Chen Mo has had a photographic memory since childhood. This year, at twenty-two, he has just graduated from college and found a job at a funeral home. That job is where his encounters with the uncanny begin. On his very first night shift, one of the thirteen body lockers is empty and leaking water. A blank nameplate slips into place by itself. Fingernails scrape the door, keeping time like a metronome. At 4:26 a.m., the locker door opens from the inside. By daytime, his own name has appeared in the ledger of the dead. If he wants to survive, all he can rely on is that mind of his, the one that never forgets. The rules, the uncanny's weaknesses, the keepsakes clutched in the dead men's hands: he has them all etched into his memory, where nothing can erase them or deny them. Posts vanish, photos blur, and the whole internet claims nothing happened. His memory is the only backup. But remembering things too clearly isn't always a good thing.
As he investigates further, the mysteries only grow. Every strange event at the funeral home points to a night forty years ago. Pages have been torn from the archives. The old night watchman hasn't budged in forty years. On the cremation register, an unfinished signature leaves a blank that has remained for nineteen years. Several people have taken this night shift before him, and none lasted until the end. And it says there's an old order under his name, placed twelve years ago. The goods have been delivered, the face has grown, and the name on the order is his own. Who placed the order? Where did the last person go?
