Chapter 34 Section 8

After Zhe Lang and the others bid farewell to Xiangli's mother, they decided to go to the church where the attempted suicide occurred.Anyway, it's on the way, and I heard that it can be reached in a few minutes by car. The church is located on a hill some distance from the residential area.If you just look at it from the outside, it is a very ordinary western-style building, but there is a small cross on the roof. The building is surrounded by white walls.Tall oaks climbed over the wall and stretched their branches towards the sky.For this reason, even when the sun was not yet low, the inside of the wall was dark.

Zhelang parked the car on the road in front of the church, and Risako walked through the gate.The courtyard is paved with lawn, although it has turned a light brown color, it seems to be well-built. "Do they want to die on this lawn?" Risako murmured. "maybe." In summer, it will definitely become a green carpet, and it is very comfortable to lie on it. A woman wearing glasses, about fifty years old, opened the entrance door and came out.She was wearing an apron and her hair was tied back. "What's the matter?" she asked them both.She seemed to see them from the building.

"Sorry for intruding in." Zhe Lang apologized. "It's okay to come in. Is there any problem with our courtyard?" He glanced at Risako, hesitating whether he should be honest about why he came in.Risako's face said: leave it to you to decide. "I heard that there used to be a female high school student who tried to die here, isn't it?" Zhe Lang said heartily. The woman's expression changed, and she stared at the two of them through her glasses full of wariness. "You are?" "We are friends of Ms. Saeki Kari and work with her in Tokyo."

The woman's expression relaxed slightly. "Miss Xiangli, how is she?" "We couldn't get in touch with her. We just visited her hometown and talked to her mother." "I see." The woman looked confused, but nodded.She seemed to understand that the two of them came to this church not just out of curiosity. "Excuse me, do you live here?" Zhe Lang tried to ask. "Well, I'm like the administrator here." After she finished speaking, she narrowed her eyes. "Have you been here all this time?" "Yes, so to speak."

"So, when they try to die for love, you also..." The woman stared at the faces of Zhelang and Risako and said, "I found them both." Zhelang and Risako looked at each other. "Please be sure to tell us the details," he said. But she shook her head. "Forgive me for declining." Although she had a smile on her face, her tone was firm.Zhe Lang was instantly awed by her. "We definitely didn't ask for it just for fun. We want to know about Ms. Saeki Kari thoroughly and understand her thoughts." "I know you are not bad people. But I can't spread the matter casually. Besides, I have an agreement with them."

"Agreement?" "I made a deal with them that I would not tell anyone about that incident. I hope they don't make the same mistake again." "But……" "Honey," Risako interjected, "stop asking. Let's give up." Zhe Lang looked back at her.She stared at him, slightly retracting her jaw. "Yes." Zhe Lang nodded, and faced the female administrator again. "Sorry for what I said to embarrass you." "Where." She smiled, "Are you specially from Tokyo?" "Yes, we want to find her no matter what."

"It's worrying not to be able to reach her." She looked across the lawn, lost in thought. "Does Miss Kari still come here often after the incident?" Risako asked. "She comes here often, and she will come to help me. That kid is very good at carpentry, which really helps me a lot." After she finished speaking, she showed an expression of thinking about something.She looked at Zhe Lang and the others again, and was silent for several seconds.She seemed to be hesitating. "What's wrong?" Zhelan asked. "Wait a minute, please," she said, and entered the building.A few minutes later, she came back.She holds a photo in her hand.

"Xiangli made this too. She made it with iron wire discarded by others on the construction site." Risako took the photo, and Zhelang watched from the side.In the photo is a huge silver Christmas tree.It's so beautifully done that it doesn't look like recycling.But compared to the tree, Zhe Lang paid more attention to the people standing beside the tree.A young woman in jeans and a sweater smiled shyly.She appeared to be completely bare-faced, with short hair, and a tall, thin figure, but full around her cheeks. Is this Miss Saeki Kari?Zhe Lang wanted to ask, but swallowed the words before speaking.Since he said he was her friend just now, it would be strange not to recognize her appearance.

"How old was she when this was taken?" "It was not long after the incident, so I was probably eighteen years old. I seem to be quite satisfied with that work. She rarely asks people to take pictures of her, but at that time she happily posed for the photo." This should be Saeki Kaori, she is nothing like the Saeki Kaori seen in "Cat's Eye". "Can you send us this photo?" As soon as Zhe Lang said, the smile disappeared from her face.She showed serious eyes and remained silent. "This can't be sent to you," she said, "but it can be placed on you. If you see Miss Xiangli, please give it to her. I don't think that child should have this photo."

"Thank you, we promise you." As soon as Zhe Lang finished speaking, the female administrator looked in the direction of the gate.The bright smile that she didn't show to Zhe Lang and the others appeared on her face just now. Looking back, two little girls were walking in. They looked like students in the lower grades of elementary school. "Good morning, where are the other friends?" she asked. "Come in a moment." One of the little girls replied. "That's it. It's cold outside, you go in and wait." When the female administrator watched the little girl enter the building, she said to Zhe Lang and the others, "There is a little party today."

"Oh," Zhe Lang remembered that today is Christmas Eve, and nodded. "Will the silver Christmas tree be decorated today, too?" She shook her head regretfully. "The church is not allowed to decorate that tree. Because the tip of the wire is very sharp, it will be very serious if it pierces the children's eyes..." Zhe Lang thought to himself: This kind of thing is indeed possible, and he once again set his eyes on the tree in the photo. After the two left the church, they drove directly onto the Tomei Expressway and were silent for a while.Before I knew it, the sun was setting into the Western Mountains, and I had to drive with headlights. "What's going on here?" Zhe Lang looked forward and said.The drive back to Tokyo was somewhat congested. "Are you asking if Miss Xiangli is someone else? Or is there someone with the heart of a man like Mizuki?" "These questions are all covered." "Well..." Risako put it on the seat. "I always feel that behind this incident, there is a world that we don't know." Zhe Lang felt the same way and let out a breath.Where is the entrance to that world? He remembered the church yard he had just seen.However, the lawn in his mind was green, and there were two female high school students lying down on the lawn.The two are holding hands, with a bottle of sleeping pills in Kari's hand—a corny image. Why did the two seek death?Did they think there was no other way to go?What makes them so desperate? One is guilty of falling in love with a woman with the heart of a woman; the other is falling in love with a woman as a man, but suffering from a woman in his own body.The conclusion is the same as suicide, but the mental journeys of the two on the way to suicide are completely different.However, it is indeed the so-called ethics and morality in people's mouth that forced them to go to a dead end.But ethics and morality cannot mean that it is the correct path for human beings.Mostly, is that just a general tenuous social consensus? "The back of the back is the front..." Zhe Lang couldn't help muttering. "what are you saying?" "It's nothing, I think it's amazing when you think about it carefully. Suppose Saeki Kari is gay, she is a man in her heart, so she will naturally like men. But just because she looks like a woman loves men on the surface, so Can be accepted by society without any problem. The two people who are trying to die for love have different troubles, which makes the problem very serious, but if one person has two kinds of troubles at the same time, maybe there is no need to suffer. So the back of the back is front." "You want to say that a woman is the back of a man?" "The other way around, a man is also the back of a woman." "What you're trying to say is that you think a man and a woman are like a coin, with the inside and the outside of each other, right?" "Is not it?" "I don't think so. Perhaps I should say I was taught otherwise." "Who taught you? Who taught you?" "Mitsuki." "That's it." Zhe Lang exerted force on his right foot that was stepping on the accelerator, saw the speedometer rising, and quickly slowed down. "What did Hiura say?" "She said that the relationship between a man and a woman is like the North Pole and the North Pole." "The scale is bigger again. But the concept is the same? People don't often say that the South Pole is on the back of the North Pole. The other way around." "I don't think so." "Why is it not legal?" But Risako didn't answer, and leaned back on the car seat, twisting her body towards the car window.Zhe Lang didn't want to press her to answer.However, he asked another question. "Do you often talk about that kind of thing with Hiura?" "I don't talk that much either." "Talking under the quilt?" Zhe Lang said silently. Risako felt Risako turn her head towards him.She restored the tilted seat to its original position, and looked at Zhe Lang again. "what do you want to say?" He was going to say: Nothing.However, the matter could not have ended like this.Besides, he wanted to make things clear.Perhaps it was because of the resolution of the attempted suicide of two female high school students. "Have you guys kissed?" Zhe Lang said, sweating from the palms holding the steering wheel at the same time. Since Zhelang was facing forward, he couldn't see Risako's expression, but she felt calm and relaxed.Zhelang still felt her gaze. "Did you hear what Mizuki said?" "Ok." "Yes." She seemed to finally look away from Zhe Lang's profile. "and then?" "I was thinking, why would you do that?" "Because there's no reason not to. I think if it's Kazumizuki, it's okay to do that." "What does this mean? I know you like her, but that's not the same as love, is it?" Zhe Lang felt like he was groping in the dark for this conversation. "Why do you think that?" Risako asked. "What why..., because I think this kind of thing is weird. After all, you..." He found it difficult to concentrate on driving, so he slowed down. "You're not a lesbian, are you?" "I didn't realize that part in the past." "You mean this part is awakened?" "What are you talking about?" There was contempt in her tone. "Honey, what did you say to Mizuki? Her inner world is very complicated." "I know. Hiura is a man at heart, so it's not surprising that she likes you as a woman, isn't it? But Risako is a woman at heart, right? If that's the case, isn't it true that you love Hiura as a woman ..." "Mizuki is a man, at least she is a man in front of me." Risako said firmly. Zhe Lang had nothing to say and continued driving.He thought, as if he had heard the same words before.It didn't take long for him to remember what Nakao said. Mizuki who was with me at that time must be a woman... In addition, Zhe Lang remembered what Mei Yue's father said: "I may make you laugh when I say that, I still prefer to believe that the child is a woman..." Zhe Lang realized that there was another person, although he didn't say it, but he was thinking the same thing.That person is none other than himself. "You told me Mizuki likes me, right?" "yes?" "When I heard it, I was very confused. I didn't know how to get along with her. But after living together, I felt that her appearance didn't matter at all. I felt her love for me personally. Accept It is a very happy thing to live with her love. Maybe you think that if the heart is a woman, not a lesbian, you can only fall in love with a man with a male body, but the heart will still respond to the heart That is, my woman's heart is echoing Mizuki's man's heart. The important thing is whether the other party opens his heart, and feelings have nothing to do with body." Speaking of which, she burst out laughing suddenly, a little theatrically. "This situation is very unusual. I seem to be confessing that I am having an affair, but you have a deadpan face, as if you are listening to the traffic on the radio." "No, I'm not at peace." "yes?" "I'm just struggling to cope." The car approached Tokyo, and the sign of Ebina rest stop appeared in front of it.Risako said, let's take a rest. The parking lot was full of vehicles, and Zhe Lang almost wanted to ask: What is everyone doing on Christmas Eve?Zhe Lang struggled to find a parking space and stopped the car. He went to the bathroom for an emergency and went to the vending machine area to buy coffee.After finishing his coffee, he returned to the car, but Risako was nowhere to be seen.She also has the car keys, if she comes back, she should be waiting in the car. Zhe Lang sat in the driver's seat and started the engine.When he was about to turn on the radio switch, he found a piece of paper on the other side of the steering wheel. I'm going back from here myself, drive carefully.Merry Christmas! ——This must be Risako's handwriting. Zhe Lang sat still, looking around, it seemed impossible to find her.Even if you look for it again, it's just a waste of effort. Zhe Lang listened to "Happy X'mas" sung by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and drove forward slowly.