Room 404: Story Timeline and Characters — Twelve Leases, and One Person Off the Register
Spoiler warning: this article maps the whole story, including the finale and the premises of all four endings. Play it once first.
One-sentence version
Every lease for Room 404, Building 4, Qingcheng Garden is 404 days. On day 404 the tenant is extracted and their mind is stored in the server under the building. The server needs one living neural signal as a carrier to keep those minds from decaying. On August 17, 2023, Lin Yuan — a recordist who came to measure the noise — connected to the rack and became carrier 013, a person not on the register. Three years later his sister Lin Xia signs the same 404-day lease and moves in.
2. Full timeline
1997–2003: Genesis Tech and Project Tide
- 1997-11-18: Genesis Tech is registered in Qingcheng. Legal representative Chen Zhiyuan. Registered address: basement level 2, Building 4, Qingcheng Garden.
- 1998-07-31: a fire in the basement level 3 machine room leaves three night-shift employees unconscious. The same day the first tenant, Zhao Mingyuan, is extracted (moved in 1997-06-22, day 404). Project code GNS-404.
- 2000-06-15: Qian Lihua, a Genesis clerk, is extracted.
- 2003-02-14: Liu Jianguo, a taxi driver, is extracted.
- 2003-08-15: Chen Zhiyuan orders the facility sealed and the main power cut. The CTO replies that the twelve nodes run on the emergency lighting circuit; cutting them means opening a wall. The company is deregistered; the server is not.
- 2003-09-01: Project Tide is formally terminated on paper. The extraction never stops; it is reclassified from "experiment" to "renewal."
2005–2021: twelve leases
| Extracted | Tenant | Job | Moved in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005-04-08 | Zheng Wenjing | Nurse | 2004-02-29 |
| 2007-10-22 | Zhou Hui | Late-night radio editor | 2006-09-13 |
| 2009-12-03 | Luo Jianping | Press operator | 2008-10-25 |
| 2011-09-07 | Sun Xiaoling | Kindergarten teacher | 2010-07-30 |
| 2013-06-19 | Chen Xiaodong | Geography teacher | 2012-05-11 |
| 2015-01-30 | Wu Xue | Florist | 2013-12-22 |
| 2017-08-12 | Fang Li | Night guard | 2016-07-04 |
| 2021-05-14 | He Jing | Delivery rider | 2020-04-05 |
Every lease runs exactly 404 days from move-in to extraction. It is not a "once every seven or eight years" calendar pattern; it is a lease pattern — stay 404 days and you are taken. The newspaper only covered a few of them, which is why it looks like years pass between cases.
2023: Lin Yuan and 013
- 2023-05-06: Zhang Wei moves into 404 on a 404-day lease.
- 2023-08-16: the residents' committee hires recordist Lin Yuan to measure noise in 404. Landlord Chen Jianguo approves by email and writes: "Do not let him into level 3. If he goes down on his own, do not stop him. Close the door behind him."
- 2023-08-17 03:04:04: Lin Yuan grounds his measuring equipment in basement level 3; the system identifies him as a usable carrier. He is not uploaded — he is kept behind, using his neural signal to hold the other twelve. The system creates partition 013, status "carrier / living." He leaves a last recording: "Xia, don't come down alone. Read the twelve names to the outside — the system only recognises numbers; people recognise names. On day 404, leave."
- The same day FM87.9, off air, broadcasts an 11-second male voice. The voiceprint matches Lin Yuan at 98.7%.
2024: Zhang Wei
- 2024-06-13 03:04: Zhang Wei loses contact at the end of his 404th day. He had uploaded Genesis Tech's files to the darknet; his hard drive was physically destroyed and the USB drive torn in half. His last line: "Bring someone. Don't go into 404 alone."
2026: Lin Xia
- 2026-06-15: Lin Xia signs a 404-day lease and moves into 404. She had been watching the room on a missing-persons forum for three months; her brother Lin Yuan's last ping was at 03:04 on 2023-08-17, in basement level 3.
- First night: she finds the Wi-Fi called ZhangWei_404, the torn USB in the desk, and Lin Yuan's recorder in the landlord's storage box.
- 2026-06-20 03:04: she logs into the Room 404 camera system as administrator for the first time. The system starts labelling "tenant" and "node" separately.
- Her day 404: 2027-07-24. The game ends in June 2026, so this is not a countdown — it is a lease already signed.
3. Characters
Lin Xia
28, programmer. She is not in 404 for the cheap rent; she is there because her brother's last ping is in this building. She is not a detective and has no powers. Her tools are a search box, an evidence board and a timeline. Her private motive is singular: find Lin Yuan — not "expose the truth," but "find that person." All four endings close on that motive.
Lin Yuan
31, field recordist and acoustic surveyor. On 2023-08-17 he is hired by the residents' committee to measure noise in 404, connects his equipment in basement level 3, and is identified as a carrier. He is not a tenant on the twelve-person list; he is carrier 013 — alive, conscious, using his neural signal to renew the other twelve. His recorder is the artifact that pulls Lin Xia into the story, and the key to the finale's "Read the Names."
Zhang Wei
28, full-stack developer, the twelfth tenant. He moves in in May 2023 and is extracted on June 13, 2024 (day 404). He works out the lease pattern, finds Lin Yuan's recorder, and uploads Genesis Tech's files to the darknet. His USB is Lin Xia's starting point in act 2; his last line, "Bring someone," is a warning to whoever comes next.
Chen Zhiyuan
Founder of Genesis Tech. In 2003 he writes that "the real result of Project Tide was not upload, it was renewal." He orders the server sealed but fails. His notes explain the 404-day rule and why cutting the power kills the carrier first.
Chen Jianguo
Chen Zhiyuan's son, landlord of Room 404, and the server's inherited administrator. He opens the basement door for Lin Yuan, seals the storage box after Lin Yuan "leaves on his own," and rents the same room to Lin Xia in 2026. He is not a mastermind; he is the man who says "someone has to watch it."
The twelve tenants
Zhao Mingyuan, Qian Lihua, Liu Jianguo, Zheng Wenjing, Zhou Hui, Luo Jianping, Sun Xiaoling, Chen Xiaodong, Wu Xue, Fang Li, He Jing and Zhang Wei. Each register page carries a move-in date, an extraction date, a job, one object left in 404 and a last line. None of the forty-six dates is random; every pair is 404 days apart.
013
Not a number — Lin Yuan. The system has no register page for him, only an 11:08 loop and one note: "Don't switch it off. They all go with it."
4. What each ending answers
| Ending | Question it answers | What it leaves open |
|---|---|---|
| Case Closed | Can the law handle this? | The twelve decay during evidence collection, and Lin Yuan does not come back |
| The Door Below | Is her brother still there? | He is, but he has become the door; she can only bring back twelve thank-yous |
| Pull the Plug | Can the cycle be ended? | Yes, at the cost of her brother and the twelve going with it |
| Read the Names | Can "data" become "people" again? | Yes — the only road that reads the twelve names and Lin Yuan out together |
None of the four endings depends on another game. They are four answers to one private motive, not four doorways into a shared universe.
5. Change log
- 2026-10-26: timeline and characters rewritten for the new build. Removed the old 2019 Zhang Wei, 2021 Lin Yuan and "every seven to eight years" errors; added the 1997–2024 twelve extractions, carrier 013 in 2023, Lin Xia in 2026 and her lease expiry in 2027.