Food-review blogger Zhou Huai'an unexpectedly binds himself to a cross-temporal recording System.
He can use his phone to film people buried by the passage of time, but he cannot speak to them, interfere, or change their fate.
The System can't give him divine weapons or treasures. Its rewards can only make the ruined images clearer.
On screen, a boy saves the only rice in the house for his younger brother, then leaves Sichuan with a rifle taller than himself slung over his back.
Zhou Huai'an follows him, chewing tree bark and sleeping on muddy ground. He watches him see Shanghai for the first time, and watches the smiling child march step by step toward the flames of war.
Then a comment appears: "My great-grandfather had a brother who enlisted at twelve. His name was Zhou Changsheng, too."
Zhou Huai'an opens the family genealogy, his finger stopping on the name crossed out in red ink...
Garbage pile
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