Kiwi Beyond the Cage 009

**Knife in the Fog (III)**

“……”

Upon exiting the police station, two vehicles awaited outside—one for Meng Qingde, the other for Sheng Long.

No longer the hysterical figure from the interrogation room, Meng Qingde, clad in a mask and hat, walked quietly beside Sheng Long. As she watched him leave without a backward glance, she couldn’t help but call out, “Sheng Long.”

Though mother and son, they were strangers in familiarity. Upon seeing him halt, she awkwardly extended an invitation, “How about we have dinner together?”

“No, thank you,” Sheng Long replied without turning.

His fingers gripped the car door, about to pull it open, when Meng Qingde hurried in front of him, grasping his wrist. “It’s been so long since we last met. Please, join me for a meal.”

Meng Qingde attempted to bridge the distance between them, but after a moment of hesitation, she realized that over the years, she had always addressed him by his given name, lacking any truly intimate form of endearment.

Clutching Sheng Long’s sleeve tightly, she finally uttered, “Xiao Sheng.”

Sheng from Sheng Linrong’s name.

“Is there… nothing you wish to say to your mother?”

Sheng Long turned to look at her.

Meng Qingde’s face was shrouded in layers of concealment, her eyes—buried in shadows—bloodshot and weary. It was clear she had not rested well since learning of Sheng Linrong’s death.

Meeting Sheng Long’s gaze, she flinched as if scalded and awkwardly withdrew her arm. “I…”

Meng family members approached to usher her away. “At a time like this, you’re thinking of dining? Do you realize the trouble you’ve brought upon the Meng family!”

Meng Qingde faced charges of attempted murder. Even with Ji Wei’s forgiveness, she would likely face conviction.

“Move along,” Meng’s elder brother tugged at his sister, casting a glance at the lawyer trailing behind and whispering something to her.

The group stood too close for Sheng Long not to overhear the word “will.” Meng Qingde’s composure faltered. “He? What he gave me… is it true?”

The elder Meng brother nodded.

“Very well, let’s return now…” Flustered, Meng Qingde adjusted her hat and turned to leave with her family, only remembering her prior intention when Sheng Long spoke.

“Not dining, then?” His tone was nonchalant.

Meng Qingde waved him off. “No, I have matters to attend to. I’ll treat you next time.”

Without another glance, she boarded a vehicle back to the Meng residence.

A lawyer awaited her there.

Her elder brother informed her that Sheng Linrong had left her a will.

Meng Qingde arrived at the Meng family villa at 13:50.

In accordance with Sheng Linrong’s final wishes, the will was to be opened solely by Meng Qingde. Ignoring the dense financial allocations, she turned to the last page, where a safe was bequeathed to her.

“So… he truly gave it to me,” Meng Qingde murmured.

The safe’s password was enclosed in a separate letter. Instead of numbers or English, it contained a few brief sentences:

Do you still remember the day we first met?

Time flies so fast that I’ve forgotten how many years we’ve spent together.

But I remember the year you disliked someone the most, your lucky number, and when they left.

I have so much more I want to say to you, Qingde. Can you hear me?

—Meng Qingde heard.

At 14:38 PM.

Clutching the will, Meng Qingde drove to the home she shared with Sheng Linrong.

At 15:40 PM.

Surveillance showed her car arriving at the Sheng family villa complex.

Meng Qingde parked in the garage and unlocked the door with her key. Since Sheng Linrong’s death, the villa had been draped in a white sheet, deserted.

She went straight to the third floor, pushed open the study door, and twisted a porcelain ornament. The second bookshelf emitted a muffled sound, revealing a hidden vault behind it, housing a waist-high safe.

Recalling the letter’s hints, Meng Qingde patted her cheeks, hands trembling as she entered the password. After two failed attempts and a series of electronic beeps, the third try succeeded—

*Click.*

The password was correct. The safe opened.

In Meng Qingde’s memory, the safe had been there since their wedding day. Sheng Linrong rarely opened it and refused to share the password with her.

Over the years, she had tried countless times to crack the safe, each attempt ending in failure, sparking heated arguments. To prevent her from discovering the code, Sheng Linrong had locked the study, renovated the vault, and even invested in a custom biometric lock, severing Meng Qingde’s curiosity once and for all.

What could the safe possibly hide?

After Sheng Linrong’s death, Meng Qingde finally unlocked it.

Inside, she found what one might expect in a wealthy man’s safe: priceless jewels, classified documents, gold bars, checks, data hard drives, and rare collectibles. There was nothing scandalous, nothing that lived up to her imagination.

The only peculiarity was a nondescript letter nestled among the glittering jewels, addressed to no one.

Meng Qingde extracted the letter.

Unfolding it, she found it filled with dense handwriting. The first line read:

Qingde, if you are reading this letter, it means I am already dead.

No matter the cause of my death, remember that Sheng Long and Ji Wei killed me!!

No matter what others tell you, do not believe them. Remember only this: I was murdered by Sheng Long and Ji Wei! I was wrongfully killed! I did not want to die!! Avenge me!! Avenge me!!

Her breath caught. Meng Qingde stared at the words on the page, as if she had anticipated this.

The letter continued, recounting their love story—from an arranged marriage and forced blind dates to falling in love, marrying, and spending their first year as an affectionate couple.

Starting the second year, Sheng Linrong began staying out overnight, often drunk at clubs. Rumors in their circle labeled them a couple in name only, leading to their first argument, then the second, the sixth… each time.

In the letter, Sheng Linrong defended himself, claiming he had not cheated. His interactions with other women were mere pretense, necessities of convenience. Even when Meng Qingde witnessed him in the act of infidelity, he justified it by separating love from the body.

The body may betray, but his heart and soul forever belonged to Meng Qingde. This was why he left her the will. In precise strokes, he wrote: Qingde, the only person I can trust is you, and you should trust me.

Trust that he never betrayed her, trust that all his ugliness was unavoidable. To prove his loyalty, he diverged from his real-life treatment of Ji Wei, employing venomous words to curse and blame her, shifting all guilt onto Ji Wei.

How could I possibly like her?

I pitied her and wanted to take care of her. It was my mistake for not setting the right boundaries, but I always regarded her as my own child. How could I harm my own child!

It was my fault, wrong for being soft-hearted.

Perhaps I should never have taken her in. Perhaps I should have let you vent your frustrations on her. I should have driven her out long ago! Instead, for Sheng Long, I endured and retreated, leading to today’s disaster.

I watched over her every move, fearing only that she might harm you.

How could I possibly like her? I have already died by her hand!! Is that not proof enough?

Two full pages, one and a half spent by Sheng Linrong justifying his lifetime of misdeeds, managing to whitewash himself from a philandering cad to a deeply affectionate and forbearing good man.

The final lines on the letter had begun to warp and distort:

Qingde, you must help me.

I am already dead. Do you think they will let you be?

How could they possibly let you be?

After Sheng Linrong’s death, Meng Qingde’s retribution had already begun. Even if she escaped with her life, she could not evade imprisonment.

Gazing at the disjointed testament, Meng Qingde didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “He’s dead, and still he lies to me.”

It seemed in Sheng Linrong’s eyes, she was so helplessly in love with him beyond salvation.

Perhaps she was indeed such a foolish, love-starved person.

She slipped the letter back into its envelope, intending to hand it over to the police. Whether this letter could convict Sheng Long and Ji Wei, or clear her of attempted murder, remained to be seen.

Just as she was about to secure the safe, she noticed a small locked box within. The box was unlocked, opening with a simple pull.

Inside lay a D-card and a camera.

The camera was an outdated model from decades past, long discontinued.

After a moment of hesitation, reason prevailed over emotion. She picked up the camera, found a memory card inside, and discovered thousands of photos—ordinary campus snapshots from Sheng Linrong’s student days.

Without scrutinizing the photos, she played the sole video on the camera:

The lens wobbled at first, revealing lush green branches, then focused on a girl in a school uniform beneath the tree. Meng Qingde felt a strange sense of familiarity, though she was certain she had never met her.

“Excuse me, may I ask your name?” Sheng Linrong’s voice emanated from the camera.

The girl beneath the tree smiled shyly, cooperative. “He Xiaoyuan.”

“He Xiaoyuan, with the college entrance exams approaching, may I ask which university you plan to apply to?” It was a conventional question, and Meng Qingde surmised this was Sheng Linrong recording a video yearbook with his classmates.

The video, ten minutes long, continued with mundane questions until the latter half, where the inquiries grew increasingly personal. Sheng Linrong’s voice deepened with laughter. “Final question.”

He asked, “Would you be my girlfriend?”

Meng Qingde’s eyes welled with tears—Sheng Linrong had never asked her like that.

It came flooding back—she remembered who she was.

The girl in the video paused, then responded tactfully after a few seconds: “If you can get into the same university as me, I will agree.”

She was Ji Wei’s mother.

The video froze on the last frame, fading to black, plunging the study into an eerie silence.

Reconsidering those photos now, a possible explanation emerged. Meng Qingde masochistically sought a negating answer when the screen suddenly went dark. Upon relighting, Sheng Long’s face appeared in the lens.

It was a video recorded years prior.

The youth on screen had tender, immature features, sitting meekly in a bedroom. The wide-open curtains could not block the sunlight from engulfing him. Leaning slightly toward the lens, he revealed the red mole on his nose, his skin a morbid paleness, nearly translucent.

Meng Qingde’s vision blurred for a moment, nearly forgetting what Sheng Long had looked like in his youth.

Adjusting the camera angle, he stepped back, half his body framed, and smiled. “Meng Qingde, Ms. Meng, my mother, hello. I am Sheng Long, your son.”

“Today is July 14th, 201X… I’ve had this idea for a long time and planned to record it for you today.”

“…”

“…”

A half-hour monologue left Meng Qingde stunned and rigid, her heartbeat inaudible, her courage to continue nonexistent.

By the time she realized it, her trembling hand tried to stop the video, but the camera had malfunctioned.

“Could you please listen until the end?” Sheng Long’s voice in the video was gentle, yet cruel.

He seemed to anticipate that Meng Qingde would not dare to watch until the end, traversing years of time and space to stand before her, meticulously strategizing, “I will set the program to auto-destroy upon playback completion.”

Meng Qingde screamed and hurled the camera away.

The video continued to play, the screen still facing her.

“No… please stop…” Fear seeped into her marrow, paralyzing her with cowardice, leaving her no strength to flee. She could only cower, covering her ears, yet the sounds poured in relentlessly.

The youth on screen maintained his smile.

In a beige sweater and soft black hair, her son bared his vulnerable neck, presenting an innocent facade as he dissected his true self for his mother.

Yet in his heart, she was likely unworthy of the title “mother”; otherwise, how could he bear to treat her so cruelly?

Tears streamed down Meng Qingde’s face as her body and mind fractured. Abruptly, Sheng Long called out to her: “Mom.”

She had scarcely heard him utter “mom” in all her life.

Meng Qingde stared at the screen.

She watched her son lean toward the camera, revealing the flawless face she had given birth to, and made the same plea as in the will: “You will help me, won’t you?”

Meng Qingde vanished.

As dusk settled, Zhao Liang rushed to the villa where Meng Qingde had been, only to find it empty.

The study door on the third floor stood open, Sheng Linrong’s prized safe unlocked, its treasures on full display. No one knew what had been taken from it, except the deceased owner.

What was taken?

A will crawling with despicable lies.

A D-card sealing forgotten spirits.

And a camera harboring a death prophecy.

Zhao Liang hurried out of the villa, about to report to Ou Yang Lin, when her call came through. He urgently shouted, “Captain Lin! Meng Qingde’s gone!”

She had left a note on the floor, addressed to no one in particular, with a single sentence:

**【Please, grant me six days.】**