Lin Zixiang

A night-shift clerk at a convenience store in Xinyi District, twenty-six years old, everyone called him Ah-Xiang. About as ordinary a young man as they come.

He was the eighteenth witness Li Kaichen had questioned about the sky before dawn—at the time, his eyes drifted out the window for 2 seconds, while his mouth said he'd seen nothing.

The next morning, right after handing off his shift, he dropped out of contact. When Li Kaichen went back to that convenience store to find him, no one could say clearly where he had gone.

On the 41 photos on the wall of his home, the edge of the right-eye pupil in every single one had gained a ring of greyish white, 1 mm wide—yet his own eyes were clear.

Eleven at night to seven in the morning, five days a week; he has worked this shift for nearly two years.

The rhythm of the night shift is nothing like the day. After two in the morning there are almost no customers—restocking, mopping and the count are all done, and what is left is standing behind the counter waiting for daylight. He keeps his phone face-down on the counter and watches the street through the window.

He is about as ordinary a young man as they come. No particular hobbies, nothing he is chasing; he goes home after his shift, sleeps, wakes up and comes back.

His coworkers' verdict is that he's easy to deal with—he never begs off a shift swap, and if you call him when you're short-handed he will usually come. On the manager's roster his name has no note beside it. Most of the others have one.

In the drawer behind his counter: a ballpoint pen, an unopened pack of gum, a charging cable, and the handover log the manager required him to sign.

His handwriting in the log was small, and what he wrote each day was much the same—when the oden broth was changed, which rack of rice balls to pull, whether anyone had caused trouble overnight. He kept it for nearly 2 years without a blank day.

He had a habit of laying his phone face-down on the counter. Not out of fear of the manager—nobody came round at that hour. A lit screen reflected in the glass front and he could not see the street.

After he went missing, the log was still in the drawer. The last page stopped on the morning he handed over, the handwriting identical to every page before it, nothing out of place.

The street outside the door held office workers by day. After ten at night it kept three kinds of people: designated drivers, delivery riders, and people walking home.

After two in the morning even those were gone. The lights changed on schedule with nothing crossing.

He stood at that spot for nearly 2 years and knew what the street should hold at any hour. Which shop's shutter went up at half past four. Which crossing had a bad contact in the lamp and how many times it would flicker in a night. Which floor of the building opposite kept a light on until morning.

Knowing it that well was why he looked out for those 2 seconds. He said afterwards that he had seen nothing.