reality was rewriting itself.

  He made a decision.

  He would find her parents.

  The registry listed their address:

  Building 5, Jinsheng Street Residential Compound.

  He didn’t call ahead.

  He just went—

  on a damp, overcast afternoon—

  and rang the bell.

  The man who answered was in his fifties, wearing reading glasses, holding a TV remote like a weapon.

  His face was wary.

  The television hissed behind him.

  “Mr. Jiang Zhengping?”

  “Who are you?” the man asked, voice cold.

  “I’m with the Metro Bureau—Information Division. I need to speak with you. It’s about your daughter, Jiang Yao—”

  Click.

  The door slammed shut.

  “My daughter died three years ago.”

  A voice growled through the crack.

  “Don’t come back.”

  Then—

  silence.

  Lin stood there, his finger still resting on the doorbell, unmoving.

  From upstairs, the voice of an old opera blared from the TV—

  too loud.

  Loud enough to drown something else.

  He didn’t press the bell again.

  He turned, and slowly walked down the stairs.

  Lin stood at the door, knuckles still resting on the bell.

  Upstairs, an old opera from the 1980s blared from a television—louder than necessary.

  Loud enough to bury something else.

  He didn’t press it again.

  He turned around and slowly descended the stairs.

  2:30 p.m.

  Off-peak hours.

  Lin entered the metro station and boarded a southbound train with the trickle of afternoon passengers.

  He stood at the connector between cars, scrolling through old records.

  His eyes flicked occasionally to the window, catching glimpses of the city as it flickered past like shadows.

  Then he looked up—

  and his breath stopped.

  Across from him, a girl sat quietly by the window.

  Black hoodie.

  A reusable tote bag in her lap, printed with the logo:

  "Urban Memory Volunteer Program."

  Her ponytail hung over her shoulder, the ends slightly frayed.

  That face—

  he knew it better than his own.

  Jiang Yao.

  His body moved before his mind did—

  a step forward, driven by instinct.

  But she didn’t react.

  She didn’t even look at him.

  It was like he wasn’t there.

  “...Jiang Yao?”

  She turned.

  Brows furrowed.

  Her voice flat, detached:

  “You’ve got the wrong person.”

  “You’re—”

  “Jiang Yao,” she answered plainly.

  Like reciting a line rehearsed a thousand times in front of a mirror.

  Then she turned back to the window.

  And never looked at him again.

  When the train stopped, she stood.

  Quick, fluid movement.

  She vanished into the crowd, like any ordinary high school girl commuting home after class.

  Lin followed.

  A few rushed steps—

  but he only caught her silhouette, dissolving into a mass of tourists.

  Gone.

  Night.

  Back at home, Lin sat beneath a dim lamp.

  His notebook screen glowed with a dull white light.

  He opened the archive database again.

  Searched:

  “Urban Memory Volunteer Program.”

  Three years ago, the city’s mental health authority and the education board had launched a joint initiative—

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  a social outreach experiment.

  High schoolers were recruited to visit elderly residents and isolated families,

  under the name:

  "Oral History of the City."

  The project didn’t last a year.

  Official reason: “resource integration failure.”

  Lin pulled up the list of volunteers.

  His finger moved slowly down the IDs.

  Entry 072: Jiang Yao.

  Status: Missing.

  Last logged location: Yingshui Station, Line 7.

  His pupils contracted.

  Yingshui—

  the last stop before Train 034 went off-route.

  And finally, it clicked.

  That student ID wasn’t something she had left behind.

  It was something she’d failed to bring back.

  Dusk.

  South Bank of D City.

  Abandoned Station.

  The wind in this part of town moved slowly—

  like it didn’t want to stir up what had settled here.

  The concrete of the old quarter was brittle, diseased with time.

  Cracks like scars.

  Rails buried in overgrowth.

  The station sign rusted to a hollow grin.

  S6-β Station.

  Never officially opened.

  On the blueprints, it was marked in gray—

  an entry blotted out by the words:

  “Not in service.”

  But the old locals whispered it had lit up, once—

  just for a year.

  Then closed.

  “Ventilation issue,” they said.

  Lin stood at the edge of the tracks.

  Around him: scattered newspapers, empty cigarette packs.

  Below: old rail ties stained with ancient oil.

  He pulled out his phone.

  Checked the message again.

  “Come here.”

  Three minutes ago.

  Three words.

  No greeting.

  No signature.

  From Jiang Yao.

  He had thought that message would never come.

  Three days earlier, he had tried to reach her—

  three times.

  Each time, she brushed him off like a stranger.

  The third time, she called the police.

  Accused him of stalking.

  She wasn’t acting like someone who had forgotten—

  but like someone who had been programmed not to remember.

  But this time…

  She was the one who called him.

  Three days ago, Lin had tried to reach her—

  three times.

  Each time, she dismissed him like a stranger.

  The third time, she called the police.

  Filed a report:

  “Harassment. Stalking.”

  She’d looked at him the way an android might—

  one programmed not to recognize a face.

  But this time—

  She had messaged him first.

  She emerged from the far end of the tunnel, walking toward him.

  A long black coat draped over her frame.

  Hair tied in a tight bun.

  Skin pale, eyes clear.

  Not like a student.

  More like a psychology intern just off the night shift—

  not yet fully awake from someone else’s dream.

  Lin stepped forward, voice dry and cracked:

  “You… finally recognize me?”

  Jiang Yao looked down.

  Her voice was soft—cold:

  “I don’t know who you are.”

  Lin froze. Just for a second.

  “But I know you… took that train.”

  “Which train?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Instead, she pulled something from her bag—

  a sheet of old paper, edges worn and torn by time.

  A map.

  A rail schematic.

  Lines faded. Corners missing.

  But at its center: a thin circle.

  Beside it, scrawled in red, hurried strokes:

  “Line 0 — Z Corridor, Trial Configuration.”

  Lin’s eyes narrowed.

  He’d seen that code before—

  days ago, in a stack of discarded files at the Metro Bureau.

  A project no one spoke about.

  A test route never announced.

  “Why do you have this?”

  Jiang Yao’s jaw tightened.

  “Everyone who comes back… draws it.”

  She said it like a eulogy.

  “The drawings aren’t identical.

  But the pattern’s always the same.

  You want to meet them?”

  Lin nodded.

  They stepped off the platform, through a maintenance door into the dead space behind.

  Overhead, bare wires hung from crumbling concrete.

  Emergency lamps flickered—

  like oil lanterns in their final moments.

  They reached an old signal room.

  It smelled of rust and chemical sterilizer.

  The walls peeled like infected skin.

  The air was stale, heavy—like breathing through a used respirator.

  In the corner, a man hunched over a desk.

  Drawing.

  No—

  not drawing.

  Repeating.

  He was tracing the same spiral track over and over again, pressing so hard the paper looked like it had been carved with the edge of a knife.

  Loops, overlaps, fractures—

  a madman's diagram of thought.

  “He came back seven months ago,” Jiang Yao said softly.

  “Can’t even remember his own name anymore.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Subject 041. Emergency comms division, Metro Bureau, D City.

  Vanished three years ago.

  Found six months back in an abandoned depot across the river.”

  Lin stepped closer.

  The man looked up.

  His skin was waxy yellow.

  Bloodshot eyes.

  Lips cracked like sun-baked soil.

  But his stare held—three seconds.

  Right at Lin.

  Then he spoke.

  Voice dry, like the back of a knife scraping stone:

  “The memories you have…

  aren’t yours.”

  The air grew thick.

  Heavy.

  Like a blanket pulled over reality.

  Lin’s throat tightened.

  “What does that mean?”

  The man smiled.

  A broken thing.

  A grin that felt like a body finally separating from its soul.

  “When you came back…

  you brought pieces of someone else.

  They’ll find you.

  You’re not the first.

  And you won’t be the last.”

  He began to laugh.

  Not loudly.

  But endlessly.

  “Line Zero…

  Line Zero…

  Line Zero…”

  Jiang Yao walked over, gently placed a hand on his back.

  The man quieted.

  Settled.

  Sank back into the page—

  like a drowning man returning to the water.

  Lin stepped back.

  A chill climbed up his spine like fingers made of ice.

  “It’s not amnesia,” he whispered.

  “It’s… an implant.

  Someone else’s possibility.”

  Jiang Yao stared at him, her eyes suddenly shaded with something unreadable.

  “Do you remember how you started this job?”

  Lin frowned.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your assignment order. Your onboarding notice. Your medical clearance.

  Do you remember who issued them? What year? What department?”

  Lin opened his mouth—

  but stopped.

  An image flickered in his mind:

  himself, walking into the Metro Bureau in uniform.

  But it was hazy—like watching it through fogged glass.

  He could remember the outcome.

  But not the process.

  "Observer is off-track. Behavioral data not archived."

  The line hit again—

  like a nail driven deeper into the skull.

  Jiang Yao spoke softly:

  “You may have been off the mainline for three years.”

  “People like us—‘returnees’—we’re not time travelers.

  We’re not ghosts.”

  “We’re copies—shoved off the tracks.

  Data the system tried to erase,

  but left behind like a scar.”

  She paused.

  Her gaze lingered on his face.

  As if offering him a glass of cold water—

  or saying goodbye to something she once believed in.

  “Welcome back.”

  D City, intersection of Lines 9 and 10.

  Abandoned Operations Tower.

  Erased from public city maps.

  But never truly sealed.

  On the Metro Bureau’s internal schematic, the site had an unofficial code:

  Z-Ω: Unanchored Access Zone.

  No guards.

  No inspection records.

  No safety systems.

  But the doors were still powered.

  The building still hummed—

  like some ancient machine buried beneath the city,

  still breathing.

  Jiang Yao held up an outdated maintenance ID.

  Pressed it against the scanner.

  The door slid open slowly.

  A rush of air spilled out—damp, metallic, sour.

  Like old disinfectant mixed with scorched wiring.

  The scent of a hospital room no one ever cleaned.

  “This is one of the access points to the ‘Returnee Shared Archive,’” Jiang Yao whispered.

  “But you’ll need residual memory protocol to open it.”

  “Residual memory?” Lin tilted his head.

  She paused.

  Then said:

  “Not yours.

  The ones you brought back.”

  Lin’s brow twitched.

  Subject 041 had said something eerily similar.

  At the time, he thought it was just the ramblings of a madman.

  But now,

  everything was beginning to match.

  They walked through the corridor.

  The walls flaked.

  The floor tiles cracked.

  Every step felt like they were trampling something organic—something alive and decaying.

  Light came only from the dying motion sensors in the ceiling.

  Each bulb blinked like a tired eye in the dark.

  At the end of the hallway stood a suspended terminal.

  Pale gray.

  Coffin-shaped.

  Its inner circuits still pulsing faintly.

  Jiang Yao pulled out a portable data module.

  Plugged it in.

  The screen flared.

  [Hidden Line Subsystem – BETA]

  Observer Log: Sync Mode

  Please upload 'Non-Archivable Behavioral Fragment' to access Sensory Map Layer

  She removed a chip from beneath her collarbone.

  Slotted it in.

  The screen hissed—

  like rain falling against sealed glass.

  And then,

  a diagram unfolded.

  Not a map.

  A network.

  Dozens—hundreds—of numbered lines tangled together,

  vibrating in soft waves.

  Each tremor felt like a heartbeat.

  Each pulse—

  a life.

  “Only one of these lines is real,” Jiang Yao murmured.

  Lin turned to her.

  “The others are… copies?”

  She shook her head.

  “They’re all real.”

  “But only some get archived.

  The others…”

  She paused.

  “…are reset.”

  Her finger hovered over a flickering red code:

  [L.DUO – Pulse Resonance Point: Anomalous]

  “That’s where you broke off,” she said.

  Lin stared at the code.

  A wave of vertigo surged through him—

  as if something had just rewound itself inside his timeline.

  Then the screen flickered.

  [Verifying…]

  Secondary Clearance: Failed

  Please upload Returnee Memory Fragment to proceed]

  “What does that mean?” Lin frowned.

  Jiang Yao didn’t answer.

  She rolled up her sleeve,

  peeled a silver sensor patch from her arm,

  and pressed it to the terminal.

  The screen lit up again.

  A video began to play—blurry and low-resolution.

  A girl in a yellow school uniform sat at the edge of a tall building.

  Behind her, an orange sunset burned low on the horizon.

  She turned.

  Spoke softly, to the camera:

  “Why do you still remember me?”

  Lin jolted.

  He’d never seen this footage.

  But he knew that voice.

  His hand shook as it reached for the screen—

  Jiang Yao flinched.

  Brows knitted.

  Her body tensed, and she stepped back.

  Her voice came out strained, like pulled from inside her:

  “…This isn’t mine…

  That’s not me…

  That’s not… the right perspective—”

  Her pupils widened.

  Like someone else’s eyes were suddenly looking through hers.

  The footage cracked—like a mirror shattering.

  Mismatched memory.

  She was being overwritten.

  Lin lunged forward.

  Slammed the sync abort button.

  The feed cut instantly.

  White screen.

  Then—

  a line of text appeared:

  [Critical Trigger Detected: Reality Layer Preprocessing Initialized]

  [Observer Identity Conflict. Redundant Perception Cleansing Commencing…]

  “Go!” Lin shouted.

  He knew what this meant.

  This kind of system prompt always came right before the purge.

  The erasure.

  Once it began, the memory structure—the person—would be wiped.

  He moved—

  but not fast enough.

  The screen flickered back to life.

  Not a network map.

  Not code.

  A video.

  Of himself.

  A boy—maybe six years old—

  sitting in the courtyard of an old residential block,

  eating a popsicle,

  smiling at the camera.

  “Mom says Lin Duo will drive a train someday.”

  Lin froze.

  The shock hit like electricity.

  He didn’t remember this.

  Not at all.

  His mother had been a schoolteacher.

  She had never said those words.

  Jiang Yao collapsed beside him, pale as paper.

  Her lips moved, whispering in tremors:

  “…The system’s retrieving him…

  He’s a test subject…

  Prototype tag…

  First generation…”

  Lin dove for the terminal.

  Yanked the data cables out with both hands.

  The system collapsed.

  Just before blackout, the screen flashed one final line:

  Subject Administrator Code: LINDUO-0X.PRIMARY

  Then—

  Darkness.

  Not silence.

  Not confusion.

  But the feeling of temperature being sucked out of the air.

  Like all the wires had gone cold at once.

  Like breath had been pulled from the walls.

  And the darkness?

  It wasn’t blindness.

  It was reality turning off the lights.

  The world of *Hidden Threads* only gets darker from here.