Kiwi Beyond the Cage 005

**Fog Outside the Cage (II)**

The deceased was Sheng Linrong.

In death, he wore an expensive suit and greased hair, even his cufflinks were meticulously chosen fashion pieces. The higher he’d been in life, the more miserable his death—a stark contrast.

Fifty-four stab wounds reduced his suit to rags, his once-healthy physique to pulp. His face, frozen in terror, had his eyeballs gouged out and stuffed into his gaping mouth.

Thus, the missing eyeballs made sense—

A targeted act of revenge.

“Why?” Zhao Liang’s gaze shifted.

Sheng Long gently lowered his lashes, “I too wonder, why.”

He told the police that his father had coveted his girlfriend.

When denied, Sheng Linrong secretly planted cameras in her home to monitor her every move. Ji Wei, perceptive, discovered them and sought Sheng Long’s help. He disabled some, removed others, and for her safety, after informing and obtaining her consent, installed his own “eyes” on the first to third floors.

“So you’re saying Ji Wei knew about the surveillance in her home?”

Zhao Liang found his claims preposterous. “Then why does she accuse you of stalking?”

Sheng Long repeated, “She’s ill.”

Her illness clouded her mind, plunging her into fantasies where Sheng Long became the central figure of her delusions.

They were lovers, colleagues, neighbors in the same complex, sharing elevators and office floors, their commutes identical.

Was it odd for a boyfriend to take photos of his girlfriend?

With her keys, didn’t he have the right to enter her home to care for her?

Ji Wei’s illness led to self-harm when alone—wasn’t installing cameras to watch over her justified?

Zhao Liang, speechless, finally managed, “Any proof she consented to the cameras?”

Video footage showed Ji Wei nodding in a lucid state. Sheng Long even drafted a privacy contract, signed and fingerprinted, legally binding.

“Waterproof,” Zhao admitted.

Sheng Long smiled, “Better safe than sorry.”

“And the cameras disguised as household items?”

“As I said,”

Sheng Long reiterated, “She’s ill, fragile.”

Ji Wei, already traumatized by Sheng Linrong’s surveillance, would worsen if surrounded by cameras during episodes.

Zhao Liang questioned the extent—hundreds of cameras, even in the bathroom. Was this patient care?

Sheng Long paused, then confessed, “I love her.”

Love, overwhelming love, intolerant of loss, demanded suffocating protection. As for Ji Wei’s thoughts—ill and voiceless, she couldn’t object; he controlled.

Zhao Liang, stumped, glanced at Ou Yang.

Ou Yang, ignoring him, paged through files before asking an unrelated question, “How did you injure your forehead?”

The doctor cited blunt force trauma, three stitches near the eye.

No answer from Sheng Long.

He clutched his forehead, feigning dizziness.

Not just Ji Wei was ill—he too was a patient, hospitalized for concussion, absent without discharge.

.

*Click, click—*

Ji Wei heard shutter sounds again.

The rest room was bright and clean, uniforms hung reassuringly. No eyes here, no monsters. Yet Ji Wei saw them…

She curled on the sofa, watching as the blinds silently parted—blood-red pupils lurked in the dark, malevolent.

Though outside the window, Ji Wei felt its viscous breath seep through glass, past the policewoman’s barrier, licking her skin.

“Violet, Violet… my little Wei…”

“No, no…” Ji Wei clutched her head, blocking the voice.

A crawling sound slithered up walls, across the ceiling—he was coming. The corpse loomed above, bloodshot eyes fixed on her, arms stretching.

“Little Wei.” Claws grazed her hair.

Cold fingertips grazed her cheek, sliced her skin, paused at her neck, then reached for the candy box in her grip.

“Don’t—” Ji Wei screamed.

“Stay away, don’t take him… leave me alone!” Her outburst startled the policewoman.

Glass shattered. The officer recoiled. “What’s wrong?”

Ji Wei seized a shard and hurled it at the blinds.

She’d killed him once, she could do it again. Beyond the blinds lay only fog. Ji Wei stared at the ceiling, hearing the officer plead, “Ji Wei, drop the glass!”

Blood.

The shard sliced her palm, red seeping through glass, dripping like the night of her first kill.

“Do you see it?” Ji Wei clenched the glass tighter.

The officer, maintaining distance, asked, “See what?”

Ji Wei pointed, “There—he’s watching, calling my name, wanting to eat me.”

But, “He already devoured my brother…”

She had nothing left.

Why still hounded?

Ji Wei was rushed to the hospital.

When the ambulance arrived, she was convulsing, trembling, breathless and flushed, repeating phrases incoherently.

“Who’s with the patient?” medical staff demanded.

Ou Yang stepped forward, only to be preempted by Sheng Long.

“I am,” he said, boarding the ambulance and sitting beside Ji Wei.

Ji Wei, fogged by anxiety, wore a nebulizer mask. Doctors pried glass from her bloodied hand.

“Hold her hand,” a doctor instructed, producing tweezers.

Ji Wei’s world faded into fog. A youth emerged, face blurred, offering his hand.

Without hesitation, Ji Wei reached back—

*Clunk.*

The candy box fell.

Sheng Long gripped her wrist, watching mist form inside her mask. Her disheveled hair, the mask concealing most of her face, couldn’t hide her damp, red eyes. Amid the monitor’s beeps, Sheng Long heard her whisper,

“Brother…”

The ambulance door slammed.

“Let him go?” Zhao Liang watched it vanish.

Ou Yang, recalling Ji Wei’s file, frowned. “Her family’s… absent.”

Mother died in an accident; father, evading debt, vanished years ago, declared inactive three years back.

“No relatives or friends?” Zhao asked.

Ou Yang shook her head. “Her only contact, an uncle, relocated abroad; they severed ties after she turned eighteen.”

“Pathetic.”

“So Sheng Long’s her only kin…”

“Let’s go,” Ou Yang said, keys in hand.

Under Zhao’s puzzled gaze, she added, “We follow.”

They owed it to Ji Wei to ensure her safety.

Ji Wei was admitted to the hospital where Sheng Long stayed.

Her luxurious private room, adjacent to his, was fully equipped.

Had Ji Wei been conscious and not terrified of him, Sheng Long would’ve shared his room for easier care.

After a sleepless night, dawn broke.

Standing by Ji Wei’s bed, Sheng Long noted her bandaged, trembling hands. “Is there surveillance here?” he asked the doctor.

“No,” the doctor replied.

Sheng Long placed the candy box beside her pillow and brushed her cheek with his cool palm. Ji Wei, unconscious, didn’t resist.

The door opened. Wu Li entered with a caregiver, carrying two bouquets.

Sheng Long took them, arranging one by the bed and one facing it. Adjusting the blooms, he checked his phone, shifted the flowers again, still unsatisfied.

Wu Li, by the window, spotted Ou Yang and Zhao downstairs. “They’re following,” he murmured to Sheng Long.

Sheng Long paused, then the door closed. Unnoticed, the bouquets were removed and discarded.

The phone screen dimmed, footage empty. Sheng Long powered it off and returned to his room.

Only after Ou Yang and Zhao left did Ji Wei’s room gradually fill with ornaments.

“The flowers are lovely,” the caregiver remarked, placing an eternal rose bear on the bedside cabinet, facing Ji Wei.

At noon, under blazing sun, Zhao Liang squatted downstairs while Ou Yang stood, listening to a heated complaint from the bureau—Sheng Long had reported them.

After disconnecting, Ou Yang massaged her forehead. “We’re fine.”

Now, it hinged on Ji Wei’s condition upon waking.

“Do we head back or stay?” Zhao asked, nodding at the ward windows.

Ou Yang patted his shoulder. “You stay and watch. I’ll find someone.”

“Who?”

Last night, Sheng Long gave her a photo.

*[“One of them”], meaning besides you and Sheng Linrong, someone else monitored Ji Wei?*

In the photo, Ji Wei, in business attire, held coffee in a CBD backdrop. Behind her, Sheng Long’s reflection was clear, but another, masked and hooded, lurked with a camera.

Sheng Long mentioned he hadn’t yet caught the stalker before Sheng Linrong’s death.

On the photo’s back, Sheng Long had scribbled the café’s location. Ou Yang needed its surveillance footage.

“And Sheng Linrong’s case?”

“They’re likely connected,” Ou Yang felt certain.

Ji Wei’s stalking case, complicated by her illness, intersected with another where a suspect became a victim, and the witness was the deceased’s son and the victim’s lover.

Now, a single thread could tie them all.

As for Sheng Long…

No matter his role or aim, humans, however cunning, eventually slip. All darkness fades in light.

In the ward, Sheng Long, with fresh bandages, tapped his phone.

Post-blackout, the screen showed Ji Wei asleep. He traced her features through the phone, whispering, “Little Wei…”