Chapter 18 2. Big magic

As the days passed, the police determined that Hanazono Yoko had been kidnapped.Regardless of whether it was the female musician's residence in Tokyo, Yoko's suburban residence, or other possible locations, the police sent people to inquire about all of them, and they all said they didn't know Yoko's whereabouts. During this period, Erlang still closely monitored the old man Yinji's movements, but he couldn't find any unusual behavior. Occasionally, Yinji would go out for half an hour or an hour, and that also knew where he was going and what he was doing. The newspaper reporters and the Metropolitan Police Department seemed to be competing secretly, scrambling to find the whereabouts of Hanazono Yoko.The social pages of all newspapers were obliterated by the bizarre incident of the Tamamura family, and the editors threw all other news into the wastebasket without hesitation.

The development of the situation has long been out of control.Especially for Tamamura Jiro, all kinds of torture in the past month are simply a nightmare.Despite the rising and setting of the sun and the relentless passage of time day after day, the case still shows no sign of turning over.If this is not a dream, could it be that I am crazy?In the future, will I have to live in this terrifying phantom? In fact, Jiro might really be a little out of order.But no matter who it is, when a lover disappears in front of his eyes, he feels that the whole world has become abnormal, which is not difficult to understand.

Erlang couldn't think anymore, he could only walk around aimlessly like a headless chicken.First in the courtyard, then to the neighboring town outside the house, wandering around.Occasionally, a misty hope would well up in my heart, that at the next moment, Yoko might unexpectedly come out from under the shade of a tree or under the eaves. On this day, Erlang was still walking on the streets of Omori in a daze, only to suddenly realize that he was in a street he had never been before, and there was a very strong exotic atmosphere on both sides of the road.In front of me is a quaint old theater with dozens of flags erected around it, rattling under the winter sky.The name of a magician that Jiro had never heard of was printed on the flag.

"Oh, magic." Erlang stared blankly and vacantly at the advertising posters hanging under the eaves of the theater, which depicted different scenes of magic performances, and the rich oil paint showed every detail of the strange and strange, traditional skeleton dance, The beauty in the water, the person who walks freely after swallowing a wooden stick, and the head laughing on the table...all of them reproduce the magic tricks often performed by magicians in the heyday of magic a century ago. Those scenes are really nostalgic what! Was it driven by a mysterious premonition?He suddenly had the idea to go in and have a look.It was still in the evening, and the main performance had not yet started, but it still aroused his long-forgotten curiosity in his youth, and the successive small magic tricks strongly attracted all his mind.Watching these innocent and interesting magic tricks at this moment is a rare rest for Erlang whose brain is tense.

The program went on one by one, and after dark, the large-scale magic show began.The foreman magician wears a pointed hat with a bell attached, his face is painted with white powder, and he appears in a Western clown costume.Even though he came to this kind of country tour to perform, his tricks are still superb. Even Erlang, who has seen a lot of the world, was amazed by the unpredictable tricks. The beauty in the water, the dancing bones, the laughing head... The performance is getting better and better, and the scenes are getting more exciting.The audience seemed to have come to a strange and dreamy country, their shining eyes were firmly glued to the magical skills on the stage, and they were fascinated by it.

Erlang didn't know it at this time, but if readers are also one of the audience of this magic show, seeing an actor on the stage, they will inevitably scream in horror.Because during the performance of the beauty in the water, the woman lying in the huge glass tank, and the woman whose head was cut off and put on the table laughing, are the daughters of the strange man who met the deceased Akechi Kogoro on the steamboat in the Shinagawa waters. ——The beautiful girl named Wen Dai.So, the one who dressed up as the clown was the vengeful demon king who was holding a death-death needle to harm the wise?Maybe they pretended to be magicians and sneaked into the long-coveted Yucun mansion, which is Omori Town.

This group of people is so brave, what if someone recognizes Wen Dai?But after thinking about it thoroughly, I know that Wen Dai is the daughter of a strange thief, and there is no one else in the world except Akechi Kogoro.However, Akechi Kogoro had already died.Therefore, the villain's seemingly foolhardy magic tour is actually a very safe cover-up. In front of the unaware Erlang, the curtain rises again. The background under the curtain was a whole piece of black velvet cloth, all the lights were extinguished, the stage and auditorium were completely dark, only a pale light like a spotlight hit the stage, illuminating the luxurious chairs like jade seats in the center.At this moment, a gentleman in a tuxedo came out and made an announcement:

"Next, we will perform the most popular show of this magic troupe - the mysterious and unpredictable magic, which the leader learned during his travels in Europe and America. There will be a woman sitting on that chair later, and the leader will personally Hold the sword, cut off the beauty's head, arms, and legs one by one, and then reassemble the disjointed body to restore the woman to its original appearance. The beauty who once died will also stand up and smile to thank you. This performance , we call it the beauty disintegration technique." After the gentleman commentator left the stage, although Erlang didn't recognize him, Wen Dai, the daughter of the villain, came to the stage in a beautiful dress.Immediately afterwards, the clown from just now came out with a large knife like a green dragon knife.

After greeting the audience, Wen Dai sat on a chair facing the audience.The leader and two assistants stood in front of her and stripped off her clothes.When they backed away at the same time, they saw a naked young girl who was ashamed to look at, was tightly tied to a chair, a wide cloth towel covered her eyes, almost covered her entire face, and her mouth was even gagged. on. Needless to say, it was a trick of magic to get three people to stand in front of the girl and take off her clothes, which took so much trouble.During this period, the seats on the stage were changed and replaced with naked dolls that looked exactly like the girl, while the real girl had long since disappeared behind the black velvet curtain.

Although Jiro is well aware of such small tricks, the nude dolls are so well-made that he can't help but suspect that he is dazzled.Just like the puppet dolls on the Bunraku stage seem to breathe, the life-sized magic doll in front of me does indeed breathe.Is the pale spotlight flickering slightly, or does the puppet really have a heartbeat?I'm afraid it's an illusion, but the full breasts do seem to rise and fall. Erlang stared at the naked doll with straight eyes, and began to wonder, could it be a real person?Could a clown as evil as the Laughing Man calmly kill a living girl every day?

Not only that, the doll's body looks so familiar, whether it's plump thighs, protruding breasts or elegant neck and jaw curves, it seems that it is not the first time you have seen it.Erlang suddenly had a feeling of deja vu, the more he looked, the more he looked like someone. "Ah, am I still in a nightmare?" Erlang has a strange feeling recently, like a person about to faint, with blue, red, and balloon-like phantoms flying in front of his eyes. Well, Beauty Breakup has finally officially begun.The smiling clown swung the ridiculously huge big knife, and slashed straight at the thigh of the naked doll with a cry of "Yeah".Bright red blood sprayed out suddenly, the beauty's thighs rolled towards the front of the stage, and a low, inaudible moan of pain came out of her gagged mouth. Of course the puppet doesn't moan, someone must be imitating the sound of pain behind the scenes.Even though his rationality hinted that he wanted to believe so, Erlang was still so surprised that he almost jumped up when he heard it.Ah, at this moment he finally woke up.That body, that voice, the naked doll looks like Yoko Hanazono from head to toe! The moment the big knife was about to slash to his right hand, Erlang stood up suddenly, assuming he wanted to rush to the stage, but suddenly realized something, and finally restrained himself. Erlang was not the only one who became insane after seeing this brutal magic trick. Many female audiences couldn't help screaming and covered their faces, and some almost fainted and left the seat in a hurry. On the stage, the disintegration of the beauty was still in progress. After both hands and feet were cut off, with a wave of the heavy knife, the head of the beauty flew through the air like a ball, and the red liquid sprayed out from the fracture like a waterfall. splash out.Scarlet's head and limbs tumbled onto the stage, making the scene the home of a tribe of cannibals. On the chair, the torso without head and limbs sat alone, like a wax figure poisoned and deformed. Witnessing this horrific scene with his own eyes, Erlang felt that this was the great misfortune that Hanazono Yoko had encountered, his lips turned bloody, and his whole body trembled.Such a tragedy will not happen.He kept blaming himself, but still couldn't restrain the fear welling up in his heart. Probably the magician was also afraid that the audience would be overly frightened, the cruel scene of dismemberment ended in the blink of an eye, and the scene of assembling the beauties was quickly staged. The musicians played cheerful repertoire abruptly, and with the accompaniment of the band, the magician picked up the heads and limbs of the dolls scattered on the stage one by one with exaggerated and funny movements, and threw them one by one at the torsos on the chairs.What is amazing is that the limbs returned to their original positions in an instant, and the dismembered body merged into one in an instant. Finally, as soon as the head was put on, the beauty showed a bright smile.The clown quickly untied the rope and took off the gag, and the beauty stood up, walked gracefully to the front of the stage, took off the blindfold with her own hands, and bowed gracefully to the audience.That face was undoubtedly that of the glamorous actress just now, the villain's daughter, Wen Dai. Erlang knows the magic trick of assembling beauties.The clown turned back to the chair calmly, and covered the girl's head, hands and feet with the same black velvet cloth as the background, exposing only the torso.The magician threw back the stump at will, and the black velvet cloth covering the beauty's limbs fell off one by one. As for the props, they were hidden in the gaps in the background one by one, as if the hands and feet had regrown. However, it wasn't the technique that terrified Jiro.Could the puppet that was disintegrated by the big knife just now be a living person like the girl who got up to salute at this moment?Could it be that what spewed out wasn't red ink at all, but real blood?Could it be that the painful moan is also the real painful moan before dying? Despite the cold weather, Erlang sweated uncontrollably, staring at the lowered curtain.When the girl on the stage walked to the back of the curtain, although it was short, there was indeed a young woman's exclamation unique to "Yeah". "Ah, that girl must have seen another girl who was brutally dismembered, and when she cried out in fright, someone forcibly covered her mouth." In this way, the terrifying vision in Erlang's mind gradually spread. There are still a few more shows, but Erlang can't sit still, and he doesn't want to watch them.He staggered to his feet and walked out the theater door through the insensitively laughing audience. Outside the theater, under the beautiful starry sky, rows of dark buildings stood silently.There were no pedestrians on the road in this rural town, and the whole street was as quiet as a cemetery. Erlang, who was about to go home, stopped after walking five or six steps, feeling that he couldn't just leave this sinful theater. So, he turned around and turned back, without any definite idea, just stepping on sleepwalking steps to the back door of the theater. He turned the corner and looked at the back of the building, only to see a small door about half a room wide open, and the faint light cast a faint rectangular light on the ground, in which was the shadow of a strange big man, probably Somebody is standing near the door. Like a thief, Erlang approached on tiptoe and trembling, then grabbed the wooden door of the entrance and exit, peeping quietly. This place is different from the big theater, the back door is not guarded at all, and there is only an empty aisle across it.And just in front of the entrance where Erlang stopped, a man turned his back to him and didn't know what he was doing, poking without moving, like a puppet. At this time, the wooden door that Erlang was holding on suddenly couldn't bear the weight of his body, and made a "crack".He was overwhelmed with panic, and was about to retract his head when the frightened man turned his head suddenly. The eyes of the two collided unexpectedly. As soon as Erlang saw the other party, he roared "Wow" as if he saw a ghost.He quickly turned around and ran out desperately, as if the monster was chasing after him. He never expected, or rather expected, that the man standing at the back door was the old man Yinji who cleaned the courtyard that he had suspected and feared for days.