Chapter 2 Chapter two

Even though the events of that night were insignificant and nothing at all, it was like a stimulant to the monotony of my life at the time.It was like a drop of red paint dripping on a piece of gray absorbent paper, which caused ripples in my heart. Here, I would like to briefly introduce my background.I started writing detective stories before the war, but before I became famous, a holy war broke out, and I was drafted into the army soon after.In the next few years, I was drafted into the army for a while, and was sent back to the country for a while. When I was tossing back and forth, the moment of truce came.Since I was in southern Korea when the war ended, I was among the first to be discharged as a dispatched army.

When I got home, I found that my parents and brothers had passed away, and the house was burned down.In other words, I was abandoned in this world alone and penniless.Fortunately, I still have a little literary talent, and I have a brain that can conceive detective novels. Moreover, the social environment after the defeat is completely different from before, and detective novels are very welcome.So, I capitalized on close-ups, wrote desperately, and became famous for a while... Even if I didn't reach this level, I at least became a well-known writer. People say that there was a strong color in what I wrote before, and after the war this color became more and more vivid.One of the reasons is that I no longer have to suffer as many constraints as before, and the other reason is that my nerves have been experienced in the war, no, to be precise, it has been paralyzed, and I have no understanding of blood and corpses. Classes have long been insensitive.So, I let my novels run into rivers of blood and corpses strewn all over the place, using corpses as toys like chess pieces.And it is this that is very popular among readers.

Therefore, my hand is not short of money.No, in the eyes of ordinary people, it may be a relatively wealthy kind of person.However, although I don't know what life is like for those black market tycoons who can earn millions at a stroke, as a writer who earns his living by climbing the grid, no matter how good the business is, it naturally has its limits.If you want to talk about the money I earn, what kind of fun can I have, at most it is enough to drink and play with girls... I am not a saint, and I am still young, so naturally I want to learn to indulge in these two things, but somehow Yes, I ended up not being able to fully sink into it.I can't do this kind of thing without being confused, and I get tired of playing it immediately.In this way, I, who was not obsessed with eating, drinking and having fun, became more and more boring.This caused me to become more and more apathetic.

That nocturnal experience was tantamount to driving a wedge into my hopelessly gray life.Since that night, I have put aside all the work in front of me and chased the three faces everywhere.In order to weave the tedious plot of a detective story, I tried to combine it in various ways, and became a prisoner of novelty hunting. He Chuan Tatsuya and his wife Kanako - this is what I found out later, the names of the couple, and that strange man with artificial legs, what is the relationship between them?I give full play to the writer's imagination, but I still can't see the truth of the matter.It's just that I vaguely felt at the time that this incident was not over yet, and that something would definitely happen next.And, maybe I can also play a role in it... This kind of premonition is stirring in my heart, and it is really not wrong.

It was an evening one week after that night.My friend and his wife went to Tokyo, and I was the only one at home looking after the door.Suddenly, I heard the lattice door in front of me slam open, as if someone had broken in. Huh?I turned my eyes away from the half-read book and pricked up my ears towards the front door, but nothing happened.I couldn't help but startled, and stood up from the table.I remembered what my friend's wife told me: "The society is not very stable recently, but you must be careful." I went to the main entrance and saw a woman lying on the horizontal frame, panting heavily.I couldn't help screaming: "What, what's going on?!... You, who are you?"

The woman was still lying there, shaking her head vigorously.I suddenly realized who the other party was, and at the same time, I also understood that she was slightly embarrassed. "Ah, you are Mr. He Chuan's wife, right? What... what's going on? Could it be that guy again..." Kanako still lowered her head and nodded vigorously two or three times.Seeing this situation, I immediately stepped over her body and jumped onto the sandy ground with bare feet. "Ah, sir, don't, don't..." She quickly greeted me, "Don't provoke that person." "It's okay. I'm just going to check on the situation."

I went outside to take a look, and saw the man with the artificial leg standing at a corner fifty meters away, staring at this side.After seeing me, he suddenly turned his face away, thumped and thumped with his prosthetic leg, and disappeared on the other side of the corner. "It's okay. I've already gone there." I went back to the main entrance and saw Kanako pale, curled up and sitting on the horizontal frame. "Then, is he still around?" "I was standing at the Shiyu intersection just now. But I'm fine now. Come in first." "Okay!..." Kanako looked at me with hesitant eyes, and looked outside worriedly.

"It's okay. I'll see you off when you go back. It just so happens that there is no one there. Or are you worried about your husband?" "No. My husband isn't here today, so I'm even more scared... I broke in with my life... Sorry." Kanako said the last "sorry" in a female student's tone, and then blushed slightly. "Ah, is it? Since your husband is not here, let alone." I step aside and help her into the room, "Well, come in first and wait a while." "Hey..." She replied vaguely, still seemed to be hesitating, but then made up her mind, "Then interrupt."

"Come in... please come in. Look how dirty I am here. After all, I'm a bachelor..." After entering the room, as if she suddenly remembered, she thanked me for what happened last time, then stared at me with beautiful eyes and said, "It was really scary at that time. You too, you said so many scary things. I was still wondering who this person is. Could this person be the recently famous... murderer..." "Hahahaha, I was really rude at the time. Because I was a little drunk... And, you were frightened like that again, so you couldn't help but have the idea of ​​​​pranking. So, your suspicion has been dispelled, right?"

"Well, I didn't remember your name until I got home. When I looked at the door plate, I felt as if I had heard of it somewhere..." She smiled wryly, raised her face, and said to me with a smile, "You are writing a detective novel. right?" She glanced at me tenderly again with affectionate eyes. Today, she is different from last time. She is not dressed up, but just casually wearing a casual dress. The makeup is also very simple, but she is very beautiful. The last time it was at night, I didn't notice that her beautiful skin was like a pearl.When she was talking, she would roll her eyes up and stare at the other person tenderly, and there was an indescribable charm in the movement of lowering her head like a child, which made me want to swallow.

Maybe she noticed my eyes, the woman was taken aback for a moment, then sat up suddenly, her cheeks turned red.I also realized my gaffe, and hurriedly looked away. "What's going on? What happened just now..." I asked pretendingly. "Ah...Sorry, I just broke in right away...But, after all, I was too scared. He has been following from the station." Kanako murmured shyly, "I went shopping near the station , On the way back, I suddenly found him following behind. I was terrified... But even if I rushed home, my husband was not there, and besides, I was so lonely at home... So, I ran desperately Came here." Kanako looked at me confidingly, then lowered her head listlessly. "Who is that man? Have you been followed by him before?" I asked her strangely. "Hmm!..." Kanako nodded lightly. After fiddling with the knee part of the dress for a while, she suddenly raised her face and said, "I'll tell you everything. Uh, actually, since the last time, I've been thinking Let me tell you. You are a novelist, you are different from ordinary people, you may have some sympathy for me... That person, he is actually my husband." "Husband?" I couldn't help but widen my eyes. "Yes, it's also written on the household registration. However, as a husband and wife relationship, we only lived for one night..." Kanako's face turned red again, and then she told me the following story. Sure enough, as I expected, her native place is in Osaka.My natal family is a wealthy family, and my school is in Tokyo.She got married seven years ago, and the other party was the only son of a famous rich man on the dock, named Kamei Junkichi.Although the two families had talked about their affairs before, the marriage suddenly came to an agreement because Chunji had received a notice to enlist in the army. The Japanese all believe that going to the battlefield is tantamount to going to death.It's rare to be a man once. Wouldn't it be a pity to die without even tasting the joys of life... At that time, the parents who sent their unmarried sons to the battlefield all sighed like this.So did Chun-kichi's parents.Therefore, they reluctantly persuaded Kanako's parents to let the two have a hasty wedding.In the early morning of the next day, Chunji went to the battlefield amidst the sound of farewell. "I was still a child at the time, so I didn't have the right to speak, and it was really hard for my parents to refuse the humble request of Kamei's family." However, Kanako's young heart still felt that this matter was extremely absurd.If Chunji came back safely, it would be better to say that once he died in battle, the outcome would be unpredictable.Although Kanako's parents vowed that if Junkichi died in battle, they would recruit another son-in-law to marry Kanako from elsewhere to continue the incense, but this approach was too hasty.Moreover, people at that time believed that the widows of the war dead should not remarry.In this way, Kanako ruined her "happiness in life" all her life just to let Chunkichi experience the "happiness in life". "If I still had a little love for Junkichi, I'm afraid I wouldn't accept death like this. Maybe I would be so ambitious, bury the memory of that night in my heart, and wait for my husband to return." Kanako He sighed and said, "But, I don't love that person at all." This is not what she said at this time, but she told me later when our relationship became deeper.Even if she had skin-to-skin contact with Chunji, she was not tempted by it at all. "However, I didn't resist so resolutely from the very beginning. At first, I lived a cautious life like the wife of an ordinary soldier who went to war." However, in three or four years, as the days went by, when the situation of the war gradually became unfavorable and everyone knew that the war had no chance of winning, Kanako gave up on herself.She loses her temper at every turn, and always wants to find someone to vent her inner resistance. Just at that time, the big air raid turned the whole of Osaka into a sea of ​​flames.Of course, Kamei's house was also burned down, Kanako almost died, and escaped to Kagawa's house alone. "The He Chuan family is related to the Kamei family. He Chuan and Junkichi are cousins." Of course He Chuan has a wife and children.However, due to the danger in the urban area, he asked his family to evacuate, and he was the only one to look after the house.His house was not destroyed in the air raid that night, so he let Kanako live there overnight.It was that night that something went wrong between the two of them. "I'm not a hypocrite. I won't say that I was seduced by He Chuan, or succumbed to violence. I still think that maybe I was the one who took the initiative to seduce the other party... also That is to say, the accumulated depression and anger and the scene of the world burning that night made my blood go crazy." The two fled to Tokyo shortly thereafter.Since it was on the eve of the end of the war, they easily got a house. However, the situation was different from before and a proof of relocation was required. Therefore, the address of the two was quickly learned by the Osaka side.Naturally, it took a lot of setbacks at the time, but because the relatives of both parties were extremely shocked and disgusted, the matter was left behind. "For me, the ending is happy, and I plan to stick to it. But last year, Chunji suddenly returned from the army, with a disabled leg like that... Moreover, he even installed a false eye." Not long after he was discharged from the army, Chunji dragged his disabled body to Tokyo and came to their house.Claiming to let the past go, he asks Kanako to go home.If he failed once, he would come several times. Because of his entanglement, Kanako finally said: "Are you serious when you say these words? Do you really think this is all right? Even if you can accept it, do you think your father-in-law and mother-in-law will accept it? Do you really think, I Will I go back to that kind of humiliation?... Well, I don’t care about any humiliation, but the most important thing is that I don’t love you at all. Just because I did it for a night for someone who doesn’t love each other I will be bound in a cage for as long as five or six years, and when I think about it, I regret it...I still want to complain." Actually, she doesn't need to be so tough at all... Kanako explained with a blushing face.However, due to the entanglement of the other party, she couldn't bear it anymore, so she threw out such cruel words. As a result, Chunji's attitude changed suddenly.He stared at Kanako and He Chuan from behind the sunglasses, and said after a while: "Hey, Kanako, if you still think that I am still the narrow-minded, honest and honest kid from a rich family, then you are very wrong I'm on the front line, and I'm used to seeing blood and dead bodies. It's not a piece of cake to kill you!...But, if you bite your teeth and kill you, it's so boring. And, Kanako, I still miss you very much .I'll give you some time to reflect. If you don't go back..." It is said that at this point, Chunji showed a huge navy knife: "Bageyalu!..." shouted angrily. "I don't think he has the guts, but after letting him pester me like this, I gradually became scared..." Kanako sighed, "Uh, he has been following me like a shadow for more than a month, sometimes in the middle of the night, I also wander around the room. I have such a temper, how can I lose to him?... But, when I heard the sound of footsteps, I was terrified..." The above is Kanako's story. Of course, this is not what she told me all at once.No matter how bold she is, it is impossible for her to reveal her heart to someone she only met once.This is what she slowly told me when she got closer to me and got to the point of talking about everything.For convenience, I will intersperse her story here. After telling the above story, Kanako sighed, and finally added this paragraph: "Besides, I still have a worry about He Chuan. He keeps everything he has in his stomach and rarely tells others. Confidentially, but recently, even he has become irritable. I'm afraid he has reached the limit of his patience. I think that as long as we don't do anything, Chunji will just follow. Whatever happens, when the time comes, something big will happen. So I am very worried, terribly worried..." Having said that, Kanako suddenly closed her mouth.She raised her buttocks like a conditioned reflex, and her expression became stiff. "Ah, here we come again..." She called out softly, and immediately lay down on the tatami.I also immediately understood the reason for her scream. Glancing, thumping... Terrible footsteps approached step by step from the asphalt road.Forgot to mention, my living room is just inside the hedge facing the road. Click, click... The footsteps suddenly disappeared in front of my living room.I stood up suddenly, and opened the glass window with a "crash". I don't know how Kanako misunderstood me, she suddenly hugged me tightly, desperately pressed her hot body to my chest, and said: "Sir, don't, don't, don't...don't say anything, don't say anything Say oh!..." Click, click... The terrifying footsteps gradually faded away.