Chapter 10 first quarter

Twenty years have passed since I left this small town as if fleeing myself.No wonder in the afterglow of the setting sun, there are strange buildings as far as the eye can see. Due to the autumn festival today, the shopping street leading to W Inari Shrine is crowded and lively.Yukatas, children's laughter, draft beer machines and fox masks pushed by the liquor store to the front of the store, under the long top cover, there is an atmosphere of joy.By the way, there was no such top cover before.When I was in boarding high school, there was always a dry sky above the shopping street. Looking at the watch, the short hand is approaching the number six.Taking out the guy who is eating from the backpack - the camera, I quicken my pace a little.The traditional performing arts "Yaohu" that I was ordered to interview this time will be held at W Inari Shrine at six o'clock.Knowing this, I still seized the arrival time very tightly and didn't leave Tokyo until the last moment, because I didn't dare to stay in this place for too long.

I am afraid of the night air. I was afraid to see the mikoshi. And what I am most afraid of is passing the mikoshi warehouse. What if I met my classmates at that time?Just smile and pat each other on the shoulder?Back then, high school students came from all over the country, and few of them are still in this land.However, I was genuinely uneasy that I would run into those people. I vaguely noticed a line of sight, and couldn't help but stop. Blending in with the crowd, I slowly turned my head to the right. There was a woman looking at me through the glass of the exotic store.She stared straight at this side, her lips were tightly closed, her eyes were empty, and her expression was very similar to that person.Twenty years ago, the man I pressed on the cold floor of the mikoshi warehouse.I unleashed the madness of bestiality in that person.

I stared at the dummies in the foreign goods store and stood still.My whole body tensed up, and a moan came out of the deep part of my throat.The cold hand of memory climbed up my chest, and its wet fingers tried to grab my heart.With the face of the dummy at the center, the surrounding scenery gradually faded away.Her sharp screams poured into my ears like cold water, and I yelled silently. It wasn't me who designed that thing. not me. not me. "You are the one." At that time, a classmate named S said in a corner of the dimly lit boiler room.I still remember his half-smoked cigarette glowing red like little lava.

The four of us squatted on the concrete floor covered with cardboard boxes.After dinner, it was our daily routine to gather together in the boiler room of the dormitory like this, kneeling together to turn several cigarettes into ashes, playing hooligans and swearing in low voices.Because of the light coming through, the lights on the ceiling cannot be turned on, but teachers and dormitory supervisors will not come in. In addition, the smoke exhaust fan runs 24 hours a day, so this is an excellent place to smoke secretly. "me?" I turned my eyes away from S and reached into the pocket of the jacket.I took out Qixing's box deliberately and slowly, pulled out one, and then faced him.I saw him still looking at me.

"Actually, it doesn't matter who makes the move, it just doesn't seem to have seen any major things you have done." S was right, I knew that the other two students also nodded slightly in the dark. In the name of testing our courage, we do some small bad things in school or dormitory from time to time, such as burning smoke in the restaurant, pouring sodium hydroxide solution into the campus pool, nailing centipedes inside the keyboard cover of an upright piano, etc.Most of the masterminds are S, he will not persecute violently, nor will he use excuses to threaten, but he has mastered the hearts of our group miraculously.

"There is a feeling of terror" is our common impression of him.I have hardly seen any change in S's expression, his fair face is always expressionless, one can't help but think that he has no body temperature like a chicken leg. "You can find the partner yourself, it doesn't matter if it's from the women's department." S said in a flat tone, while other friends expressed their dissent in the dark. "The women's department is not good, is it? It's too dangerous to find someone from the school." S silently made the tip of the cigarette glow red for a while, and finally whispered "it's okay" while exhaling.

"It's fine to do it in the dark, as long as he..." S looked at me again. "Just as long as he doesn't get recognized." Randomly picking a woman to sexually assault is what we came up with this time.It’s just that, back then, no one was using the term sexual assault, and we referred to the same behavior in nastier, more egotistical terms. Of course, this is definitely not a "little bad thing".This is completely different from making the restaurant white, poisoning the carp, and listening to the music teacher screaming and laughing.If it is now, you can make a judgment without even thinking about it.However, we will be graduating from high school half a year later, suppressing yawns and living a life focused on college entrance exams. As teenagers, we can't feel the huge difference in the middle.

I played with the cigarette in my hand, nodded in agreement after a while, and then continued to talk with my companion for a while. "Where can I find a woman?" "A place where I can work." "Is it appropriate?" "let me see." "Let's plan." "When will you do it?" I can't remember who said that sentence.But I still remember that it was I who proposed to act on the night of the autumn festival two weeks later. "The access control will be extended until ten o'clock on the day of the festival, right? If you stay outside longer, it will be easier to find a woman."

"Where is the location?" "How about the Mikoshi warehouse?" The warehouse for the mikoshi used for ceremonies is located next to the big river that flows through the city center. It seems to be quietly hidden behind the weeping willow leaves, standing on a quiet earth embankment.When I first entered high school, my classmates even spread the word that the small square building was an ammunition depot for hooligans.But when I saw the first festival in the fall of my first year of high school, I knew it was a warehouse for mikoshi.Then, we saw that no one would go in and out normally, so we boldly broke the lock and broke into it when the second year of high school was about to enter the third year.From then on, during free time in the afternoon, the mikoshi warehouse replaced the boiler room and became our meeting place.Perhaps after we left the warehouse, we all hung the lock on the iron door bolt as a show, and the town hall clerk never noticed that the entrance had been breached.

"Needless to say, when preparing for this festival, people in the office will find out about the lock. However, it will definitely be replaced after the festival is over, so..." "So, the place is still left alone on the night of the festival? The entrance will always be open, and the mikoshi that occupies the seat will not be there." "Yes. What's more, you see, isn't there no one around the mikoshi warehouse?" On the day of the autumn festival, since the protagonist W Inari Shrine is on the other side of the river, there will be a whole row of vendors on the embankment there.We have hardly seen anyone walking around the earth embankment on the Mikoshi warehouse side.

After listening to my proposal, S thought for a moment.I stared straight at him as he brought the cigarette to his mouth. For a full five seconds, the tip of the cigarette continued to glow red with blood. "Okay, let's take the mikoshi warehouse." S nodded and exhaled smoke. The next day, as soon as the afternoon class was over, we went to the mikoshi warehouse to smoke and explore the grounds.Out of the corner of the eye of the big crow parked on the sloping roof, we caught sight of us approaching. The moment S touched the lock, it suddenly widened its eyes ferociously.The four of us quickly passed through the entrance one by one, and when we closed the iron gate as it was, we could vaguely hear the heavy flapping of wings gradually going away. S turned on the pen-type flashlight at his waist.This is strange, usually we are used to not turning on the lights, in a space without windows, enjoying the feeling of eyesight gradually adapting to the darkness, while smoking. "It's best not to smoke today." S reminded us, and then with the light of the pen-type flashlight, he picked up the scattered cigarette butts one by one and put them into the plastic bags he had prepared. "There are only two weeks left until the festival. Counting the time, the staff of the office may come to confirm the situation of the shrine. It would be bad if there are still cigarette butts all over the ground." S said that if they found signs of intrusion and sent people to guard the warehouse on the day of the festival, the plan would not be implemented.We all nodded and set out to help recycle cigarette butts. I squatted on the ground to pick up trash, falling into a gloomy mood.In fact, I chose Mikoshi Warehouse as the location to commit the crime, just because I wished that the situation just described by S would happen.According to my guess, after the staff of the public office found the cigarette butts on the ground, they should strengthen their precautions and send people to guard them on the night of the festival.Then, I don't have to do bad things, I can deliberately complain, sigh deeply, and say to S and the others "really bad luck" with an unhappy face. However, my expectations fell through.Ten minutes later, there was not a single cigarette butt left on the carefully cleaned floor of the shrine. "That way nothing will be lost." S raised his head in satisfaction, facing the mikoshi covered with cotton cloth.He picked up a corner of the dusty cotton cloth with his fingertips, revealing part of the large shrine on the platform, and the thick pillars of vermilion lacquer emerged under the illumination of the pen-shaped flashlight.Climbing dragons are carved on pillars, glaring at me with hideous eyes.I couldn't help but look away, and the big fox lying on the ground in large characters jumped into my eyes.It was a human figure made of stitched rice bags, with an old fox mask on its face, and its body was about the size of an adult. "This thing was put in the warehouse last year." S whispered. "Probably a spare?" I replied casually. According to the custom of the town, during the festival, a fox made of rice bags will be put into a shrine, carried to the W Inari Shrine, and enshrined to the Inari God, which is called "sacrificing fox".The foxes are all sewn from rice bags containing the new rice of the year, so the ones placed here should be backups.The dirty hands and feet slumped on the ground reminded me of the strange woman I was about to meet in two weeks. "We won't come in that day, there's nothing interesting about your work." "Then where will you be staying?" Knowing that S didn't plan to monitor, I once again hoped that I might be able to hide it smoothly.On the night of the festival, just find a place to kill time, and then fabricate a set of heroic deeds to tell S and them. Unexpectedly, S nervously restored the cloth of the mikoshi to its original state, and replied: "We'll hide under the earth embankment nearby and watch you pull women in and out."