Chapter 14 fourth quarter

Thirteen years have passed. Yukiyo is eighteen years old and lives in Fukuoka, Kyushu. Since the child lost both parents at once, the main family and several branch families expressed their willingness to adopt, but they also each have many children.Of course, having one more Yukiyo wouldn't affect their lives, but from the perspective of family harmony, they were somewhat hesitant. Fukuoka is a branch of the second daughter-in-law's natal family. They are in the pancake business and make pancakes for wholesale.Senbei made into the shape of Hakata opera masks is a specialty of this area.This natal family has no children except for the daughter married to the Ikuta family.

Yukiyo was loved and raised.From elementary school to middle school, high school, and this year, she entered a women's university.It is a former women's college, and it is a well-known university in the local area.Yukiyo ranked first in the exam every year until he graduated from high school. During this period, she only went back to her hometown of Hokuriku twice, and once after going to Fukuoka for one year and four years later, both of which were still young.She lives in this house, and only stays for two nights at a time.She couldn't like her hometown. She had also heard the tragedy of her parents.She was five years old at the time and knew little about human affairs.How her parents died, if no one told her, she would still feel something in her innocent heart.After the parents disappeared, many uncles and uncles often came and went in and out of the house, including the police.When everyone who came saw her, they would say that the child was too pitiful, and she also heard the neighbor's Aunt Fang tell those guests what happened that night.Aunt E Fang's words were all the same, and she even boasted: If I hadn't kept her here, the child would have been killed too.

The correct story of the incident was heard from her adoptive father when she was sixteen two years ago.It was Yukiyo who told her. "It's strange that the murderer has not been caught in the end. If the man is still there, he is somewhere in Japan right now, living his life as if nothing had happened." After the adoptive father explained in detail, he added this sentence. No matter where the murderer lived, Yukiyo didn't feel any hatred.It was something that happened when she was a child, and it didn't feel real to her at all.Maybe it's because there are only faint memories left of the days spent with my parents.Instead, the murderer was still alive somewhere in Japan, and that was what made her feel strange.The adoptive father said that the murderer was a tall man, wearing a cloak and a turban, and carrying a lantern with a family pattern on a snowy night, and took the father and mother out separately.After hearing these words, Yukiyo felt that the tall man who had been a guide for his parents on their journey to death appeared in his mind like a mysterious character in a Nordic fairy tale.

That man is still alive somewhere in Japan.She didn't know where he was, and she didn't understand his face, which made her feel that he was simply an evil spirit. In the autumn of that year, Ikuta Soemon of the main family passed away at the age of seventy-three.Yukiyo didn't want to go, but because the adoptive parents thought it was related to the family, they should go to show their faces, so they had to go back to F village again.Nine years have passed since I returned home last time. Soemon's funeral has already been done.Yukiyo only has a vague memory of the old man, and cannot clearly figure out his appearance.His wife Sugiko has been dead for ten years.Yukiyo lived in the branch house where the daughter of her adoptive parents married.The old home where she lived until she was five years old has long changed hands and has been remodeled.Neighbor Ah Fang also passed away three years ago.

It's been a long time since I came back, so the branch family said, and asked Tokurenji Temple to make an offering for Yukiyo's deceased parents.The spiritual seats of the parents are on the Buddhist altar of this branch family. At around two o'clock in the afternoon, a black-clothed monk in his fifties came from Tokurenji Temple, carrying a bag in his hand. "Ah, I'm so old now. She's become a good girl. Even if I meet on the road, I don't know each other. No wonder we are so old." The monk looked at her steadily while drinking tea and said.This person is the abbot Zhendian of Delian Temple.

While the abbot was changing into his cassock in another room, the elders of the family told Yukiyo. "When your parents passed away, this monk Zhendian was still the head of the hospital. Hui Hai, who was the abbot at that time, died eight years ago, and this was the abbot later." After hearing this, Yukiyo remembered.Parents were killed, it was the eighth day of the repayment lecture.That night, my father had dinner with other people at Tokurenji Temple and returned home around eight o'clock.It is said that because he is a representative of the believers, the abbot and the hospital representative frequently persuaded him to drink and treated him very attentively.That is to say, Monk Zhendian, who was still the representative of the academy at that time, was the one who entertained his father in the temple.While thinking about what her adoptive father in Kyushu told her, Yukiyo stared at the back of the head of the abbot in a golden cassock who was chanting sutras.He is slightly shorter than Yukiyo.He recited the scriptures very carefully, and it took a full hour and a half.

After the offering was over, the abbot interrupted him and drank some wine.It seems that he didn't want to make Yukiyo sad, so he never mentioned the matter of his parents.About forty minutes later, I left with the bag wrapped in cassock. After the abbot left, the old man had a drink with his 43-year-old son. "When Zhendian was still in charge of the hospital, there were often rumors about women. Now that he is older, he has finally become a good old man." The son didn't want to say anything, but suddenly remembered that Yukiyo was by his side, so he kept silent again.The old man stopped ringing.

The next day, Yukiyo and his daughter-in-law rode bicycles to Shibayamagashi to play.The road is a newly built county road, and the path on the embankment has been abandoned and covered with yellow grass.This is the "Benkei Tudi" where Yukishiro's parents were brutally murdered, but the daughter-in-law didn't tell her. In autumn, the lake water in the Hokuriku region is quietly admiring the cold color.The pine forests on both sides of the river are occasionally dotted with the only remaining red leaves, and only the tops of the miscellaneous forests are left, and the gaps between the trees seem to be wider.There are withered reeds beside the water, but the water shadow does not move.

"Ah, it's the abbot of Tokurenji Temple, walking there." The thirty-eight-year-old daughter-in-law raised her finger. Although it is a lake, it is as narrow as a river, and the opposite bank is very close.There is a way there too.The monk in black walked there alone with his face slightly bowed.It is the scriptures that I chanted yesterday. The other party didn't notice anyone here.A short figure moved on the water.It was a dark and cloudy day, and in the yellowish-brown chilly landscape, the lonely black figure of the monk moved away so small. Seeing this scene, Yukiyo seemed to have seen the same scene in a dream in the distant past.

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