The List of the Absent

Twelve years ago, the gymnasium at City No. 1 High School collapsed, killing thirty-four students. The next day, however, every record was changed to read: No casualties. Thirty-four students were absent as a group. Twelve years later, a name that should not exist appears on the confirmation form for Class Seven, Grade Eleven. Zhou Ye remembers Xu Yuqing. But her mother says she has no daughter, her classmates say there were always only sixty students in the class, and even the faces in the photographs are beginning to disappear. Someone is being erased, little by little, from memories, records, and reality. Worse still, Zhou Ye discovers that he is one of the few people who still remembers them. This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental. Please do not imitate.