Do you believe in paper?
Not the things written on it—do you believe in the paper itself?
You might find the question absurd. Paper's just an object. Write on it, it holds words. Crumple it, it sits in a wastebasket. Burn it, it turns to ash. It has no consciousness, no will, no memory. Why would anyone believe or disbelieve in it?
I used to think the same way.
Until I took a part-time job at a printing shop on University Town's commercial street. After a month, I began to realize—we might be the most irreverent people in the world when it comes to paper.
My name is Chen Yu, a senior with few classes and even less money. Poverty explains eighty percent of my life's decisions; laziness covers the other twenty. The printing shop gig was introduced by my roommate Lin Hao, who'd worked there for half a year before leaving for his graduation internship, passing the torch to me.
The boss was Cui, in his early forties, easygoing. The shop wasn't big—four computers, six printers—mostly serving students with papers, resumes, study materials, application forms. During peak season the machines ran nonstop; off-season we scraped by.
Boss Cui gave me few rules: collect money, balance accounts, change ink cartridges and paper, lock up and turn off the lights when closing. The strangest rule was this—*All misprinted paper must go through the shredder.*
"Don't complain about the hassle," he said, leaning on the counter and tapping the gray-blue shredder with his knuckles. His tone was casual. "Can't just crumple waste paper and toss it in the bin. Must be shredded. Got it?"
I asked why.
He looked at me—like someone watching a first-time eater try fermented fish, that vague "you'll find out soon enough" look. "Rules are rules!" he said.
Fine, I thought. When you're working, you do what the boss says.
And I did follow it. Honestly, it wasn't trouble—the shredder was right at my feet. Drop in the waste paper, buzz for a few seconds, done. I didn't think much about it. No need to.
Until the third Friday of October.
Business was surprisingly slow that afternoon—just a few copy jobs all day. I spent most of the time reading novels on my phone. Boss Cui left at four to pick up his kid, telling me to close promptly at six.
At 5:30 I started tidying up—swept the floor, took out the trash, checked the paper stock. Just as I was about to shut down the computer, the door opened.
A man walked in, probably in his late twenties. He wore a dark gray trench coat, his face gaunt with prominent cheekbones and slightly sunken eyes, like he hadn't slept well in ages. He walked almost silently, reaching the counter in three steps and handing me his phone.
"Print this, one copy."
I took it. On the screen was some text, about two hundred words, neatly formatted like an excerpt from a document. I didn't read it carefully, just sent it to the computer and clicked print. The printer whirred and spat out an A4 sheet.
I pulled it out and handed it to him. He took it, looking down at it slowly.
That look was excruciatingly slow. His eyes moved from left to right across the page, lips twitching as if speaking the words silently, or maybe just chewing them over.
When he finished, he folded the paper in half, then folded it again, crumpled it in his palm a couple of times into a medium-sized ball, and tossed it casually into the black wastebasket beside the counter.
"Thanks," he said.
Then he turned and left.
The whole thing took less than three minutes.
I glanced at the clock—5:51. Honestly, I just wanted to lock up and go home. There was a game event that night. I stood, stretched, turned off the lights, and pulled down the shutter.
Locked up, rode a shared bike back to my rental, played games until 1 AM, then slept.
That night, I had a dream.
Or rather, it was more like a state between wakefulness and sleep. I dreamed I was lying on a vast white plane—soft yet resilient, with fine fiber textures shimmering faintly in the dim light. I tried to roll over, but my body was pinned down, unable to move.
Then I heard a sound.
Click. Click.
Like machinery operating, rhythmic, one beat at a time—coming from far away, yet also right beside my ear. The sound lasted a long time, until my consciousness blurred and finally sank into complete darkness.
When I woke the next morning, I lay staring at the ceiling, replaying that dream in my mind. I couldn't pinpoint what was wrong, but there was an indescribable unease. I rubbed my face, got up, washed up, went out to buy a pancake, and ate it while walking to the printing shop.
I opened the door at 8:40.
First turned on the lights, then the computer, then the printer to warm up. Everything seemed normal. I set down my backpack, sat behind the counter, and took a bite of the pancake. My gaze drifted unconsciously to the floor.
The wastebasket was empty.
My movements froze. That paper ball from last night—I remembered clearly, it had landed right in the middle of that black wastebasket, and there was nothing else in it. Now it was spotlessly clean, empty.
After 10 AM, students started coming in to print resumes. I got busy and quickly forgot about last night. Around 11:30, I was helping a girl adjust her resume format when the shop door opened.
I looked up automatically and said "Welcome," then froze.
It was the man from last night. Same dark gray trench coat, same gaunt face, same sunken eyes. He walked in just like he had before—light steps, like he was afraid of stepping on something. He went straight to the counter, no phone, no request to print anything, just leaned slightly forward and looked at me.
"Did you sleep well last night?"
He asked softly, like greeting an old friend, but those eyes stared straight at me—pupils so dark they seemed unnatural, like he was looking at something on my face that I couldn't see.
I froze.
The question itself wasn't strange. What was strange was—who was he to ask? We'd met once, for less than three minutes. He shouldn't even remember my face. A printing shop clerk—who bothers to remember that?
I didn't answer. Maybe I stared too long, because the girl printing her resume looked up at me.
He gave a faint smile, as if confirming something, then turned and left.
I stared at the door for several seconds until the girl beside me called out, "Senior? How do I adjust this format?"
I snapped back to attention, focusing on helping her, but my fingers trembled as I clicked the mouse. When she said "Thank you, senior," I just grunted, my voice dry.
After the girl left, the shop went quiet. I sat behind the counter, my mind a mess—thoughts swirling like shredded paper in the machine. I tried to piece it together: he'd printed something yesterday, crumpled it and threw it away, I'd been too lazy to shred it, the paper ball was gone, today he asked if I slept well, then smiled and left.
Was there a connection between these things?
I took a deep breath and stood up to get a glass of water. As I walked past the water cooler, my peripheral vision caught something on the out tray of the innermost printer—a sheet of paper.
I walked over slowly, cup in hand. With each step, the words on the paper became clearer. When I stood in front of the printer, I saw what it said.
It was a plain A4 sheet with two lines printed on it.
The first line was my name: "Chen Yu."
The second line was a single sentence.
"I printed out your dream for you."
The cup slipped from my hand, shattering on the floor. Water splashed up my pants. I didn't bother picking it up—I just stood there, staring at the paper, my fingers ice cold. I flipped it over to check the back—blank, nothing. I checked the printer—it was on standby, no print jobs from any connected computer.
Those two lines lay quietly on the page: Songti font, size five, bold, neatly aligned—just like any ordinary printout, completely normal.
But I had never printed my own name on this machine.
And I'd never told anyone my name was Chen Yu. He hadn't asked for it last night.
I flipped the paper over and over, my fingers gripping the edge. The paper felt like any other sheet of copy paper—seventy-gram A4, smooth, slightly cool. But holding it reminded me of that dream last night, the one where I lay on that vast white plane with the same fine fiber texture.
I set the paper on the counter and sat down, trying to reason through this. How had that paper ended up in the printer?
I picked up my phone to call Boss Cui, but stopped halfway through opening my contacts. What would I say? That a customer asked if I slept well, then a paper appeared in the printer? He'd probably think I was hallucinating from playing too many games, tell me to sleep more.
I put the phone down, leaned back in my chair, and stared at the fluorescent light on the ceiling.
I didn't go out for lunch—just sat behind the counter, flipping through that paper over and over. The paper itself was unremarkable. I even sniffed it—just the normal smell of paper and ink, that faint burnt scent from the printer's toner heating and fusing.
Everything was normal, except it shouldn't exist.
Boss Cui came by in the evening, checked the ledger, chatted for a bit—said it was getting cold, told me to dress warmly. I nodded and agreed, hesitating several times to mention what happened yesterday, but each time the words died in my throat.
I couldn't explain why. Maybe I wasn't sure if it was worth mentioning, or maybe I had a vague feeling that speaking it aloud would change something.
Before closing that night, I took the paper with my name on it and fed it into the shredder.
When I pressed the button, the shredder made its familiar buzzing sound. Blades spun, cutting the paper into fine strips that fell into the transparent bin below. Watching those strips pile up, I felt an inexplicable sense of relief—like pulling out a splinter embedded in my skin.
Then I locked up, rode home, took a shower, lay in bed scrolling through my phone.
Around 1 AM, I turned off the lights to sleep. Darkness fell like a curtain; the furniture blurred into varying shades of gray. I closed my eyes, breathing steadied, consciousness began to drift.
Click.
My eyes snapped open.
Click. Click. Click.
That sound came from somewhere in the darkness—horribly familiar. The rhythmic whir of machinery, one beat at a time, accompanied by the faint tearing of paper being cut. I lay motionless, muscles tensed, sweat sticking my T-shirt to my back.
The sound of a shredder.
But my shredder was at the printing shop—four kilometers away from my rental.
Click. Click. The sound grew faster, closer—like a shredder was running in some corner of this room. I sat up abruptly, turning on the bedside lamp. The room was empty, nothing there. The shredder sound vanished the moment the light came on, like something scattered by the illumination.
I sat on the bed, breathing heavily for a while before my heartbeat slowed. I told myself it was a dream, a hallucination, sleep deprivation from overthinking during the day. I got out of bed, turned on all the lights, checked every corner—under the desk, beside the wardrobe, behind the curtains. Nothing. My room was less than twenty square meters; there weren't many places to hide things.
When I climbed back into bed, I noticed something.
On my desk lay a sheet of paper.
A perfectly flat A4 sheet, placed neatly next to my laptop—positioned so precisely, it looked like someone had deliberately set it there. I was one hundred percent certain that spot had been empty before I went to sleep.
I walked over and picked it up.
Printed on it was a passage of text—about two hundred words, Songti font, size five, neatly formatted. I read the first line, and felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over my head.
It was my dream.
Printed out.
The text described my dream from last night—the vast white plane, the fine fiber texture, my immobilized body, the click-click of the shredder. Every detail was transcribed accurately, arranged neatly on the page.
But this wasn't something I wrote. I'd never written down this dream anywhere. I'd never even mentioned it to anyone.
My hands holding the paper began to shake, fingertips icy cold.
I rushed into the bathroom, tore the paper into countless tiny pieces, and flushed them down the toilet. The shreds swirled in the vortex, disappearing down the drain. I leaned on the sink, staring at my pale face in the mirror—dark circles already forming under my eyes.
That night, I didn't turn off the lights again.
In the days that followed, I began finding papers in strange places. One tucked in the fridge, printed with the contents of my lunch three days ago—a plate of shredded pork with green peppers, even the number of rice grains meticulously noted. One under my pillow, containing every word of my WeChat conversation with Lin Hao from the night before—verbatim, including the half-typed message I'd deleted without sending. One stuffed in my shoe, printed with a description of a strange scene—so detailed it was disturbing. It was the living room of the old house I'd lived in as a child, even the indelible soy sauce stain on the sofa armrest described perfectly—a detail I hadn't thought about in at least ten years.
I started avoiding sleep.
Because every time I fell asleep, a paper would appear the next day, printing out my dreams. When those dreams were converted to text, they had an eerie strangeness—like someone else had written them, yet also like I had, or like some third-party record. Even more terrifying were the dreams I couldn't remember at all upon waking, but they were printed clearly in black and white, every scene and character vivid—like extracted directly from my brain.
I began suffering from insomnia, losing hair, developing a physiological fear of paper. Seeing text in textbooks made my heart race; seeing napkins at meals made me nauseous.
I went to the school's counseling center once. The counselor was a gentle middle-aged woman. She listened for twenty minutes, then gently suggested I go see a psychiatrist.
I didn't. Because I knew I wasn't crazy. Those papers were real—I kept them all in a brown paper bag, hidden in the deepest corner of my wardrobe. Twenty-three sheets in total, each printed with a fragment of my life.
I decided to find that man in the gray trench coat.
Easier said than done. I knew practically nothing about him. Late twenties, thin, dark gray trench coat, sleep-deprived look. Tens of thousands of people passed through University Town every day—finding someone with just those clues was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
But I had no other options. Boss Cui didn't have surveillance footage from the shop, and the print records from that day weren't saved.
I used the dumbest method—staking out.
For the next week, I stayed at the shop from morning till night, moving my chair to face the door, looking up at every person who walked in. Boss Cui thought my work ethic had suddenly improved and praised me. I just smiled and didn't explain.
But that man had vanished, never appearing again.
The turning point came on the twelfth day.
That night I closed up as usual and walked home. I bought a cup of instant noodles from the convenience store downstairs for dinner. When I climbed the stairs, the motion-sensor light was broken. I fumbled in the dark for my keys, and when the door opened a crack, a cold wind rushed out of the room.
I clearly remembered closing the windows before leaving.
I stood at the door, hand hovering over the light switch, hesitating for two seconds before pressing it. The light came on—the room looked the same as always. Twenty square meters, bed, desk, wardrobe, chair—everything in its place.
Except on the desk.
There lay a sheet of paper.
I sighed, walked over, picked it up, ready to stuff it into the wardrobe without even looking.
There was only one line on the paper.
"I know you're looking for me."
Below was an address. I knew it well—it was the building where the printing shop was located, third floor, room 308. I'd never been up there; I only knew the first floor was shops, the second was a dance studio, and had no idea what was on the third.
I stood holding the paper for a long time.
A normal person would call the police, or at least ask Lin Hao to come with me.
But do you know what I was thinking then?
I was thinking—how did he do it? How were my dreams printed out? How were my memories extracted? How were details I'd forgotten myself restored?
I wanted answers. That curiosity outweighed my fear, outweighed my reason—like a hook catching something in my mind, forcing me to go.
I set down my backpack, took the paper, and went out.
It took fifteen minutes on a shared bike to reach the printing shop building. It was 8:30 PM—the commercial street had quieted down, most shops were closed, only the convenience store and milk tea shop still lit. The printing shop's shutter was down; I didn't have the key, nor did I intend to go in.
I walked around to the side entrance of the building and pushed open the rusty iron door.
The stairwell smelled damp and moldy. Paint was peeling off the walls, revealing mottled concrete beneath. The motion-sensor lights worked, but cast a dim yellow glow on the narrow stairs winding upward. Dance studio flyers littered the stairs from first to second floor—colorful ones with pictures of little girls in leotards.
I stepped over them and continued up. From second to third floor, the stairs were completely clean—eerily so.
There was only one door on the third floor.
Room 308—a plain white security door, ordinary as any other in a residential building. Faint light seeped out from under the door, indicating someone was inside.
I stood in front of the door, raised my hand, knuckles hovering above the wood.
The door opened by itself.
Inside was a much larger space than I'd imagined. It looked like several rooms had been knocked through to form an open rectangular hall. No windows—light came from rows of fluorescent lights on the ceiling, harsh white, casting no shadows at all.
And in that space—
Were printers.
Dozens of them, various brands and models, lined the walls in rows, with more in the center—arranged like some kind of exhibition or server room. Every printer's power light was green, all on standby, ready to print at a moment's notice.
The man in the gray trench coat sat at a metal desk at the far end, looking down at something. Hearing my footsteps, he looked up, that faint smile I'd seen before appearing on his gaunt face—like he'd been expecting me.
"You're here," he said, as casually as if inviting a friend for tea.
I stood at the door, palms sweating, but forced my voice to stay calm: "Who the hell are you?"
He leaned back in his chair, hands crossed on the desk, studying me for a few seconds. "My name is Song Tui," he said. "Tui as in 'retreat.' You can call me Lao Song."
"I don't care what your name is," I said. "I want to know what you are, what you're doing."
Song Tui didn't answer directly. He stood up, walked around the desk, and as he passed a row of printers, he tapped one lightly, like stroking it. "You started working at the printing shop about three weeks ago," he said. "You followed the shredding rule well—until that night."
He stopped and turned to look at me.
"You took a shortcut."
My throat tightened.
"Boss Cui didn't make that rule," Song Tui said, walking to a printer against the wall and pulling a sheet from the output tray. He looked down at it. "I did. All waste paper from that shop ends up here. Shredded paper is safe, but unshredded paper"—he flipped it around to show me, the page covered in dense text—"they're incomplete."
"What does that mean?"
"It means paper has memory," Song Tui said, setting the paper on a nearby table before returning to his desk. "Especially printed paper. The heat from the toner fusing leaves marks in the paper fibers—not just the ink we see, but something deeper. Most people can't sense it, but some paper, special paper, retains fragments of information."
"What kind of information?"
"Everything your consciousness imprints on it," Song Tui said, gesturing to a chair across from him. I didn't sit.
"You touch paper every day—printing, copying, flipping through, discarding. Every touch leaves a piece of you behind. Most times it's too faint to form anything coherent. But if a sheet carries something strong enough—like a person's dream—it becomes an anchor."
I didn't fully understand, but I caught one word. "Anchor?"
"Yes," Song Tui nodded. "An anchor connecting consciousness to matter. Your dream left traces on that paper, and since you didn't shred it, those traces weren't destroyed. It unfolded again." He paused. "And then it connected to you."
I remembered that paper from that morning: "I printed out your dream for you." It wasn't a threat, wasn't a joke—it was a statement. He'd actually printed my dream from the night before.
"That shredder," Song Tui said, pointing to a gray-blue shredder in the corner—identical to the one at the printing shop—"isn't ordinary. Its blades are specially treated to cut through those traces in the fibers, ensuring shredded paper loses all memory, unable to affect reality."
"So that rule Boss Cui made—"
"Was my request," Song Tui said. "All shredded waste is brought here for me to handle. This system has run for three years without a single problem. Until you took that shortcut that night."
He said it calmly, no accusation in his tone, but I still felt a heavy weight pressing down on me.
"So what now?" I asked. "How do we fix this?"
Song Tui looked at me. "It can't be fixed," he said. "At least not by you. That paper has already connected to you—it'll sink deeper into your consciousness. Haven't you noticed? At first it was just dreams being printed, then memories, then subconscious content you weren't even aware of. This process is irreversible."
My heart sank.
"The paper fibers will keep extracting information from your consciousness," Song Tui said, his voice as calm as reciting a technical document. "Eventually, it won't be the paper that's emptied—it'll be you. You'll become a blank sheet, literally. Your consciousness will be completely transferred onto paper, printed as a document, filed, sealed. And your body will become an empty shell."
"I don't believe you," I said, but my voice was small.
Song Tui didn't argue. He pulled a folder from his desk drawer, opened it. Inside were dozens of papers, each printed with a person's name, followed by detailed text—biographies, memories, dreams, fears, secrets, dense with everything that had once belonged to a living person.
"These are all the ones who took shortcuts," Song Tui said, his finger brushing over the names, tone as flat as flipping through an expired file. "They're all here now."
I stared at those papers, at those names, and suddenly noticed something—the ink color wasn't quite right. Not pure black toner, but with a faint reddish-brown hue, like dried liquid.
"You said you handle waste paper," I looked up at him, voice tight. "So what exactly are you?"
Song Tui closed the folder, leaned back in his chair. The light from above cast deep shadows in his sunken eye sockets. He was silent for so long I thought he wouldn't answer.
"The first one," he said.
"What?"
"I was the first person printed by paper," Song Tui said, his voice soft but each word clear in the printer-filled room. "Many years ago, someone else took a shortcut too. My dream was printed out as me."
He looked into my eyes and smiled.
"Then I filed him away."
Behind him, dozens of printers started running simultaneously. The clatter of paper feeding and ejecting flooded the room like a tide. New A4 sheets poured from every output tray, covered in dense text, falling from the fluorescent lights like a snowfall without wind.
I turned and ran. My footsteps thundered down the hallway, no time to look back, no time to stop. I practically jumped down the stairs from third to second floor, scraping my palm raw against the wall.
When I burst out of the building, autumn wind rushed into my lungs. I doubled over, gasping, body trembling uncontrollably. The door slammed shut behind me, cutting off everything inside.
I stood under the streetlight, hands on my knees. Only one thought filled my mind—how much of what Song Tui said was true? What was he, really, if he was "printed" from paper? What did "filing away" mean? Whose consciousness was being printed on those pages pouring from the printers?
I straightened up, patted my pockets—empty. I'd run so fast I'd dropped the paper with the address in room 308. That paper had my name on it.
But the next second, my fingers touched another sheet of paper. I pulled it out of my pocket—a crisp A4 sheet, folded neatly. I hadn't even noticed when it got there.
I opened it. Only one line.
"Your name is already on the paper."
I looked up at the third-floor window, where harsh white light shone. Behind the curtain, a gaunt figure stood, one hand pressed to the glass—like saying goodbye.
The paper slipped from my fingers. The night wind caught it, flipping it over in the streetlight's glow. The back had writing too.
I caught it, flipping it over.
"You have seventy-two hours."
Below, in smaller font, was a note like an official document's addendum: "Please organize your personal belongings before filing. We recommend not wasting paper."
I looked down at those words again: seventy-two hours.
What would I become in three days? A sheet of paper? A stack? A printed document filed away by Song Tui in that folder? My name, my memories, my dreams, every trivial detail of my twenty-two years—all transcribed neatly into Songti size-five font, bound into a book, lying quietly in some metal drawer, waiting for the next person to open it.
I remembered Song Tui's words: "Irreversible."
My knuckles whitened as I clenched the paper. No—fuck irreversible. There must be a way. Everything has a way. He just didn't want to tell me. Or maybe he didn't know either.
I squatted down, picked up the fallen paper too, folded both together, and stuffed them in my pocket. Then I unlocked my phone, scrolling through contacts. Roommate Lin Hao—no, he was interning out of town, couldn't help. Boss Cui—what could he know? He made that rule, bought that shredder—there must be more he wasn't telling me about Song Tui.
My finger kept scrolling, stopping at a number. Lin Hao had mentioned a senior named Zhao Ang when he worked at the printing shop—chemistry major, now a teaching assistant in the school lab. Lin Hao had joked once that Zhao Ang was into weird stuff, like paper fiber analysis. I'd laughed it off then, but now my heart skipped a beat.
I called Lin Hao. It rang a few times before he hung up. He must be busy. I sent a message: "Send me Zhao Ang's contact info, urgent."
Then I got on my bike and headed home. The night wind stung my face, thoughts swirling in my head. Halfway there, my phone vibrated—Lin Hao replied with several messages.
"Why do you suddenly need Zhao Ang?"
"His number is 138xxxxxxx"
"Though he's not at school right now—he got a position at the paper mill lab in the south of the city. If you need him, go there directly. I'll send the address."
Then came a location pin: South City Industrial Park, old paper mill site.
I called Lin Hao again—this time he answered. It was noisy on his end, like a dinner party. "Hello? Chen Yu? What do you need Zhao Ang for?"
"Something I need to ask him," I said, trying to sound normal. "You said he studies... paper?"
"Yeah!" Lin Hao said, mouth full of food. "His research is super niche—something about the microstructure of paper fibers, all kinds of stuff I don't understand. Last year he published a paper saying paper fibers can retain biological information or something. The department shot it down, said his research was too out there, cut his funding. So he went to work at the paper mill—better equipment there."
"Biological information?" I gripped the handlebars tighter.
"Something like that, I don't know the details. Anyway, he says paper isn't dead—it has memory. Sounds like a ghost story." Lin Hao laughed. "Why the sudden interest?"
"Nothing," I said. "Just been dealing with paper a lot at work lately, wanted to learn more. You go back to your dinner, I'll treat you later."
After hanging up, I stood under the streetlight, replaying Lin Hao's words. Paper fibers can retain biological information—Zhao Ang had studied this. He might know something, at least give me a rational explanation.
I checked the time—9:45. The south city paper mill was about forty minutes away by car. If I went now, Zhao Ang might not still be there. But I couldn't wait until tomorrow—those seventy-two hours had already started counting down. Every minute wasted was a minute lost.
The taxi dropped me at the south city industrial park gate just after 10:30. Most factory lights were off, only a few buildings had scattered lights. I got out, and the security guard peeked at me. I gave him Zhao Ang's name and the lab building number. He flipped through a notebook, pointing to the gray three-story building at the back.
"That one. Second floor, right side. He might not be there at night—go check for yourself."
I thanked him and hurried over. The streetlights were spaced far apart, most paths shrouded in dimness. I navigated by the faint glow of safety lights on distant factory walls.
The building was older than I expected—paint peeling in large patches, exposing dark gray brick underneath. The unit door was open, and a pale fluorescent light buzzed in the stairwell, flickering occasionally. The air smelled faintly of pulp mixed with some chemical agent.
Upstairs, the second floor had a hallway on the right. At the end, a door was ajar, spilling light. I walked over and knocked on the doorframe.
The door creaked open a bit more in the wind. Inside was a large lab—workbenches cluttered with equipment and paper samples, microscopes lined up, enlarged photos of paper fibers on the walls. In the corner stood a familiar gray-blue shredder—identical to the one at the printing shop.
Zhao Ang wasn't there.
I was about to take out my phone to call again when my eye caught a sheet of paper on the workbench. I stepped closer—it was an A4 sheet half-ejected from a small printer. The printer was on, power light glowing, like someone had just sent a print job.
I pulled out the paper.
Only one line: "Don't tear paper yourself—consequences will be on you." Below was a smaller note: "Shredded paper cannot be restored. Do not attempt to piece it back together. If you need help, press the red button on the shredder."
I stared at those words, a chill spreading from my scalp to my toes.
This had printed after I came in. No—printed the moment I arrived. Or printed before I came, knowing I'd be here.
I called Zhao Ang again. This time it rang a few times before a sleepy voice answered: "Hello?"
"Senior Zhao Ang? I'm Lin Hao's roommate Chen Yu. I have something to ask you—about—"
"Paper," he cut me off, suddenly sounding more awake. "You've been touching paper you shouldn't have, haven't you?"
My grip on the phone tightened.
"How did you know?"
There was silence for three or four seconds, then he sighed deeply. "Where are you?" he asked, his tone heavy with something complicated—like he'd been expecting this call all along.
"In your lab."
"Don't touch anything," he said, suddenly serious. "I'll be there in ten minutes. Sit on a chair and don't move. Don't look at any papers on the desk. Understand?"
"I understand."
The call ended.
I put my phone in my pocket, carefully walked around the workbench, and found a chair with no papers stacked on it to sit down. The lab was deathly quiet, only the faint hum of the printer.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a bound document spread open on the nearest workbench, cover facing up—printed with a name I recognized: "Lin Hao."
Below it, in smaller text: Phase Two Observation Record.
My heart jolted in my chest. Lin Hao? What happened to him? He was supposed to be interning out of town! What did he have to do with this?
I stared at that name, remembering how casually Lin Hao had handed me the printing shop job. Remembering the noisy background when he answered my call. Remembering how careful he'd been every time he mentioned Zhao Ang.
I asked myself a question I should have asked long ago: Why did Lin Hao suddenly leave for an out-of-town internship after working at the printing shop for half a year?
Footsteps sounded outside the door.