Chapter 30 29. Nozaki's Distress

Going back to the theme of the story, what happened after our brave Nozaki followed the suspect to the thief's den in R Town, Maiding District (the empty house where Yoshie Sato was taken before)?As for him, he, too, had a strange adventure. The main culprit was not Bluebeard himself, but the former bad boy Hirata Toichi, which surprised him very much.But if you think about it carefully, the reason why the villain took Hirata away, maybe he planned to take this clever villain under his command from the very beginning.Even if the reason for this is not the case, with Hirata's style, once he finds that his life is at stake, he turns to please the villain and asks to join the group. This kind of soft-boned behavior style will not cause great psychological pressure on him.Such a choice must be more attractive to him, and it can also gain more benefits.

Thinking of this, Nozaki suddenly realized.The two people who carried Sunkae's body across the long bridge in Enoshima before must be Blue Beard and Novice Hirata. Speaking of which, the strange young man who carried the dead Yoko Fuji into the empty house had no idea that Nozaki was peeping from the shadows by the opposite wall.Not long after, he appeared alone at the door, jumped into the car, and drove away without hesitation. Nozaki hesitated, not knowing whether to jump to the rear of the car and continue to follow or take other actions.However, Yoko is now in an empty house.Since Hirata was not Bluebeard himself, it seemed meaningless to continue tracking, so Nozaki gave up the idea and stayed where he was.

"Damn Bluebeard, he must be in the house. He must have been waiting, waiting for Hirata to bring Yoko." He was terribly worried about Yoko's safety. Maybe there was a dying dance in the house, and Nozaki was like an ant on a hot pot here, unable to stay for a moment. Although Nozaki is full of enthusiasm for finding the murderer and avenging Kinue, he lacks some courage in his actions.Therefore, he hesitated for a long time before rushing into the eerie empty house in which someone was lurking. Unexpectedly, just when he was hesitating, Hirata appeared in front of him again.It might be that there is a parking lot nearby, Hirata parked the car and came back, and arrived in front of the door in the blink of an eye.

After Hirata quietly opened the lattice door and disappeared into the house, Nozaki couldn't hold back anymore.He has no time to worry about the opponents in the house, besides the main criminal, plus Hirata, there are at least two.He was only concerned about Yoko's safety, and without making up his mind, he recklessly followed the strange young man and sneaked into the empty house. If he hadn't recklessly broke into the enemy camp alone at this time, but had returned to the nearby police station to explain the reason and asked the police for support, then there would not have been such a terrible encounter.However, R Town is the most inconvenient place in Maiding District, and there is still a long distance from there to the police station.If Yoko had been killed just as he called the police, all his hard work would have been in vain.Although he didn't have time to think about it carefully at the time, Nozaki thought of the helpless victim lying on the chopping board like a fish, about to be ravaged by the vicious hands of the villains.Immediately, the sense of justice washed over his head like a gushing spring, and he had no time to think about it, so he rushed into the enemy's base camp.

The empty house was pitch black, and the thief was very cautious, not even turning on a light.After entering the entrance, Hirata took out the flashlight he had prepared in advance, illuminated the floor under his feet and walked forward.As for Nozaki who followed closely behind, he just had to keep his eyes on the oval light on the tatami and follow. I don't know if it is an illusion caused by the darkness in the house or it is the actual situation. Although the entrance of this empty house is simple and narrow, the whole room seems to be very deep.When turning from one room to another, I have to pass what looks like a veranda from time to time, and occasionally the wooden floor turns into a concrete floor, followed by a Japanese-style room, which does not look like an ordinary house at all.Maybe the villain bought the empty house and remodeled the whole house to make it easier for him to carry out evil deeds.

After entering, Nozaki was lucky not to be discovered by the enemy.He made a small sound accidentally at one point, Hirata turned around and took a flashlight to shine on his back when he heard the sound, he didn't dare to move at all, luckily the light circle didn't reach him, and then the other party continued to move forward.Hirata probably never imagined in his dreams that the enemy had approached less than two rooms behind him. Then, Hirata went down the narrow stairs.After going down, I saw a solid sliding door.The weird young man struggled to open the door and walked in.Oddly enough, the empty house even had a basement.You can't be careless now, Nozaki thought to himself, suddenly, the faint halo of light in front of his eyes disappeared, leaving only the pitch-black darkness and frozen silence.

Did the weird youth turn off the flashlight?Does this mean they have reached their destination, where Yoko was killed?Or did Hirata with the flashlight hide in some hidden place? At this time, Nozaki happened to be standing in the middle of the narrow stairs, so he had no choice but to go down to the bottom of the stairs, groping with his hands towards the position where the light was shining before the sliding door. After walking five or six steps away, a gust of wind suddenly passed by, and Nozaki felt a black mass flash past him. He felt strange, but before he could react, there was a loud clicking sound behind him...it was the sound of closing a heavy sliding door.

"You deserve it, you idiot, do you really think I didn't notice that you were following me? You are really stupid enough, well, you can take a rest in it, anyway, there are many friends there to accompany you." Hirata's mocking voice came from outside the sliding door, and there was also the sound of the lock being locked. He fell into the enemy's trap.When the flashlight swiped back just now, although the light did not directly shine on Nozaki, the astute opponent must have been alerted.The other party just pretended not to know on the surface, but secretly tricked him into the basement, and imprisoned Nozaki without any effort.

Seeing Hirata's proud nonsense, it must be a secret room with only one entrance and exit.Moreover, the entrance door was as thick and strong as a warehouse door, and it was definitely not something that Nozaki alone could break through. "I was fooled." Thinking of this, Nozaki, who had hardly taken any risks, had dry lips and a strange feeling of suffocation in his heart. He stood there blankly for a while.Then keep cheering up my cowardly mind, and at the same time think about how to deal with the aftermath.In short, the room is so dark that there is no way to start.Now that you don't have to worry about other people, let's check out the secret room.He put his hand in his pocket and felt it. Oops, the flashlight was gone. He probably dropped it accidentally while jumping on a car to perform a stunt.

He doesn't smoke, so he doesn't carry matches with him. In desperation, he had to grope around in the dark, walking along the wall.There is a thick touch from the fingertips. It is estimated that such a solid wall cannot be knocked with all strength. It must be plastered or cemented, and the outside is probably an earth wall. Nozaki walked along every wall like a blind beast.The interior is very spacious, and this room is not square, but seven or octagonal, in short, there are many corners.It was a strangely structured room like an octagonal clock, and it was frighteningly spacious.

"Strange, there is such a spacious basement in this place, am I dreaming?" He felt weird and inexplicable. But at last he figured out what was going on, it was just an illusion in the dark.Blind people will misperceive a small square room as a large room with seven or even eight sides, which is the same as the illusion produced by circling around the precept altar of Zenkoji Temple.Edgar Allan Poe once skillfully wrote about the horror of this dark illusion in the novel "The Pit and the Pendulum."Nozaki, who is keen on reading detective novels, couldn't help but think of this novel he had read. In fact, this is just a long and narrow ordinary basement, which should be a storage room under the warehouse.But there is only one entrance, and Nozaki's arm strength can't break through. This is exactly what he thought, even if he shouted for help, the people outside would not be able to hear it.Ah, is he doomed to starve to death in this weird basement in the middle of bustling Tokyo? "But what does that mean?" Nozaki suddenly thought of that sentence, and the weird content made him stand still in horror. It's nothing else, it's exactly what Hirata said before, "Anyway, there are many friends there to accompany you." What does this mean?There is obviously no one here.Could it be... Could it be that there is someone hiding in this dark room besides Nozaki?Could that person be slowly retreating with Nozaki's forward movement, and at this moment he is shrinking in the corner, watching his actions intently?Is that a human, or something else? A strange fear came over him, and he was stunned for several minutes without light or sound. Strange.There was not even a slight movement, and the breathing of the other party could not be heard. Nozaki mustered up his courage, left the wall, stretched his hands forward like a blind man, and walked to the center of the room. He hit something, but it wasn't anything strange.One, two, three... There are five jars with a capacity of four buckets.He touched it, and his hands were wet and sticky with salt.Got it, here is the cellar where kimchi is stored.At the beginning, he smelled a strange rancid smell, which turned out to be the smell of pickles. "Although it's kimchi, at least there is something to eat, at least you don't have to worry about starving to death." This thought flashed through Nozaki's mind, a wisdom he'd learned from adventure novels. However, the idea that Nozaki had at this moment meant that he had lost his composure.This is not a kimchi shop, but an almost abandoned house. Isn’t it weird that five jars and four buckets of kimchi are stored in the basement? Speaking of how "unusual" Hirata's so-called "friends" are, the answer will be revealed soon.There's still a full hour to go before that, though.Use this time to let the reader know what is going on in the other rooms of the empty house.