Chapter 2: The Vanished Memory

Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear could tell that something was awry in this world. Even though Chu Ning had yet to encounter any truly bizarre phenomenon that would shatter his long-held understanding, the things around him still exuded enough objective clues to sketch out a world of uncanny strangeness.

Chu Ning could be certain that he had not tilted his head to the right, yet the mirror offered a response so abnormal, so unsettling, it was as if “he” in the mirror had given him a simple greeting.

At this moment, instead of panic, he was filled with an unusual calm. He watched himself in the glass with tranquil curiosity, almost hoping to see his reflection attempt something novel.

With his arms crossed over his chest, he resembled an impatient spectator awaiting a performance, which only heightened the awkwardness of the figure in the mirror—reduced to the status of a clown fumbling through a tedious act.

To speak plainly, Chu Ning was no stranger to the clichés of horror films; he could almost predict what would happen next. Perhaps a hideous, ghostly face would appear in the mirror, or a pair of blood-red eyes would flash, or maybe his own reflection would contort into a ghastly grin.

Drawing on years of experience watching horror movies, he knew that fear was most easily evoked by ramping up the grotesqueness of the supernatural—there was always something that would disgust you eventually. Films also primed the audience with subtle psychological cues, only to jolt them with a sudden fright.

Of course, his hours spent watching such movies were not wasted; they had honed his acting skills. In the theater, boys would feign courage for bravado, while girls pretended to be scared, showing vulnerability to appeal to the boys’ egos and foster intimacy.

In truth, Chu Ning had never witnessed a girl actually shriek in terror at a horror film, nor a boy so frightened he lost his composure. After all, disrupting others in their romantic pursuits was hardly ethical; everyone tacitly abided by the unspoken rules of the theater.

He dismissed the notion of a prank. Pressing his thumb to his temple in an attempt to ease the throbbing in his head, he noted that there were no visible injuries. Whether there was any internal damage, he could not say.

Chu Ning felt a deep despair toward his own body, a dread far greater than any “clown” in the mirror could inspire. Besides, he didn’t believe in ghosts—such idealistic entities had no place in his worldview.

Perhaps out of boredom, the figure in the mirror resumed its vacant stare. Chu Ning, equally disinterested, made no effort to liven up his own movements, and his mirrored self reflected his own air of languor.

“Chu Ning…” he murmured, uttering a name that felt both familiar and foreign. With his memories lost, even his own name was wiped away, yet the reflection in the glass conjured up a sense of recognition.

He had no idea whom the name truly referred to. The body’s original owner might have been named Chu Ning, or perhaps he himself was Chu Ning, or, more absurdly, maybe it belonged to some unrelated passerby.

He fell silent, pondering the ultimate question: “Who am I?” The intensifying pain in his skull tore him from this philosophical abyss, and, eyes glazed, he voiced the confusion in his heart: “Who are you? And who am I?”

The shadow in the mirror gave no reply. Instead, the “Chu Ning” reflected there looked just as lost as he felt. Receiving no answers, Chu Ning abandoned the foolish act of questioning himself.

What should have been a typical transmigration had, thanks to his missing memories, become a tangled riddle—a puzzle he could not decipher, a source of endless vexation.

“Ordinary transmigration,” a phrase loaded with significance and contradiction, seemed to Chu Ning the simplest thing, though he knew it was anything but.

This was a meticulously orchestrated crossing. Even though his old name had faded, he remembered that transmigration itself had been a premeditated scheme.

The concept of transmigration lingered in his mind, so much so that he regarded the event with unusual detachment—a classic case of being blind to what lies under the lamp. In doing so, he’d overlooked the most crucial fact: this was no ordinary transmigration, but a deliberate and calculated one.

Chu Ning, a carefully planned transmigration, and a few disjointed fragments from horror films—this was all he had to go on. Deep inside, he almost wished he remembered nothing, to spare his inquisitive nature the torment of endless speculation.

He muttered the facts he knew, hoping to piece together an impossible deduction, or perhaps to spark some sliver of memory.

If someone had appeared before him with a taunting “Why don’t you try and guess?”, he might not have beaten them senseless, but he would have been sorely tempted.

Casting suspicious glances around, Chu Ning was convinced that some unseen hand was orchestrating this ordeal—only such an explanation made sense.

Otherwise, the convenient loss of memory would not seem so contrived, as if someone had left a trail of clues for him to solve.

And surely, whoever was behind this would not pass up such an entertaining experiment. Judging by his own curiosity, Chu Ning would never let such an opportunity slip by.

“The game has begun. I will find you.”

With a shadowed gaze, Chu Ning stared at his reflection. For someone driven by such hunger for answers, being kept in the dark, treated like a fool, was an unbearable torment. There was no way he could simply forget everything and spend the rest of his days living as if nothing had happened.