In New Arc City, where neon lights never go out and acid rain corrodes skyscrapers, memory is the most expensive commodity and the most deadly weapon.
"Zero" is a top "memory tracer" who can sneak into the last fragments of consciousness of the deceased and restore the truth of the case. But he has a secret that no one knows: he has no past of his own, and his memory is a completely formatted blank.
A bizarre commission broke his numb daily life - a sky-high reward was offered to investigate the bizarre "self-awareness deletion" case of a biological artist known as "Phantom Butterfly". Huan Die is the most dazzling genius in New Arc City. Her works can make inorganic objects blossom into flowers of life, but she chose to completely erase herself at the peak of her career.
When Zero dived into Huandie's kaleidoscopic sea of broken, gorgeous and dangerous memories, he was shocked. He saw her astonishing creations, her struggles with giant technology companies, and a recurring, vague and familiar back figure.
Doubts spread like a virus. Fragments of memory can be tampered with, sensory records can be forged. Behind Huan Die's "suicide", there is a conspiracy that can subvert the order of the entire city. What made Zero shudder the most was that he saw his own clear face in the core memory of Huan Die.
He was not only an investigator on the case, he was part of it. To find the murderer of Phantom Butterfly, Zero must first retrieve his own identity that was taken away. And the price of the truth may be more cruel than eternal nothingness.
