Chapter 13 first quarter

That was exactly when the Zhongyuan holiday had just ended. Just after noon, the apartment doorbell rang.I spread the half-conceived manuscript of the short story on the table and walked to the entrance.I wrote about a riverside in a small rural town, digging up a mysterious fox made of rice bags.Although the incident itself is bizarre and interesting, I can't think of a reason why this kind of thing is buried by the river, and I am staring blankly at the printed manuscript.I went down to the entrance, and as soon as I opened the door, the cicadas, which were barely audible before, suddenly amplified in volume.A young man stood at the door, as if he was carrying the suddenly amplified cry.Before I could see his face clearly, he suddenly bowed deeply to me.

"Yes, I'm sorry!" The youth just stays where he is.His figure is clear and thin, but his static strength is surprisingly powerful.I saw the back of his head with messy hair facing me, his hands clutching the knees of his ripped jeans, and he didn't move. "Sir, I don't understand what's going on at all." That's all I can say.I really don't know why the youth apologized?Did he do me any harm?Leaving aside these things for the time being, where did he come from?Before I could see his face clearly, he bowed his head and saluted, so that I couldn't even judge whether I had seen him or not.

"Hold, I'm sorry for causing you trouble. I apologize to you." "Sir, I still don't..." "I, I am the criminal." The young man stuttered severely and raised his head proudly.It really is a stranger.He is wearing dirty jeans and a crumpled gray T-shirt. Although he is ten centimeters taller than me, he is about ten years younger than me. I'm afraid he is less than twenty-five years old, otherwise he looks younger than he is. , Eight years old.There was an indescribably loose look on the squinting face. "Prisoner? What prisoner?" When I asked, the young man seemed quite surprised, and slightly opened his distinctive eyes.

"Two, two, two months ago, that incident." "that matter?" "Steal, steal something." The more I listened, the more confused I became.The house has never been burglarized, at least I don't think so at the moment. The sun passed over the shoulders of the young man, making me frown: I was puzzled for a while.When the young man saw my reaction, he seemed to be sure of something, the corners of his mouth tightened, and his upper body moved back slightly. "Didn't you..." He suddenly swallowed half of the words, and hesitation flashed in his eyes.

"No?" I urged, the young man lowered his head slightly as if making up his mind, and continued: "Did you not find out?" "Me? What did you find?" "The piggy bank is gone." "Eh, no way." After finally figuring out the situation, I hurried back to the study and looked up at the top of the bookshelf next to the desk.But my only "piggy bank" empty bottle of Qiaozi jam is safely in place.I took it down and took a closer look, and there seemed to be a lot of things in the bottle. There were three thousand-yen bills in total, with a lot of change, and as usual, most of them were ten-yen coins.

I returned to the entrance with the empty jam bottle in my arms, and the young man was wiping his chin nervously with his sleeve.I didn't want to get close to the sun, so I stopped at the shoe removal place and handed him the empty jam bottle. "Yes, well here." "No, uh, not that. It's in the room with the books, the desk, the cabinet, the cabinet, the cabinet, this." The young man took out a white paper bag with a handle from a place I couldn't see from this angle, and then carefully took out a pottery beckoning cat about the size of two folded fists. "I didn't touch anything inside. I was too scared to touch the money. Really. I'll give you back this, this, and this."

The young man handed the beckoning cat to me, said "yes, yes, sorry" like a moan, and bowed again.I seem to see the air-conditioning continuously escaping from the open door. "But, it's not mine." The young man suddenly raised his head, leaned his neck forward with a "hey", his timid eyes wandered between me and the lucky cat. "But, I, I stole it from here. In the middle of the night two months ago, I, I, I was fascinated by ghosts and went in to steal." "You must be mistaken, I've never seen anything like this." "Then, is it someone else in the family..."

"No, because I live alone." We shut up at the same time, and our eyes fell on the beckoning cat.It was an exquisitely colored strange beckoning cat. Although its eyes were wide open, it looked like it was smiling at first glance due to the wrinkles drawn at the corners of the eyes.There is a flat hole in the back of the neck, it should be a piggy bank.I put the empty jam jar on the ground, held up the lucky cat and shook it up and down gently.There was no sound, it was probably empty.No, there was a small sound, it seemed to be paper. "Could it be banknotes?" I glanced at the young man.He flinched back, didn't say he didn't know, just shook his head.

"As I mentioned just now, I didn't touch it at all. But, isn't this really Mr. Lingling's thing?" The young man speaks my real name.For some reason, only this surname is displayed on my door nameplate and mailbox. "No. Will you go to another house? Like next door or something." I look to the left.Since I live in the side room on the first floor, the only neighbor is that one.Unexpectedly, the young man shook his head violently. "Absolutely, absolutely not, it is indeed here. Because it is a margin, it is impossible to remember wrongly." "That's the side of the other apartment building."

After I finished speaking, I thought to myself that this is not quite right.I've never seen a similar wooden condominium in the neighbourhood.The surroundings are either more modern buildings with a very high-end appearance, or houses with a single family. The young man stared at me nervously for ten seconds.The sound of cicadas ringing around the sky further highlights the blazing heat of midsummer. Finally, the young man shrouded in fear timidly said: "In the deepest part of the house, is there a room like a study?" "Ok." "Beside the big wooden desk, there is a very high bookshelf. There is that money bottle on the shelf, right?"

The young man pointed to the empty jam bottle I brought just now. "Yes, keep it there." "So, absolutely, absolutely right, I stole it from that room. First I found the jam jar, but there was very little money in it, and it seemed to ding, ding, jingling, so I opened the door. drawer, find this piggy bank." "Where's the closet?" "The most, the front." "real?" "real." "Really?" "Really." "Where did you come in from?" "Underground storage, like this..." The youth tried to recreate the situation at that time.However, although his movements were exaggerated, I couldn't see what he was doing.Although I felt that he was a bit thoughtful, I didn't want to let the air conditioner continue to run out, so I invited him into the house. "Demonstrate, the underground storage is there." "Okay, okay." As soon as the young man closed the door, the singing of cicadas disappeared with the pure white summer sun.Just like this, the coolness has recovered a lot. The young man took off his dirty sneakers and went inside. After passing through a short corridor and stepping into a kitchen with a size of one and a half square meters, he looked around and murmured in disbelief, "It really is here."Then, he approached the underground storage in front of the counter and opened the single sliding door.The last time I used it was about half a year ago, maybe a year.I don't cook, and I seldom clean up. I usually have nothing to do with the underground storage in the kitchen.In the resin-made square space that I haven't seen for a long time, there is only a bottle of plum wine that I bought from my grandmother's house for fun in the past. "Hey, it's down." The cylindrical bottle of plum wine lay across the bottom of the storage. "Probably it was knocked down during the restoration of the storage and storage warehouse last time." "Recovery? What do you mean?" "This, this, this, you can pick up the whole box." "Really?" This is the first time I heard it, and I was surprised from the bottom of my heart. In front of me, the slender hands with the youthful veins protruding out grasped the storage box, and deftly removed the plum wine bottle together.The box shaped like a small bathtub was easily taken out.The exposed mud below aroused my interest, and I took the lucky cat and lay down on the ground to look down.In a narrow space about 40 centimeters high, the short pillars of the foundation are erected neatly, and it should be possible to move from here to each room, such as a study room and a Japanese room.It's just that there is a concrete foundation between the neighbor's house and the neighbor's house. On the foundations facing the perimeter, light filters in through several ventilation openings fitted with vertical latticework. "I, I came in from there, from that checkpoint." Somewhere in the foundation pointed by the young man lying on the opposite side also looks like a vent, but it is much larger than the others. "That's the entrance for the operator to check the distribution, distribution wiring and pipelines. I, just dismantle, dismantle the grid frame, and sneak in from this underground storage." Listening to his explanation, indeed, from that checkpoint to the ground below us, there are traces of someone crawling. "Then, what do you mean, two months ago you not only tore down the underground storage and broke into the house, but also stole the Lucky Cat from your own study before leaving?" "Yes yes yes. I wiped the dirt off the floor and put the storage box back in place." "Well……" It turns out that this method can also be used to invade.While surprised, I couldn't help admiring it. "Thank you for thinking it out. Indeed, this way you can avoid the eyes and ears of others." "This is an advantage." "If you sneak into the house from the balcony window next to the road, you may be spotted by the patrolling police. In this area, there are police cars coming and going at night." "Huh, is that so?" "That's right. Because last year and the year before last, there were murders in this area." Both cases were incidental.The victims were middle-aged office workers and college students who had never had any grudges with others. The murderers used small sharp weapons, and the case has not yet been solved. "I-I don't know anything about it." "Really……" Indeed, the young man did not appear to be interested in newspapers and news programs. Having said that, although the young man's explanation is generally reasonable, but I have no impression of this lucky cat at all.However, he claimed to have stolen it from a cupboard in my study. I patted the lucky cat's cheek and suggested: "Anyway, let's open it and have a look. It seems that there are banknotes in the piggy bank. If there are several bills, they will be divided equally. If there is only one bill, I will give it to you." "No, no, no need." I ignored the young man who was shaking his head convulsively, and turned over the bottom of the beckoning cat, took off the red sticker that sealed the money withdrawal opening, and took a look. "Strange, it's not money." "Hey, what's that?" The youth leaned over. "Looks like a note." I put the maneki neko hole down and tried shaking it a few times.Finally, Lucky Cat silently released a note paper folded in half.When I opened it, I saw three familiar small characters forming a line of "Unfortunately" in the center. My thoughts stopped in an instant: my heart was pounding, my abdomen was tightening deep, and those words came to my mind, those strangely neat words that filled the manuscript paper... "Please leave." I finally spoke. "Excuse me?" "you go." As if pushed by my tone, the young man quickly stood up, grasping the unloaded storage box with both hands and trying to return it to its original position. "It's okay, let's go." "Oh, good." The young man stopped halfway, and walked towards the entrance with his back arched.He hurriedly put on his shoes, and turned around to ask: "You, you will call the police..." "No, you go. Go quickly." The youth left through the door. The cross-creased note took over the center of my field of vision, and I couldn't move at all.It was him, the voice came to my stomach, but it didn't climb out of my throat, it just echoed in my body again and again.It's him, it's him, it's him. During the rainy season two years ago, on a certain evening when it rained continuously for several days, my high school classmate S lost his wife and only child at the same time.At the time of the incident, S was working in the company.It was a separate accident on Tsubaki's mountainside national road. The driver's wife and daughter in the front seat were crushed by the concrete at the entrance of the tunnel and died on the spot. Since then, S has visited me three times in total. The first time was on a Sunday evening after finishing the first seven days of his wife and daughter. S's sudden visit caught me by surprise.Because since graduating from high school, there has been almost no communication between us that can be called communication. S found out my home address from other friends. "I wondered what life was like for my friend who wanted to be a writer." At that time, I had not yet published a book, and I was working part-time as a building cleaner while trying to become a writer. It was really desperate. S is very cheerful.I guess he was trying to look cheerful because he was afraid of being overwhelmed by the grief of losing his family, so I dared not mention the car accident. S said he wanted to drink, so I went to a nearby liquor store to buy sparkling wine and shochu.When drinking with each other, S always seemed very happy, but I paid great attention to the choice of topics, so I didn't enjoy drinking very much.Finally, S stayed overnight. The second time S appeared at the door happened to be a week after the last time.It was a rainy afternoon, he didn't hold an umbrella, his white shirt, trousers and shoes were all soaked, his face was unshaven, and his eyes were obviously weird.I can't describe how weird it is, in short, it's not an ordinary look. In the supermarket plastic bag under S's armpit, there was a square thing.He asked if he could excuse me, and I had to let him in. S sat down in the living room, then wiped his head and face vigorously with a dirty handkerchief.He shook his upper body back and forth and hummed suddenly, the volume was scary, as if he forgot that it was my home and I was right next to him.I saw him unconsciously scratching his armpit from time to time. "Hey, here we go again. Hello?" Suddenly, S took out his mobile phone from his trouser pocket and pressed it to his ear impatiently. "Oh, um. Today? Well, maybe a little later. You know, the Minister is annoying. I know. Huh? I know." S put the phone in his pocket, showing a wry smile. "My daughter's birthday, my wife is clamoring for me to go back early." "That's it, that's how it is." He is out of his mind. S's phone didn't ring, and the screen didn't shine. Not to mention anything else, almost half of the folded joint was torn off, and several thin wires protruded.Obviously, the phone doesn't work at all. S picked up the handkerchief again and wiped his face vigorously, humming and farting loudly.I could only sit cross-legged, rubbing my knees and staring at him helplessly. "I couldn't say it last time, but I actually have something I want to show you." S picked up the plastic bag he threw on the ground, and took out an A4-sized kraft paper bag.Nothing was written on the front, but his name and address were written on the back, and there were hundreds of manuscript papers in the paper bag. "I learned from you to try to create, even though it is a mystery novel." S pushes the stack of manuscript paper over.Even though I was not interested, I still reached out to take it.The grid is full of unusually neat words.Small, small characters, one by one, seem to be packed in a box, neatly arranged.I can seem to see S filling the grid one by one with dove-like eyes.I skimmed the first page casually, then read it carefully from the next page, and then I was amazed. "Judging from your eyes, how about it? Is there any chance for a publishing house to submit a manuscript? As a person who doesn't usually read, I feel pretty good." S leaned over, and the sound of breathing was close to my ear.I didn't answer, and read the manuscript with all my heart, unconsciously forgetting even S was by my side.I don't know how long it took, but when I read half of the story in one breath, I finally remembered his existence and raised my head suddenly. "I'll show it to the editor, I still have some connections." The lie came out naturally, I didn't expect my acting skills to be so good.I have no connections at all, otherwise I would have made good use of them. "If the response is good, I will contact you again. However, I advise you not to have too high expectations." I pretended to be embarrassed, and looked at S with regret.Seeing my attitude, S exhaled slowly like a leaking ball, and severe bad breath came into his nostrils.We were relatively silent, and soon, S said "my wife and daughter are very talkative" and headed home. After S left, I took the manuscript and reread it attentively, and the more I read it, the more surprised I became.What an amazing, amazing talent.The protagonist of this novel is an office worker. Since his wife and child were killed in a traffic accident, he vowed revenge on the car owner who hit and ran.In the process of tracking down the suspect, he fought against a certain social villain, and the Lucky Cat appeared everywhere in the form of key clues, which had not yet been titled. A few days later, I added a title to this story and submitted it to a publishing house for a newcomer award under a very pseudonym.That was my debut work. Staring at the three small words "sorry", I tried my best to suppress my emotions.I debuted as a writer two years ago, I didn't tell anyone except my relatives, I was worried that the news would reach S's ears.For the same reason, no pseudonym was put on the house number and mailbox, and I asked the publisher not to disclose my real name.Although I considered moving out altogether, I chose to stay for two reasons.One is that I can't let go of the lovely insurance business, but it's easy to handle.In addition, if one day S sees that book, I must be here.At that time, he might rush to find me first. If he can't see me, he will definitely contact the publishing house directly to expose the inside story.To prevent this from happening, I must stay here. "So that's what happened at the time..." Thinking about it now, the third time S came to the door was because he read my book.Two months ago, yes, exactly two months ago. On the night of the rainy season, S suddenly appeared in front of the entrance in a daze.He was skinny, reeked of sweat and urine, and his untrimmed hair and beard were soaking wet.The two hands that exposed the T-shirt looked like two pieces of brown cloth, hanging powerlessly on the left and right sides.Ignoring me, who was eager to find something to talk about, he entered the room without saying a word, and sat down on the floor of the living room.There seemed to be a small clockwork in the back of his throat, and his breathing was mixed with subtle noises. From time to time, he raised his cloudy eyes to look at me, as if he wanted to say something.However, he never spoke.In the presence of friends who are mad—or nearly mad—I can only stare blankly.Whether it was talking to him, making tea, or bringing him a towel, he didn't respond.He stayed there for three and a half hours, until he got up without a word and stepped into the rain again, and I only went to the bathroom once on the way.He stuffed the beckoning cat into the cabinet of the study and reported on me in this roundabout way, it must have been during that time.Furthermore, no possible point in time could be identified. I sat on the floor of the living room, looking at the note and the lucky cat lying on the side, thinking about it.My back was on fire with agitation, and every second passed, the inner anxiety gradually increased. Is S going to reveal the secret of my debut work to the publishing house?Definitely right.How to save?What should I do?what to do?I was tempted to ignore it at one point, but it was too dangerous, and it was too late when the problem got so big that nothing could be done. Even though S is in that state, he should still have the brains to contact the publishing house to break the news.I thought about it, and thought about it, and then... I thought it was too much trouble to think about it. This is my bad habit. "It can only be silenced." I muttered and got up and walked into the study, and pulled out an A4-sized kraft paper bag from the drawer at the bottom right of the desk.Two years ago, there was an address written on the back of the paper bag that S contained manuscripts in. Does he still live there? I took the paper bag and walked towards the entrance, then stopped suddenly.I forgot an important item, so I went back to the study, grabbed it from a drawer full of stationery in the cabinet, and put it in my trouser pocket. The address written on the paper bag had a dirty two-storey apartment that looked cheaper than where I lived, and one of the mailboxes listed the names of S and his wife and daughter.After confirming that there was no one around, I went upstairs from the outdoor ladder and pressed the doorbell of S's house on the second floor, but there was no response.I grabbed the doorknob and turned it gently, and the door swung open.The windows seemed to be all shut, and the air in the closed room was stale, filled with the stench of heat, humidity, and decay.At the end of the short corridor is the living room covered with tatami mats, and he can be seen sitting facing a low wooden table from his back.I yelled "Hello" but he didn't respond.He sat cross-legged, as if singing a silent song, shaking his body back and forth.The room was completely untied, a few black plastic bags were thrown in the corner.I took off my shoes, put my right hand in my pocket, and walked behind him.One step, one step, one step... At a distance of one meter, he suddenly turned his head.My heart seemed to be pinched suddenly, and I couldn't help but stop. "If, as expected, it is true, true!" It was the young man. He knelt on his knees, turned to me like a snap, and pushed over the stack of white papers he was holding in his right hand. "My brother committed suicide two, two, two two months ago and is no longer alive. After my brother died, I found a copy of the original manuscript here. Inside, inside, the content is the same as what I happened to see before, you The novel is exactly the same, I am surprised." "So...you doubt me?" I couldn't help but interrupt, and the young man nodded. "I, I, I think, if I ask you directly, you will definitely fool me, so I choose to watch, watch, and observe your reaction in that way. I only write three words in the note, because I am worried that you will find out that it is not my brother. Handwriting. However, then, deliberately creating traces of someone sneaking under the floor of the apartment is considering that you are a mystery writer anyway." "You mean, because I write mystery novels, I'm naturally suspicious...?" "Yes, yes, yes. But, I didn't, I didn't expect you to be so simple, just like this." After finishing speaking, the young man laughed until his whole body trembled. "Isn't it faster to send a breaking news letter?" "Then no, no, it's not fun." "Not funny, eh? Oh, does anyone else know about this?" The young man shook his head slightly. "Really? Great." Just as I was about to pull my right hand out of my trouser pocket, he immediately stopped me. "It's useless to think about killing me. Don't underestimate me. I'm very sure in a one-on-one fight. Just, even if I break a hand, I can still knock you unconscious. Slowly, slowly stretch out the pocket hands, slowly!" Following his request, I slowly withdrew my right hand.The young man stared at the thing in my hand with squid-like eyes, and tightened the corners of his slack mouth. "Then, what is that handkerchief for?" "This is your brother's." I handed out my blue handkerchief. "He went to my house and forgot to take it away. I washed it and put it away. I plan to return it to him the next time we meet. I was so surprised when he came to the door two months ago, so I missed the opportunity to return it to the original owner." The young man couldn't stop looking at me and the handkerchief, the force was so fierce that I couldn't help worrying that my slender neck would break.His eyes were wide open, almost revealing his entire black pupils. "Although it's hard to say... But, you were tricked by your brother's delusion." The young man stopped moving. "Two years ago, he came to my house unexpectedly to spend the night. I woke up at dawn and found him looking at my novel intently. It was the original manuscript that I printed and polished, and it was the story that became my debut. I think I was very embarrassed, so I pretended not to know and didn’t say a word. Unexpectedly, a week later, he wrote exactly the same content on the manuscript paper and brought it to my house. He really seemed to think it was written by himself.” The young man's expression twitched, and he muttered something, but I couldn't hear it clearly. "What surprised me the most was that he didn't take the manuscript with him. In other words, in just one night, he memorized all the text on hundreds of manuscript papers. Of course, some subtle descriptions are somewhat different. Even so, still Very powerful, I think it is an amazing talent. If you use it well, you may be able to do something special, but it is too late to say these now." "Then... you, you..." "I came here because I felt that he couldn't be allowed to continue delusional. I'm afraid that if this continues, if he goes to the publishing house to talk nonsense, it will cause some rumors that are not good for me." Facing the dumb young man, I sighed and said: "It's better that you don't know about this kind of thing..." The young man and I walked in the darkening alley, and went to the cemetery to pay our respects in a harmonious atmosphere.Since I didn't know where S was buried, the young man showed me the way.It was a quiet cemetery surrounded by the sounds of grasshoppers and the heat of the grass.On the deserted path, the surface of the granite stele, which was only cleaned during the Zhongyuan period, reflected the setting sun and was very dazzling. In front of the tomb engraved with S's surname, we put our hands together side by side. "That's right, brother, brother's handkerchief, do you want to return it to him now? Just, give it to him in front of the grave." The young man stretched out his hand to block the west-slanting sun, and proposed happily, shyly.Although I have only known each other for a day, I think his face in the sunset is the most charming at that time. "Oh that's fine." I also smiled, and took out a handkerchief from my pocket with my right hand.Accidentally, the folding knife in his pocket fell to the ground.I didn't explain much, just bent down and picked it up slowly.When I raised my head slightly, the young man stared at me with his naturally squinted eyes, and suddenly changed his color as if he noticed something. His eyes were so wide that one might think that his eyeballs suddenly swelled.As soon as I stood up, I grabbed the sharp blade and stabbed the young man's chest violently.The young man made a strange sound of swooshing, and as soon as I turned the handle of the knife, the bubbling noise was mixed in again.With the knife as the center, bloodstains resembling Hokkaido appeared on the chest of the young man's shirt. Under my gaze, the land at the southern end continued to extend southward, southward and southward.Then, as if trying to cover the long Cape Erimo, the young man threw himself forward.He writhed beside the tombstone like an earthworm, his body stretched and contracted, and then his struggle became weaker and weaker, and soon he was completely still in the silent incontinence.I knelt down and pulled out the knife from his chest, only to see that his eyes were cloudy as if covered with a film.The moment life disappears, pupils will change first.When the body is still warm, the window of the soul will become like this, without exception. Unknowingly, even the call of the grasshopper disappeared.A crow was parked on the tombstone, looking fixedly at this place, and turned to look away as soon as it met my eyes.By the way, when I stabbed office workers and college students to death, there seemed to be crows around, maybe it was the same one... I always feel that the eyes are very familiar.However, do birds have so-called eyes?Although there is a saying of "looking at things with the eyes of a bird" (Yu Gao sees far and wide, sees the whole situation), but does the bird's pupil have an expression? In any case, the situation got quite twists and turns, and even the subjects were changed unexpectedly.However, in short, the extermination plan was completed. After carefully wiping the knife with a handkerchief, I put it in my pocket and thought, maybe I should thank this young man.Thanks to him for telling me that outsiders can crawl into the house from the floor so easily. I used to spend a lot of time lifting up the tatami mats in the Japanese room and sawing the cute insurance salesman who was buried under the floor. The first person I killed must be dug out sooner. Just deal with it. I leave the young man's body behind and return to S's apartment.After tidying up the photocopied manuscript papers and wiping the doorknob and door seal with the clean part of the handkerchief, he returned to his residence.