Chapter 12 third quarter

In the W Inari Shrine, which has not been seen for 20 years, "Night Fox" is about to begin. I took off the lens cap of my camera and walked around the periphery of the crowd, looking for a suitable location for photography.All I wanted was to finish my work and return to Tokyo as soon as possible, and soon I found a gap in the crowd.So, I stopped and looked through the viewfinder window.Under the two green bamboos, two young men wearing male and female fox masks dance funny dances to traditional music.They will never be the performers of twenty years ago, but the movements are exactly as I remember them.Then, the two clapped their hands above each other's heads, ending the dance on the ground, and then each nimbly climbed up the green bamboo, showing various stunts on the top.

The so-called "Xiaohu" (よい狐) has the double meaning of "drunk fox" and "xiaohu", and it has a homonym with "good", so it has become a synonym for this traditional art.It is said that the content is to express the appearance of the fox who is the messenger of Inari God playing happily while infatuated with the festival music. After taking pictures, I visited the priests of the shrine as planned.The priest's forehead with receding hairline was shining with sweat, and he answered one by one easily, telling me that there were no successors, and that I had suffered a lot because I couldn't find high-quality green bamboo recently.Fifteen minutes later, I bid farewell to the priest, who was still full of thoughts, and ended the interview.With the light of the three-legged high oil lamp, I simply sorted out my notes and left the shrine.

Hurry up to the station. Hurry back to Tokyo. Then, never come back here again. Hurry down the road crowded with vendors.As we went forward, the noise around us became more and more blurred, and gradually condensed into a series of simple sounds.At the bottom of my heart, it was not a din of voices, but closer to silence. I don't know where the sound of "sand..." came out. I know the sound, I remember the sound. Wing rubbing sound. The sound of rubbing wings at that time. The scenery shook violently, and the lights on the stalls on the left and right of the road suddenly disappeared as if being sucked away, and then turned on again, and a strong sense of strangeness surrounded me.What happened?In front of him was a young man in black trousers and dirty and old overalls, walking quickly through the crowd, the plastic fox mask on his right wrist was shaking constantly.I know him, I know him.I knew that the ferocious wing-flapping sound just now would ring out in his heart.

I followed him off the bright road.He walked toward the river and turned right on the sidewalk along the bank.There is a bridge ahead. It is the bridge to the other side of the darkness, and it is also the bridge to the Mikoshi warehouse. He stopped abruptly and looked back.He didn't seem to notice me, but at that moment, I clearly saw his face floating in the dark night. it's me. The young man who stopped in front of the bridge, his shoulders constantly heaving and panting, was me. Following his line of sight, he saw the back of a blue bathrobe walking in the darkness.That was the unsuspecting back.

I ran with him at the same time.He stretched out his arms to grab the woman, covered the woman's mouth with his palm, embraced the woman and took her away.The woman's clogs dragged rudely on the ground, and the pattering footsteps accompanied by the intense friction of clothes, she moved towards the mikoshi cabin.Immediately afterwards, the iron door opened, and the two bodies disappeared inside.On the mansard roof, a crow flew away with a heavy flapping sound.I yelled hoarsely, dragged my knotted feet to the entrance of the mikoshi warehouse, and was about to break into the iron gate...

I stopped just in time. I just can't do it. I couldn't confront my madness. Get down on your knees and put your hands on the ground.There were constant noises from inside the iron gate, loud at first, then at intervals, and I heard my crime with my own ears.That irreparable crime. Things are coming to an end. Then, there was an instant wailing in the mikoshi cabin.The woman who came back to her senses opened her eyes wide, and screamed from the depths of her throat that seemed to tear the darkness.However, her cry was cut off suddenly as if cut by a utility knife.It's not that the woman shuts her mouth, but I hold her throat with both hands.

I knelt beside the shrine and plugged my ears tightly. I don't want to hear her dying voice twenty years ago again. Soon, "I" rushed out of the mikoshi cabin like a madman, rushed under the dark earth embankment without even looking at it, yelled and ran around in the grass as high as people, looking for the three people.I want to confess to S and the others the big mistake I made by mistake, and ask them for help.I killed people, I killed people, I killed people.I kept repeating this sentence in my mouth, but they were not there.They were caught by the teacher for smoking and locked up in the dormitory.

I fell to my knees powerlessly and stared down. "I" held my head alone in the grass, and soon I raised my head proudly and ran to the right.The target was a nearby construction site, and "I" remembered that there were wheelbarrows and shovels for moving building materials where the work clothes were stolen. "I" would soon return with those things, and then wrap her body in a large piece of cotton cloth, put it on a cart, carry it down the earth embankment, and dig a deep hole near the upper reaches of the river to bury it.The cotton cloth used to cover her is the same cloth that usually covers the sedan chair.

I got up and opened the cold iron door of the mikoshi warehouse, and under the faint moonlight behind me, the dusty ground came into view.I saw the cotton cloth spread out, and a human figure protruded from the center.I stepped into the warehouse and pulled up a corner of the cloth tremblingly.She was no longer moving, and in two hours, this body would be buried in the cold ground. I watched her face.Her eyes were closed, expressionless.It was the first time for me to observe her remains so carefully.Twenty years ago, I returned with a cart and a shovel. In the darkness separated by the iron gate, I didn't look at her at all. I just wrapped her body and threw it into the cave for burial without untiing the cotton cloth for inspection.

Before my eyes, her pale cheeks twitched. I let go of the cloth in my hand and quickly backed away. There was a coughing sound from under the cloth that was once again on the ground.Severe coughing and painful gagging came one after another. I dared not move, and squatted in the corner holding my breath. So she is still alive? She straightened her upper body, opened the covering cloth, and crawled silently on the concrete floor.Taking convulsive breaths one after another, she desperately moved towards the moonlit exit. I see. I felt as if my whole body had melted into the ground. It turns out I didn't kill anyone.

At that time, I did not kill her. "Great……" I couldn't help but make a sound, and she turned her head suddenly.I stepped away from the corner and approached her with a gentle smile. "I thought you were dead..." A shrill scream interrupted my words.As soon as she stood upright, she showed frantic eyes, and slammed into my chest with astonishing force.Accompanied by a "boom", the air suddenly burst out of my lungs, my body flew backwards, the back of my head hit the wall violently, and my legs seemed to disappear instantly.I collapsed, staggered and fell. "No...I..." I tried to stand up but couldn't do so. My upper body was swaying to and fro, and the sky was spinning in front of me. Finally, I couldn't hold on and fell to the ground.I raised my head vigorously, but couldn't utter a word.His head was buzzing and his ears were ringing, and the scene in front of him gradually merged into the darkness and faded out slowly. "no……" The last picture I saw was her eyes wide open, her nose trembling, muttering incomprehensible words, and throwing a cotton cloth on me.The next second, I felt her hands hitting the back of my head, again and again. Then, I fell into the darkness of unconsciousness. In the continuous slight vibration, I opened my eyes in a daze. The field of vision is still dark, but it is not that the vision has not recovered.Judging by touch and smell, I knew that I was moving in that cloth. I can't move my body, I can't even make a sound. Soon, I was thrown to the ground, and the sound of digging was heard immediately.In a trance, I listened to this sound for a long time. Yeah? It turned out to be the case. It turned out that I buried me at the time. The sound of shoveling was uninterrupted.Not long after, I was roughly turned to one side wrapped in cloth.For a moment, the body seemed to fall from the air, and immediately hit a hard place.There was digging again from above, and dirt was falling on me. Maybe that's fine too. I always feel like I'm dreaming. I have lived for twenty years ignoring the gut-gnawing guilt.I want to run away, want to disappear.Although I found out that I didn't kill someone at the beginning, the crime equivalent to murder will not be erased from my heart. That's fine. In the darkness, I closed my eyes.The oppressive feeling became stronger and stronger, breathing became more and more difficult, hands and feet could not move at all, and the sound of shoveling became farther and farther away.Finally, I couldn't hear anything. Before the last trace of consciousness disappeared, I suddenly thought: Is it really me who is burying me now? Is it really me who is covering me with a shovel? Could it be that he is the young man who inherited the crazy blood I poured into her body?She was pinned on the floor of the mikoshi, with an engagement ring on her left hand.Could it be that after she woke up, she kept the experience of that night deep in her heart and married, and gave birth to a child—a boy without being able to prove that she was raped and pregnant?And twenty years later, the boy's inner madness broke out in the autumn festival?Could it be that on the night of the festival, he, who looked exactly like his father, committed the exact same crime in the exact same place? Is there such a possibility?Is there such a case?If so... On that night twenty years ago, Nothing matters anymore. Either way, the fact that I killed me, doesn't change. In the darkness, her pair of glass-like pupils suddenly looked at me.Then, the corners of her mouth curled up like a fox mask, looking at me and smiling silently. In the distance, there was the sound of crows flapping their wings.