I secretly installed 26 cameras just to unmask my nanny’s laziness… but at exactly 3:00 a.m., what appeared on the screen made my blood run cold—and from that instant, I understood that a terrifying secret was hidden inside my own home, one I never would have dared to imagine…

Blackwood Manor sits atop a secluded hill in the outskirts of Connecticut. It’s a vast Victorian mansion, so cold and silent you can hear the snow falling outside the window.

I’m Arthur Vance, forty-five, CEO of a Wall Street investment fund. A year ago, my world crumbled when my wife, Evelyn, died in a fall into the frozen lake behind our house. Since then, I’ve become a soulless machine, trapped in work and bitterness.

To maintain this enormous house, I’ve hired Martha – a sixty-year-old Hispanic woman with a stern face and perpetually downcast eyes.

But lately, I’ve grown tired of her.

Martha is terribly lazy. Every morning when I woke up, the house was in a strange state of disarray: scratches on the oak floors, askew carpets, and sometimes mud stains in the hallway that she’d only cleaned superficially. Worse still, Martha always looked like a walking corpse. During the day, she worked sluggishly, her movements slow, and I frequently found her dozing off in the laundry room. I paid her $5,000 a month not to give her a vacation here.

My patience as a capitalist has its limits. I decided to fire Martha. But to prevent her from claiming contract termination compensation, I needed proof.

That weekend, while Martha was out shopping, I personally installed 26 tiny, hidden infrared cameras throughout the mansion. From the living room, hallways, kitchen, to the entrance. I’m going to expose her laziness, or worse, her petty theft at night.

It’s the third night since the cameras were installed. Outside, a terrible snowstorm is raging, the temperature has dropped to minus 15 degrees Celsius.

I went to bed at 11 p.m. after taking two high-dose tranquilizers – the only thing that’s helped me fall asleep since Evelyn’s death. But I set my alarm for 2:50 a.m. The perfect time to catch the night owls red-handed.

When the alarm chimed softly, I woke up. My head was a little dizzy from the effects of the medication. I reached for the iPad on my bedside table and opened the tracking app. The screen was divided into 26 small squares, displaying sharp black and white images under infrared mode.

Exactly 3:00 a.m.

I squinted, scanning the images. And then, on Camera #4 – located in the second-floor hallway, right in front of my bedroom door – there was movement.

Martha was there.

She wasn’t in her pajamas, still wearing her cleaning uniform. She stood hunched over, leaning against the wall right next to my door, her hands clasped together in tension. She wasn’t asleep!

“What the hell is she up to? Is she trying to assassinate me?” My heart pounded. I instinctively reached for the six-barreled pistol hidden under my bed.

But what happened the next second made the blood in my veins freeze. A chilling shiver ran down my spine.

My bedroom door on the screen… slowly opened.

And the person who stepped out of that room, gliding past the camera lens… WAS ME.

My mouth dropped open, and I dropped my iPad onto the blanket. My hands trembled as I picked it up, staring at the screen.

It was me. I was wearing dark blue silk pajamas. But my gait was incredibly strange. My arms hung limply, my steps stiff like a wooden puppet. Under the infrared light, my eyes were wide open, lifeless and empty, not blinking once.

I was sleepwalking. A sleepwalking episode so deep and terrible that I had no memory of it whatsoever.

On the screen, “I” walked aimlessly down the stairs. Martha immediately followed closely behind. Unlike her sluggish daytime demeanor, she moved lightly, intensely focused, her eyes never leaving me for a second, her arms always outstretched as if ready to catch me if I stumbled.

I switched to Camera 12 on the ground floor.

“I” went straight into the kitchen. I pulled out a drawer and took out a sharp fruit knife.

The air in my chest was sucked away. I was watching a horror movie where the villain was myself! What was I about to do? Slit my wrists? Or kill someone?

But Martha didn’t panic or scream. She approached quietly. With extraordinary courage, she reached out, gently grasped the sharp blade, whispered something (the camera didn’t record), and carefully removed the knife from my hand. Through the black and white screen, I saw a dark liquid drip from Martha’s palm onto the tiled floor. It was blood. She had cut her hand to disarm me.

“I” didn’t react, just numbly turned on my heel and continued walking towards the main door of the mansion.

Switching to Camera #1 (Main Hall).

“I” reached out and flung open the enormous oak door. A violent gust of snow-covered wind swept into the hall. The temperature outside is minus 15 degrees Celsius, and I’m walking barefoot, wearing only thin pajamas, out into the white night.

The direction I’m heading… is the frozen lake behind the house. Where Evelyn died.

The Fox Spirit

I screamed in despair. The trauma of losing my wife had turned into an extreme sleep disorder (parasomnia). My subconscious was controlling my body, making me repeat Evelyn’s tragedy, forcing me to seek death in that icy lake!

But Martha wouldn’t let that happen.

She rushed after me into the blizzard. No coat, no shoes. She was a frail sixty-year-old woman, but she used all her strength to hug me from behind. I struggled, dragging her across the thick snow. But Martha refused to let go. She wrestled with me in the fierce blizzard for almost fifteen minutes. Finally, she took off her thin sweater, wrapped it around me, and with her small frame, laboriously pushed and dragged my lifeless 80kg body back inside the house.

I sat on the bed, tears streaming down my face, soaking the iPad screen. The most devastating and painful twist struck my mind, shattering all the arrogance and haughtiness of a capitalist.

The monster in this house wasn’t Martha. It was ME.

And Martha… the woman I cursed every day, the one I considered “lazy, a parasite”… had actually stayed up night after night, guarding my door, risking her life to protect me from unconscious suicide. She looked like a lifeless corpse during the day because she was exhausted after nights of life-or-death struggles to keep me alive.

She never complained. She cleaned up the scratches and mud I made, and wiped away her own blood, so that when I woke up the next morning, I would still think of myself as a normal person, a perfect CEO without mental illness.

I switched back to Camera 4.

It was 4:30 AM. Martha had just successfully gotten “me” back to bed. She closed the door.

Under the infrared light, I saw the sixty-year-old woman slumped in the hallway. She clutched her arms, trembling from the cold, buried her face in her knees, and wept silently.

I tossed the iPad aside. My heart shattered. I jumped out of bed, flung open the bedroom door, and ran into the hallway.

Martha was still sitting there. Startled by the sound of the door opening, she hastily wiped away her tears, trying to hide her blood-soaked, bandaged hand behind her back.

“Mr… Mr. Vance…” Martha stammered, her voice hoarse with cold. “I’m sorry… do you need water? Let me get some…”

I didn’t say a word. I stepped forward, kneeling on the cold wooden floor in front of the small woman. I grabbed her shoulders and burst into tears like a child.

“Why?” I choked back tears, staring straight into her weary eyes. “Why did you do this? Why didn’t you tell me the truth? Why did you endure my insults and still protect me?”

Martha was stunned. She looked into my tear-filled eyes, understanding that I knew everything. Tears began to well up in her wrinkled eyes.

She reached into her apron pocket, trembling as she pulled out a yellowed piece of paper, carefully folded in quarters.

“A year ago, in the hospital, before Lady Evelyn passed away…” Martha whispered, her voice choked with pain. “Lady Evelyn held my hand. She said, ‘Martha, Arthur looks strong, but he’s just a vulnerable boy. When I’m gone, he’ll do foolish things. Please, take care of him. Don’t let him follow me.'”

Martha placed the paper in my hand. It was Evelyn’s suicide note.

“I promised Mrs. Evelyn, Mr. Vance,” Martha said, tears falling onto my hand. “I lost a son to depression ten years ago. I couldn’t save him. So I swore to God I wouldn’t let Mrs. Evelyn down, and I wouldn’t let her take her own life. She’s a good man, she’s just sick. If I told the truth, she’d end up in a mental institution, and she’d completely collapse.”

My heart felt like it was being squeezed dry by an invisible hand.

My multi-million dollar fortune meant nothing. The only thing keeping me alive was my late wife’s dying promise and the great, silent sacrifice of a poor cleaning lady.

I hugged Martha tightly. I didn’t care about class differences, I didn’t care about my CEO ego. All I could do was embrace the second mother who had brought me back from the brink of death.

“Enough, Martha,” I sobbed, clinging tightly to her. “You don’t have to suffer anymore. I’ll get treatment. I’ll live on. Please… allow me to call you family.”

Three years later.

The winter in Connecticut no longer held a somber hue. In the drawing-room of the Blackwood mansion, the fire in the fireplace crackled, radiating warmth throughout the room, which was brightly decorated with a Christmas tree.

I had long since smashed the 26 surveillance cameras myself.

After that night, I underwent intensive psychological treatment and sleepwalking therapy. Things gradually returned to normal. The icy block…

My heart melted.

On the large banquet table in the center of the room, there was no longer the weary, aging housekeeper carrying food.

Martha sat in the most prominent position at the table, wearing the warm red woolen dress I had bought her last week. She smiled, watching me awkwardly cut a huge turkey.

She was no longer a maid. On paper and in my heart, she was a member of the Vance family.

“Arthur, you’ve ruined the turkey breast,” Martha chuckled, her eyes now sparkling with peace.

I smiled, offering her the best piece of meat.

“Don’t criticize me, Mother. I’m better at making money on Wall Street than cooking,” I winked.

Outside, the snow continued to fall, but inside this house, an eternal spring had begun to sprout. The nightmares of sleepwalking at 3 a.m. have faded into the past, giving way to a miracle illuminated by the purest human love.

When you open your heart and look beyond your blind prejudices, you will realize that the greatest guardian angels sometimes don’t have pristine white wings… they only wear worn-out janitor uniforms, and carry a heart ready to bleed for you in the freezing winter night.