Kiwi Beyond the Cage 003

**Caged Bird (III)**

Ou Yang Lin summoned forensic specialists to comb through Ji Wei’s residence, dismantling the omnipresent “eyes.”

Three floors. Dozens of rooms. Hundreds of cameras.

“The kitchen, bathroom, even the closet—nothing spared… What a creep,” Zhao Liang muttered, standing in the master bedroom of the third floor. Technicians opened a display cabinet, revealing every doll and trinket inside—a pair of eyes.

Under such relentless surveillance, anyone would unravel.

Rubbing his chilled arms, Zhao finally grasped what Ou Yang had meant. Ji Wei wasn’t a “patient” but a “normal” person in abnormal circumstances. Her aberrations weren’t symptoms to dismiss but cries for help to heed.

She’d been pleading for rescue, yet those in uniform, blinded by bias, had brushed her off.

“Captain Lin…” Guilt weighed on Zhao. “I was wrong.”

“You were,” Ou Yang said sharply, her dissatisfaction clear. “A thousand-word reflection—own it?”

Zhao, a promising graduate from the police academy, was diligent and gifted but headstrong and inexperienced. Tonight had been a wake-up call, and he accepted his reprimand.

“So… everything Ji Wei said is true?”

Zhao began treating the case seriously. “Someone stalked her, broke in last night… the blood on the frame and carpet… she really killed him?”

But where was the body?

Had it truly crawled up the ceiling like a zombie? Zhao glanced upward, recalling the fourth-floor homicide. The victim’s identity, Ji Wei’s company and position—it all felt connected.

“Captain Lin,” Zhao ventured, “what if the missing corpse is linked to the fourth floor?”

Ou Yang, lost in thought over a photo frame, barely acknowledged him. Only after Zhao nudged her did she snap back, storing the frame as evidence.

“Solving cases isn’t about hunches—it’s about evidence.”

After discovering the blood, Ou Yang had prioritized Ji Wei’s condition. Beyond two割伤on her fingers, Ji Wei showed no injuries. Yet the bloodstains in the room exceeded what those cuts could explain.

The blood on the carpet and frame matched the timeline of Ji Wei’s alleged “murder.” While it didn’t confirm she’d killed, it proved a second person had been there—a person injured in that bedroom.

“Let’s go,” Ou Yang said, patting Zhao’s shoulder.

Bloody evidence would go to forensics; until results came back, they needed to talk to Ji Wei.

.

Ji Wei had been brought to the station ahead of them.

By the time Ou Yang arrived, Ji Wei had recounted her ordeal—from stalking to killing—twice over.

“Can I have my candy box back?” Ji Wei asked as Ou Yang and Zhao entered the interrogation room.

Her belongings had been confiscated upon arrival. In the dim, enclosed space, time felt suspended. Above her, a red surveillance light blinked—how many eyes watched now?

Ou Yang nodded, and Zhao returned the box, adding a cup of warm water.

“No one’s watching you here,” Ou Yang assured her.

Ji Wei accepted the cup, her lashes fluttering politely. “Thank you.”

She seemed composed, though Zhao noticed fresh self-inflicted bruises on her arms.

After a candy, Ji Wei’s pallid face regained some color. She began her third confession, her voice soft: “I don’t know when he started following me, how long he stalked me, his name… who he was…”

She spoke at length, yet said nothing. Ou Yang found no useful clues in her rambling.

“On the night of July 13th, were you alone?”

Ji Wei nodded.

“You went to the third floor after hearing an intruder?”

Another nod.

“What time was it?”

She shook her head. “I don’t remember.”

“How did you detect an intruder from the second floor?”

Ji Wei paused, instinctively tilting her head upward. “I heard his breathing… I felt him… pressed against the floor, watching me.”

Zhao frowned. “How could you hear breathing from the third floor while you were on the second?”

Ou Yang moved past the question. “How did you get upstairs?”

During the fourth-floor homicide investigation, they’d checked Huanmeng’s elevator cameras, only to find them sabotaged. Oddly, the stairwell cameras remained intact. Evidence showed Ji Wei had ascended from the second to third floor at 22:30 that night and hadn’t reappeared.

The fourth-floor victim’s time of death aligned—early morning of July 14th.

“Walk us through what happened,” Ou Yang said, pulling out the autopsy report.

Ji Wei hesitated. “I don’t remember.”

Ou Yang raised an eyebrow.

“When I came to, he was dead.”

“And your weapon?”

Ji Wei seemed to recall, her grip tightening on the candy box, aggravating her healing scars. She stared at her injured fingers, then spoke: “A photo frame.”

She’d used the ugly, despised frame to shatter the man’s skull.

The interrogation stalled. Ji Wei’s account was riddled with inconsistencies.

Ou Yang called in a sketch artist. Outside the interrogation room, they listened as Ji Wei described her stalker: “He’s tall, so tall I have to look up. Fine lines at the corners of his eyes, kind when he smiles.”

“Pale skin, never tans… I know he was sickly as a child. His hands are cold but wrap around mine easily…”

The artist frowned, struggling to reconcile her words. Ji Wei’s demeanor shifted suddenly—her grip on the candy box whitened, her speech accelerating: “His eyes… they’re red! Like *them*, always watching me, all of them staring…”

“He has long hair, favors dark lipstick… the lines at his eyes deepen, reeking of alcohol, his grin full of fangs and eyes… He wears bizarre clothes, school uniforms, suits, diamond-encrusted gowns… Oh, and there’s a hideous, blood-red birthmark on his face… So ugly, truly ugly…”

The artist left, the sketch half-finished—a disjointed face, elegant yet unsettling, with wrinkles at the eyes that refused to fit.

“The suspect in her mind isn’t one person,” the artist concluded.

Ou Yang pieced it together: “A tall man in a suit with wrinkles at the eyes… and another with long hair in gowns… likely female?”

“And the red birthmark…”

Zhao’s phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen and raised an eyebrow.

Forensics had processed a bloodied photo frame, revealing a group photo.

In it, Ji Wei wore a school uniform, her bangs framing a timid smile. An arm draped over her shoulder belonged to a boy in the same uniform, a head taller than her.

Zhao zoomed in on the boy’s face.

Ou Yang recognized him instantly: “This is Sheng Long, CEO of Guangtai Technology.”

Ji Wei’s immediate superior.

The fourth-floor homicide victim was Sheng Long’s father, Sheng Linrong.

In the high-resolution photo, the boy’s school uniform was pristine, his skin fair, his features handsome. Sunlight filtered through leaves, casting dappled shadows on his profile—a tiny red mole on his nose, vivid as a clot of blood.

“School uniform, high nose bridge, fair skin, red mark…” The fragments formed an unexpected third person.

Ou Yang caught Zhao’s implication: “You think Ji Wei’s ‘red birthmark’ is this mole?”

The sketch artist recalled Ji Wei pointing to her nose. “It makes sense.”

Doubt crept back into Zhao’s voice. “It’s just a guess. Wu Li said Ji Wei—”

“Enough,” Ou Yang interrupted.

Ji Wei’s state was deteriorating.

“You’re lying,” Ji Wei snapped at Zhao, her eyes bloodshot. “How could I be in a relationship with a creep stalker…”

Agitated, she swiped Zhao’s phone to the floor. “I don’t know him!”

Her breathing grew ragged, her headache throbbing. Ji Wei heard the *click-click* of shutters again. The ceiling split open, revealing blood-red eyes fixated on her. Malice oozed like viscous sewage, clinging to her skin. Monstrosities emerged, their arms coiling around her neck, threatening to devour her.

“He’s a creep, a stalker, a monster!!”

Her composure shattered.

“I had to… kill him first.”

She never wanted this.

She wanted peace.

But everyone was hounding her—if she didn’t strike back, she’d be consumed by the monster.

Ji Wei could only kill the stalker wearing human skin.

She crushed his face with a photo frame, slit his flesh with a dull police knife, scooped out those dense, beady eyes. If only she could dispose of the body, she’d be free… But why was the corpse gone?

Where had the ceiling-climbing corpse gone?

“Captain Lin,” a knock interrupted. A colleague whispered, “Sheng Long’s here.”