Chapter 226: Neon Country: Evil God

In Aomori Prefecture of Japan, there is a small town nestled in the mountains and by the sea. The population living here is no more than tens of thousands. In this era when the population is constantly moving to the city, this town still has residents living here, relying entirely on the beautiful scenery here. Every year, countless tourists come here to travel, and the tourism industry is the largest economic pillar here.

In spring, there are cauliflower fields here, in summer, there are beaches here, and in autumn, you can see red maple leaves on the mountains. Only in winter, there are few tourists here, and the town seems a little quieter.

Especially right after the New Year, the town is filled with a peaceful atmosphere. The residents, who have been busy for half a year, are too lazy to go out and prefer to stay in the warm stove, eating oranges while watching TV or reading magazines.

Of course, not all families are so lazy, at least the Sato family, who have just moved to this town less than a year ago, are not like that.

"It's spring break, can't I stay at home comfortably for a while longer at this time?" Mr. Sato complained in a low voice while putting on his shoes.

"But the debt won't disappear just because of this. Really, who on earth would have the urge to move here from Tokyo?" Mrs. Sato put her hands on her waist. "I've already asked Mr. Tanaka from the fishing boat at the dock. He said that if you are willing to help today, we can share some of the catch. Even if we can't sell the fish we catch, eating them ourselves can save a lot of living expenses."

"I don't want to owe money because of business failure." Mr. Sato said with a bitter face, "It's all because of Weird. If Weird hadn't appeared in the building of my new company, there wouldn't be any reason for..."

"I'm not complaining about you. There's nothing we can do about this disaster. I just want to say that we have no time to rest." Mrs. Sato also changed into her clothes for going out. "I'm going to help out at the izakaya too."

Looking at the bruises on his wife's originally fair fingers, Mr. Sato rubbed his cheeks and said with a lack of confidence: "Well, I know, I will do it well."

"Kenichi!" Mrs. Sato called into the house, "My father and I will be back very late today. There are bento boxes in the refrigerator. Remember to eat them."

From the room inside came the young man's muffled reply.

Mrs. Sato looked at her watch and said, "Oh no, we're going to be late." She pushed her husband out of the room and slammed the door.

The room fell silent.

After a while, the innermost door quietly opened a crack, and a boy about eight years old poked his head out. He looked around and made sure that his parents had really left. Then he ran out of the room and came to the refrigerator in the kitchen. After searching for a long time, he took out something wrapped in plastic film and put it in his pocket.

The boy shivered subconsciously at the cold touch, and he ran to the door, put on his coat, and left the house.

At the door of the next-door neighbor, a middle-aged woman in her fifties was holding a broom and chatting with a young woman.

Apparently, I was only halfway through sweeping the snow when I ran into a neighbor who loved gossiping and we started chatting.

"My son in Osaka recently changed his job. I don't know what he does, but I heard it's related to butterflies. He sent me a lot of money." The middle-aged woman was complaining, but there was a hint of pride in her tone. "I'm not short of money. This year, my house has received so many tourists, and I've made a lot of money in rent. Why do I need him to send me money?"

"Something about butterflies? Oh, could it be the Hundred Butterflies Society?"

"What? What Hundred Butterfly Society?"

"It's a private organization that specializes in dealing with weird people." The young woman obviously knew more. "The Hundred Butterflies Society has been recognized as a legal religious gathering, and now has many believers. It is said that there are even Yin-Yang masters who once studied in China who have joined it."

"Is it to deal with weirdos? Oh, this... is such a dangerous thing..." The pride in the middle-aged woman's tone disappeared, and she was full of worry. "No, I have to call and ask. She was doing well in her previous job, why did she end up in the Baidie Club..."

After saying that, she turned around and saw Sato Kenichi coming out of the door. The middle-aged woman greeted him with a smile: "Good morning, Kenichi, are you going out to play today too?"

The boy was a bit introverted. He just whispered "good morning" to the middle-aged woman, then hurriedly ran towards the back of the mountain, covering his pocket.

"This kid." The middle-aged woman turned to the young woman and muttered, "In the past month, he has been secretly running to the mountains to play every time he has a holiday. He has become wild."

After saying this, he remembered that he had a phone call with his son and said goodbye in a hurry.

Kenichi Sato did not hear the mutterings of the middle-aged woman and the young woman. He ran as fast as his short legs could and soon was out of the town and out of the mountains. He walked along the winding and worn-out mountain road and came to a torii that had been abandoned for who knows how many years. Behind the torii was a small shrine.

In Japan, there are countless such abandoned and dilapidated torii and shrines, all of which are abandoned buildings that have been forgotten and no longer worshipped.

Sato Kenichi quietly opened the plastic bag in his arms, placed it on the stone steps of the shrine, and whispered, "Here I am again."

Inside the plastic bag was a small piece of raw meat.

"I brought you some food." Jianyi used his two small hands to grab the edge of the stone, his eyes fixed on the darkness inside the shrine.

A pale hand with three fingers stretched out, grabbed the raw meat, and then there was a light chewing sound.

Jianyi narrowed his eyes and smiled: "I'll bring it to you tomorrow."

Something inside had eaten the meat, and the pale little hand slowly reached out from the darkness again, fumbling in the plastic bag, but didn't find anything else, so it stopped where it was, seeming a little disappointed.

Jianyi looked at the little hand quietly, then he slowly raised his hand and held it.

The skin is delicate, but also cold.

"Are you willing to chat with me today?" Jianyi asked.

From the dark shrine, a voice came: "Yeah."

The voice was very nice, like the voice of a child about the same age as Jianyi.

It was this voice that made Kenichi Sato not be wary even though he saw the other party's strange little hands several times, and he regarded the other party as a harmless existence. No, on the contrary, he regarded the other party as the owner of the shrine, thinking it was a forgotten little god.

There are eight million gods in the Kingdom of Neon. Apart from the well-known ones, there are also many unknown gods as numerous as the stars in the sky.

"Yesterday I had another quarrel with Mitani Yuta in my class." Sato Kenichi lowered his head, "He always called me sissy, like a girl. I am a boy. It's not my fault that I am white and weak. Nitta Hayao and his friends hid my pen. I didn't have a pen during the exam, and the teacher asked me why I came to school without a pen."

The boy's voice was a little tearful: "I didn't forget to bring it. I told the teacher, but she didn't believe me and said I was lying."

"Just because my grades are bad and the student who stole my pen has good grades, does that mean I must be the one who lied? If you have to make such a distinction between good and bad people, why don't you just arrest all those with bad grades? After all, those with bad grades are bad people."

"Mom and Dad are very busy, and I can't bother them with this. My family is in debt, and Mom and Dad are always asking people to work for them to make money. Among the group of guys who bullied me, Somura's mother is the manager of the izakaya where my mother works." The boy sniffed, "I can't fight with them, it will cause trouble for Mom and Dad."

"But I really don't like it here. I'm a transfer student and I can't fit in here." Sato Kenichi squeezed the cold little hand and smiled, "Luckily I met you, at least you are willing to listen to me."

Tears fell on the little hand that Sato was holding.

The cold little hand trembled, and three fingers trembled slightly, rubbing the tears that fell on the hand, seeming a little confused.

"Sorry." The boy wiped his three-fingered hand, "Can you eat something else? You always steal raw meat from the refrigerator, and your mother is about to find out."

Three fingers grasped the boy's index finger, and a tender child's voice echoed in the shrine: "Meat, meat..."

"How about fish?" the boy asked. "I can go to the dock uncle to help and ask him to give me a small fish."

"Meat! Meat!!" the voice shouted anxiously.

"...Okay." Sato Kenichi lowered his head, "Then I'll think of a solution."

"Mitani Yuta! Somura Makoto! Nitta Hayao!" the voice from the shrine said again.

Sato Kenichi frowned. These were the names of his classmates who bullied him.

Why do you suddenly mention their names at this time?

"Pen..." said the voice in the shrine, "Bully, take their pen..."

Sato Kenichi laughed: "Are you asking me to secretly take their pens and bully them back?"

"Um……"

"Okay, I'll try." Sato Kenichi whispered, "It can't get any worse anyway."

"Give it to me." The voice continued to chant.

"You want a pen? I can give you mine." Sato Kenichi tilted his head, "Do gods also need to write?"

"Give it to me," the voice in the shrine insisted.

"Yeah, okay." Sato Kenichi agreed.

After chatting with the "god" in the shrine for a while, Sato Kenichi quietly ran back home. The middle-aged woman next door was talking to her son on the phone. The sound of quarreling could be heard faintly. The boy glanced at it and ignored it, returning to his room to do his homework.

The next day was Monday, and it was time to go to school. As usual, those annoying classmates laughed at Jianyi when they saw him. Someone even whispered that they should take off his pants to see if he was really a boy. Fortunately, they didn't really do it. As soon as it was time for physical education class to go out and play football, they rushed out of the classroom.

Kenichi Sato stood in front of Mitani and the others' desks. After hesitating for a long time, he quietly opened their pencil cases, each of them took out a short pencil that had been used a lot and put it into his or her schoolbag, then left the classroom and joined the group having physical education class.

After the physical education class was over, a group of boys who had been playing crazy calmed down and returned to the classroom. During this time, several children from Mitani were excitedly talking about a football star. They didn't even look at Sato Kenichi, let alone notice that a short and insignificant pencil was missing from their pencil case.

They didn't notice anything until after school, and Kenichi Sato, who was committing a petty theft for the first time, breathed a sigh of relief.

In the evening, I went to the bird house on the back hill on the pretext of going out to buy something, and handed the three pencils I found to the "god" in the shrine.

"If you need stationery, I can give you one," Sato Kenichi added, "a brand new, unused pencil."

There was no sound from the shrine, it made no answer.

Kenichi Sato returned home disappointed.

The next day, on the way to school, Sato Kenichi saw several children from Mitani on the road ahead again. Of course they also saw Sato Kenichi. Mitani Yuta, who was walking in front, turned around and walked backwards, gave Kenichi a thumbs down sign with contempt and a mocking smile.

Sato Kenichi turned his eyes away and pretended not to see it.

Yuta Mitani, who was walking backwards, happened to come to the intersection. Because he was facing away from the road, the naughty boy only saw Kenichi Sato and did not notice where he was walking at all. He did not see the red pedestrian indicator light at the intersection, nor did he see the speeding truck.

With a bang, the speeding truck knocked Mitani Yuta away, not only knocking him several meters away, but also running over him with its heavy wheels.

The blood spread, and the two friends who were traveling with Mitani Yuta were so scared that they were stunned.

"Damn it--" The truck braked and the driver ran down in a panic, "I didn't see him just now, but I saw a flash of white light, and he also ran a red light--"

The driver tried desperately to defend himself.

However, none of the frightened children present paid attention to what he said.