Chapter 3

9:25 p.m.

The streaming app was still playing The Ghost Beside the Pillow.

Suddenly, the woman paused it and returned straight to her home screen.

Opened the camera outside her door again.

The same dark, empty corridor. The sensor light was off.

Not a soul.

…

I stared at the screen, muttering to myself.

She was far too guarded.

How many times had she checked that camera in such a short span?

Even a woman living alone didn't have to be this paranoid.

Choosing her as my target might actually present a challenge.

9:28 p.m.

She opened her notes app.

Created a blank note.

After a few seconds, she began typing.

Today's steps: 8,627.

Route:

Chrysanthemum Gardens… woods in the eastern suburbs… secondhand market in the north of the city… Building Materials Lane… Chrysanthemum Gardens… phone repair shop… Chrysanthemum Gardens.

Items collected:

One soundproof mat, one recorder, one old suitcase, one used butcher's cleaver, several wooden bars, half a heavy-duty waterproof tarp, one bottle of industrial deodorizer, three pairs of old rubber gloves, one bag of moisture-absorbing cotton, one pointed garden shovel, several bags of high-density activated charcoal, one sheet of blood-detection test strips…

At that point, she suddenly deleted the last line and wrote:

Nighttime sound log:

9:01 p.m.: Rustling under the sofa.

9:17 p.m.: Dripping water in the bathroom.

9:20 p.m.: Creaking from the shoe cabinet.

9:25 p.m.: Footsteps outside the door.

Action taken:

Lock the door, fasten the security latch, turn on loop recording.

…

My back went rigid.

The eastern woods, the northern secondhand market, Building Materials Lane—

Secluded places. A mixed crowd.

And the things she'd collected there weren't remotely like an ordinary woman's errands.

Rustling under the sofa. Creaking in the shoe cabinet…

A terrifying thought rose in my mind.

Had she… noticed something?

9:30 p.m.

She closed the notes app.

Swiped down to open the control center.

Turned on the flashlight.

The screen stayed still. She did nothing else.

I guessed she was using the phone to light up some dark corner of her apartment.

About ten seconds later, the flashlight went off and the screen returned to normal.

9:33 p.m.

A recording icon quietly appeared in the corner of her screen.

She'd started the voice recorder.

Turned the volume all the way up and named the recording:

“9:33 p.m., ambient sounds inside the apartment”

The timer began counting.

She swiped a few times and let the screen go dark.

Only the recording continued in the background.

9:36 p.m.

The screen lit up.

She opened her photo gallery.

Not selfies this time.

She swiped through a series of odd pictures.

Close-ups of the gap in a closed wardrobe.

Dark stains in a wall corner.

Empty stretches of corridor wall.

Every shot was taken from very low down.

As though she'd been crouching on the floor.

She selected a picture of the shoe cabinet.

Enlarged it, then used the drawing tool to put a small red circle around the gap in its door.

9:38 p.m.

Her phone suddenly lit up.

She unlocked it and went straight to her conversation with A-Zhe.

Quickly typed:

[Are you here? Was that you knocking?]

Less than five seconds later, his reply appeared.

[Still at work. Someone knocked?]

She paused, then typed:

[Yes. I thought it was you, but I looked through the peephole and couldn't see anyone.]

[It wasn't me. Don't open the door!]

She didn't reply.

The screen quickly switched to her door camera.

The corridor was empty.

Not a single person.

Then she opened the recorded footage and slowly dragged the timeline.

One minute back…

Three minutes…

Ten…

The corridor remained as quiet as ever. Nobody there.

Suddenly, she paused.

The image froze on a patch of shadow.

Something very faint seemed to have flickered through it.

You'd never notice unless you looked closely.

She took a screenshot and saved it to an encrypted folder in her gallery.

The folder had a single-word name:

[Death]

Without stopping, she kept dragging backward.

Until she reached 8:42.

The delivery worker appeared.

He hung the food bag on her door handle, turned, and left without lingering.

She watched it twice.

Then went further back.

8:33.

Herself, opening the door and entering.

Still she kept going.

8:25.

The screen flashed.

An unusually short figure appeared in the corridor.

A child's build, but an aged, coarse face.

An indefinable slyness…

A man of unusually short stature.

He crept along the wall, peering toward the woman's door.

Once he'd made sure the corridor was empty, he took out his tools.

A few movements, and the lock was open.

The door silently cracked ajar.

He bent down and slipped inside, then gently shut it.

She was still on her way home.

My grip tightened around my phone.

My knuckles whitened.

I forgot to breathe.

A moment later, her screen changed again.

Now she was playing footage from a camera inside her apartment.

She quickly moved the timeline.

The recording began at 8:25.

The short man pushed the door open and stepped inside, quiet as a cat.

First, he stood at the entrance, staring greedily at the shoes she'd left there.

Then crouched and gently stroked their surface, his nose nearly touching them.

Next, he went to the coffee table and picked up the glass she drank from.

A fingertip circled the rim as though he were touching some precious treasure.

He wandered slowly through the living room.

Turned over the sofa cushions.

Touched the ornaments on the TV cabinet.

Every object had to be brought close, smelled, handled.

His movements were furtive and unsettling.

He even bent behind the sofa to check it as a hiding place.

Every so often, he glanced toward the door.

His eyes held a sick obsession.

Then it was 8:33 p.m.

A faint sound came from the lock.

The woman was home.

His expression changed.

He immediately ducked behind the living-room sofa.

Only his eyes showed, fixed on the door.

Motionless.

A shadow lying in wait.

She pushed the door open.

Changed shoes. Turned on the light. Checked her phone. Collected her food. Watched a film.

Everything looked normal.

She had no idea that just a few steps behind her sofa, a pair of eyes was fixed unblinkingly on her back.

When she smiled, the short man silently smiled in the shadows.

When she typed, he watched the fingers sliding across her phone.

When she took her selfie, he quietly lifted his head, gazing greedily at her face.

She hurried through the recording.

Frame after frame slipped past.

The short man was like a frozen shadow.

Since hiding behind the sofa, he'd barely moved.

Only occasionally, when her back was turned, did he lift his eyes.