Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Kaoru Unno

1

When we left the bar Salon-sen in Ginza's backstreets, both of us were thoroughly plastered.

As for me, the familiar back alleys bathed in sparse yellow streetlights felt entirely submerged underwater, while Homura—that Homura—had cocked his black soft hat sideways like Sidney the Famous Ape, his cane executing tango steps as he dragged those gangly shanks of his along.

Even I, romanticist that I was, could let it pass—but this Homura character supposedly made his living as a private detective.
From hat crown to shoe sole, he should've been realism incarnate.
Yet tonight he'd shed every last vestige of those traits, his whole body gaping with vulnerabilities.
The thought of ex-cons nursing grudges against him emerging dagger-in-hand tormented me beyond measure.

Then, from behind, I was struck by such an overwhelming surge of anxiety that I nearly wanted to shout a warning at the top of my lungs. I knew full well that this nausea-like anxiety rising within me wasn’t solely due to intoxication. It must be the work of that obsessive-compulsive disorder said to afflict up to ninety-nine percent of modern urban dwellers without their realizing it.

As I staggered to the right following Homura’s tottering steps, he spitefully teetered in the opposite direction to the left.
Given the late hour in the Ginza backstreets, the asphalt road stretched out needlessly wide, the houses on either side sank into silent slumber, and streetlights of varied shapes illuminated the ground below half-dreaming.

For a drunkard, crossroads are an object of utmost nostalgia.
Homura, who had been walking three ken ahead while pressed against the concrete wall as though licking it, spotted the crossroads and joyfully raised both hands, striking a pose like he was slicing through a finish line tape before staggering off.
At that moment, I was watching from behind when I suddenly gasped.

——And there, approaching that crossroads from another alley, came a strange fellow plodding along!

That figure wasn’t truly visible at all.
And yet, despite that, I felt as though I could see the figure of a person walking in an unseen alley.
No—I indeed saw it clearly.
It was something that seemed mysterious yet wasn’t actually mysterious at all.
Those of us who had long dwelled in the city, our nerves honed beyond sensitivity into pathological fragility, had unwittingly acquired a modest degree of clairvoyance without undergoing any special training.
This is always the story I tell when such topics come up, but for now, let me suggest that when you’re in good health, you try quietly gripping your pocket watch in your palm—

Hmm… What time is it right now—

Try thinking that, and before your eyes a white clock face would hazily appear, the angles of its short and long hands becoming vividly clear. Then place it down, open your palm, and look at the actual dial. Exactly! The two matched down to the minute—and even now, you still refuse to believe it?

At the crossroads, Homura and another black shadow had become entangled.

With my heart full of desire to assist him, I kicked against the pavement and broke into a run—though it resembled swimming more than running.

“I-I-I... a-a-am I... a-a-alive?”

The suspicious man standing before Homura was asking fervently.

Homura, still held by the man’s grip on his collar,
“Ugh... ugh...”
could only emit low groans.

“Just… please touch my body.”
“Please touch here.”

The man shouted as if on the verge of tears. And when he released Homura, he ripped open his own white shirt with a rending noise, exposing a corpse-like pallid chest from beneath.
I had scrutinized the man’s appearance for the first time, but he was far younger than I had imagined.
He must have been around twenty-four or five.
But he was extremely emaciated.
His skin held not a single drop of blood; his lower eyelids were swollen and sagging, and his large eyes had lost their luster like dried fish.

“Y-You… s-sure say some amusing things,” Homura slurred, wiping a drool-like substance from around his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Alive? Hah! This right here’s your chest, ain’t it?!”

Bending at the waist, Homura fluttered his fingertips before his own eyes like drunken fireflies.

“Then please hold my hand.”

“Got it.”

Staggering sideways, Homura seized the mysterious youth’s hand.

“Is this hand truly connected to my body?”

“Quit spouting such nonsense! If it weren’t attached, what the hell would you do?!”
“When I speak... are these lips moving?”

“What, your lips… They’re flappin’ open ’n’ shut right here! Think you can pull one over on me?!”

Homura gritted his teeth and roared,

“Damn it!”

Homura struck the youth’s head with a resounding thud.

The youth didn’t so much as flinch.

But he immediately showed a look of terror and started shouting.

“O detestable phantom! Vanish from my sight! Vanish!”

He snapped his eyes wide open and spewed these seemingly meaningless lines, but soon shuddered violently before suddenly turning around and breaking into a run.

“There! Don’t let him get away!”

Homura’s shouting voice had, without warning, shifted back to his usual spine-tingling clarity.

“Got it—I’ll catch him!”

I bellowed.

(This was no joke—this might be some sort of case) My drunkenness finally began to fade.

I threw myself forward like a soldier and chased after the mysterious youth from behind. When I thrust out my right elbow forcefully, my hand luckily touched his shoulder. Exhilarated!

“Gotcha!”

I lunged at him.

“Damn it!”

Yanked backward—partly due to alcohol’s curse—my body spun clean around mid-air before slamming my hipbone down with a sickening crunch. I had no choice but to lie still on the ground. Homura bravely leaped over my body and continued the pursuit—this much I dimly grasped. But my whole body refused to respond. I couldn’t tell where my own arms were or where my legs might be. What I noticed—though it seemed absurdly carefree under the circumstances—was that the area was filled with what I could only describe as a richly fragrant aroma.

(I wonder—is this what musk smells like?)

While thinking such thoughts, I felt as though I were dreaming.

Suddenly, my consciousness became clear. As if morning mist had been scattered by the wind, causing the surroundings to abruptly brighten and clear...

(Wait—hadn’t I been wearing this thing over my head all along?)

I removed the pitch-black cloth from my face and sat up. What I had thought was pitch-black cloth turned out to be a coat’s jacket.

(Right. I had grabbed the suspicious man—it was his jacket!)

The strange scent too was discovered to be emanating from that jacket. Even so, while pleasant, what an exotic fragrance it was. My hand unconsciously stretched out and began fumbling through the jacket’s pockets.

(Oh! There’s something inside!)

It was small enough to fit in my palm.
I pulled it out.
I held it up to the light.
Then I ran my fingers over its surface.
It felt vaguely like a bottle.

Suddenly!
A voice called my name nearby.
I jerked upright.

A figure slipped through the alley and dashed out like a swift bird!
There! That’s that guy!
He’s doubled back!

Clattering after him came Homura.

“Snap out of it! Run! Hurry!”

With that, Homura shouted in my direction as if hurling the words at me and took off after the mysterious figure.
After that, even at midnight, I sensed onlookers pressing in.
I didn’t want to be overtaken by the gawkers, so I abruptly started running.
This time, I thought, I could definitely run.

The rat-like mysterious youth darted about at blinding speed.
Each time he whipped around a street corner where the streetlight cast its yellow light slantingly,

“There he is!”

All I saw was the mysterious youth’s black silhouette flashing into view.
A significant gap had opened between us and the onlookers.
Then I realized we’d reached an area near Marunouchi’s moat before I knew it.

“Ah, got him!”
“He’s gone into the dead-end alley!”
“We’ll intercept him when he tries to double back!”

At Homura’s voice, I continued my final five-minute sprint.
Sure enough, I arrived at the entrance to the dead-end alley.

“Wait!”

Homura sneaked up to the entrance, then collapsed to the ground and crawled forward cautiously to peer into the dead-end alley from below.

Thirty seconds, forty seconds, fifty seconds—Homura didn’t move.

After three minutes had passed, Homura brushed off the dust and stood up.
He whispered close to my ear.

Two drunkards with their coat collars turned up and hand-rolled cigarettes in their mouths, arms linked together, swaying unsteadily as they slipped into the dead-end alley—of course, it was Homura and me.

The dead-end alley was not even fifty meters long.
On both sides stood three houses each.
The right side was lined entirely with closed-up shops, their doors already shut.
On the left side, continuing from the main street, stood an old three-story brick building that appeared to be a café, its dimly lit entrance visible.
At the far end stood a sturdy two-story Japanese-style house, its door also shut.
The dead end of this alley was the moat.

Thus, the only establishments still open were the cafés.

We peered into the entrance marked by a neon sign that read “Café Dragon.”

“My, aren’t we in high spirits? Hoho.”

At the entrance where we thought no one was, in the shade of artificial flowers, there was a woman.
I tightened my grip on Homura’s arm and tensed up.

“You there—your place still serving drinks?”

“Of course! Step right in!”

“Here we are.
For friendship’s sake—just humor me with one more stop, yeah?”

Homura flopped his wrist limply in front of my face, playing the drunkard.
I had immediately understood its meaning.
As we were about to enter,

“Whoa there!”

Suddenly, Homura wrenched his arm free from mine, stomped out to the edge of the moat, hitched up his clothes, and urinated with a splashing sound.
That Homura was using urination as a pretext to scope out the moat's layout was perfectly clear to me.

When we entered, it was an utterly ordinary café.
I had thought it was spacious, but that was only at the front; it turned out to be a house ridiculously shallow in depth.
Homura took the lead and stomped up to the third floor.
On each floor, there were four or five customers, but the figure of the person we were searching for was nowhere to be found.

“What would you like to order?”

The waitress who had been at the entrance followed us up to the third floor.

“Beer.”
“And your name is...?”

“I’m Mariko. Pleased to meet you.”

She was a girl whom the Eton crop—a kappa-style bowl cut—suited perfectly.
The bangs hung down to just graze almond-shaped, cool eyes.
What was most adorable was that chin of hers, as if it hadn’t fully developed.

“Hey, Mariko.”
Homura promptly called her name.
“There’s a special room here, right?
“Basement or something—take us there.”

“There’s no such thing as a basement here. Isn’t this third floor special enough? Hehe.” With that retort, Mariko went back downstairs. As I thrust my hand into my pocket searching for my cigarette case, my fingertips struck something hard with a click, and I remembered. “Hey, check out our trophy!” I poked Homura in the side, then stealthily retrieved from under the table the item I had pilfered from that man’s coat. “Looks like some sort of medicine vial, huh?” Homura, appearing to have understood everything, said in a low voice.

“There’s a label attached.”
“Boraginol,” I barely managed to read the medicine’s name.
“Boraginol... isn’t this hemorrhoid medicine?”

Homura made a face as if confronted with a new riddle and tilted his head slightly.

Just then, sensing Mariko clattering up the stairs, I had no time to ask Homura anything further and stowed the medicine bottle back into its original pocket.

2

Near Otowa in Koishikawa, there was a famous slope called Nezuzaka.
This slope ascended from Otowa toward Kohinata Daicho, but the path was an extremely narrow one with a width of about two meters.
At the entrance, it didn’t seem so bad, but after climbing about three blocks, anyone would come to regret having taken this slope.
The reason was that this renowned slope suddenly became severely steep around that point, causing one’s feet to naturally stop moving.
Moreover, the path grew increasingly muddy, so that for every step one managed to climb with effort, they would slide back two steps helplessly—such was its nature.
Grabbing onto a nearby post to finally support their body, they panted heavily.
When they came to their senses and looked around, they were startled as if they had strayed into Mount Koya—ancient cedars and zelkova trees with overlapping thick trunks towered majestically, and even when craning their necks toward where the sky should be, not even one square meter of it was visible.
And suddenly, something like a chill mountain air shuddered down their spine.
At that moment, one would catch sight of a rat on that precipitous slope.
Even with all its agility, the rat could not scurry up this slippery steep slope and merely panted in vain—this was how Nezuzaka (Rat Slope) got its name.

Midway up this slope—where both ascending and descending gave pause—a narrower path branched sideways, leading to a house with decaying gateposts visible beyond.
The gate of that house was rarely opened save for two or three days each month.
The days when the gate's bell rang with a crisp, clear chime almost invariably fell in the month's first week.
Had one peered carefully through gaps in the fence, they would have observed that visitors came exclusively by night—all relatively young men and women under forty, each bearing an air of respectability.

Detective Homura had also been among the guests that night.

He was waiting his turn in the downstairs waiting room.
In the gathering sat a man wearing hakama trousers with a beard growing from the tip of his chin, who was earnestly expounding on the physics of the spiritual.
Next to him sat a still-glamorous widow who had lost her husband six months prior and a young woman said to be her niece, lingering about.
Homura sat alone in the lower seat, apart from the others.
When he reached out his hand, he could touch the coldly shining corridor.
When exiting that corridor, there was a narrow staircase that led to the second floor.

“Bwoooon.”

A sound like that of a small bronze gong being struck echoed down from the staircase.

“Your turn has come.”

With that, the man with a beard on his chin ceased his discourse and signaled toward Homura.

Homura respectfully bowed and, stretching out his numb legs, stood up.

Compared to the brightness of the lower floor, the area above the staircase was nearly pitch-dark.
He groped his way up.
When he reached the top step, an eerie scene materialized before his eyes.

Two rooms—each about ten tatami mats in size—had their shoji screens open.
A faint hazy light glowed.
A small neon lamp within its shade emitted a faint pink light.
Sitting facing this direction with her back to the tokonoma alcove was a woman.
Though too dark to see clearly, she didn't appear young.
Beside her sat a bald-headed old man before a small desk bearing an electric torch.
There were two young men in suits kneeling deferentially before the woman.

“Now then, Mrs. Ōtakeshi,” the old man called out to the woman beside him.

“Since we’re here, could you do one more for us?”

The woman addressed as Mrs. Ōtakeshi nodded wordlessly.
At that moment, her profile came into view for an instant, revealing her to be a plump, fleshy middle-aged woman who looked to be two or three years past forty.

Then, following suit, the two men in suits bowed politely.

"You there—my sincere apologies—we will perform one more, so please wait a moment."

To the old man's quiet voice, Homura silently consented.

The old man stood up from his seat and sat down precisely in front of the woman.
He raised his right hand to her forehead but soon withdrew it softly, then clasped his palms together and shook them vigorously up and down before his chest.

"Spirit of Sō Seimin, secular name, deceased February 18, 1929..."

Before the old man’s withered voice had even finished,

“Ugh... Ahh...”

With that, Mrs. Ōtakeshi let out a groan.

“It has appeared.
Please address it.”

The old man raised his hand to signal to the two men, then returned to his original position in front of the small desk.

“Mr. Sō?”

The one who had called out was a thirty-four or thirty-five-year-old man.

“I am Sō."
“I’m busy now—come back later.”
Mrs. Ōtakeshi answered in a man’s voice, her eyes remaining closed.

“Mr. Sō, this is Soga Teiichi."
“I have brought Kaneda Jintarou.”

“Soga Teiichi and Kaneda Jintarou?”
“I don’t know any such names!”

The man said something rapidly at that moment—it sounded almost like a foreign language—but its meaning remained unclear.
However, Mrs. Ōtakeshi revealed a joyful expression and responded.

"I see."
"Ah! So you're Soga and Kaneda," she said through gritted teeth before suddenly grimacing. "This chest of mine feels fit to burst!"

“That’s you, Mr. Sō.”
The man who had introduced himself as Soga Teiichi hesitated slightly before continuing, “You are still enduring the agony of your final moments, Mr. Sō. Open your eyes.”

“What ‘final moments’?! Don’t talk nonsense! You’re grasping a living person—how dare you speak of final moments?!”
Mrs. Ōtakeshi shouted with a stern, masculine expression.

“Mr. Sō departed long ago into the realm of death. It has been three full years since you passed away.”

“I’m dead?
Can a corpse see your face or babble like this?
Ha ha ha!”
Mrs. Ōtakeshi kept her eyes shut as she arched backward laughing.
The old man beside her started so violently that he had to brace her body from behind.

“No, Mr. Sō—you have already passed away.”
“Today I’ve come to inform you of this fact and recommend your esteemed posthumous destiny.”
“Doesn’t it feel to you as though you’ve died, Mr. Sō?”

“When you say that... I suppose there are matters that don’t quite make sense...”
Mrs. Ōtakeshi tilted her head slightly, appearing to ponder something.

“Mr. Sō—try touching your own body.”

Mrs. Ōtakeshi crossed her arms near her chest and began stroking the area.

“Do you understand, Mr. Sō—there are breasts here on your chest.”

“Hoho, this is strange,” Mrs. Ōtakeshi said, gripping her own breasts through her kimono with a doubtful look.

“Mr. Sō—you are wearing a wide obi. Around your thick waist, your soft knees—and on your head, there’s abundant black hair!”

As Soga Teiichi spoke, Mrs. Ōtakeshi moved her hands—now fearfully touching around her waist, now pressing her knees—but when she finally raised both hands and pressed down her thickly bundled hair,

“Eek!”

she cried out.
Mrs. Ōtakeshi, extremely agitated, tried to stand up on the spot, but the old man in the neighboring seat, laughing, grabbed her from behind and stopped her.

“Ah! This is a woman’s body!”
“It’s a woman’s body!”
“Oh, where has my body been taken?”
“Give me back my body!”

Mrs. Ōtakeshi, oblivious to her disheveled hem, clawed at her own body.

“Mr. Sō—have you come to understand?” Soga Teiichi said with a detestably calm attitude. “Your body has already passed away. That is the body of the esteemed spiritual medium being used to welcome your spirit back to the world of the living. Do you understand?”

“What? A medium? Are you saying this is the medium’s body that my soul has possessed? Ah…” Mrs. Ōtakeshi clutched her head and bowed down on the spot. Soon, a weeping sound leaked out from beneath her—a cry with an eerie resonance like a beast’s howl.

“Ah! Before I knew it, I had died!”

Mrs. Ōtakeshi, perhaps overwhelmed by her agitation, seemed unable to rise easily.

“How about... we call it a day here...”
The old man in the neighboring seat cautioned them.

Soga Teiichi glanced at his companion Kaneda—whose agitation had left him pale—before turning to request that the old man halt proceedings.

The old man knelt before Mrs. Ōtakeshi once more, chanted what sounded like an incantation, and stroked her forehead several times.

Mrs. Ōtakeshi returned to her original feminine demeanor and quietly raised her upper body. Then, with a composed face, she gazed around at the group and somewhat awkwardly adjusted her disheveled front.

The two men in suits bowed politely at this moment and rose from their seats.
The man named Soga Teiichi—seemingly accustomed to such situations—chattered away nonstop, while in stark contrast, the younger man called Kaneda Jintarou remained utterly silent, pale with excitement. Homura wore a vague expression as if idly watching them depart, but in truth, every nerve in his body was hurtling toward the two men like bullets fired from a machine gun, ricocheting from the back of his retinas.

＊ ＊ ＊

“The younger one there was that man we met last night in the Ginza backstreets.”
Homura took out a fresh Hope paper box from among the documents and said this.

“That’s Kaneda Jintarou for you.”
As he spoke, I noticed the Bucoback nude painting hanging in Homura’s room—bathed in near-noon sunlight, it shone almost blindingly bright.

“That dead-end alley has a mechanism.”

“What kind of mechanism?”

"That I don't know."
"But it'll become clear in time, I suppose."

“If it’s about Kaneda Jintarou, wouldn’t you find out by asking at that place in Koishikawa—the one that’s like a spiritual experiment gathering or something?”

"I already looked into it earlier."
Homura said bitterly.

“Of course, both of their addresses were complete fabrications.”

“Why on earth did that young man Kaneda appear in the backstreets of Ginza dressed like that?”
“Is that solely Mr. Kaneda’s personal issue—just him losing his mind or being drunk (here I had to suppress a chuckle)—and nothing more?”
“Or are you saying that was just a single fragment of some much larger case?”

“Of course it’s a case.”
Homura answered without hesitation.
“If things go badly, it might turn into a major case beyond our imagination.”

“How can you know such a thing?” I asked bluntly, though I worried Homura might find it bothersome.

“There are various reasons for that.”

Homura, as if finally noticing something, pulled out a single hand-rolled cigarette and placed it between his lips.
“First, there’s the face of that strange youth.”
“A face with such distinctive and splendid features is rare, I think.”
“If he weren’t so haggard, he’d have the face of a nobleman.”
“Then there’s that spiritual experiment gathering.”
“There’s this faintly perceptible special relationship between the strange youth who never uttered a word and that composed man Soga who kept talking—along with that mysterious experiment.”
“Moreover, the words that strange youth hurled at me in the Ginza backstreets can’t be heard without inducing a shudder.”
“Something terrifying is actually happening.”

“You haven’t forgotten about that eye-watering smell I caught, right?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what backs up my hunch.”
“What about the Boraginol bottle?”

“The Boraginol bottle? That thing is nothing but a single rope visible before my eyes—and because of this very rope, I’m suddenly being shown what I must do starting today.”

“So what are you planning to do?”

“Starting tomorrow, for the time being from nine AM to one PM, I want you to come to this office and keep watch in my place.”

“And what about you?”

Homura didn’t answer. Instead, he lit a cigarette and began puffing away contentedly.

“You seemed rather taken with Café Dragon’s waitress, huh?”
Homura wore a mischievous grin and teased me.

“Oh, you mean Mariko?”
I feigned ignorance and replied.
“I think that girl’s unrelated to this case, though.”

“Leave Mariko out of this,” Homura suddenly stiffened his expression and said.
“About that old brick-built Café Dragon—first thing this morning, I went up to the rooftop of the Jinju Building across the moat, set up surveying equipment, and took measurements with a telescope.”

“Hmm.”
I was astonished by his quick work.

“But regrettably, when I added the brick wall thickness to last night’s visual estimate of the room’s area, only that same numerical value emerged.”
“In other words, I thought there’d be a hidden room, but I was wrong.”

I nodded silently in admiration.

“Instead, I made an excellent discovery.”

“Oh? What did you find?”

“Between Café Dragon and the moat full of dredgers lies a tall Japanese-style house.”
“But there’s a slight bulge on its second-floor roof.”
“A bulge so subtle you’d miss it at a glance.”
“When I observed carefully from the building’s roof with a transit, that bulging roof stopped right at the café’s brick wall.”
“My gaze slid up the brickwork to Café Dragon’s roof.”
“And there stood a massive brick chimney.”
“But focusing on its base—the gray mortar color tells me this chimney was built very recently.”
“Fascinating.”
“What if we consider that chimney was built for that two-story house?”
“Next—why don’t we ponder why they attached the chimney to the neighboring building instead?”
“And finally—shouldn’t we question why a Japanese-style house even needs a chimney?”

It became clear that Homura wasn’t using his rapturous tone to address me but rather letting his own mind hear it.

“So you’re saying that strange youth is hiding around there, then?”

“Yeah, anyone who goes in must come out eventually.”
“Right.”
“Now it’s just a waiting game.”

3

The young man Han Yuren again today pulled a chair near the window and was gazing at the distantly shining scenery of West Lake.

The sky was clear cobalt, without a trace of cloud shadow.
These days had seen unbroken fine weather day after day.

To the lake's left stretched the Su Causeway endlessly like a sharply drawn eyebrow.
Slightly to its right rose Baoshi Mountain's distinct form, while what appeared to be Baoshu Pagoda's silhouette pointed skyward.
West Lake's scenery stayed beautiful no matter how many times one viewed it.

But the unchanging scenery whenever he looked left Han Yuren dissatisfied. Moreover, the room's window opened beyond an extremely thick wall, making the view naturally narrow and rendering it impossible to peer down below. This room stood within a two-hundred-foot-tall tower rising on Wansong Ridge in the outskirts of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province—Han Yuren's hometown—occupying its very summit. As part of modern architectural experimentation, the ceiling had been entirely covered with thick frosted glass, allowing sunlight to stream in from morning till night while the vast blue sky remained visible through the glass.

If only there had been another small window on the south side of this room—though it might not have been ideal in terms of scenic beauty—even with his nearsightedness, he could have faintly glimpsed the bustling surface of the Qiantang River through it.

(Why had his ancestors opened only a single small window at the summit of this tower?)

Han Yuren found it impossible to fathom the intentions of the King of Wu, who had chosen this land and initiated grand civil engineering works a thousand years ago.
But at that time—since it was the turbulent era following the collapse of the Tang Dynasty—it stood to reason that enemy forces spying on the King of Wu would have attempted to attack at any moment.
At that time, this towering structure called Rangetsurou would have discerned even ants moving forty *ri* distant with the aid of a telescope as clearly as if holding them in one’s hand; and even if enemy forces had closed in beneath the tower to loose arrows, the surrounding walls—likely ten *shaku* thick—and the mere single open window would have made it impossible to send even one arrow inside.
Therein may have lain his ancestors’ prudence.

But now, it was nothing but a cursed little window.

“Though I am already dead.”

Han Yuren let out one deep sigh there.

If Detective Homura were to see Han Yuren's face, how astonished he would be.
For that face was the spitting image of that strange youth Kaneda Jintarou—the one they had met at the Nezumizaka spiritualism experiment and later showered with outlandish questions in the midnight back alleys of Ginza.
However, that had been an incident in Japan.
This place was undoubtedly located five hundred *ri* to the west—a matter unfolding in Zhejiang Province of the Republic of China.

Han Yuren, as usual, began reviewing the events since that strange day, examining every corner with meticulous attention.

At that time, he had fled into exile from his hometown of Hangzhou and was spending his days in Tokyo, the Empire of Japan, alongside his steward named Sun Ka Ting.
When he had first come to Japan, he had still been a young boy, so learning Japanese had not been much of a struggle.
Before he knew it, he had come to love the Japanese name Kaneda Jintarou that his steward Sun Ka Ting had given him.
Sun Ka Ting himself had adopted the Japanese name Soga Teiichi and had somehow shed his Chinese-like appearance.

The two lived as modestly as possible.
Sun Ka Ting drifted between various restaurants while posing as a Chinese cook.
At that time, he claimed the Han boy was his nephew and took him along.

For several years now, they had purchased Café Dragon near Marunouchi’s moat and settled there.
Han Yuren had vaulted over boyhood before becoming a distinguished young man.
His elegant demeanor and imposing features seemed to naturally reveal his noble lineage.
He had unwittingly taken to frequenting Ginza and Shinjuku’s café districts.
His masculine looks and lavish pocket money never failed to throw waitresses at every establishment into clamorous excitement.

He paid no heed to Sun Ka Ting’s earnest advice and was engrossed in dashing around all of Tokyo day and night. He finally purchased a luxury coupe, easily obtained a Class B driver’s license, and from the very next day drove not only through Tokyo proper but as far as Yokohama’s Honmoku Coast, Kamakura, and even distant Odawara. As a result, he had unwittingly become a speed demon. Forty mph was a piece of cake. He was often chased by the Metropolitan Police Department’s red motorcycles, but it became his custom to snort derisively through his nostrils and—with a cannonball-like speed of sixty-five mph—shrink those motorcycles to the size of beans in the blink of an eye, each time swelling with pride.

Just around that time, a somewhat suspicious incident befell him.
The incident was his steward Sun Ka Ting’s disappearance for about a week.
With him gone, the young man Han was left adrift like a floating log.
Just as he was deeply worried and agonizing over his uncertain future, Sun Ka Ting suddenly returned.
He did return, but brought two Chinese people with him.
One was Wang Yaoshun, around the same age as Sun, and the other was a girl of seventeen or eighteen whom they called Mariko from the start.
They began staying at Café Dragon without taking lodgings elsewhere, and Wang went out every day, returning late at night.
Meanwhile, the girl called Mariko became a waitress at Café Dragon.

Such things were not a significant problem for the young man Han.
What troubled him was how Sun’s breathing had abruptly turned harsh.
He complained about everything.
Then again, he would drag him off to spiritualism experiment sessions on multiple occasions.
There, through speaking with the spirits of countless deceased friends at these sessions, the young man Han had come to feel that this so-called "afterlife" somehow truly existed.

The young man Han found himself increasingly unable to avoid feeling terror toward the concept of death.
Through numerous examples at spiritualism experiments, it had become clear that humans remain unaware of their own deaths even after passing.
This realization terrified him all the more.
He shuddered as he recalled how he had driven along Keihin National Highway at sixty miles per hour—how he had repeatedly struck pedestrians, collided with carts, and sustained serious injuries himself.
Could it be that through one of those incidents, I had already died?

When such anxiety bloomed in a corner of his mind, it spread like storm clouds blotting out the sky in an instant.
He pressed a hand to his chest, sweating from abnormal agitation.
Then he searched for a wide belt, touched his buttocks, and ran fingers through his hair.
If his fingertips were to touch Mrs. Ōtakeshi's body, he would have to declare all was lost.

No—mediums weren’t limited to Mrs. Ōtakeshi alone. There were male mediums too. Through which one might his soul visit the world of the living? The thought left him unable to stay still. Lately he’d been driving more cautiously and keeping meekly secluded in his room until emerging to summon Sun and ask whether he was truly alive.

When Sun’s assurances fell short, he called Mariko to have her touch part of him. When even that failed to convince him, he’d wander midnight streets like a madman, begging every passerby to confirm he lived. None pitied or feared this man.

Even his encounter with Detective Homura had occurred during that fit.

But then, the true day of destiny had finally arrived.

He had no clear memory.
He did not know what year, month, or day it had been.
When the young man Han suddenly opened his eyes, he discovered he had been sleeping in an unfamiliar bed.
It was a room under a bright roof.
When he looked around, it was a five-ken square room.
The furnishings in the room…

“Ah!”

And he shouted.
When he looked closely, every single piece of furniture was one he remembered from the past.
The nightingale-colored satin drapes, the embroidered wall hanging titled *Beauties Playing with Balls*, and even the vase whose rim he had accidentally chipped—all stood arranged in the exact same positions he remembered, serenely undisturbed as though nothing had ever changed.
Then, this room...?

“This is Meigenrou that stands in my hometown of Hangzhou.”
“Isn’t this the room where I played as a boy? Oh—there’s that dear little window!”
“Beyond it lies West Lake, beautiful as a painting.”
“I want to see it—I must see the West Lake of my birthplace!”

The young man Han suddenly tried to sit up—then gasped, his face paling.
He had no hands—no legs either!
No—his entire body was gone.
“Oh—what’s happened here?”

He seemed to have gone mad and looked around. There was nothing strange about the room’s appearance. And yet—there was. There they were. On the bed, his legs lay stretched out. There’s a torso too. Oh—my hands are visible too! He attempted to get up again. Yet to his astonishment, when he looked with his eyes at what should undoubtedly be there—his hands and legs—the moment he tried to move them, they suddenly felt as though they had vanished. To put it another way—I might say there’s no sensation at all in my entire body. No—or rather, it seems slightly different.

When he came to his senses, there was a person standing by his bedside.
Looking closer, there wasn’t just one person.
There were three of them.

He recognized those faces.
They were Sun Ka Ting and Wang Yaoshun, clad in Chinese attire.
The third was Mariko, wearing a shimmering light-blue silk dress that suited her perfectly.

“What on earth is this?”

the young man Han bellowed.

“Your Excellency has finally passed away.”

Sun said in an uncharacteristically calm tone.

“Don’t talk nonsense! I can see you all clearly.”

“Your Excellency, have you not noticed?” Sun brought his face about a foot closer and said. “Your Excellency crashed the automobile into a utility pole on Keihin National Highway and met your sudden demise. Your Excellency has entered the spirit world and is now viewing phantoms. We too are but a single phantom lingering within Your Excellency’s spirit. If you doubt it, please touch your hand.”

Having said that, Sun took the young man Han’s hand.
He saw his own hand rise smoothly and stroke Sun Ka Ting’s body.
However, he could not feel Sun Ka Ting’s presence there at all.
The young man bit his lip.

“Please look, Your Excellency. Wang and Mariko too, following Your Excellency’s illusion, will from now on serve exactly as you wish. Then, please gaze out from that small window—you can see the Chu embankments stretching far into the distance.”

When he came to his senses, the young man Han found himself standing by the window before he knew it.
From there, the scenery of West Lake struck his heart with nostalgia.
Thus began the young man Han’s life of illusion.

He ate his meal as if he'd just remembered to do so.
He thought it strange that the dead would eat meals.

That is an illusion.
Meals are a long-ingrained habit.
Illusions of that kind do not disappear easily.
Somewhere, there seemed to be someone whispering that.

The young man Han freely enjoyed the illusion.
What he particularly enjoyed was summoning Mariko close by, engaging in idle chatter, and even attempting bold acts of playfulness; yet Mariko never resisted any cruelty, complying with his every desire.
A life without resistance—even there, the young man Han discovered characteristics reminiscent of the spirit world.

But when he grew weary even of that, he turned his attention to everything around him. What particularly pleased him was sound. No matter how faint the sound, he did not overlook it, and it became a pleasure for him to ponder where each sound originated. For some reason, he found himself particularly drawn to the sounds accompanying the vibrations of this pavilion. When his mind wandered, he would sometimes hear them as automobile horns from his Tokyo days, or other times as the clatter of dredgers lowering heavy chains beyond the moat. However, later on, he realized this, and a wry smile welled up. In this rural part of Hangzhou, there were no sounds of taxi horns either.

Gradually, he began practicing how to move his limbs—which felt completely devoid of sensation, as if they belonged to someone else—little by little at will. With the aid of his vision, they gradually began to move more accurately. It was undoubtedly an immense joy.

If his body continued to move well at this rate, he thought he wanted above all else to shatter the glass panel in the ceiling and climb through the hole to reach the upper floor. And when he thought about viewing the expansive scenery around him, he felt his heart race with excitement at how joyful it would be.

However, one day, the young man Han came face to face with a troublesome issue.
That was when he suddenly recalled having suffered from hemorrhoidal disease when he was alive.
Upon closer inspection, he discovered that even on the bedding and floor, those unpleasant bloodstains were dotted here and there, clinging stubbornly.

Startled, he summoned Mariko’s phantom and had her wipe the affected area.
According to her words, the hemorrhoidal disease had apparently worsened considerably.

Had it been only that, the young man Han was prepared to endure it. However, he ended up causing a problem because—while repeatedly ordering Mariko to clean his hemorrhoids—he noticed that she, who had never once shown displeasure at any of his previous tyrannical commands, now frowned intensely at this particular task of hemorrhoidal cleaning.

The young man Han finally resolved himself and called his steward Sun Ka Ting to express his desire to receive treatment for his hemorrhoidal disease.

Sun looked extremely troubled, but
“As this is a remote countryside, I must humbly inform you that I will go to Hangzhou to find a physician. Please wait three days until my return.”
he said.

“Above all else, hurry up!”

The young man Han had urged his steward.

Three days later.

Sun entered the room smiling, reported that he had brought a hemorrhoid doctor, and then—
“This doctor cannot speak or hear, so I must warn you not to say anything to him.”

he added with a solemn expression.

At that moment, Wang Yaoshun guided in a strange man.
He wore a faded old-style long coat, constantly working his mouth and occasionally making a 'tsk' sound as he vomited jet-black spit.
That was probably a man who was quite fond of chewing tobacco.
He opened his musty bag and took out gleaming surgical tools.
Wang and Sun removed the young man Han’s clothing.

(If only Mariko were here... Where has Mariko gone?)

The young man Han grew suspicious when Mariko failed to appear at all that day.

With Sun and Wang pinning down Han’s legs, the tobacco-chewing doctor bustled about alone—rummaging for scalpels and wringing gauze in frantic disarray.

Boredom led Han to fixate on the doctor’s face.
He stared transfixed at those ceaselessly twitching lips.

(This is odd)

Han muttered inwardly.
Beneath the bed, the gauze-wringing doctor’s eyes darted urgently as if signaling something.
This occurred precisely where Sun and Wang’s watchful gazes—still occupied with restraining Han’s legs—could not penetrate.

The strange doctor gave a warning look, then twitched his lips.

The young man Han watched the movement of those lips for a while—

_Gasp!_

He was shocked inwardly. The reason was that this strange doctor’s lips, while pretending to chew tobacco, were actually forming Morse code with their movements. When he deciphered each twitch one by one and strung them together, they formed the following message:

“After surgery, remove the gauze and look at the letter.”

"After surgery, remove the gauze and look at the letter."
This signal had been transmitted repeatedly.

The doctor, who could neither speak nor hear, finally applied a large gauze pad, secured its edges with adhesive tape, and left the room without uttering a single word.
Both Sun and Wang left the room to see the doctor off.
For the young man Han, the opportunity was now.

He stretched out his hand and grabbed the gauze.
If he had begun practicing moving his hands even slightly later, he might have let this opportunity slip through his fingers.

Inside the gauze was indeed a small folded piece of paper.
After much struggle—even using his mouth—he succeeded in opening what passed for a letter.
There lay words of such gravity that they numbed the young man Han's very brain.

“Tonight, when the lights go out, break through the glass ceiling panel and escape.”

The young man Han read it over about three times, then crumpled the paper scrap, popped it into his mouth, and swallowed.

Escape, someone said. Who they were remained unknown. But was this too an illusion within the "afterlife world"?

If this were real, he would have to consider rash actions. However, if he was already dead, then he wouldn’t die again. I was plagued by boredom. Then let's do it—the young man Han resolved.

But it was still broad daylight. When he gazed toward West Lake, the lake surface glittered brightly. From the glass ceiling above the roof, strong rays of sunlight streamed into every corner of the room. "Escape," someone said—but waiting for nightfall was no easy task.

Thinking this, the young man Han leaned against the window and looked up, considering which part of the glass ceiling he should break.

That was when it happened.

It was precisely at that moment.

Is this... what they call a cataclysm?

A miracle! Could this be what it was?

Unbelievable!
Unbelievable!

“Gah!”

The glass ceiling that the young man Han had been looking up at suddenly turned pitch black.
That glass ceiling, which had been blazing with sunlight, lost all its light in an instant!

The young man Han’s hair stood on end like a hedgehog’s spines from sheer terror.

“Completely reversed!”

He tried to look outside and turned around, but there was only similar darkness there; the picture-perfect beauty of West Lake was nowhere to be seen.

The entire room was pitch dark.

This was utterly absurd.
The young man Han wondered if his eyesight had been destroyed in an instant.
Or perhaps he thought the sun had suddenly vanished and the world had been plunged into pitch darkness.
“Boom!”
He thought he heard a booming sound.

The young man Han jolted to awareness.
“This is what they meant by tonight’s blackout.”
"And there's some fundamental error in this!"

He threw the nickel paperweight he was holding with a forceful shout toward what he believed to be the ceiling.

With a clattering crash, the glass ceiling collapsed.

At that moment, the room suddenly flared bright.

A second miracle!
The sun once again poured shimmering rays down upon the glass ceiling.

“Damn it! They tricked me with this mechanism!”

When the young man Han looked up at the sky through the broken ceiling, instead of a blue expanse, he saw another layer of ceiling, with several high-candlepower electric bulbs lit between the two ceilings. Ah, how many days and months had the young man longed for this deceptive sham sunlight?

He gave a single nod and quickly rushed to the window overlooking West Lake, hurling the heavy flower vase with a violent strike. With a clattering sound, the area around West Lake’s sky split into two and collapsed. This had exposed that what lay before him was nothing but a panorama exploiting the nearsighted young man Han.

Outside, there seemed to be shouts rising up.

But for some reason, neither Sun, Wang, nor Mariko showed any sign of coming up.
The young man Han grabbed a hammer with one hand, nimbly leapt onto the bed, and with a strained cry, lunged into the ceiling space.
His entire body overflowed with energy that seemed ready to burst forth.

The hammer gripped in his hand smashed the ceiling boards into splintered fragments.
Riding the momentum, he kept moving upward, thud after thud.

Something like plaster clattered down, roof tiles crashed with a clatter, and then the chilly night air rushed in.
The young man Han nimbly flew out through that hole.

“Oh, this...”

That was unmistakably the familiar dead-end alley behind Ginza.
The place where he was standing was the roof of a Japanese-style two-story house located between Café Dragon and the moat.
What he had broken through with the hammer was a ventilation shaft, part of which connected to the neighboring chimney.
That was the ventilation device for his sealed room, built inside the two-story house, designed to make the young man Han feel as though he were in Hangzhou.

However, there was something different about the usual nighttime Ginza back alley.

What was different was that around the house, thousands of people had gathered, roaring and surging like waves in all directions.
From who knew where, bullets would occasionally whine before grazing his ear as they flew past.

“Ah, here you were, Mr. Han Yuren.”

Suddenly, a voice called out from behind the young man Han. He jolted and whirled around to find a figure unmistakably human even in the murky night—it was that same strange doctor.

"What on earth is happening here?"
"And who are you?"
The young man Han’s voice blazed like fire.

“Your ancestral land awaits Mr. Han Yuren’s return,” the strange doctor said in a crisp voice.

“What?!”

“Return to your country at once. But as you can see here, the situation has deteriorated to an extreme degree. The only escape route is through the moat to Yamashita Bridge.”

The strange doctor quietly pressed a small package into the young man Han’s hand. Without a word, Han returned the grip fiercely before darting across the roof and leaping into the void. As a loud splash echoed through the night, his strange doctor smirked in the shadows.

4

“It seems last night’s incident is under a media blackout for now.”
I said to Homura, who had one hand painfully bandaged and in a sling.

“It’s not that significant,” Homura smirked.

“If anything, we’re the ones who amplified this commotion.”

“I never imagined you could execute such clever maneuvers with just one bottle of Boraginol.”

“If you hadn’t picked up that bottle, there’s no telling what would have become of this case by now.” Homura let out a deep sigh and lowered his eyes to the discarded Chinese doctor’s outfit lying there. “But until Sun Ka Ting came calling, I was beside myself with worry.”

“So that peculiar newspaper advertisement worked after all, didn’t it?”

“Heh.”
As if remembering something, Homura laughed—his first genuine smile we’d seen in ages.

“Do you think Han made it out alright?”

“He’ll be fine.”

Homura showed no particular concern.

“But why would Sun Ka Ting turn against him?”

“They dangled money and status before him.” He spat the words like bitter seeds. “Some bigwig trying to prop up the collapsing Republic of China bought Sun’s loyalty. Wang Yaoshun works for that faction.”

“Had Han learned how dire things had grown, he’d have raced home to rally forces between the Yangtze and Qiantang estuaries—revived the ancient Kingdom of Wu overnight. That’d mean handing China’s heartland to a lone idealist.”

“So they had to keep him ignorant?”

“Exactly. Killing him risked angering powerful backers. Confinement was safer—but ordinary methods would’ve tipped him off. Hence that elaborate theater: dull his senses with machinery, feed him illusions.”

“Only a Chinese mind could devise such thorough deception.”

“So, what the hell was that woman Mariko’s deal anyway?”

“She’s just a woman who earned some extra money on the side.”
“Of course she’s not Chinese—she shares the same nationality as us.”
“When a young woman appears alone in a case, she often ends up becoming the protagonist in the public eye, but in this incident, she was nothing more than a bit player.”
“I suppose I’ll put forth the forced, misguided theory that the two peculiarities of this case were the absence of murder and that—or something like that.”
“Ha ha ha.”