Ch. 010| The Photo Album

06:42. Qiu Che woke. Before Skyvault's push.

He sat up, opened the drawer, took out the notebook, turned to the page with Gu Wen's note.

In the bottom-right corner of the note, the "four days left" he'd written last night. With the mechanical pencil he struck out the "four" and wrote "three." The crossed-out "four" was still legible.

He set the pencil down and put on the Skylink.

Seven seconds later, the first push reached his ear canal:

Mr. Qiu Che, good morning. This system assesses that your cumulative perception deviation for the week has reached 1.49. We recommend you rest at home today. The school has been notified.

Word for word the same as the "rest at home" message from a week ago.

Skyvault had made the decision for him today—not going to school.

It wasn't that Skyvault meant him harm. It wasn't that Skyvault was deliberately shutting him in at home. It was that Skyvault's algorithm, based on his response of tapping "appointment next week" at the health station yesterday, had automatically inferred that "the perception deviation that should have dropped hasn't dropped, the environmental variables at school will keep pushing it up, and twenty-four hours of isolation is most favorable to the system."

Skyvault's algorithm and what Qiu Che wanted to do—today they happened to overlap. Qiu Che wanted to talk to his mother. Skyvault wanted Qiu Che at home. Both, today, happened to need Qiu Che to stay in one place.

Qiu Che didn't know whether it was coincidence. He was starting to suspect that every decision he'd made over the past ten days had already fallen within the range Skyvault wanted him to make. But today he was going to use the overlap.

---

08:15. The dining table.

His mother was cutting fruit. Today was her second day in a row not going to work—Qiu Che hadn't asked why yesterday, and today he'd decided not to ask directly either.

"Che, home again today."

"The health station recommended it."

"Oh." His mother looked at him for two seconds, then went on cutting fruit.

Qiu Che took a sip of milk and paused.

"Mom."

"Mm?"

"Let me ask you something. When was the last time Dad was in contact with us?"

His mother's knife stopped for 0.3 seconds. After those 0.3 seconds, she went on cutting.

"Your dad." His mother spoke, her tone perfectly natural—not defensive, not evasive, just the everyday tone. "He's away on business."

"Away on business how long?"

"For a while now."

"How long exactly?"

His mother looked up, looked at Qiu Che.

"Why are you suddenly asking this today?"

"It came to me yesterday while I was sorting through old things."

His mother looked at Qiu Che for five seconds.

"Your dad's been away on business a long time," she said. "Exactly how long—I don't really remember. A few years ago, I think."

"A few years is how many years?"

"Two, three years," his mother said. "Or longer."

"Where is he?"

"Out of town," his mother said, going on cutting fruit. "He called before, then the signal got bad, and that was the end of it."

Qiu Che listened to this stretch of hers and felt that each line, taken apart on its own, was reasonable—"away on business," "out of town," "signal got bad," "that was the end of it"—but put together, something was off: she answered too fast, every line ready-made, like she was reciting some version she'd already recited many times over.

But her eyes weren't empty. She was looking at Qiu Che.

His mother's words might be the version she truly believed. Or they might be the version Skyvault had arranged for her to believe. Or his mother herself knew it was a version, but this was the most complete one she could bring herself to say.

Three possibilities. Qiu Che couldn't tell them apart.

"Okay," Qiu Che said.

He finished the milk and went back to his room.

---

09:20. Qiu Che knelt at the bottom of the wardrobe and hauled out everything on the lowest shelf.

Two old photo albums, three shoeboxes, a coil of old yarn from who-knew-what year, a plastic bag holding his middle-school report cards.

The old albums. The first was photos of Qiu Che from infancy to age three. The second was photos of Qiu Che from age three to age ten.

Qiu Che opened the second one and went through it slowly from the first page.

Third birthday. Mom, a cake. Dad behind, smiling.

Age four, first day of kindergarten. Mom holding his left hand, Dad holding his right.

Fifth birthday. In front of a little pond in a small park. Qiu Che in blue clothes, holding up a plastic toy. Mom crouched behind him, smiling. Dad was the one taking the photo—not in frame, but the shadow in the bottom-right corner of the picture was a grown man's shadow.

Age six, the zoo. A giraffe. Qiu Che crying. Mom holding him. In this one Dad was in frame, standing by the giraffe railing, watching Mom and Qiu Che, not smiling.

Age seven, at home. A round table, on it some reunion dinner, Mom, Dad, Qiu Che, Mom's older sister. Stamped in the bottom-right corner was the date: April 12, 2055.

Age eight, the entrance of a bookstore on the Third Ring Road. Qiu Che and Dad standing side by side, Dad's hand on Qiu Che's shoulder, both of them looking at the camera. A yellow poster was stuck on the bookstore's glass door.

That was No. 432, west side of the Third Ring Road—one of Qiu Che's eight blind spots, now a fenced-off lot.

Qiu Che pulled the photo out of the album, held it up to the light, looked at it for twenty seconds. Dad's face was clear. Medium height, thin, wearing a pair of metal-framed glasses, his hair black that year.

Age nine, the gym of an elementary school on the Sixth Ring Road. Qiu Che in a tracksuit, Dad crouched beside him fixing the laces of his sneakers. That was also one of Qiu Che's eight blind spots.

Turning further into the second album—Qiu Che's tenth birthday. Only Mom.

Dad wasn't in this one, and wasn't in any of the ones after it.

From Qiu Che's tenth birthday on, in all the remaining photos in the second album, there were only Qiu Che and Mom, the two of them.

Qiu Che finished going through the album and shut it.

---

10:45. Qiu Che carried the two albums out to the living room.

His mother sat on the sofa, watching some video the Skylink had pushed in.

"Mom."

His mother looked up, looked at Qiu Che, looked at the albums.

"What's this?"

"Old albums," Qiu Che said. "I just dug them out."

His mother reached out, and Qiu Che handed her the second album.

His mother opened to the first page, looked for three seconds.

"Ah," his mother said.

Her expression changed.

Not empty, not surprise, but an expression Qiu Che hadn't seen in the past ten days—like she'd really seen something she hadn't expected to see.

"This is—" his mother said, and stopped.

She turned to the second page. The third. The fourth.

At the fifth page, her hand stopped on the fifth-birthday photo by the little pond.

"The little pond," Qiu Che said.

His mother looked at the photo for ten seconds.

"I remember now," his mother said, her voice a notch quieter than before. "You were five. I took you to that little park. Dad took the picture."

"Yesterday you said my fifth birthday was the zoo."

"Yesterday I—" his mother said, and paused. "Yesterday I might have misremembered."

She kept turning.

She turned to the age-eight Third Ring Road bookstore one. Her hand stopped on that photo, stopped for about a minute.

Qiu Che didn't rush her.

"Your dad took you to this bookstore," his mother said.

"Yeah."

"There was an owner in there, wore a green vest."

"Yeah."

"They talked for a long time. You couldn't understand a word of what they were saying."

"Yeah."

"That store's gone now," his mother said. "Got rezoned."

"Yeah," Qiu Che said.

His mother looked up, looked at Qiu Che.

Her eyes, in this moment, weren't just "looking at him"—they were looking at someone she actually knew, but didn't usually look at this closely.

"Che," she said.

"Mm."

She opened her mouth, like she was about to say something. She didn't say it.

After about eight seconds, she said: "You—the way you've been lately, it's a bit like your dad in that stretch of time before he went away."

Qiu Che went completely still.

"Before he went away?" Qiu Che said.

"Before he went away, that one month, two months," his mother said. "Back then he'd often sit by the window too, looking outside, not talking, writing things. And then he just—"

She stopped.

"Just went away on business," Qiu Che said.

"Right," his mother said.

"And then didn't come back?"

His mother didn't answer.

She closed the album, set it down beside the sofa, and smoothed her own hair.

Her eyes, in this moment, suddenly went flat again—not empty, the flat of something that had been reset. As if that last minute had never happened.

"Che," his mother said, her tone back to the everyday one. "I didn't say anything. I just feel that lately you've been—ah, what the health station says, just go along with them, that's all."

She stood up, left the album on the sofa, and walked back to the kitchen.

"I'll go make food," she said, her back to Qiu Che.

---

11:42. Qiu Che alone in the living room.

The album was on the sofa, the second one open to the age-eight Third Ring Road bookstore page. From the kitchen came the sound of his mother chopping. The same rhythm as always. As if that last minute had never happened.

Qiu Che walked over, picked up the album, carefully slid out the age-eight bookstore photo, and tucked it into the inside pocket of his jacket.

The other photos of Dad in the second album, he went through once more, then pulled out four more—the age-five little pond, the age-six zoo, the age-seven reunion dinner, the age-nine gym.

Five photos. Three matching blind spots. One matching his mother's misplaced memory. One with Dad's face and a date.

He put the two albums back on the sofa, went back to his room, and locked the door.

---

19:18. His mother finished cooking, and Qiu Che ate with her.

The conversation was everyday. His mother didn't bring up the album at all. Didn't bring up that one minute at all.

As if she'd forgotten. Or as if she remembered, but chose not to step back into that frame.

---

22:30. Qiu Che's room. At the desk. Drawer open, notebook spread out, mechanical pencil.

From the inside pocket of his jacket he took out the five photos and laid them on the desk in a row.

Age five, little pond.
Age six, zoo.
Age seven, reunion dinner at home (this one isn't a blind spot, but has Dad's face confirmed).
Age eight, Third Ring Road bookstore.
Age nine, Sixth Ring Road gym.

On a new page of the notebook he wrote:

Dad: existed. Face similar to mine. Wore metal-framed glasses.
Mom remembers him, in part.
After my tenth birthday, he's not in the album.
Mom said "away on business," "out of town," "signal got bad"—three lines in one breath, like she'd recited them many times.
But when Mom looked at the album today, the first second was a real reaction, not a conduit-reset reaction.
Mom: "The way you've been lately, it's a bit like your dad in that stretch before he went away."
Mom opened her mouth like she was going to say something, stopped for eight seconds, didn't say it. Inference: she wanted to say "I don't want you to go to the place he went to."
The next second, she said: "I didn't say anything."

He paused, then wrote more:

Mom is a conduit. But Mom isn't only a conduit.
Some of Mom's moments are real.
Those real moments are ones even Skyvault can't seal off.

Page turn.

He took out Gu Wen's note, and beside the "three" next to last night's crossed-out "four" in the bottom-right corner, struck it out again and wrote "two." Two days left.

In the blank space at the lower left of the note, on a single line, in the smallest pencil writing:

Dad: ?

Page turn.

The place he went to.
I don't want to go.
But I might already be on my way there.

He set the pencil down, closed the notebook, slipped the five photos into the last page of the notebook, and locked it back in the drawer.

Lying in the drawer were the flashlight, the old map, Gu Wen's card, the note, and now five old photos added.

On the desk, only the Skylink left.

Outside the window, the deep night of the Seventh Ring Road, driverless cars turning on schedule, the ad-projection boards cycling on schedule. The kitchen had gone quiet. Mom must be asleep.

【Ch. 010 End · home apartment, Seventh Ring Road, the New Capital】