No One Remembers Her

"What does this girl you're talking about look like?" Gu Yang bit down on his soy milk straw, his expression serious, not like he was just humoring Lin Shen. Lin Shen ran through Su Wan's appearance in his mind—long straight black hair, a tear mole, a dimple on the right side. Then he realized he couldn't come up with a third thing. It wasn't that he'd forgotten. It was that he didn't dare say more. Afraid that if he did, the first two details would turn into lies too.

Lin Shen had left home just as dawn was breaking.

He hadn't slept. From 11:50 last night until 5:30 this morning, he had lain with his eyes open, watching the shifting shadows of traffic sweep across the ceiling again and again. At one point he got up, walked to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and looked for that sticky note—nothing. All the magnets were still there, neatly arranged, but not a single scrap of paper remained. He stood in front of the refrigerator, the cold light hitting his face, replaying the last scene from the night before over and over in his mind: the character "Wan" on the sticky note dissolving into blankness in his hand.

Now he sat across from Gu Yang's desk. Gu Yang was the only person at the Design Office he could really talk to; they'd worked through four projects together, spent countless all-nighters side by side. Gu Yang's voice was always about three notches louder than necessary, but he was dependable when it came to getting things done.

"When did you start dating?" Gu Yang set his soy milk cup on the desk, the straw chewed flat.

"Two years," Lin Shen said.

"With who?"

"Su Wan. Su as in Suzhou, Wan as in evening."

Gu Yang looked at him, first at his left eye, then his right, as if trying to identify something. "Shen-ge, that joke isn't funny."

"It's not a joke."

"Then show me a photo."

Lin Shen pulled out his phone and flipped through his gallery. She hadn't appeared in last night's photos. He opened WeChat again. That gray avatar was still there, the chat history was still there, but in every message, her profile picture wasn't a face anymore—just a gray human silhouette. He turned the phone around for Gu Yang to see.

Gu Yang looked at the screen, then at him. "Who's this?"

"Su Wan."

"The name's gone. The avatar's a gray person. The chat history—" Gu Yang swiped the screen a couple of times, "—the messages look normal enough. But have you considered," he handed the phone back, "that this might be an account that's been deactivated? Like you've been chatting with a stranger for two years?"

"I've seen her."

"Alright," Gu Yang leaned back in his chair and slurped the last of his soy milk with a loud noise, "then let me ask you—when you ate together, which restaurant did you go to?"

Lin Shen opened his mouth. He remembered that hotpot place, on the fourth floor of the mall, by the window, Su Wan would dip tripe for exactly seven seconds. But the name of the restaurant—the name stuck on his tongue, refusing to surface. He tried to recall the name of the mall. Couldn't. What street it was on—no idea. He sat in his chair, tapped his fingers on the desk twice, "thump thump," then stopped.

"See?"

"That's not how it is."

"Fine, whatever you say," Gu Yang looked at his expression and dropped his lazy posture. "Tell you what, go home and rest for a day. I'll talk to HR, say you're taking sick leave."

"I don't need sick leave."

"You do." Gu Yang stood up and patted Lin Shen on the shoulder. The pat wasn't hard, but Lin Shen could feel it was a "my buddy's losing his mind but I don't have the heart to say it outright" kind of pat. "I'll come see you after work."

Lin Shen didn't move from his chair. Gu Yang took a couple of steps, then turned back: "Oh, and I rescheduled the business trip for you. In your current state, I'm afraid you'd jump off the train."

Lin Shen didn't reply. After a moment, he stood up and walked out of the office. In the fire escape stairwell at the end of the hallway, he leaned against the wall, the back of his head pressed against the concrete. The cold of it bit into his skull.

He thought back to how Gu Yang had reacted when he'd mentioned the name—it wasn't confusion. It was concern. Concern that Lin Shen had lost his mind. Confusion could be reasoned with. But concern was different. It meant Gu Yang had already settled on a conclusion and just couldn't bring himself to say it.

He took a deep breath, walked to the convenience store downstairs from the Design Office, and bought another pack of cigarettes. At the register, he scanned his phone to pay, and the screen lit up, showing his lock screen wallpaper. It was a group photo from the Qingdao beach. Su Wan was wearing a blue dress, holding up a big conch. No. Wait. He stared at the wallpaper more carefully. The beach was still there, the dress was still there, but the hand holding the conch wasn't Su Wan's. It was a completely unfamiliar hand.

He changed the wallpaper.

He drove to the rental agency at ten-thirty in the morning. The landlord was Lao Hu, in his fifties, balding, round-faced with a red nose. He pulled out the lease contract Lin Shen had signed, flipped through it page by page, and got to the section on occupants.

"Just one person, see? It says right here—'Occupant: Lin Shen, one person.' That's right. Signed two years ago, three-year lease."

"You must be misremembering," Lin Shen said. "I moved in with my girlfriend. You met her the day we signed the contract."

Lao Hu slid his reading glasses down his nose a little and looked at Lin Shen over the rims. "Kid, I've been in this business for over twenty years. I never cut corners when tenants sign a contract. One person is one person. If it were two, I would have charged extra rent." He chuckled twice, as if he found the joke very funny.

Lin Shen didn't laugh. "That apartment has two bedrooms and a living room."

"Right. You can use one bedroom and put your stuff in the other. Lots of people do that."

"Two people lived there."

Lao Hu closed the contract. "The contract doesn't lie. I may be old, but my memory's not bad. The day you moved in, you were alone. You were dragging a big suitcase, and there was a drawing tube on top of it—oh right, you said you were a draftsman, I could tell from the tube right away."

Lin Shen froze. The drawing tube. That was Su Wan's drawing tube. He remembered that day, Su Wan holding that tube by the roadside, and him watching her from the car, thinking how strange she was—clutching a drawing tube while moving, like she was holding a child.

"That tube wasn't mine," he said.

"Well, I wouldn't know about that," Lao Hu scratched the top of his head. "The contract says you were alone."

Lin Shen said nothing more. When he walked out of the agency, he stood at the entrance for a while. Moving day was two years and three months ago. He remembered many details—the smudge of dust on the back of Su Wan's white T-shirt, the chip of paint knocked off the living room wall by the movers carrying the bookshelf corner, Su Wan saying it didn't matter, that they could just hang a painting over it later. The chipped paint was still on the wall. The painting was gone.

The café "Nomad" was on a street lined with plane trees in the west part of the city.

Lin Shen went there often, but always with Su Wan. She performed there every Wednesday afternoon, singing old songs and occasionally playing her own compositions. The owner was named You, everyone called him Xiao You, in his thirties, a man of few words, but he focused on making coffee like he was performing surgery.

When Lin Shen pushed open the door, the copper bell at the entrance chimed. Weekday morning, no customers inside. Xiao You was wiping glasses behind the counter. He looked up at the sound of the bell and gave a small chin nod as a greeting.

Lin Shen sat down by the window. Third row, left side—Su Wan's usual spot. After her sets, she always sat here waiting for him to pick her up. Now he was the one sitting in that seat. He ordered an oat latte—Su Wan's drink of choice. He never drank it himself.

Xiao You set the coffee on the table with a coaster underneath.

"Excuse me," Lin Shen said, "I wanted to ask—you used to have a singer who performed here—"

"Who?" Xiao You's hand stopped mid-air.

"Su Wan. A girl, long hair, a tear mole. She used to perform here on Wednesday afternoons."

Xiao You withdrew his hand and wiped it on his apron twice. He looked at the photo wall covered with pictures from café events. He walked over and stood in front of it, scanning each one.

"All our performers are music college students, rotating shifts. We don't have a permanent singer." He walked back. "That girl you mentioned—what did she look like?"

Lin Shen described Su Wan's appearance again. Long straight black hair. Tear mole. Dimple on the right. She sang Cheer Chen and Deserts Chang, sometimes her own songs. Always had traces of paint on her hands that never completely washed off.

Xiao You listened, silent for a moment. He went back behind the counter, opened the computer ordering system, and typed in a few keywords. The scrolling records reflected on his face. Lin Shen couldn't see the content, but he could see his expression—first frowning, then his brow relaxing, and finally settling into confusion.

"There's no such person," Xiao You said.

"Check again. Last year on Halloween, she wore a hoodie with cat ears to perform. It was packed that night."

Xiao You checked again. This time he looked for a long while, then let out a "Huh?"

"What is it?"

"A bit strange. The order records from Halloween—" He turned the screen slightly toward Lin Shen. "All the coffees ordered during that time slot were under your name. You ordered six cups by yourself."

"I wasn't alone. She came with me."

Xiao You didn't respond. He looked at Lin Shen's expression, probably trying to gauge whether this guy was joking. Then he noticed another detail. He scrolled to the bottom of the historical orders. In the customer signature field, there was a crooked little sun.

The strokes were childlike, as if drawn idly, but it was done with unusual care. Around the sun were a few faint rays of light.

"This is—" Xiao You stared at the little sun.

"She drew it," Lin Shen said. "Su Wan. She'd draw a little sun at the bottom of every sticky note."

Xiao You said nothing. He glanced at Lin Shen again, then at the little sun, then turned the screen back. His movements were quick, but Lin Shen caught a flicker of something in his eyes—not recognition of Su Wan, but recognition of that little sun drawn in the signature field. He'd seen that mark every time he processed an order. He just never knew who it belonged to.

"Do you still remember the warehouse she mentioned?" Lin Shen asked.

Xiao You's hand paused on the cup. He seemed to be trying hard to recall something. "She said there was a warehouse in the old town where she kept her paintings. But the address—"

He stopped, like a hunting dog that had caught a scent but then lost the trail.

"Forgotten. Sorry."

Lin Shen walked out of the café and stood under the plane trees. Light filtered through the cracks in the leaves, dappling his face. His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and incidentally felt a hard object in there.

Su Wan's building access card.

He took it out. The card was still there, but the photo on it—where Su Wan's ID photo should have been under the plastic laminate—was now a translucent gray silhouette. As if the photo had been soaked in something, the facial features dissolving.

He stared at the card for a long time. Then, abruptly, he clenched it with his other hand. His knuckles cracked. He gripped it so hard the edges of the card pressed into his palm.

He pulled out his phone and opened WeChat again. Su Wan's chat window was still open, the last message still his "Where are you?" He scrolled up to the photos she'd sent—their couple photos, them going to eat hotpot, them at Qingdao—every single one had Su Wan's face reduced to a blurry gray patch. But her posture was still there, the dress she was wearing was still there, the conch in her hand was still there.

Like someone had used an eraser to remove only her face.

Lin Shen sat down on the curb by the street. People came and went, no one noticed him. He turned the access card over and over in his hands, then pressed it against his forehead. The edges of the card were warm from the sun, but the middle was cold.

He told himself: this is proof. The card is still here. Even though her photo has blurred, the blur itself proves it was once clear.

He stood up, tucked the card into the innermost pocket of his wallet, right next to his ID card. As he walked to his car, he pulled out his phone and dialed Su Wan's number, pressing each digit with the certainty of someone who hadn't just been told by everyone that he didn't have a girlfriend.

The call went through.

After four rings, an automated voice: "The number you dialed is powered off."

He lowered the phone from his ear. The dialing screen dimmed automatically. Just as he was about to press the lock button, the screen lit up again—a text message from Su Wan's number.

The message contained only one emoji: a crooked little sun.

Lin Shen stared at that little sun, standing in the sunlight of the parking lot, his hands starting to tremble. He tried to reply: "Where are you?"

Send failed.

He called again. This time it went straight to a voice prompt: "The number you dialed does not exist."

When the phone screen went dark, it reflected his own face. Hair a mess, eyes sunken deep, lips chapped and peeling. He looked like someone who had just crawled out of the rubble.He put his phone into his pocket, and his fingers brushed against the access card again. He took it out—even the gray silhouette on the card was gone. Now it was just a plain white card, blank on the front, blank on the back. No photo, no name, no ID number.

He stood in the sunlight for about a minute, then pulled open the car door and sat inside, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white.

The headlights weren't on. He sat in the driver's seat, looking at the sky through the windshield. A layer of clouds was pressing in from the west.

He recalled the tone in Xiao You's voice when he said those words—"Forgot. Sorry." It wasn't the tone of someone who couldn't remember. It was the tone of someone who had just remembered, and now had already forgotten.

It wasn't just him. Xiao You was forgetting too.

He started the engine.