Chapter 40 second quarter
That evening, we sat together at the table in the Ruixiangfang restaurant.
"Teacher, Miss Maya is the daughter of Mr. Kizawa and Miss Jasmine—what's going on?"
It was Rin who asked the question.Including me, everyone who had been silent before looked up at Mabi.
Of course Maya, the abbot of Ji'an and Torii are not there.It had been half a day since the three of them left Ruixiang's house in a police car, and the scenery outside the restaurant window was dyed a pale color.According to the notification just received, although the abbot of Ci'an's left arm is not seriously injured, it will not affect the function of the arm.
"You're right. Miss Maya is exactly the child that Miss Jasmine conceived in Ruixiang's room twenty years ago—the daughter of Mr. Jiu Ze and Miss Jasmine."
However, no one could accept this explanation.
"Teacher, isn't their child a son?"
"Twenty years ago, Miss Jasmine did tell the old homeowner of Songyue that she was pregnant with a boy, but in fact she didn't know the sex of the fetus at all—just think about it, and it's impossible for her to know. Even the doctor can't tell the sex of the fetus, and they usually don't know until after the thirteenth week of pregnancy. When Miss Jasmine told Songyue that the old homeowner was pregnant, she was only two months pregnant."
"In this case, why did Miss Jasmine say that the child in her womb is a son?"
"This is purely my imagination—" Zhenbei glanced at the old homeowner Songyue.
"It should be that the two of them decided to say this after discussing so that the old homeowner agreed to their marriage. They thought that as long as they said that they were pregnant with a son, the old homeowner would be more likely to agree to the marriage. Sure enough, they did not leave the house." Unexpectedly, the old house owner agreed to their marriage and put forward the condition that their children inherit the Ruixiang house. Ms. Jasmine and Mr. Jiu Ze may have guessed that the old house owner would say this. Because the old house owner gave priority to the heir of the Ruixiang house Therefore, as long as the child in the womb is a boy, it is easier to get the understanding of the old house owner-I think the two of them should think so-although they have guessed it before, but when the old house owner himself When they said they hoped that the child in Miss Jasmine's womb would inherit the Ruixiang House, they still fell into trouble. It's no wonder, because Miss Jasmine may also be pregnant with a girl."
I can understand the explanation so far, but I can't understand what Mabi said next.
"That's why Mr. Yuzawa often locks himself in the toilet in the middle of the night."
Just looking around at the expressions of the people around the table, I can see that I'm not alone in my confusion.
"The toilet—is that the toilet over there?"
It was Aunt Yi who asked the question.Really ready to nod.
"Aunt Himomi, didn't you mention this to us before?"
——He sometimes ran to the bathroom in the middle of the night and didn’t come out for a long time——
——It was a long time, almost thirty minutes to an hour—
"Mr. Niozawa should practice the 'changing boy method' taught by the abbot of Ji'an in the toilet."
When Zhenbei was in the main hall of Ruixiang Temple, he once said this sentence to the abbot of Ci'an.
"Also known as the 'Wushu Shamo's method of reincarnating a boy'. Mr. Jiuze once asked the abbot of Ci'an for advice. Although few people know it now, in fact, in addition to the power of burning the world's filth, King Wushu Samo Ming, There is another kind of divine power, which is to give birth to a son. The most important scripture of Tiantai sect, namely the Lotus Sutra, contains the method of "Ushu Shamo's Transformation into a Boy", which can turn a child in the womb into a son."
Everyone gasped.
"This was originally a legal code that was born in an era when it was difficult for women to become Buddhas. However, the Heian nobles who wanted to give birth to heirs and the generals of the Warring States Period who wanted to have children all believed in this method of reborn boys. The most famous one is Tianhai. Tokugawa Ieyasu invited this method, which led to the birth of Iezuna—Mr. Yuzawa must very much hope that the child in Miss Jasmine’s womb will be a son, so he casts the spell every night in front of King Wushu Samoming. Of course—— "
He looked at the table with really sad eyes.
"It didn't work out."
There was silence all around.This solemn atmosphere symbolizes the grief and regret in the hearts of those present.
"Teacher, can I ask a question? I remember Miss Maya's blood type is O..."
Yes, Maya is type O.But Jasmine's blood type is B, and Chirazawa's is AB—it's impossible for them to have a type O daughter.
"As for this, it's not actually true, it's just that she wrote 'O' in the notebook given to her by Detective Tanio—I believe Miss Maya's blood type is B." Mabi replied.
"When detective Tanio asked everyone about their blood types, she lied. At that time, Ms. Maya thought that the blood on the lotus pedestal might be her own. On the night Mr. Okajima was killed, she put a new left hand on the Buddha statue by candlelight , it is very likely that she accidentally cut her hand with a chisel or carving knife. Therefore, she lied about her blood type without thinking at that time. Because if her blood really got on the lotus seat of Avalokitesvara, it would be miserable gone."
I vaguely recalled the morning after Okajima's disappearance, when Maya rushed into the restaurant and said she was going to find him, with OK bandages in her hands.Maybe the one under the OK stretch is the scar I accidentally cut when carving the left hand of the Buddha statue late at night the night before.
"Really, about this murder—"
This time it was me who asked Zhenbei the question.
"How do you know that the bodies of Mr. Okajima and Mr. Wei Ze are in the van of the waste workers?"
"Of course it's impossible for me to know, but I just think it's possible. This morning, when I heard you say that the car of the waste worker is in the parking lot, I felt something was wrong—because the dealer didn't come at the end of every month?"
Yes, that's what I heard before.
"The dealer appeared in advance. It may be that the murderer loaded the two corpses in a small truck in some way and planned to send them out of Ruixiang House. At that time, I thought so. Because those were wastes that were going to be burned, the waste dealers Usually the contents of the waste are not confirmed one by one, and the murderer is likely to use this to annihilate the evidence. In short, it may be a bit embarrassing to say this. The young man has only been in charge of the Ruixiang House for a short time, so he is easy to deceive. If it is a veteran who has been in and out of this place for many years, Seeing an entire Buddha statue thrown away may raise doubts."
After confirming with the waste industry operator, I learned that it was indeed Maya who came to him and said, "There is a large waste, please come."The young man didn't understand the situation, so he rushed to Ruixiang's room early in the morning, and together with Maya, they loaded the Buddha statue with two corpses into the pickup truck. No one saw this scene.
In front of the ghost needle bushes, the young man approached Maya because he heard that his pickup truck had loaded the body and realized that he had been tricked by her.But I thought I was smart and wanted to show my chivalry to protect Maya, but I was almost taken hostage instead.
"Mabi, didn't we visit the dry paint room on the day we came here? We found Daikoku Tenjin and Hoteigami in the back of the room—was Mr. Okajima's body hidden in the Hoteigami at that time? "
"Yes, the tea-brown Buddha statue was made of Mr. Okajima's corpse into a dry lacquer statue. The dry lacquer statue was originally made out of clay, and then the lacquered linen cloth was pasted on it, and finally the Buddha statue was painted. The back was cut open, and the clay was taken out. Ms. Maya used a human corpse instead of the clay prototype. In the end, instead of taking it out as when using clay, she sealed the corpse inside—she must have had a brainstorm and thought that she could use This method hides Mr. Okajima’s body. The body that the abbot of Ji’an moved to the drying room just sat on the ground, leaning against the side, just like the shape of the bag god.”
After seeing it, Maya thought of a way to wrap the corpse with paint.In this way, the body can be processed into a dry lacquer image and placed next to the real dry lacquer image made by oneself.
"It's a terrible Buddha in the womb." Saying that, Zhenbei let out a long sigh.
However, in retrospect, it becomes apparent that this was the most appropriate method of disposing of a corpse.Sealing the corpse with paint can prevent the corpse from decomposing and smelling.Even if it smelled a little, the room was filled with the strong smell of fermented paint, which successfully masked the smell of the corpse.Even if the police search, it is impossible to ask to break the Buddha statue to see the condition inside, and, in the end, they can take the Ruixiang house out of the small truck of the scrapper and burn it down.It was also the season when Songyue and other statue makers were busy making small amulets. It was not difficult to find time to load one or two Buddha statues into a small truck.When I first visited here, I pushed open the wooden door of the studio and looked inside. For a while, no one saw me at all. Therefore, as long as the wooden door of the studio is closed, the people inside have no idea what happened outside.
"Huh? Really, when the three of us went to visit the drying room, I once saw the back of the cloth bag statue—at that time, there were traces of repairing the cracks on the back."
Originally, the crack was used to take out the clay of the prototype, but why would the cloth bag god be behind it?If you don't need to take out the inside, of course you don't need to cut it open.
"Probably used to exhaust the gases produced by the decay of the corpse."
As he said that, he curled his lips and began to talk about things that seemed irrelevant at first glance.
"For example, wouldn't a corpse float to the surface after being submerged in water for a while? That's because of the decay gas produced in the corpse. When an animal dies, this gas is produced in the body, so it won't sink to the bottom of the water. But some The body does not have this condition, even after a long time, it will still not surface."
"What kind of corpse?"
"A corpse that was stabbed to death by a knife. When there is a hole in the body, the gas generated in the corpse will be discharged, so it will not surface."
"So it is." I finally understood.
"Is it possible to explain it this way? After Mr. Okajima's body was sealed with lacquer, the rotten gas was gradually released. Therefore, the lacquer covering the body was almost burst by the gas, and Ms. Maya—"
"I made a hole in the paint together with the corpse to allow the putrefaction gas to escape from there. However, this is all my imagination. Other than that, I can't think of a reason to cut a slit in the back of the bag statue. According to statistics , Obese people also produce more putrefactive gases.”
Then why didn't Maya deal with the bag statue that sealed Okajima's body before today?She killed Okajima on the night of November 22nd, and eleven days have passed since December 4th today.
I asked Zhenbei this question.
"I believe that when the abandoned businessman came on November 30th, she planned to ask the businessman to take him away. Because, if she asked the businessman to come at other times, it might arouse the suspicion of the owner of Songyue or others—however, that day But couldn't do it."
"why?"
"Don't you remember? That day when we walked from the gravel road to the workshop with old homeowner Songyue, father Tang Jianmu, and Aunt Himanogi, didn't the young man from the abandoned industry just come out of the paint room?"
I vaguely remember this incident.
"At that time, Ms. Maya might have talked to him about getting rid of the bag god that contained Mr. Okajima's body, but when she inadvertently looked out the window, she found that we just walked over. So, she temporarily shelved the plan and let The owners returned empty-handed."
The small window in the paint drying room can indeed see the gravel road.
"After the next day, the police came to the door every day, and it was impossible to move the corpse. However, it would still be risky if it was left for too long. That's why Miss Moye brought the waste workers here today. The only day I know the police won't show up is today."
I remembered that two criminal policemen said yesterday after they searched the workshop that they "wouldn't be here for a while."It turned out that Maya chose to dispose of the body today after hearing this sentence——as a result, two criminal policemen reappeared in Ruixiang's room in order to report to Zhenbei the analysis report on the composition of the ash that he had commissioned before.
At this time, Songyue who was sitting opposite sighed heavily.
"I was busy making small amulets, and I didn't care about Maya's work content at all, and I didn't know what orders Maya took and how the work was progressing. I was so confused that I even claimed to be the owner of the house."
Just now Matsuyue confirmed with the customer who ordered the dry lacquer statue, and found that the other party only commissioned Maya to make Daikoku.Maya also mentioned before that due to the strong smell of paint in the paint drying room, except for those who are actually doing the work, other people will never go in if they have nothing to do.Therefore, no one noticed that she was making Buddha statues that customers did not order at all.
"However, Mr. Wei Ze, who was in charge of taking orders and delivering goods, found out. He had doubts about the appearance of Buddha statues in the dry paint room that no one had commissioned at all."
Hearing Mabei's words, Matsuzuki showed a puzzled expression.
"How did Wei Ze find out? As far as I know, Wei Ze has never been in the drying room—"
"Maybe I didn't actually see it, but I heard that Ms. Maya is making a Buddha statue other than Daikoku Tenjin commissioned by a client from a conversation I overheard."
"Overheard conversation?"
Zhen Bei replied with a gloomy expression: "It was that night when we were sitting around here. At that time, I - without knowing it, mentioned the 'Seven Lucky Gods'."
——Kozangji Temple is a temple closely related to Kitahara Hakushu, and the Seven Lucky Gods there are very interesting——
That night, when everyone was talking about their hometown, Zhenbei did say that.
——However, compared to Maya-san’s Seven Lucky Gods——
"Mr. Wei Ze may feel that something is wrong after hearing that sentence."
Mabe's voice was full of regret.
"Really, but Mr. Wei Ze didn't say anything at that time."
"It's true that I didn't say it in the restaurant—at that time, Mr. Wei Ze should be full of surveillance cameras."
At that time, Wei Ze and Torii were severely scolded by Matsuzuki for handing over the recorder of the surveillance camera to the detective.
"But afterwards he felt that something was wrong. Maybe after leaving the restaurant, Mr. Wei Ze asked Ms. Maya about it. The client clearly only commissioned Daikoku Tenjin, why did she make all the Seven Lucky Gods?"
Then, that night, Wei Ze was murdered.
Later, I heard from detective Guwei that Wei Ze went to Maya's room to look for her that day after everyone else fell asleep.Faced with Wei Ze's questioning, Maya was evasive, and even said "Master is looking for you", and tricked Wei Ze into the darkness outside the dormitory.She killed Wei Ze with a chisel in the dark, and moved the body to the dry paint room with a cart.On the side of the gravel road, the cedar boards laid for the wheelchair of the old house owner of Songyue just helped to carry the corpse.Then, Maya processed Wei Ze's body into a dry lacquer statue of Yebisu overnight.Among the Seven Lucky Gods, Ebisu was chosen because she thought it would be difficult to process Wei Ze's body into Benten with a female appearance, and Fu Lu Shou and Shou Lao in the appearance of an old man.
Mabe continued: "That night, the recorder of the surveillance camera was in the hands of the police and could not function. This was also one of the reasons why Ms. Maya killed Mr. Weiser. She believed that even if Mr. Weiser was found missing afterwards, due to the inability to confirm The images from the surveillance cameras are unlikely to cause too much commotion."
In fact, we have also considered that Wei Ze may have left Ruixiang's room by himself overnight.At that time, if we could confirm the images of the surveillance cameras and find that Wei Ze was not photographed, it would definitely cause even greater commotion.
"She may have planned to kill Mr. Wei Ze a long time ago to avenge her parents. I don't know about this. In any case, it was because of my words that became her motive for killing. If I hadn't mentioned the Seven Lucky Gods at that time—— "
"Really, it should be more than that."
I looked at my friend's face and said:
"And the fact that the surveillance cameras you mentioned just now didn't work. I think the fact that Ms. Maya killed Okajima-san on a whim and managed to hide his body gave her a certain kind of confidence. That is to say——she is very confident that even if Mr. Wei Ze is killed, as long as the body is hidden in the same way, others will not find out that she is the murderer. Shima-san’s body. That’s why Maya-san decided to kill Mr. Weiser. I don’t think it has anything to do with what you said.”
Zhenbei nodded slightly, but did not speak.
"By the way, teacher, what is the matter with mosquitoes?"
Rin didn't know if she asked this question out of sheer curiosity, or because she couldn't bear to see Makoto look discouraged, maybe it was a combination of both.
"Mosquitoes? ——Oh, that's what you're asking." Mabi finally raised his head and smiled feebly.
"At that time, I wanted to confirm. At that time, I suspected that there was a corpse hidden in the dry paint statue, but I was still not sure, so I asked about the content of the dream at the end."
——Did the mosquito come from the left? ——
——Did the swarm of mosquitoes you saw in your dream fly from the left——
"Mabe, what's going on here? Because the mosquito flew over from the left, is there a dead body hidden in the dry paint?"
I can't understand what Mabe is saying again.
"People's dreams are composed of two elements."
Mabe looked at me and explained:
"First of all, it is memory copying in the brain. People will store what happened in their daily life in the brain, and then copy it to a part called the hippocampus to become a memory. During this process, the brain produces Fragmental information can be said to be the source of dreams. That is to say, the dreams that people see are fragments of things that people have experienced - isn't your dream at that time very similar to what you actually encountered?"
"Well, indeed, I dreamed about the people in Ruixiang's house, and you were saying some incomprehensible things, and Miss Kitami is also..."
"However, there is only one thing in the dream that does not match the facts. In the dream, you were attacked by a large number of mosquitoes. At first I thought it was because you saw the red dot on the left arm of the homeowner Songyue. The red dot reminds you of mosquitoes, so Mosquitoes only appear in dreams. But after I confirmed with you at that time, you said that the red dot on Master Songyue’s arm is completely different from the feeling of being bitten by mosquitoes. Since you said so yourself, it means that the red spot on Master Songyue’s left arm The red dot has nothing to do with the appearance of mosquitoes in your dreams. Therefore, I think the reason for the appearance of mosquitoes is related to another element that constitutes dreams.”
"Another element?"
"It is the physical state or physiological state when dreaming. For example, when the bladder has a lot of urine, the toilet will appear in the dream; when the foot hurts, it will dream of being bitten by a dog-so, I think you Being attacked by a lot of mosquitoes in the dream may be because you feel itchy somewhere on your body. Also, the mosquitoes come from the left side—”
"Could it be related to lacquer?"
Rin asked.However, I still didn't understand what Mabi wanted to express.
"Yes, it's lacquer. Daowei, when you visited the paint drying room, didn't you touch the cloth bag statue with your left hand?"
At that time, I——because I had just arrived at Ruixiang’s room, I was carrying a luggage bag on my right shoulder and touched the cloth bag statue with my left hand.
"At that time, your left hand reacted to the paint. Didn't you sneeze as long as there was a little dust in the room? It's normal to have an allergic reaction if you touch the paint that hasn't fully dried. Sure enough, within two days Then, while we were sitting around the fire, you developed an allergy in your left hand that you didn’t notice. Urushi allergies don’t usually show up immediately after exposure, but when the body is exposed to heat.”
"So, is that why I dream about mosquitoes?"
"I think so. Besides, your left hand is allergic to the pouch—"
Oh, it turned out to be such a thing.
"At that time, the paint on the cloth bag statue was not completely dry."
Zhenbei replied:
"You're right. At that time, the bag was half-painted, and it was illogical to paint it before it was completely dry—I didn't realize that until after the fact."
Zhenbei raised the corners of his mouth slightly.
"Of course, I'm not 100% sure that something is wrong based on your dream. There are several other doubts that make me think there is something wrong with the dry paint. I combined these factors and finally came to the conclusion that the body is hidden in the Buddha statue in conclusion."
"Suspicious?"
"For example, Daowei, when you touched the cloth bag statue, Miss Maya said to you: 'It will be dangerous if it falls down'. When the dry paint statue enters the stage of coloring, the clay inside should have been dug out. If only The empty shell outside should be very light. The statue of Ashura in Kofukuji Temple is also a dry lacquer statue. When the temple was on fire, it was because the Buddha statue was very light that it could be easily lifted out, so it escaped the tragic fire. Therefore, it is illogical to say, 'If you fall down, you will be in danger.'"
I remembered that Father Tang Jianmu once told me that one of the characteristics of dry lacquer portraits is that they are very light in texture.
"At that time, Ms. Maya saw you touching the Buddha statue with Mr. Okajima's body in it, she couldn't help but panic, and she said that in a hurry--and, when you came to visit the workshop alone, Miss Maya was not I once said to you that the production of dry lacquer statues is "only the details are left", but when we went to the dry paint room in the future, she said that "five statues must be made". As long as you think about it carefully, you will find that the dry lacquer statues There are a lot of doubts about the issue."
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