The Person Named Has No Name: One Name Is Changed to One Character

Shen Yan runs a name shop without a signboard in Tiaoshui Lane. Nailed on the left side of the door frame are two words: Name. There are seven rules, the first of which is not to write after the third watch. He's not trying to scare people. Give someone a name and he will recognize one less word. After twenty-two years of writing, one hundred and thirty-seven of the four thousand boxes on the copybook were empty. He named the dead baby "Yan" and forgot "Mother" that night. He looked through the name list left by his master and recognized his senior brother's name, but forgot his own surname that night. There were nine scratches on that roster. Each one is a name taken away from the world. Every time he recognized a person, he recognized one less word. He didn't know how many more he could recognize. He kept names for everyone. He just wanted to figure out one thing: how many words were left to write when it was his turn.