Chapter 4 3. Ghost Letters

Well, now let's go back and talk about what made Akechi hurry back to Tokyo, namely the events that happened at Fukuda's house (not serious enough to be called a crime, though). Earlier, the Boyue Police Department also mentioned that Fukuda Tokujiro is the younger brother of Tamamura Gemstone King. He has considerable assets and is a shareholder of several subsidiaries of the Fukuda family. Dividends alone are enough to meet his extravagant living expenses. , can be regarded as idlers. Dejiro was adopted by the Futian family since he was a child.Now that his adoptive parents passed away, and his wife also passed away last year, he is truly alone with no children.He has a weird personality, but he enjoys the current life of living alone very much, and he doesn't want to continue living alone. He only lives with a few servants in the huge western-style mansion, passing the days of depression day after day.

One day, a very sudden and strange event happened, which broke his peaceful life. Futian was a eccentric and melancholy person by nature. After his wife passed away, he became even more depressed. He shut himself in his room all day, except for three meals, even the servants rarely saw him, and went to bed early to rest when it was dark.Before going to bed, he used to lock the doors and windows of the private room that separated the bedroom and the study from the inside tightly. One morning, as soon as Futian opened his eyes, he found a piece of paper on the white sheet covering his body.He couldn't help wondering, picked it up and looked at it, and there were five big and ugly characters written in pencil on this typewriter paper:

Also no other text.Fukuda has no idea who wrote this and what it means. Fukuda was puzzled.This piece of paper was placed on a white sheet, which meant that someone had sneaked into his bedroom at night, but that was simply impossible.Before going to bed the night before, Fukuda locked the door of the study from the inside as usual.The windows facing the courtyard were also welded with anti-theft iron grilles and locked, so there was no gap to throw papers in.Besides, the bed and the window are really not too close. "It's so strange." Fukuda rubbed his sleepy eyes and got out of bed with a puzzled face.To be cautious, he immediately checked the doors and windows carefully, but found nothing unusual.He secretly felt something was wrong, so he turned the key to open the door and called the servants to inquire one by one, but everyone replied that they had never entered the room, let alone where the paper came from.

The day passed in a state of uncertainty.The next morning, Futian woke up to see what was going on. On the white sheet, in the same position as yesterday, there was another piece of paper for a typewriter.He picked it up tremblingly and looked at it, and there were two numbers shorter than yesterday written on the paper: The doors and windows were as normal as yesterday, and the employer didn't know what happened. He carefully checked the paper and handwriting, but he didn't have the slightest clue, and the handwriting was even more unfamiliar. What exactly do "Nov. 20" and "Fourteen" mean?Who is delivering the note?How did this piece of paper get into the room with the doors and windows closed?Fukuda really can't imagine, all this is too weird. "If it weren't for ghosts, it would be impossible." Thinking of this, Futian couldn't help but feel hairy.

However, the weirdness didn't end there.On the third and fourth days, every time Futian woke up, there would be a piece of paper with simple numbers written on it: "Thirteen", "Twelve", "Eleven", "Ten", "Nine" The numbers are decremented sequentially every day.Needless to say, after this incident, Fukuda took extra care to lock the doors and windows before going to bed.It's a pity that it can't stop the ghost letter at all. On the day when the number "nine" appeared, Fukuda couldn't hold back anymore, and simply invited his nephew Tamura Erlang to come, hoping to borrow the wisdom of this energetic young man.Erlang is the second son of Yucun Gemstone King, that is, Taeko's elder brother. He is currently studying in a private university and idles around all day. He is a vigorous young man of twenty-four years old.

"Uncle, you care too much about such a trivial matter. It must be someone's prank. Uncle is too neurotic to be teased." After hearing what Fukuda said, Erlang didn't take it seriously and laughed it off. "If it's just a prank, it's too thoughtful. Could someone do such absurd things for a few days just to make a prank? Besides, the room is locked tightly, how did people get in? This person is like a magician , It's really creepy." Fukuda looked serious, as if he was afraid from the bottom of his heart. "Even if these were really done by a magician, it's just a piece of paper that was thrown in, and it didn't mean to harm uncle, so just ignore it?"

"You can't say that. There must be some terrible mystery hidden in this group of numbers. Look carefully, the first one sent is 'November 20', followed by 'Fourteen', the numbers are decreasing day by day, It's already "Nine" this morning, and I feel that everything is in order and well planned. By the way, what date is it today?" "The eleventh. November eleventh." "Look, how much is eleven plus nine on the eleventh day? It's twenty. In other words, it's 'November 20th'. Well, according to the numbers that appear every day, it's less than November 20th." Ten days. This is a dreadful notice, meant to warn me: Watch out, there are only nine days left."

Hearing Fukuda's analysis, Erlang also felt strange, he was at a loss for words, and he spoke after a while: "But what exactly is this telling you?" "I'm even more restless because I don't know. I don't remember ever having a grudge, but people make enemies unintentionally. Maybe someone actually threatened me in this way and tried to get revenge on me." Fukuda actually knew it well, and had a premonition that someone might come to revenge.If it weren't for this, he wouldn't be bothered by just a few notes with prank messages written on it. "revenge?"

"November 20 will be my death day..." "Hahaha, it's ridiculous, uncle, stop thinking about it. How can anyone take revenge these days? If uncle is really worried, I'll just guard him all night tonight. Once that guy comes in with a piece of paper, I will Catch him on the spot." In fact, Fukuda had exactly this intention, so he put it into practice that night. According to the agreement, Erlang didn't close his eyes all night. As soon as it got dark, he prepared a flashlight and patrolled the yard and corridor outside Futian's bedroom window all night, strictly guarding him.

"I didn't even see a cat, how about it? It's impossible to send another piece of paper last night, right?" At dawn, Erlang couldn't wait to walk into his uncle's bedroom, and asked triumphantly, as if to say, "Look, are you all right?" However, guess what?Isn't Fukuda holding a piece of paper in his hand? "Look, put it on the quilt as usual. I originally planned to stay up all night to see the other party's true face, but unfortunately I couldn't help taking a nap when it was about to dawn, and the guy took this opportunity to quietly It's unbelievable to throw a piece of paper in there."

As expected, "eight" was written on the paper this morning.Fukuda was very persistent, and there must be a hint of intimidation that "only eight days are left". In this way, the young and energetic Erlang was also a little unconvinced. He simply moved into Futian's house, and asked the scholar and others to help him, planning to spend two or three nights to see the true face of the gangster, but in the end it was futile, he could only stare at the paper The numbers on it are decreasing day by day.Until the morning when the number changed to "three", Fukuda and Jiro finally couldn't hold back their anxiety. This time, it was Erlang who urged Fukuda to ask for the assistance of the police, so Fukuda quickly asked his friend Bo Yue, who had been with him for many years, for help.At the same time, he told the Tamura family about this sensational and weird incident, and Taeko, who had just returned to Tokyo, of course heard about it.Asking Akechi Kogoro for help was actually Taeko's proposal, and the Boyue Police Department immediately agreed.