Fifteen years after my mother died, a broken cell phone was mailed to me. There were no photos or numbers on the phone, only a voice she left behind: Gu Nian, don't believe the last words the relic said. But I live by listening to the relics. The broken longevity lock said that the girl who had been dead for ten years was still alive; the charred take-out box said that the last order delivered by the missing rider was not rice; the red dancing shoes stained with oil paint said that everyone had wronged the girl who jumped off the building... I searched for the dead for the living, exposed the living for the dead, and traced the death of my mother in each relic. Until one day, I heard my mother's relic speak again: Xiao Nian, I am not dead. The man standing in front of me took out my death certificate.
