Missing Day

One day a year, adults can legally "disappear" for twenty-four hours. There is no need to explain to your partner where you have been, no need to share your location, and no need to answer any personal questions about the relationship. This day is called the Missing Day. On the twenty-fifth year of the implementation of the system, at 0:17, Cheng Jianchuan's mobile phone received a prompt: His wife, Xu Zhiwei, has returned. But she didn't go home. It wasn't until early the next morning that she opened the door by herself. She remembered their twelve years of marriage, her daughter's birthday, and every little thing at home. She has no amnesia, has not been replaced, and has no medical abnormalities. But she began to turn off location sharing, changed the password she had used for eight years, stopped arranging life for everyone, and refused to answer her husband's questions for the first time. Cheng Jianchuan's job happened to be to confirm whether those "people who came back" were still the same people. Over the past fourteen years, he has given countless families the same answer: The identity is continuous and no abnormalities are found. Now, it's his wife's turn. But for the first time, he didn't want to believe the answer. What's even stranger is that this year, more and more people across the country are experiencing the same situation—— They are back. But he did not return to his original life. Some people end their marriages, some quit their jobs, some leave their families, and some decide to stay for the first time after really getting the chance to leave. The whole society began to argue: If a person no longer wants to be who he was yesterday, Do past promises still count? And Cheng Jian