Chapter 15- A Bird Flew Out the Window
Upon hearing these words, Ji Wei’s heart sank to the bottom.
The mother before him seemed both strange and familiar.
Her words pounded in his ears like drums, echoing again and again, carrying a sharp, piercing roar—like the cry of Ji Wei’s very soul.
He neither picked up his chopsticks nor stood up. He simply sat trembling in his dining chair, his whole body tormented under the weight of his parents’ gazes.
It was a long time before he finally found his voice.
“What do you mean, Mom?”
At the dining table, Ji’s father rolled up the newspaper and hurled it at him, scolding harshly:
“How dare you call her Mom? You colluded with classmates, hid things from your teachers, and deceived your parents! Are you worthy of us?!”
“I asked your teacher, and you never even signed up for summer camp,” his mother said coldly. “I even checked the school surveillance footage and found you’ve been skipping classes in the afternoons to go online for a long time.”
“You came back from the internet café that afternoon, didn’t you? You played with your dog at the school gate for so long. Have you learned to lie as well?”
Ji Wei gasped at her words, tears streaming down his face.
He instinctively apologized, “I’m sorry, I—I know I was wrong. I won’t do it again.”
Ji’s mother sneered, “You don’t even know what you did wrong. You only know you can’t be so careless next time and let us catch you.”
Ji Wei shook his head frantically, tears soaking through the fabric at his chest.
He sobbed, “Please, Mom, I really had something important to do today…”
His mother cut him off. “The ticket you asked your deskmate to buy? I went to his parents. He told me everything.”
“And we’ve seen all your chat history. What do you mean by ‘youth training’? And in Hai City, of all places? Have you ever even been outside Beijing in your life? You dare make such a grand claim about going elsewhere to play games? You’re almost a sophomore in high school—don’t you know better?”
Ji Wei’s world was gradually collapsing before his eyes. His parents’ mouths opened and closed in front of him, but he no longer understood how everything had suddenly turned out this way.
Ji’s father glared at him and gave the final verdict: “The internet café at the school gate is violating regulations by allowing minors in. We’ve reported it to the authorities. It will be closed immediately for rectification. You’ll stay home and reflect on yourself.”
“No, no!” Ji Wei jumped up in fear, instinctively wanting to run—wanting to escape it all.
Am I dreaming? he thought as he ran. This is the nightmare I always imagined, isn’t it?
He stumbled to the door, only to find he couldn’t open it.
His mother stepped into the living room and watched him twist the doorknob helplessly. “It’s useless! It’s locked, and we’re the only ones with the key.”
“Please, please!”
Ji Wei was truly devastated. He nearly dropped to his knees before his mother.
“I promise I’ll do my homework every day and show it to you. I’ll stay up late studying and won’t let my grades fall behind. Just let me go this once!”
His mother looked at him, shook her head, and said:
“Son, don’t you understand where you’ve gone wrong? If your grades are bad, we can hire a tutor. If you’re picky about food, we can prepare meals for you and help you break that habit. But you cannot disobey.”
“And you cannot lie to us.”
“Now go back to your room and change your clothes. I’ll pack your suitcase for you.”
“And,” Ji’s father added, still seated at the dining table, “if you’re still thinking of leaving here by bus, forget it. I’ve already processed the refund for your ticket as your legal guardian. It’s now invalid.”
Ji Wei stared in disbelief at his parents—people he had lived with day and night for over a decade—as if he were seeing them for the first time.
They watched him weep like rain, hysterical, like a monkey in a play, struggling in vain beneath the Five Finger Mountain.
For days, they must have seen him on surveillance cameras, packing his bags with longing. They had long suspected he was hiding something, but only after investigating everything thoroughly did they choose to expose it on the very day he was set to leave—shattering all his hopes.
Realizing he couldn’t escape, Ji Wei returned to his room in despair and sat by the windowsill.
He watched birds circling in the sky outside—some in flocks, some alone—their only similarity: their freedom.
Time ticked by. He sat motionless as the clock in his room struck nine o’clock—the departure time of his train to Hai City.
Ji Wei had completely missed the train to his dreams.
He opened his schoolbag, took out the ticket he had long cherished, and burst into tears.
After his tears dried, the boy sat in his room until early morning.
He hadn’t eaten all day, locking himself inside. Even though he knew his parents could still watch him through the camera, he stubbornly refused to come out.
A little after seven in the evening, his mother knocked on the door. When he didn’t respond, she never came again.
At midnight, he watched the date on the digital clock flip to the 20th—the day he was supposed to report for AVG.
He had no phone, no computer, no way to send a message to the person waiting for him.
This can’t be happening, Ji Wei thought. At the very least, he should let them know he was safe and apologize.
Things couldn’t possibly get worse for him, but he still didn’t want to disappoint his good friend.
Ji Wei quietly left his room, intending to steal his parents’ phone to log in.
His destination lay at the end of the hallway. Ji Wei tiptoed through the living room, listening to the steady breathing coming from the bedroom.
The door was left open, so he could walk right in. The light was dim, and Ji Wei could only move slowly toward his mother’s side of the bed, groping with his hands as he searched for her phone.
He gently brushed his hand over the items on the bedside table, carefully examining them: books, magazines, an eye mask…
Snap!
With a sudden burst of sound, the room lit up.
His father, lying on the other side of the bed, had reached out and turned on the light.
For a moment, Ji Wei and his mother’s sleepless eyes met.
It was painfully awkward. Ji Wei thought that if this scene had happened in a TV drama or variety show, he would have laughed out loud.
But he couldn’t laugh—because he saw the deep disappointment in his mother’s eyes.
“Did you know? The surveillance camera in your room has always been equipped with motion detection.”
“Mom and Dad know exactly what you’re going to do.”
His mother pushed herself upright. Even though Ji Wei was looking down at her, the power between them hadn’t shifted; he still stepped back in fear.
“I didn’t want to do this. I even tried to persuade your dad. But you actually tried to steal my phone. You’re so young—what will you be like when you grow up?”
She sighed. “This is the only way left to us.”
Ji’s mother picked up the phone, unlocked it, and logged into Ji Wei’s account.
A chill ran through him. “What do you mean? Why can you log into my account?”
“You can reset your password if you forget it,” she said softly. “But it doesn’t matter, Weiwei. Mom and Dad are doing this for your own good.”
Ji Wei reached out instinctively, but his father’s stern glare froze him in place.
“If you dare to take it, I’ll no longer acknowledge you as my son. I mean it!”
Ji Wei stood there stunned, eyes wide, unable to understand how it had come to this.
While he stood in shock, his mother tapped through several screens and, right in front of him, permanently deactivated his social media accounts.
…
“Leave your phone with us. Come back when you’ve reflected on your actions. And close the door when you leave,” his mother said calmly.
Ji Wei stared blankly at his phone, now locked inside the bedside table, forgetting even to cry.
Why? He had said those three words countless times today, thought them countless more, but still couldn’t find the answer.
Am I a bad person?
With his account gone, all his chat history vanished with it. All his memories with Yin Sijue disappeared in an instant.
Ji Wei leaned against the wall, forgetting to breathe. Something clogged his throat, and after a long silence, he began to gasp.
He didn’t cry, didn’t scream questions, didn’t try to snatch back what was no longer his.
After all, nothing belonged to him: not the room, not the account, not even himself.
He finally understood his fate: from the very beginning, he had been handed over to others.
Ji Wei lowered his head and left the bedroom. He went to the bathroom, splashed cold water on his face, and stared into the mirror at his bloodshot eyes. A red mark still lingered on his forehead where his father had struck him that morning.
Leaving the bathroom, he passed his parents’ room when he suddenly overheard a conversation.
“Have you taken care of the dog? Contacting the Urban Management Bureau for stray animals doesn’t guarantee they’ll deal with it.”
The words froze Ji Wei in place.
His father’s low, restrained voice followed: “It’s taken care of, don’t worry. I didn’t call the Urban Management Bureau. I went to the owner of that well-known dog meat restaurant in the east city—the one I used to take your brother to.”
Bang!
A loud crash from the bedroom door startled the couple. They looked up to see Ji Wei standing there like a ghost, having kicked the door open.
Ji’s father shouted angrily, “How dare you kick the door like that?”
“What did you do to the dog?!”
Ji Wei’s throat could no longer form proper sounds, only a shrill, rasping wheeze—but still he roared with everything he had, his whole body brimming with grief.
His mother’s dark eyes were like ice. “I told you long ago not to let anything distract you, but I didn’t expect you to secretly keep a pet. A stray dog like that could have been dangerous if it bit someone. This is all for your own good.”
“He never bit anyone!” Ji Wei clutched the wall with both hands, his nails bleeding. “What’s the difference between what you’ve done and murder?!”
But the woman seemed not to hear. Her cold eyes stayed fixed on her child, as if she were a machine repeating itself:
“I’m doing this for your own good.”
“…Ha.”
Ji Wei let out a strange laugh. Looking at his parents—his closest kin—was like staring at two strangers.
“It’s for my own good, huh. Fine.”
…
Later, hearing the sound of the bedroom door closing, Ji’s father yawned and said to his wife beside him:
“Go to sleep. He probably won’t come back.”
“Okay, let me check the surveillance camera.”
“You bought a great one. I’d recommend putting them in every school classroom so parents can watch in real time.”
“I’ll write a suggestion about it next time.”
Ji’s mother switched the camera to landscape mode and watched Ji Wei close his door and return to his room, seemingly taking something from his bag.
“Do you still need to worry about his ticket? He already missed the train.”
“…Why did he open the window?”
Ji’s father glanced at the screen. “Maybe he felt hot.”
The couple cuddled together and watched Ji Wei on the monitor.
His eyes, already large, looked even brighter in night-vision mode—but they were strangely hollow. In the stillness of the night, it seemed as though he were staring directly at them.
Before they had time to grasp what that look meant, they saw their timid, obedient son step onto the windowsill without hesitation—
and leap from the building.