The Memory Manipulator

Chapter Ill: Shadows in the WheatField

At 4:17 a.m., Lin Mo was awakened by the vibration of his phone.

It wasn't a phone call, but an encrypted message pushed by an internal system from XiaoWang in the Criminal Investigation Evidence Department. It contained only one line:

"Chen Jianguo is in the town hospital, in the ICU. He fell from a building. Come quickly." Lin Mo sat up, the only light from his phone screen illuminating the outline of his chin in the darkness. The paper crane he'd brought back from Chen Jianguo's house lay beside his pillow, its wings fluttering slightly in the air conditioning. He didn't turn on the light, sitting in the dark for ten seconds before getting up and dressing.

The pocket watch was on the bedside table; its hands pointed to 4:14.

It was three minutes slower. Just like when the incident occurred.

The corridor of the town hospital's emergency building was filled with a mixture of disinfectants and a sweet, fishy smell. The LED lights emitted a stark white light, casting noshadows on anyone's face. Xiao Li leaned against the wall outside the ICU, his eyes bruised.

"What happened?"

"The neighbor called the police. They said they heard a heavy sound when Chen Jian's house fell around 2 a.m. When they went out to check, they found that he had fallen from his second-floor balcony and was lying in the yard." Xiao Li's voice was dry. "There were frictionmarks on the balcony railing, as if he slipped or… climbed over it himself."

"Himself?" Lin Mo looked at the closed door of the ICU. "Second floor, he fell like this?"

"There was a broken cactus in the yard. He fell on it, injuring his spine and hitting the back of his head. The doctor said that even if he survives, he will most likely be in a vegetative state." Xiao Li paused. "The initial investigation of the scene… there were no signs of a struggle, and no indication that an outsider had entered. But there is one very strange thing."

"explain."

"Two sets of fingerprints were extracted from the balcony railing. One set belonged to ChenJianguo, and the other set... was very blurry, like marks left by someone wearing gloves. But on the outside of the railing, near the ground, we found something... this."

Xiao Li handed over an evidence bag. Inside was a small, inconspicuous piece of dark blue fabric fiber.

Lin Mo looked at it under the light. The color was extremely close to the killer's jacket described by the witnesses, but more importantly—the edges of the fibers had a faint reflective coating, like part of some kind of nighttime safety warning strip.

"Jacket cuffs?" Lin Mo asked.

"We're comparing them now. But there's something even stranger." Xiao Li lowered his voice, "Before Chen Jianguo was put into the ambulance, he briefly regained consciousness and only said half a sentence."

"What?"

"He said…" Xiao Li licked his lips, "The shadows in the wheat field are upside down."

Lin Mo's breath hitched.

Wheat fields. There are no wheat fields in Anning Ancient Town. At least not now. Thirty years ago, when this was still a rural area on the outskirts of the city, there were indeed large wheat fields. Later, with the development of the ancient town for tourism, the wheat fields were turned into squares, shops, and parking lots.

The shadow is upside down.

He thought of the sculpture in Morning Light Square, and the wrong direction of the shadow.

"Has his house been searched?"

"We searched for it. It was very clean." Xiao Li looked even more confused. "But we found this in a hidden compartment in his desk drawer."

Another evidence bag. Inside was a faded old photograph, its edges yellowed. The photograph showed three teenagers standing in a golden wheat field, arms around each other, smiling at the camera. On the back of the photograph, written in pen, was the date:June 15, 1993, and three names: Chen Jianguo, Li Guohua, and Zhang Jianjun.

"Who is Li Guohua?"

"I checked. Li Wen's father passed away ten years ago," Xiao Li said. "Zhang JianjunisZhang Hao's father. He died in a car accident five years ago.'

The fathers of the three witnesses were friends thirty years ago.

Lin Mo stared at the photo. The wheat field rippled in the sunlight, and the shadows of the three boys stretched long behind them — all pointing to the right.

However, depending on the sun's position and the shooting angle, the shadow should point to the left.

The shadow in the photo is upside down.

"Send the photo to the technical department for detailed analysis." Lin Mo returned the evidence bag to Xiao Li. "I need to know the camera model that took this photo, the weather data at the time, and... why the shadow is like this."

Xiao Li nodded and left. Lin Mo stood alone outside the ICU, looking inside through the glass window. Chen Jianguo was covered in tubes, and the ventilator rose and fell rhythmically, like a precise timer.

"The shadows in the wheat field are upside down."

This doesn't seem like a will, it's more like a riddle. Or perhaps a... coordinate.

Lin Mo took out his phone and searched for "Anning Ancient Town Wheat Field 1993". The results were few. But he clicked on an old post on a local history forum, titled "The Vanishing Wheat Field: The Growing Pains of Ancient Town Development." The poster's ID was"Watcher 1993", and the last login time was seven years ago.

The post itself wasn't anything special, but in the comments section, there was a collapsed reply:

"They thought that turning the wheat fields into cement would bury the past. But the shadow remembers. The shadow remembers forever."

Reply date: October 24, 2016.

Seven years ago. The same year as the case he misjudged.

Lin Mo took a screenshot and put his phone away. Dawn was approaching, and a pale gray light shone from the window at the end of the corridor. He went downstairs, walked out of the emergency building, and lit a cigarette in the parking lot. As the nicotine flooded his lungs, he remembered the overturned chrysanthemum in Chen Jianguo's house, and the words on the sticky note:

"Then I actually saw it."

What did you see? The murderer? Or... something you shouldn't have seen?

My phone vibrated again. It was Xiao Wang.

"Team Leader Lin, the fiber comparison results are in. It matches the jacket material described by the witness very closely, but... this fabric with a reflective coating is from a certain brand's 'Night Safety Series' launched three years ago, mainly used by sanitationworkers and construction sites. It was discontinued last year. In the entire ancient town, only one labor protection supplies store ever stocked it."

Labor protection supplies store. Lin Mo stubbed out his cigarette. On the west side of ChenxiSquare, at the end of that row of small buildings, there was a*****e called "Old Zhou's Labor Protection Supplies."

As he opened the car door, his pocket watch slipped out of his pocket and fell onto the driver's seat. The cover popped open, and the hands silently pointed to 4:44. An unlucky number.

Lin Mo picked up the watch and was about to close it when his gaze suddenly froze.

On the inside of the dial glass, near the "IV" mark, there is a very fine scratch that I had never noticed before. It is shaped like a lightning bolt, or... an abstract bird's beak.

It has the same beak as the bird in the sculpture in Sunrise Square.

He stared at the scratch for a full minute. Then he started the car, not heading towards the safety equipment store, but turning around and driving towards the ancient town archives.

The archives are located in the old government compound at the northernmost part of the ancient town, in a small red brick building from the 1950s. The librarian is a bald old man wearing reading glasses, who is dusting the bookshelves with a feather duster.

"Investigate what?" The old man asked without looking up.

"Local newspapers from 1993. And all the documents related to the requisition of wheatfields."

The old man glanced at him, then slowly walked to the innermost iron cabinet and pulled out a bunch of jingling keys. "The newspapers from '93 are incomplete. I do have the landrequisition documents, but they're internal files; you need to apply for them."

Lin Mo showed his identification.

The old man sighed and opened the cabinet door. Dust rushed out. He pulled out a brownpaper file folder, and as he handed it over, his finger lingered on the seal.

"Young man," the old man's voice suddenly became very low, "There are some shadows that you shouldn't chase."

Lin Mo looked up at him.

The old man's eyes were cloudy behind his glasses. "The wheat field is long gone. But something's, no matter how deep they are buried, will grow back."

"for example?"

The old man didn't answer, but simply turned and walked back to the counter to continue himself. Lin Mo opened the file folder.

Inside was a thick stack of yellowed documents: land requisition notices, compensation agreements, villagers' signatures... Turning to the last page, there was a mediation record. Date: August 12, 1993.

Incident: During the land acquisition process, three villagers (Chen, Li, and Zhang) jointly resisted, claiming that the compensation was too low. A representative of the developer (surnamed Zhou) mediated and reached a "supplementary agreement".

The contents of the supplementary agreement were crossed out with a black pen. But when Lin Mo held it up to the light, he could vaguely see the writing underneath:

"...agree to pay an additional RMB 50,000 per household in exchange for permanently waiving the right to appeal, and promise..."

The following words were completely blacked out.

But at the very bottom of the document, there are three familiar signatures: Chen Jianguo, Li Guohua, and Zhang Jianjun.

And the signature of a developer's representative: Zhou Guofu.

The mayor who died this morning.

Lin Mo's finger stopped on that name. Zhou Guofu was the project manager for the ancienttown development project thirty years ago. And the three households he "persuaded"during the land acquisition were the fathers of the three witnesses today.

Zhou Guofu died. Chen Jianguo is in the ICU.

Who's next? Li Wen? Zhang Hao?

My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was from the police station.

"Captain Lin, something's happened." The voice on the other end of the phone was urgent." Li Wen just reported that someone broke into her house and stole something!"

"What is that?"

"She said...it was an old videotape. From 1993."

When Lin Mo rushed out of the archives, it was already broad daylight. The sunlight was dazzling, casting his shadow long and thin on the stone path pointing to the left.

He stopped and looked back.

The red brick walls of the archives cast heavy shadows in the morning light, their edges sharp as knives.

His own shadow intersected with the shadow of the wall, forming a tilted cross.

He suddenly understood what Chen Jianguo had said.

The shadows in the wheat field are upside down.

It's not that the direction is wrong. It's that the light source is wrong.

If the light source for the photo had not been the sun, but a stronger artificial light from the other side—such as a construction site spotlight—then the shadow would have fallen to the other side.

The photo doesn't capture an afternoon, but an entire night.

A night illuminated by blinding light. What happened in the wheat field thirty years ago that needed to be recorded by blinding light, yet deliberately disguised as daytime?

The pocket watch was in his hand, its hands ticking.

This time it's fast. It's synchronized with the speed of sunrise.

Lin Mo opened the car door, and the engine roared. He was going to Li Wen's house, but before that, he needed to go somewhere first—

That house with green plants on the windowsill and dark curtains that were always drawn.

At the end of the small building on the west side, next to the labor protection supplies store.

He needs to know who's there, watching all of this happen.

Who is trimming the shadow?