He has arrived.

The moment I vaguely heard the door upstairs open, my nerves tensed in an instant. Though I still feigned sleep with my eyes closed, my thoughts had already flown to join Jin Ze. In order to prevent the voyeur from escaping, I kept my eyes half-open, watching intently. After a few more minutes, I realized that eye was still there, and I knew for certain that this turtle would be caught tonight. According to Jin Ze, the place should be under surveillance. Now that he had gone upstairs, even if the voyeur tried to escape through the window, there’d be people outside waiting to catch him.

Suddenly, I heard hurried footsteps from above, yet the eye remained in place. That told me it must be Jin Ze—his thinking must be the same as mine, not worried about the voyeur jumping out the window, but focused on seeing him first. With that, I sat bolt upright in bed. As I lifted my head, I saw the voyeur’s eye still there, while the footsteps upstairs—presumably Jin Ze’s—abruptly stopped.

But no sounds of struggle followed, nor the report of a gunshot. This puzzled me. I stared wide-eyed upward, meeting the gaze of that eye. Just then, my phone suddenly vibrated loudly on the bedside table, jolting me so badly I nearly lost my soul.

Regaining my composure, I grabbed the phone. It was Jin Ze calling. I answered immediately.

Jin Ze’s voice came through: “Chen Mu, I’m upstairs, right above your head.”

Relieved, I relaxed a bit, but soon unease returned—if Jin Ze was upstairs, why hadn’t he caught the voyeur? The eye was still there. Suddenly, a chill ran down my spine. Damn, could Jin Ze himself be the owner of that eye? Was he the one spying on me?

But I dismissed that thought almost at once. So I asked him, “Where’s the voyeur? Why haven’t you caught him?”

Jin Ze replied, “Chen Mu, brace yourself.”

I paused, confused by his words. Brace myself? Was he about to reveal himself as the voyeur?

As I puzzled over this, I saw the eye on the ceiling suddenly bulge out from the hole. With a soft plop, the eyeball dropped out of nowhere, landing right next to me.

I screamed involuntarily, then realized—it wasn’t the voyeur spying on me, but rather he’d stuffed an eyeball into the hole.

Now I understood why Jin Ze told me to brace myself—he was about to poke the eyeball out from the hole above.

This thought sent a shiver through me. Soon there was a knock at the door. I checked—Jin Ze. I let him in, and he rushed straight to the bedroom, carefully collecting the eyeball and placing it in a plastic bag.

Looking at the slightly bloodied eye, I swallowed hard and said, “How could this be? Even if it’s not the voyeur himself, it’s still a human eye. It wouldn’t just show up on its own. Someone must’ve put it there. It wasn’t there before I went to bed, so someone placed it later. Didn’t you say the place was under surveillance? How did someone get into Zheng Wei’s place without being noticed?”

Jin Ze replied, “We did set up surveillance, but to avoid alerting the voyeur and making him go into hiding, we only monitored the whole building. The person must have been hiding in Zheng Wei’s unit the whole time and left right after planting the eyeball. I’m certain he’s still somewhere in this building.”

I pressed, “Then search! Go door to door—I don’t believe we can’t find him.”

Jin Ze shook his head. “Impossible. There are too many units. We can’t search every one, and we don’t even know what the voyeur looks like. He could be any one of your neighbors. Even if we saw him, we wouldn’t know he’s the one. Searching now would be pointless. Besides, if he’s using an eyeball to mislead us, it shows he’s well aware of our police arrangements. We’ve been played again. He’s probably hiding in some dark corner, laughing at us.”

I cursed under my breath. “Damn, what a pervert. Why would he do this? What does he gain?”

Jin Ze didn’t answer, just told me not to think about it, to pretend nothing had happened. He said being toyed with by the voyeur might not be a bad thing—it served as a warning. This voyeur was definitely not an ordinary opponent. We couldn’t afford any negligence. Next, he’d arrange surveillance on a few households near mine.

He told me to go back to sleep and then left.

I figured there must be plenty of plainclothes officers around, and the voyeur hadn’t really tried to kill me so far. So I lay down again. Logically, I should have been tossing and turning, unable to sleep, but as I mulled things over, I eventually drifted off.

I don’t know how long I slept before I began to dream. In my dream, Liu Qinglong really did appear. He sat at my bedside, reaching out to touch my face.

As he caressed my cheek, Liu Qinglong said, “Chen Mu, I eat my own flesh, all for you, for you…”

I jolted awake, startled by the dream. Fang Qinghe’s words had come true—the things we ponder by day haunt us at night. Just that day, Liu Qinglong had said those words, and now I dreamt them.

But as I woke, something felt wrong. My cheek was cold, as if a hand had caressed it.

I looked at my face—and my bladder nearly burst with terror. There was really a hand on my cheek!

But there was no one sitting at my bedside. Instinctively, I reached up and seized the hand touching my face. The moment I caught it, I nearly fainted from fear.

It was a severed hand.

No one was at the bedside—just a solitary hand, severed at the wrist, placed somehow on my face.

Terrified, I flung the hand to the floor, grabbed my phone, and dialed Jin Ze. But his phone was off. I tried Fang Qinghe—also off.

Panic rising, I soon noticed an unread message from Jin Ze: “Chen Mu, we’ve just received an urgent notice from Captain Fang. We’ve found a critical new crime scene and must turn off all communications. All officers have been redeployed, but there’s still one stationed at 303 on the third floor. If anything happens, go find him. Remember, whatever happens, don’t panic. According to our evaluation, the killer won’t harm you for now. No matter what occurs, it won’t be the worst case scenario. Stay calm.”

Reading Jin Ze’s message, I realized why they’d disappeared so suddenly—they’d been called to a case. I was left to face things alone. Forcing myself to calm down, I avoided looking at the severed hand and debated whether to seek out the officer in 303.

Just as I was pondering this, a chill crawled down my back—a sense of dread crept over me, that oppressive feeling of being watched returning with full force. My instincts had always been accurate, so I turned toward the window.

My nerves, just barely steadied, clenched in terror. There was a face at my window, someone crouched on the sill, his head wedged between the window and its frame.

What horrified me most was that the face belonged to Liu Qinglong, the faceless man.

He had said he would visit me that night, and now he truly had—but wasn’t he in custody?

I was paralyzed with fear, but mustered the courage to ask, “Hey, Liu Qinglong, why are you here? What do you want?”

He didn’t answer. Something felt off. I picked up the bedside lamp for protection and slowly approached the window.

When I got there, I was utterly stunned.

It really was Liu Qinglong, the faceless man. But he had no body—just a head, wedged in my window frame.