Chapter 17 Chapter Seventeen

It was already late at night when we arrived at Tokyo Station.When we parted, Ise took his suitcase from Hamaka and asked, "When shall we go to Saw Mountain?" "I completely forgot about this matter. I will discuss it with you in a day or two. Teacher, please rest well first." Hamaka bowed and watched Ise leave in a taxi. When Ise returned home, his wife greeted him. "You're pretty laid back," she sneered. The wife must be thinking wildly again.Although Ise was angry, she didn't want to make more excuses.It would be too troublesome to explain everything that happened during the trip.But his wife's sarcasm is also reasonable, after all, Ise had just been to Narita the day before leaving for Kyoto, and was away from home for three consecutive days.

However, when Ise took out Tottori's famous souvenirs from the suitcase, his wife was surprised: "Huh? Have you ever been to such a place?" Ise wanted to answer "Of course", but finally changed his words: "Hanaka leads the way, I don't know where I will go. This time I was dragged around by him, and I was exhausted." "Have you ever been to that place to gather wind?" "I've been there. Bangzhong is the editor, and he convinced the publishing house that the travel and miscellaneous expenses will be borne by the publishing house. Since you want to travel, why don't you go to some interesting places to collect stories." Ise responded.

"Mr. Bangzhong is so young, but he is quite capable in his work." said his wife. "Well, he's a very interesting man, and very mobile. There are very few editors as capable as he is these days." It would be tiresome for Hamaka to show off his knowledge, but the strange thing is that after we separated, Ise began to miss him.He is like an opponent who is no match for him.Thinking of seeing that baby face again tomorrow, Ise couldn't help but secretly look forward to it. "Thanks to Mr. Hamanaka, so many readers know about you." His wife showed him the twenty mails and postcards Ise received while away from home.Although there are childish words in the letters of the readers, for the author, these are all encouragements worthy of gratitude.It was the first time Ise had such an experience.He didn't expect that such a magazine would be so popular.

Since "Straw Pillow" published his travel notes, other magazines also came to invite Ise to write articles.In the few days when he was not at home, his wife had received requests for three essays, and she seemed happier about it than Ise. The next day, Ise waited for Hamanaka at home.He was originally conceiving essays, but unconsciously thought of the 35th parallel north latitude and the 135th longitude east longitude.Ise was immersed in thinking, imagining the various questions he would ask Hamaka when he came. But for unknown reasons, Bangzhong neither called nor showed up that day.He had been on a business trip until yesterday, so maybe he was on vacation today.I wanted to make a call, but considering that it was hard for him to have a chance to rest, it would not be appropriate to disturb him at this time, so I gave up.

When writing the manuscript that night, Ise suddenly felt as if he was still traveling. He was clearly sitting on a chair, but he felt as if he was shaking in a car or a train. The next day, Ise began to wait for Hamaka again.If Hamaka was on vacation yesterday, he should have called today.What did he do after breaking up the day before yesterday?He seemed to have discovered something, and guarded his discovery carefully, perhaps having launched an investigation around it. The secret of the 135-degree line of east longitude and the 35-degree line of north latitude was first discovered by Bangzhong.What is the relationship between the tourist attractions they have visited on these two lines and the longitude and latitude lines themselves?In addition, the mileage of several trips is related to 135 or 35, what is so strange about it?If it is only related at one point, it can be said to be accidental, but if so many accidents overlap, then there must be inevitability.

If it is inevitable, then someone must have tampered with it.In other words, all of this is someone's plan hiding in the dark. Was killing part of the plan too?Ise asked himself.It seems that Mimako Sakaguchi was killed because she knew too much. In addition, the current whereabouts of Kenichi Ninomiya is unknown.His friend Fujimura Susumu, who was driving a late-night truck with him at the Kyoto Keiyun Transportation Company, is also missing.If the bodies of these two people are found, the killer must be the travel planner who murdered Mimako Sakaguchi. Ise thought about it, but still couldn't find a clue to solve the problem.What the hell is that guy in Hamaka doing?He is here today, so he must ask clearly.But it was past noon, and there was no sound of Bangzhong coming from the entrance.

Ise couldn't wait any longer and called the editorial department of "Grass Pillow". "Hamaka is not here now." The male staff member of the editorial department replied rudely. "I'm Tadataka Ise, do you know where Hamanaka went?" Ise gave his name. The other party realized that it was the author who called, and said in a respectful tone: "He didn't leave a note, and I don't know. After I get in touch, I will ask him to call you immediately." "When does he come back?" "That's not too clear." It's all for nothing.However, an editor like Hamaka wouldn't tell the editorial department all about his whereabouts.He is a free, erratic man.If he was running around to solve this bizarre case, he would be even more reluctant to reveal his whereabouts to the editorial department.Being an editor is really convenient in this respect, as long as you tell the agency that you go to the author's house, even if you actually go to a coffee shop to talk to girls, or go to a movie theater, the agency will not know.

As a result, Bangzhong never appeared that day. "Why are you listless? Without Mr. Hamaka, do you lack stimulation?" said the wife. "Yeah. Without an editor's reminder, I can't afford to write a manuscript." "How long can the serialization last?" "This matter can only be decided by the other party, and I can't guarantee it." In fact, Ise's work was arranged by the editorial department from beginning to end—no, Hamamaka.Whatever Hamaka said, Ise would do.This time, he still couldn't let go of the mystery of longitude and latitude, and he didn't want to do the work entrusted by others at all.

Two days passed.Ise called the editorial department of "Grass Pillow" again. "Huh? Hasn't Hamaka contacted the teacher yet?" said the male staff member of the editorial department. "I've been waiting, but there's no news." "too weird." "Too strange? Have you contacted Bangzhong?" "He would call back from time to time and asked us to bring a message to the teacher." "Where did he call from?" "He didn't say it. Just 'somewhere.'" Hamaka is still defiant, Ise thought.However, since he is the deputy editor-in-chief of this small magazine, the editorial department has long been used to his willfulness.

"He didn't show up in the editorial department?" "Yes. He said he had something to investigate. After returning from a business trip, we never saw him again. Seeing that the planning meeting is about to be held again, we are also very embarrassed." Ise sat back behind the table and smoked a cigarette.When we broke up at Tokyo Station, Hamaka said that he would discuss with him about going to Saw Mountain in a day or two, but it has been four days now, and he has not had any contact. What the hell is Bangzhong doing?Judging from his phone calls to the editorial office, he seemed to be doing something secretly by himself.

Ise suddenly became worried.He didn't say where he was going beforehand, and he didn't tell him where he was when he called back—Hamaka had actually put himself in danger by doing so.If he goes somewhere no one knows, the danger is even greater, because he has been completely cut off from the human relationship around him. At present, the editorial department cannot take the initiative to get in touch with Bangzhong.If Hamaka hadn't called the editorial department occasionally, he might have "disappeared" like Ninomiya and Fujimura, and disappearance meant that his life and death were unknown. While Ise was worrying endlessly, there was the sound of the entrance door opening.The wife yelled, "There's an express letter!" She came over with a postcard, "It's from Mr. Bangzhong!" "Huh? Bangzhong?" "Mr. Hamanaka seems to have gone to Shiogama in Miyagi Prefecture." "What? The letter was sent from Shiogama?" Every time his wife said a word, Ise was shocked.He snatched the postcard from his wife. On the front of the postcard is written "Your respect from Shiogama, Hamaka", and on the back are a few lines of handsome words. You have worked hard the past few days.I'm in Shiogama right now, and of course I'm here to investigate "that matter".I didn't tell the editorial department the real purpose of this trip, so I paid for it myself, and it may take two or three days before I return to Tokyo.Before that, please read the following book first: "A Study of Japanese Folklore" Volume II, starting from page 121. Ise was at a loss.He never expected that Hamaka would go to Shiogama, but he slowly came to his senses.Shiogama is close to Sendai and is a famous fishing port in the northeast of Honshu, so you can roughly guess what Hamaka is investigating.He is still brooding over the "Second Sea Dragon Pill".Hamanaka must have thought of the ship on the train.Previously, Ise suspected that "Second Kairyu Maru" was just a general term referring to "ship", because there was no registered ship with this name.But this time, Hamanaka firmly believed that there would be a ship named "Second Kairyūmaru" over Shiogama, so he went to check immediately. The reason why Hamaka travels at his own expense is mostly because President Narabayashi is stingy.If it is a big publishing house, it only needs an excuse to go to Sendai to collect music, and it can travel in a grandiose manner.But for the publishing house that Bangzhong is committed to, every travel expense must be applied by the editor-in-chief to the president.Bangzhong felt that this was too troublesome, so he was willing to pay for it out of his own pocket. However, Hamanaka asked Ise to read "A Study of Japanese Folklore", which is a bit bossy.When Hamaka dealt with Ise, although he was respectful on the surface, he would show a contemptuous attitude from time to time, but Ise was not angry about it.Ise doesn't hate Hamaka, in his opinion, Hamaka just has a childlike conceit. When I read the postcard just now, Ise couldn't help but get angry, and almost shouted: Don't underestimate me!But he also felt that he had to follow this instruction. Ise didn't have this book in his collection, so he immediately went to the library to borrow it.I wanted to be lazy and go to the nearby district library, but I made a trip for nothing, and finally had to go to the Library of Congress. Fortunately, I found this book soon. "A Study of Japanese Folklore" was published thirty years ago, so it is quite old.Ise turned the book to the designated one hundred and twenty-one pages.There was an article published there with the title: "Urashima: The Residual Theory of the Legend of Yuyi".He began to read the long text. The legend of Urashima and the legend of Yuyi are consistent in the plot where the protagonist is stranded.The content of the two legends will be compared and introduced below. According to the legend of Urashima, Urashima intercoursed with the fairies of Ryugu at Ryugu or Mt. Horai, and stayed there, living happily.This is a manifestation of the legend of intermarriage between humans and gods.Urashima spent three years in the Dragon Palace in a daze, and his homesickness gradually became stronger, so he bid farewell to the fairy.The fairy sighed again and again, reluctantly said goodbye, and gave a jade box to Urashima as a souvenir.Urashima returns to his hometown, but things are different.Surprised, he opened the jade box and learned that he had not been away for three years, but three hundred years. Everyone knows this story.In "Fudoki" and "Manyoshu", Urashima deliberately opened the jade box in order to return to his original home.Regardless of the details of the story, the usual explanation is that three years in the Dragon Palace is equivalent to three hundred years in the human world, which symbolizes the brevity and illusion of life. The legend of lingering in Wonderland also exists in Scotland.After the wedding, the groom was tricked by men in black and stood in front of a small piece of candle, waiting for the candle to burn out.In this short period of time, two centuries passed without the bridegroom realizing it.After finally discovering that the world suddenly changed, the groom just opened his mouth to ask why, and immediately turned into dust.There is also a similar legend about the ancient British king Herla.He visited Lilliputian for only three days, and the outside world has spent two centuries.The attendants panicked, violated the taboo, and turned into dust in an instant.In both stories, the returnee ends up turning into dust.Dust symbolizes the ephemerality of human life, and it corresponds to the white smoke that rises from Urashima's opening of the jade box.There are similar legends circulating among the Ryukyu Islands and the indigenous Amis of Taiwan. There are also a lot of legends in China about mortals staying in fairyland, and they are generally in the model of Taoyuan fairyland, but the place where humans and immortals intermarry is not in the dragon palace in the sea, but in the fairyland deep in the mountains.Conversely, the fairyland in the sea can only be the residence of the sea god, that is, the Dragon Palace. As for the entrance of the Dragon Palace in the legend of Urashima, it is speculated that it should be near the shrine where Urashima Myojin is enshrined in Tango Amino. According to "The Tale of the Kingdoms of Sochi", the haiku family only heard that there was a shrine dedicated to Urashima Myojin on Tango Beach, so he asked the locals for advice, and was told that this was the birthplace of Urashima, and it was from this beach that Urashima went to Horaihou. returned. According to the legend of Yuyi, the fairy is obsessed with the beautiful "wonderland" of Suruga Miho Matsubara and descends from the sky.The fisherman who found the fairy stole the feather coat hanging from the pine branch.A fairy lamented because she lost her plumage and could not return to heaven.Feeling compassionate, the fisherman returned the feather coat to the fairy, and the fairy was able to return to the heaven.But that's not the prototype of the legend.In the original legend, the fisherman did not return the feather robe to the fairy.The fairy wept bitterly, but to no avail, so she followed the fisherman home and became his wife. The fairy in the original legend was not saved, but in the following Noh lyrics, the plot is rewritten. Fisherman: "Seeing you are so sad, I will return the feather coat to you." Fairy: "Great, please give it to me." Fisherman: "Wait. If you can dance a fairy dance for me here, I'll give you the feather coat back." Fairy: "I can finally return to the sky. As a souvenir, I will dance a fairy dance to the Moon Palace. But if you don't return the feather clothes to me, I can't dance. So, please return the feather clothes to me first." The prototype of the legend of Yuyi later evolved into the legend of Maai in Hiji Mountain, Tanba County, Tango Country.But when Pingnei Xiaoyao created the new dance drama "Fallen Girl", he imitated the legend of Miho Matsubara's feathers, and set the story of the legend of Mai's feathers as the hunter returned the feathers to the fairy.In "Fallen Girl", the fairy of Majing, like the fairy of Sanbao Matsubara, did not dance in return, but taught the hunter how to make wine. This altered legend was widely circulated in later generations, and even obliterated the true appearance of the legend.In fact, the fairies of Suruga Miho and Tango Hijiyama Mai were all deprived of their freedom and stranded in the human world.From this, it can be seen that the legend of Urashima and the legend of Hagoromo are consistent in the point of long-term stay. However, there are also differences between these two legends: the protagonist in the legend of Urashima is a male, and the protagonist in the legend of Yuyi is a woman; Forced into wives by mortals like hunters or fishermen, shed tears all day long and could not return. There are a large number of similar legends in India, Southeast Asia, China, and even northern Siberia.For example, the clue can be seen in the story of Qin Shihuang sending Xu Fu across the sea to find the elixir of immortality.The legend was recorded in "Kojiki" and "Nihon Shoki", and later evolved into the legend of Tian Daomamori.Under the order of Emperor Suijin, Tian Michima crossed the sea to Chang Shi Kingdom to find the unseasonable fragrant fruit.After ten years, Mamoru Tian Daoma finally found Xiangguo and returned, but the emperor had already passed away.Tian Daojian wailed in front of the Emperor's Mausoleum, and died in grief. The legend of Shiratori belongs to the same genre as the legend of hagoromo.In Germanic mythology, a young man embarked on a journey to find a lover he had never met. He happened to pass by a spring and saw three beautiful girls taking off the clothes made of white bird feathers and bathing in the spring.The boy approached quietly, stole the girl's feather coat hanging on the branch, and hid.The girl soon realized that Yuromo was gone, and cried out in horror.At this time, the boy proposed that if he wanted to return the feather robe by himself, one of the three girls must be his wife.The three agreed to the boy's request and let the boy choose arbitrarily.The boy made a choice, and the girl he appointed happened to be his lover whom he had longed for for several years but had never met. The same story also appears in Scandinavian mythology circulated in Finland.The young man saw three goddesses weaving by the lake, taking off the white bird feathers, so he stole the clothes and forced the goddesses to be his wives.There is no difference between Scandinavian mythology and Germanic mythology on the point of "stolen clothes and forced marriage", the difference lies in whether all three feather coats are stolen.In Scandinavian mythology, three teenagers married three goddesses respectively. Fundamentally speaking, this myth is exactly the same as the legend of the white bird fairy.Similar legends in China's "Yuanzhong Ji" and "Sou Shen Ji" are also in the same vein.These legends are confused in the West with stories of the Greek muses, and in Japan are influenced by Indian Buddhist thought and Chinese legends of immortals.Even the original version of the legend has a rich system variety... After reading the article, Ise suddenly realized.Hamanaka always talked about Urashima, the legend of Yuyi, and the fairies on Mount Hiji, making people feel that he has a wide range of knowledge, and the results are all based on this book. However, why does Hamaka now write a postcard asking himself to read this book?Maybe I was extremely bored in Hamanaka in Shiogama, so I wrote this letter half-jokingly, asking the novelist who is busy writing manuscripts to go to the library to exercise his muscles. But Ise felt that Hamanaka might have discovered something new in Shiogama, and this discovery was related to Urashima and the legend of Yuyi, so he asked Ise to read the book before he came back.So, what clues related to the case are hidden in this research document?Ise read it again in a hurry, but still couldn't understand it, so he had to give up and wait for Hamaka to explain to himself when he came back. Two days after receiving the postcard, Hamaka's postcard came again. "Oh, this time it was sent from Abashiri in Hokkaido." The wife exclaimed. "What? Abashiri?" Ise snatched it up and saw that the words "in Abashiri" were indeed written on the front of the postcard. That guy actually ran so far away, Ise sighed.He went there without telling Tiandi Society, and the expenses were all borne by himself.Even if he applied for travel expenses, the publisher would not pay for it. "Abashiri is located in a remote area, and the prison there is famous, right?" His wife said, taking Hamanaka's postcard back in her hand.