Chapter 38: Tian Gang often surprises people
【
Lilith floats in the sky.
Drugs are the soil of paradise, alcohol is the river of paradise, everyone is a weird animal, and Lilith feels like a little bird.
She jumps on branches and glides in the sky.
But, occasionally she would have a dream.
I dreamed of blood, chaos, violence, pain, broken limbs, and people with crazy and foolish smiles.
Her sister would find out in time that she was dreaming and prepare some white painkillers for her, so she would wake up from her dream quickly.
"There's really nothing I can do. I can't keep dreaming." The lovely sister looked at her and kissed her forehead. "Use my portion of medicine? I can't dream at all, so it's all a waste."
The twin sisters secretly distributed the remaining drugs. The older sister, who had a particularly good drug resistance, needed more and more. In the end, the younger sister stopped taking the medicine.
Lilith didn't tell her sister that the effect of the drugs was wearing off, and she always felt pain in happy occasions in the beautiful world.
The younger sister did not tell Lilith that without the drugs, she faced madness and pain day and night, but her sister's relaxed smile made her find happiness in the pain.
"I love you, do you hear me?" the sisters whispered softly.
"I love you, can you feel it?" Parents are trying their best to teach.
Whenever love overflows, the pain becomes more intense.
Whenever she feels pain, it means she is loved.
The girl's purity faded, and black flowers overflowed from her beautiful branches, blooming in the pain day after day.
We love each other so much, yet we are in so much pain.
We are in pain, yet we love each other so much.
…
My sister is wasting away from the long withdrawal period.
But the mother and father did not know the reason, and the carnival in paradise continued.
On the day of her sister's tragic death, Lilith held her sister's body with a pale face. In the silent silence, she heard the sound of the world shattering.
That cold body that was exactly the same as hers, that face that was exactly the same as hers, those eyes that were exactly the same as hers. She could no longer feel love from half of his body, but she felt intense pain.
The pain almost swallowed her up, and she instinctively began to look for the feeling of being loved, but no, no, the person who loved her was dead, and there was nothing there.
It was as if something broke, and the pain almost destroyed her consciousness, but in the next moment, a warm current surged in her heart. Looking at her cold sister, she couldn't help showing a happy expression.
It was so painful, half of my body was dead.
I am so happy, I am in love and I am loved.
We will move towards happiness, we will sink into love, and we will fall in love with the world together.
In uncontrollable excitement and madness, in the horrible pain that almost split her in two, Lilith kissed her sister's cheek, then leaned over and bit her neck.
——Guided by supreme joy, she swallowed the still warm happiness in big gulps.
…
Love and Pain, Part 3
】
**
"Rintaro, there's a person floating over there."
The little blonde girl couldn't stand being pestered to change her skirt any more, so she dodged everywhere. Seeing that she was about to be pestered by the hateful uncle again, Alice thought quickly and pointed at Tsurumikawa next to her.
It was dusk at this moment. The blood-red sunset was gradually sinking, and the river water was gradually dyed blood red. The dark human-shaped object was floating face down in the blood-red.
In fact, it’s actually quite scary.
"Did he drown?" Mori Ogai's attention was diverted, and he reached out and touched his chin.
"If the shoes are still there, then he must have drowned, right?"
——Suicide victims usually leave their shoes behind before entering the water.
“Is he dead? Wow.” Alice stood on tiptoe and looked over. “Rintaro, I’ll go check it out!”
As a humanoid with special abilities, although she often acts in a human entity, she is not human. After making sure that there was no one around, Alice walked on the water to the humanoid object, looked around curiously, then squatted down and wanted to poke the person's neck.
The moment her fingertips touched the boy, Alice suddenly disappeared like a bubble bursting.
There was only a breeze blowing, as if nothing happened.
Mori Ogai's gentle expression froze on his face, and his expression suddenly became serious.
etc--
Alice - my Alice -
Damn it! Alice was eaten by a piece of unidentified floating garbage!
**
Dazai Osamu felt like he was dreaming.
He often has dreams that are extremely strange and wonderful. In order to pursue more dreams, he experienced a near-death dream by committing suicide. This kind of revolving dream is usually extremely real, but he does not feel any pain.
He liked this kind of dream, as if he had found a brief resting place in it, without having to turn his back on the whole world and run away desperately.
Today’s dream was still about being at the shrine.
Dazai Osamu stood outside the shrine room and saw the bustling crowd inside the window. Almost in an instant, he realized what the scene was.
This was the scene when Qian Jianmu celebrated his birthday not long ago.
What a vicious nightmare!
Although he thought so, he stood at the window without moving.
He saw himself secretly drinking again, and he and Zhongyuan Zhongya were swearing at each other on the phone. He always uses his drunkenness to cause trouble for others. In fact, no one cares about this kind of thing, but he just enjoys doing it. The white-haired boy, who had grown a little taller, sat next to the respectable detective and looked at him helplessly. The detective was leaning lazily on the white-haired boy, instructing Nakai to get him a new soda. Nakai was chatting with Yosano about medical topics. When he heard the voices, he prepared food in a good-tempered manner and poured wine for the calico cat who came over to drink with the team. The calico cat licked the sake and reluctantly ate the dried fish the president fed him.
He stood outside the window, as if separated by a vast expanse of dark and turbid space.
A person's life is full of gains and losses.
So so-called happiness is malice itself.
Is he really ready to lose what he has?
If I leave on my own initiative, can I avoid the sudden onset of intense sadness?
Dazai Osamu stared in silence, his expression almost empty and his eyes as dark and silent as death. He was so quiet, so quiet that he seemed to no longer exist. A premature phantom pain spread to his limbs, and he almost decided to escape from it all in his dreams.
However, at this moment, Nakai inexplicably appeared beside him in the room.
Nakai seemed to be thinking about something, and when he saw him, he seemed to come back to his senses a little. He was holding a stack of manuscripts in his hands, and it was obvious that he was in creative thinking.
Dazai Osamu felt a chill on his back.
Hideo Nakai is always gentle, steady, even a little dull, but once he is in the half hour before and after writing an article, he will turn into a guy with a natural black color that almost oozes ink.
It's super dark, super evil, the words are super hurtful, and very scary.
etc--
Dazai Osamu shuddered and suddenly remembered when this scene happened.
A look of fear appeared on the boy's face. He took two steps back and watched as Nakai ignored the distance and walked towards him in two steps. He was completely unable to escape. The black-haired boy glanced at him and moved his lips seriously but casually.
Escape... I won't be that unlucky if I can't escape, right? Haha... ?
"Dazai, it's so strange. You always say you want to die. When will you really die?" [Note 1]
Ahhhhh I said it out! He said it! Very hurtful words! He said it! ! !
I'm sorry I'm still alive. I'm going to take poison, tie a rock to my neck and jump off the Tsurumi River.
A familiar, strange feeling of shame came over Dazai Osamu, making his scalp tingle. He almost woke up, but just before he woke up, he heard his own shocked and painful reply.
"Don't rush me! How can a person die so easily!!!"
**
Dazai Osamu opened his eyes woodenly, without a trace of light in them.
What a terrible dream.
Ah, where is this?
This is a small, somewhat dim and shabby building, with the smell of disinfectant floating in the air. He lay on the bed covered with a plastic mattress, his clothes still wet.
It seems that he was rescued. Fortunately, he didn't want to die in such a strange dream.
Because of the overly powerful stimulation in the dream, Dazai Osamu was as lifeless as a corpse and didn't even have the strength to move a finger. Her eyes turned dark, and the thought of him going back to the shrine made her want to die reach its peak.
He looked inside the room and found that it was on the second floor and there was a window opposite.
Mr. Maku, I, Dazai Osamu, am no longer a human being! !
He suddenly stood up and rushed to the window. What is this, a window! Hold on, open your arms, take a leap of faith, embrace the earth -
Then, someone grabbed him by the scruff of the neck.
The doctor with medium-long hair who had run in from the door at some point looked at him helplessly, his purple-red eyes glowing with a strange luster like strange crystals.
"Although this is a black medical clinic, someone committing suicide will still affect business."
"I clearly didn't ask you to save me." Dazai Osamu looked at him blankly. His suicide attempt failed again, and he had completely fallen into a state of having no desires or demands. Seeing that the man in front of him didn't look like a good person, he started spraying black mud.
"If suicide affects business, then homicide won't, right? Ah, I forgot, doctors seem to be the type to save the dying and the wounded? Wow, they are so selfish, they just let the people who deserve to die die, and even if they are saved, they are just garbage and waste."
The black doctor just smiled and led him to the chair, then bent down slightly.
"If you want to die, I have a poison that can make people die painlessly. Before we talk about this, how about telling me your name?"
"Dazai, Dazai Osamu."
Dazai fell silent. He sat in the shadows. Once he was quiet, he looked as scary as a ghost doll. His iris-colored eyes, which had turned bloodshot, stared straight into the doctor's eyes.
"My name is Mori Ogai, and I'm a black doctor." The doctor gave a gentle but definitely insecure smile.
Mori Ogai.
"Don't be so conceited. I don't even want to know the name of a sloppy old man."
"Ah, that's really sad! Oh, there's something I want to tell you about."
Half of the doctor's face was hidden in the shadows, and the smile on the unshaven-looking man's face suddenly became strange and unpredictable.
"Tell me about your special ability."
**
In fact, almost no one knows that Dazai Osamu is an anti-supernatural person.
Natsume Suiseki did not tell Mori Ogai, and it was even less likely that Fukuzawa Yukichi would tell him. He was busy working as a private doctor for the entire year and had no time to grasp the intelligence on Yokohama to such a detailed level.
As early as a year ago, in order to find a new home, Dazai and Endo teamed up to clean up Dazai Osamu's information, portraying him as a child who had just arrived in Yokohama, and erased all traces of the shrine.
So Mori Ogai just thought that this was a wandering child who ran away from home. Even if he went to investigate, he would only believe the truth that he approved of.
The iris-colored and purple-red eyes looked at each other quietly. Regardless of Mori Ogai's psychological reaction, Dazai Osamu actually wanted to laugh.
If there was no one around, he would probably burst out laughing.
Ah, he had remembered it a long time ago.
It’s that Mori Ogai.
When he first arrived at the shrine, Senmaku had talked about Mori Ogai. He remembered that the trigger was the Angel of Death joining the Armed Detective Agency. At that time, Senmaku's attitude towards this person was a rare respectful yet keeping his distance.
“People with ideals and ambitions are respectable, but people who do whatever it takes to achieve their ideals and ambitions are terrible.”
He remembered what Qian Jianmu said at that time:
"Once he finds this kind of person, no matter who they are or what their identity is, if they don't have enough strength, they will be used as pawns. In his eyes, there is no emotional factor, only interests. If you want to contact him, you must be strong enough to be treated seriously by him."
If he really had no one to rely on, he might feel that it was okay to be used.
In fact, this is normal, isn't this the kind of relationship he's looking for? Unfortunately, I ran into that freak Qian Jianmu.
So, isn’t this the next home he has always dreamed of?
“Maybe it’s some kind of ability that shouldn’t exist in this world.” He then said.
"Well, it would be boring if you always talk about nothingness." The doctor laughed suddenly, and the coldness and sharpness disappeared without a trace in an instant, as if he was just asking casually, and even his purple-red eyes were bright and moist, giving the illusion of gentleness and nobility.
The bell on the door downstairs suddenly rang slightly. Mori Ogai paused and put aside the stack of clean clothes he had brought in earlier.
"There's nothing we can do. Adults always have to work. Change your clothes first."
The new patient brought a new smell of blood. The doctor walked down the stairs. Dazai Osamu sat in the shadows, watching his departing back.
His eyes fell on the dry clothes and he stared at them for a long time. After a long time, he let out a short laugh.
"ha!"
He lowered his head and covered his face with his palms, his arms shaking as he tried hard to suppress a smile. Finally, he couldn't control himself and laughed out loud.
"Hahaha!! This kind of thing!"
He almost laughed to tears, not even caring whether the people downstairs could hear him or not. He just thought it was funny, very funny.
What a coincidence, thoughts, behaviors, coincidence.
How could it be such a coincidence? I just casually entered the water, even in a section where there were not many people around, but I was picked up by the right person.
It was as if, as if it was the guidance of fate, as if this was the inevitable path in his life.
…Is there really such a rotten thing as fate in this world?
Now, Mr. Mori, let's play a game.
Please show me your life and ideals.
Can I find a place of nothingness in you?
…
"——Hey, could you please keep your voice down?"
It was a girl's voice.
Dazai Osamu slowly raised his head and saw a little blonde girl standing far away from him, behind the stairs, looking at him unkindly.
"Rintaro is working! You're scaring away all the customers! You rude bastard!"
…
A man's voice came from downstairs.
"Alice~ Don't use such vulgar language, please be gentle~"
That's not right...
So...is Mori Ogai a pervert who likes children?
Sure enough, it’s really rotten! This world is rotten!
It’s better to find a building to jump from first!
**
"Dazai hasn't been home for a week."
After not seeing anyone hanging on the tree for a few days, Nakai realized this belatedly. He found Qian Jianmu with some confusion and whispered in confusion.
"I just checked and didn't find the body. Could it have floated away?"
Ah… has it reached the stage of looking for the body?
How much are you looking forward to Dazai Osamu's death?
With a fan like you who loves Dazai's career, Dazai would definitely feel warm over his corpse if he were still alive.
"What about the tree?" Endo Shusaku, who happened to be at the shrine today, asked seriously.
“Neither do I.”
“…So it really floated away, right?”
"Then I will contact people to retrieve the body downstream—" Nakai stood up with a serious expression.
You two shouldn't be so happy-go-lucky!
"How about...how about asking Dazai himself first?" Qianjianmu stopped him and sent an email to Dazai with his mobile phone.
[to Dazai Osamu: Are you still alive? 】
Dazai Osamu replied immediately:
[from Dazai Osamu: He is dead. 】
Qian Jianmu raised his head and said sadly:
"Go retrieve the body."
Hey—he’s replied!
So you two have never contacted him, so you concluded that he is dead?
This is bullying! What a satisfying bullying!
But jokes aside, since this person is still alive, it doesn’t matter what he does. The children of the shrine never have mercy on each other and never interfere with each other's thoughts and lives. It may sound cold-blooded, but no one has the obligation or qualifications to save others.
After a quick investigation, I found that the person was on Leibo Street, so everything was fine.
Qian Jianmu is busy organizing the manuscript of "Pain and Love". Before that, the collection of novels "Two-thirds of Seven People" was published.
This book collects thirteen excellent mystery works, plus a total of twenty-six extra chapters. "Contemporary" lasted for a whole year before the project was declared over. After several months of proofreading and typesetting, the release date was finally set recently.
The entire mystery novel brings together thirteen different genres of mystery novels. It is really surprising to collect so many different types. Each one of them is excellent and can surpass the works in the Japanese literary world. Among them, the most eye-catching is the orthodox reasoning belonging to Edogawa Ranpo. Just reading it through will make you marvel at his outstanding talent. Sengenmaku even placed this chapter as the first release at the very beginning of the entire collection of novels, but Edogawa Ranpo himself didn't care much about it.
"It's an interesting plan, but let's forget about it next time. I don't want to write it anymore."
He said this while biting a lollipop.
However, he seemed very calm, but the corners of his mouth were secretly raised in complacency.
Sengenmaku opened the sample of the collection of novels sent to him in advance. In addition to the preface, there was also a poem from Nakahara Chuuya before the main text.
Printed before the main text of the novel and after the preface, it serves as the title of the entire book:
「
Here, in the dark night
Tourists have not returned
Caught in the crowd
Wash away the melancholy and sadness in the crowd
How can we get closer to each other?
The crying of infants, sinking into the grave with the setting sun
Missing you is useless, only the night fog hangs high
…
You will eventually set off, at the end of the clock in the opposite direction
Take my life as a lamp
Wandering in the confusion of nothingness and bitter boredom
No way back, but a different road
The Returning Guest by Nakahara Chuuya
"
"What a great poem." The editor said: "Putting this poem at the beginning makes it feel right."
After a few years, the people around me seem to have grown tremendously. Chuuya's poems can already be published as individual pieces, Nakai's "Elegy of a Sleeper" is almost finished, Endo's "Deep River" has already begun, and even Dazai Osamu has started writing.
But the name is quite strange, it is called "Infernal Affairs". He wrote it in secret and no one knows how much he wrote.
Although they are still unsure what the act of writing a book will bring to them, according to Nakai, when the article is published, a feeling of clarity surges inside the body, a bit like an evolution and addition. If accumulated to a certain level, it might really achieve the effect of strengthening supernatural powers to some extent.
Sengenmaku himself does not have any special abilities, and what he has written so far is not enough to become a special ability, so he cannot have this feeling. But he mentioned this to Ranpo when they were talking, and judging from his intuition, writing a book would definitely be beneficial.
It is very likely that the level of rationality can be increased. If the supernatural power is special enough, it may be able to enhance the control over the supernatural power. For example, Dazai Osamu's passive ability is invalidated. If his ability can evolve in this direction, it is very likely to become an active skill.
This may seem useless, but for some people, it can solve most of the troubles in life and even save a life.
Maybe someone will suddenly succeed one day?
With a sneer in his heart, Chigenmaku turned to the next page. The first article was the one he had deliberately placed at the front, "Lemmings" by Edogawa Ranpo.
【
Have you ever heard of lemmings?
It was a small, gray creature with amazing reproductive ability.
Every few years, tens of thousands of lemmings gather together due to food shortages or survival pressure. These poor little animals continued to move forward, eating all the grass roots and tree barks they passed by until they reached the edge of the sea.
So, he jumped down calmly and decisively.
Have you ever seen tens of thousands of lemmings jumping into the sea together? The hope of living is gone, and only the determination to die remains. The scene of so many living individuals voluntarily disappearing in droves is so terrifying that it makes one's scalp tingle and one's teeth chatter.
Ever since I witnessed a lemming committing suicide many years ago, this cute little guy has become the most terrifying creature in my mind. In dreams that lasted for years, I always saw countless lives being squeezed into death. Over time, I actually began to fall in love with this creature. Every few years, I would try to find the lemmings that were dying. When the gray souls returned to the sea, I would feel a secret joy and pleasure in my heart that was difficult to suppress.
It wasn’t until later that I realized what it was that made me come back to it again and again, and even become addicted to it.
That is the temptation of death.
I realized that death temptation is essentially a particularly powerful sexual suggestion. A request for love suicide from a dead person is the most sincere flirtation and temptation. If a person is bewitched by death, he will never be able to get rid of the erosion of the dense, silent but extremely deadly pleasure for the rest of his life.
As a genuine detective who has obtained the "Detective Business License" issued by the state, since retiring from the army, I have been prepared to spend my life rushing to cases of all sizes. But unfortunately, most crimes don't result in detectives being called in. Not everyone wants the truth, and not everyone expects the truth.
In order to find more interesting cases, I changed my name to a mystery writer and solicited cases with high royalties. What's interesting is that even though I was soliciting stories, I was often able to find mysterious cases full of mysteries.
The case I am about to tell is the most horrific case I have encountered during my time as a novelist.
It was an evening and I was invited to Mitsui's house.
…
Mrs. Mitsui is really the most down-to-earth Japanese woman. Compared with the ladies from big cities that I have met, Mrs. Mitsui is a little too plump. She was very short, and her breasts were wrapped in her kimono, slightly pushing out the collar, and her belly was round and almost as big as her breasts. As she moved about, her thick legs stretched the fabric across her legs like a log being lifted. And her footsteps on the wooden floor made heavy and strange sounds following her every move.
She looked at me with a flattering smile, a few fine lines on her face, and took me to the living room with excessive enthusiasm. She patted her chest and said firmly:
"You have never heard such a story! You must listen carefully, because I have witnessed these cases with my own eyes."
What story have I not heard? And I didn't come here for the story, I've heard too many similar openings like hers. She spent a lot of time talking about the horror of the case, but I knew as soon as I heard it that it was fabricated for the one million yen fee.
By the time she got to this point, I had pretty much concluded that there was nothing to be gained, but as a polite gentleman, how could I interrupt her? I could only listen with interest.
She brought me hot tea. Because she was too excited, the foam from her mouth splashed into the teacup. She seemed to notice this and a look of shame quickly flashed across her face. She quickly prepared new tea for me. But the room was too small. When she turned around, her overly impressive buttocks brushed against my arm. The real touch was so irresistible that my scalp numbed.
There were many other incidents like this, and because of my first impression, even if I changed the tea, I had no appetite to drink it.
…
This was truly a torturous experience, as the words from the little lady's mouth poured out like a river. I felt as if I was nailed to a chair and forced to be indoctrinated by those fantastic words. For my own good, I began to look at this family.
Mr. Mitsui handed me a cigarette midway through the meal, but otherwise said nothing, his silence as cold and hard as a stone. The daughter of this family, Masako, seemed to be in a cold war with her boyfriend. She never went out and her heart-wrenching cry could be vaguely heard upstairs. The son of this family is a very handsome and fair young man. He smiled at me shyly and was wearing a tight shirt that was not Japanese style, which outlined his tight body. The only old man was preparing tempura in the kitchen, and the ingredients for oden were cooked in the black pot with the reused soup.
Mrs. Mitsui was still chattering, she said a girl committed suicide. She talked about the background of the suicide, the reasons for the suicide, the outcome of the suicide, and the follow-up of the incident, but I couldn't hear any of the specific circumstances of the woman's death.
So I asked her:
"How did he die? Was it a hemp rope or a plastic rope? Was there anything special? What was the expression of death like?"
Mrs. Mitsui's face turned ugly, her cloudy eyes trembled, and she suddenly became furious and shouted:
"What else can I do? That's it!"
So she started repeating those unimportant things over and over again, and she said them with relish, but whenever I asked about the condition of the bodies, Mrs. Mitsui would immediately change the subject. In my opinion, she had never seen these cases and just made them up.
To be honest, at this moment I don't want to stay at all. It's getting dark and the latest train has already left. I'm afraid I have to stay in this house.
What else can I do? I can only listen to it.
…
The old woman of the Mitsui family spent several hours alone before finally preparing a sumptuous Japanese meal.
For me, this dinner was a bit too rich.
Grilled unknown fish, miso soup made from fish offal, food cooked in the black family-inherited soup, and a plate of ugly and limp oden wrapped in batter.
We sat on both sides of the dining table for a while, but our daughter didn't come down. Mrs. Mitsui cursed something and told us to eat first, then she quickly got up to check on her daughter.
But about five minutes passed? In short, it was a short period of time, and I heard Mrs. Mitsui's sharp scream upstairs.
"ah--!!!"
"What's wrong? What happened?"
I saw Mrs. Mitsui trembling, and there was strangely no sadness on her face. She was looking quietly at the scene in the room, and her whole body was as pale as a stone statue. I leaned over to take a look, and only then did I see this chilling scene that seemed like fate.
The girl was hanging on a cloth strip on the beam, her slender neck was almost broken, her thin body was swaying slightly in the breeze, she was wearing shoes, and the stool under her feet was strangely tilted to one side. The girl's face was pale and hideous, her eye sockets still showing redness and swelling from crying, but her entire face was so bruised that you couldn't tell.
Mrs. Mitsui looked at me and asked me:
"Is it suicide? Is this suicide?"
I feel a little regretful because in my opinion, whether it is the marks on the neck or the direction of the stool under his feet, this is homicide, not suicide.
After hearing my explanation, Mrs. Mitsui showed an angry look on her face. She tried to say something tremblingly, but in the end she could only shout repeatedly:
"What else can I do? What else can I do?!"
Well, maybe it would be better to let her calm down a bit?
…
Now think about it, when the accident happened, was the lady trying to prove her story, or was she simply heartbroken about her relatives killing each other?
All my attention was absorbed by the case at the time, and after I determined that she was not the murderer, I no longer paid any attention to her. Therefore, such doubts can only be recalled repeatedly when reviewing the situation in the future.
…
"It must have been suicide, how could it be homicide? For Masako, it's normal for her to die. She had wanted to die for a long time." This is what the Mitsui family said during the investigation.
But if she really had the intention to commit suicide, why was it necessary to kill her? All he had to do was wait for her to end her life on her own, and she chose this most inappropriate day. Even if he ignored it, he couldn't erase the obvious sense of incongruity.
How can I judge who killed her? This family’s attitude makes me a little confused. Maybe I really made a wrong judgment? Did Masako just commit suicide?
Mrs. Mitsui kept muttering:
"It must be suicide. It's exactly the same as what I've seen."
But when I asked her when she had seen the last suicide victim, she suddenly became vague again. Finally, perhaps because she could not hide it no matter what, I finally learned the name of the dead girl. It turned out that the dead girl was Mr. Mitsui's sister, and she died in the year that Mrs. Mitsui married her.
"So, my case must be true, right?"
She always disturbs me and makes me distracted. I just respond casually without paying much attention to what she says. At that moment, I just felt that she was a little confused due to the stimulation, but if she had been calmer, perhaps I would have discovered the mystery earlier.
But even if I realized it, I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to do anything to undo it.
Because just ten minutes later, the old man in the Mitsui family suddenly showed symptoms of neurotoxin poisoning. She had cramps and diarrhea, and her old kimono was stained with filth and gradually gave off a foul odor. She tried to say something, but quickly lost consciousness, and died in agony in just half an hour.
In the corner of the kitchen, I found a disassembled pufferfish and a now empty cup that had once collected some kind of blood.
A cold premonition forced me to slowly look at the dinner on the table where I had not touched a single bite.
The dinner was cold. Only Mrs. Mitsui and I hadn't touched our dinner. Everyone else had already finished their dinner.
As I was staring, a horrible and bizarre guess suddenly filled my mind. I felt a chill and was shivering with fear.
I finally realized that when Mrs. Mitsui and I discovered Masako's body, no one else reacted. They did not go upstairs to see, but instead ate their sumptuous dinner in the midst of Mrs. Mitsui's screams, oblivious to the people around them.
It was actually just me and Mrs. Mitsui, so it was relatively safe.
…
"How could this happen?"
Standing in a pool of blood, Mrs. Mitsui asked me this.
What should I say?
How can I summarize this case?
The mass poisoning incident did not happen. The poisoner only killed himself and the victim, but the victim had a premonition of death and in the depressing atmosphere of panic and approaching death, he killed another person. This is a carnival before death, life is like dominoes, falling down with a click.
Everyone is a victim, and everyone becomes a perpetrator.
People squeezed forward like lemmings in a hurry to die.
The short woman did not collect the remains of her family members. She blinked nervously, but there were no tears in her eyes. She murmured, but the words meant nothing. She was devastated, and she looked at me with a miserable smile.
She suddenly asked:
"Sir, do you like the story I told you?"
I looked at her, and for some reason, I was speechless.
So we all stopped talking.
…
I eventually saw the body of a hanged man.
Mrs. Mitsui continued to chatter even after her death. I seemed to hear her asking me:
"This is suicide, right? This is suicide, right?"
Yes, I confirmed silently.
This is what it looks like to die by hanging. It's such a pity. If Mrs. Mitsui had told me the case after this incident, she would have been able to describe the deceased's condition very vividly.
Thinking of this, I began to feel really sorry for her.
…
But what's the use? There's no one here after all.
****
As a detective, Matsui Sōto always gets bored, he wants more puzzles, he wants more excitement. The boredom of life made him drowsy, so he simply transformed himself into a mystery novel writer, looking for exciting suspense stories everywhere.
But in fact he is an experienced and picky person.
It is rumored in the industry that the famous detective Matsui Seito is a weirdo who always spends huge amounts of money looking for cases and stories, but when he really finds them, he becomes very fussy about them.
This year was a boring year, but Matsui Masato had to admit that this was the most exciting story he had heard this year. He raised his eyebrows slightly and signed a large check that represented his satisfaction.
But when he handed it to the man opposite, he suddenly asked on impulse:
"What does a suicidal person look like?"
**
I looked at the detective in front of me, his clothes on his back soaked with sweat, sticking to his body. Unable to suppress the increasingly rapid beating of his heart, he could only pretend to remain calm with the corners of his mouth twitching.
"Of course...Of course..."
Suddenly, the words came to my mind:
“What can I do? That’s it!”
What does a suicidal person look like! Isn't that what it is? How else can I describe it? !
I fell silent, racking my brains to think of new ideas, but nothing came out of my mouth.
I know exactly what I did, just as I know exactly what Mrs. Mitsui did. We can clearly describe the ins and outs of a suicide case, but we cannot describe what a suicide person should look like.
Just then, I saw the detective suddenly laugh.
Like a cat catching a mouse, he slowly spoke:
"Is that so? You can't tell? Oh, by the way, you're wrong about one thing. Lemmings don't commit suicide."
I vaguely heard the sharp sound of sirens. The calm and steady detective pursed his lips and said:
"It was because of the pressure of survival that I took the wrong road and fell into the water."
…
The hypnotic spray was inhaled into my body, and on the verge of coma and sleep, I heard the voice of Matsui Shengren.
"You are the 23rd criminal to fall into our trap this year. Since your case is more interesting, how about calling you Lemming 23?"
…
Ahhh, so...
turn out to be,
I am the lemming.
…
…
——Excerpt from “Lemmings” by Edogawa Ranpo.
】
Lemmings, the herd followers, the ones who move forward blindly, take a dead end in order to survive.
A wonderful reversal, who could have guessed that 'I' was the seventh person?
'I'm a detective and a murderer.
Just like Mrs. Mitsui, who killed her daughter for an expensive large check, just like she killed her husband's sister.
She is the murderer and also the victim.
No one is innocent, no one is blameless.
Read the entire article. Sengenmaku believed from the bottom of his heart that Edogawa Ranpo was a genius in reasoning.
However, at this moment, the phone buzzed. Chijianmu looked away and looked down. The caller's name was Edogawa Ranpo.
"Hey, hey, hey, Mu-kun, something terrible has happened!"
Ranpo seemed to be eating snacks, chewing very seriously. Although he was talking about terrible things, he was not in a hurry at all, and one could even hear that he was looking forward to the show.
"It seems that the writer named Ayatsuji Yukito is going to look for you."
“…Huh?”
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