The Mediocre Realm of Wangchuan

The day his mother called the police, Shen Yuhen stood outside his own home with a key in his hand.

She hid in the kitchen with a cleaver, pointing it at him as she said:

“Officer, there’s a stranger in my house.”

Shen Yuhen thought his mother was ill.

Until he discovered that

In the household register, he was listed as a “non-relative lodger”;

In the family photo, he had vanished;

The neighbors didn’t recognize him;

His chat history with his friends was changing, message by message.

This world was erasing him.

Later, Shen Yuhen learned that people weren’t the only things being erased.

A fire could leave behind a death toll, yet forget the people who had rushed into the flames.

A woman could remember that she had been married, yet forget the person she had loved most in her life.

A girl could fall in love with him again and again, only to wake up the next morning and ask:

“Who are you?”

Someone told Shen Yuhen this was meant to make life easier for everyone.

Love too deeply, and erase a little.

Suffer too long, and forget a little.

Hate too fiercely, and delete a little.

That way, the world would be peaceful, stable, and happy.

They called it “balance.”

But Shen Yuhen only wanted to ask one thing:

If even our pain no longer belongs to us, then who, exactly, is living our lives for us?