Peel Off

You picked up your phone and swiped your finger across the screen unconsciously. You don't know what you're paddling. There is no icon in that location, just blank space. But your hand remembers that there was once something here Three or five years ago, something happened. No one remembers it happening. There were no explosions, no ruins, and then some words disappeared. No one remembers they were ever called by any other name, and all is well with the world. But one person felt something was wrong. His name is Li Yuan, a suspended materials scientist who cannot tolerate inconsistency in logic. He saw cracks in an unexplained safety incident and started asking questions. From a safety rule without an author to a number that everyone takes for granted, he has introduced more and more things. He is the only person in the world who can confirm the existence of the old world without memory. But he could never prove it—because the vocabulary needed to prove it had been taken away. What he doesn't know is that there is another kind of person in this world. They remember everything, but they can't tell. They are screened, imprisoned, and extracted as some sort of resource. And the majority caught in the middle neither remember nor completely forget. They just feel like something is wrong but can't tell. This is a story about questioning. About what is left of a person after his memory has been tampered with. About how fear turns into violence, how the weak become weapons, how the unrecognized are consumed in the cracks. And that question that will never have an answer - when no one remembers, do you still want to ask?