When She Starts Lying

When I restored the last photo of my mother in high definition, what was clearly visible on the screen was a hideous wound on her wrist that had been erased from the image by her own hands. Unable to bear the pressure of work, she committed suicide. The truth that no one knows: On the same day, her boss who had bullied her for many years died in the office. Ten years later, I became a top digital restorer, but I was trapped in the lameness and nightmare caused by that death. I vowed to clear things up, until I dug up my mother's buried diary and discovered that every page was a lie. "Cooperate." Chen Ye, the man who rented a shabby photo studio across from me, leaned on the door frame, his tone was lazy, but his eyes were as sharp as knives, "I'll help you investigate the case, and you help me... Deal with the family." He was once a well-known investigative reporter in the industry, but now he is content to remain silent. I knew he had other agendas, but I had to step side by side with him into this minefield of lies. Amidst the ruins of data and memory, we are peeling off cocoons. However, each "truth" that emerges makes the mother's portrait become stranger. Is she a desperate victim or a calmly planned avenger? When the final curtain was about to be unveiled, Chen Ye stopped in front of me. There was pain in his eyes that I had never seen before: "This truth will destroy everything you have now. Do you want to continue?" I looked at my mother's final, extremely calm smile on the screen and said softly: "Yes." Because what was crueler than the truth was that she had hoped that someone could see through her disguise and understand her silent confession.