Pathway to Japanese Literature

Wilderness

"Hah," he thought, "so this hall's existence is why they carved 'Realm of Yin and Yang' on a stone monument."
"Trying to spook folks—what a lousy joke."

The courier had entered an old temple in the wilds, pausing to rest with a bitter smile as he muttered these words to himself—a man of such daring that he could slice through anything with one stroke, the very courier who once bore a letter from Fengdu County's deputy chief retainer in Sichuan all the way to the lord of Yan Province.

While crossing through the mortal realm's infamous Demon Gate during his journey, he'd strayed into unknown paths until finally reaching this ancient temple: a Yama Hall standing solitary in a withered field, its bald-headed Great King statue yawning crimson-mouthed at the entrance—a monument to desolation.

First off, the location was all wrong—being right at the Demon Gate made this some kind of farce.
The fog clung so thickly it was impossible to get one’s bearings.
Thinking they’d set up the stone monument as some kind of guidepost—Right leads to Yan Province or whatever—but Realm of Yin and Yang? Pretentious nonsense.
Even recalling it made him shudder.

The courier had been tossed about like driftwood in a great wave at the Demon Gate before barely spotting a lamp stand—an old stone monument by the roadside.
Even this lay buried under moss which he clawed away with wick-trimming determination—scratching furiously as if tearing at flesh—intending to check directions north or south.
But when his ten fingers shook violently under intimidating characters declaring REALM OF YIN AND YANG,
he recoiled in terror and raced here mindlessly,
desperate only to escape back to the mortal realm.
Yet here,
he finally grasped its meaning:
to decipher this monument’s message required recognizing Yama enshrined within—
a presence more imposing than any woman’s form.

"Didn't they make it disgustingly overblown with this 'Realm of Yin and Yang' nonsense? What's even the point?"
"With this nonsense, they might as well carve 'Realm of Carnal Desire' on the main gate of a brothel district!"

Thus did it grow closer to resembling the mortal world.

"But truth be told—Yama’s mug ain’t worth cheerin’ ’cept when I tossed some coins his way on Obon’s sixteenth day... Right then—best get movin’."

He thrust his pipe into both pockets,

“Heh, my lord, I beg your pardon,” he said while hastily hitching up his gaiters.
Having fully adjusted his gaiters, bent at the waist, and rubbed his hands together, he suddenly noticed the honorable attendants flanking both sides of the Great King.
One had either decayed or broken—or perhaps been so utterly ruined that not even a trace of its form remained in the old temple.
To the right stood one of those ox-headed and horse-headed demons that everyone supposedly knows about—though who could possibly know such things?—an ox-headed demon statue. Upon its dust-caked surface, thick spider webs covered half its face like poured liquid starch.

“No monk around—must be abandoned.”
“Damn, this place is in a hell of a state.”
“The spider bastard must’ve shown some deference to the lord—went and spun its webs right across the retainer’s face instead.”
“Hey now—when I say ‘retainer,’ I mean this one here.”
“Even though they keep going on about ‘retainer this, retainer that,’ we don’t exactly get along.”
“With this, even if it’s just a wooden statue, it must be suffocating—how pitiable.”

Raising both sleeves, he vigorously brushed them off and swiftly wiped away the dust, only to choke on the debris and let out a monstrous sneeze.

“Hup!” By the time he uttered this interjection, he had already descended the withered grass steps, his light footsteps propelled by the force of his sneeze.

His bearings remained uncertain.
His travel-hardened body pressed onward through an ash-like desolate wilderness—where shadowy low mountains resembling black clouds enveloped every direction—resigned to camping outdoors as he traversed some eight kilometers guided by instinct alone.

Ahead rustled the sound of flowing water.

Ah—there was a stream.
The village must lie near now.

Yet nothing proves more desolate than hearing a stream’s murmur ahead when stranded in wilderness twilight.
One factor was the sudden unbearable longing for human company that grips a traveler imagining village proximity; the other was the dread of being water-blocked with no bridge for crossing.

However, it was a small stream without any particular features. A blackened log bridge—resembling a fallen burnt stake—had been laid across.

Just beyond that bridge, at the shallow bank facing the stream, he saw her—her tied-up hair white at the collar, her pale blue hakama with tucked hems—bending down there hazily as she washed vegetables. The vegetable differed from daikon leaves.

Tinged with indigo over its grape-like hue, twining into vines, with leaves resembling lotus leaves—it took on the form of a large water shield that might transform into an ancient marsh.

Hmm—what vegetable was this? he wondered, about to call out when a cough escaped him. At this signal she finally noticed—the woman washing vegetables looked up from her task.
In the twilight-dimmed shadows of her brows, with hair at her temples disheveled yet features clear—the moment he glimpsed that comely face, the courier gasped and fell hard on his rear. And rightly so.
This was his wife who had died the year before last.

“Oh, Mr. Tei.”

His wife too was startled—this “Tei” wasn’t the “tei” meaning “husband.” The courier’s name was Tei Rei.

“My goodness—you... What brings you to such an extraordinary place?”

“Something not of this world...” With a voice like one whose husband had just perished, the gentle wife’s eyes grew moist. An unforeseen rush of longing must have constricted her heart.

Tei informed her of the circumstances. To return to the story—when he asked, "Where exactly is this place?" she replied "The Underworld," and explained that after her death, she had been taken in marriage by Yama’s underling, the Ox-headed Demon, and had now become his wife.

The courier, acting recklessly and somewhat jealously,

"You damned beast! And here I thought you were washing something strange.
"You! Isn’t that your demon lover’s bellyband?"

The wife’s eyelids flushed faintly as she—

"Don’t speak such nonsense, Mr.Tei.
"Mr. Tei, someone like you being so flippant…"

“When it dries, it’ll turn into a tiger’s pelt.”

“Please do not say such nonsense.
“This is the placenta of infants.”

Those who wash this ten times—the child born will be pure and noble.
Those who wash it two or three times become ordinary people; those who do not wash it at all are foolish, impure, and moreover licentious—this was what she taught.

“I wash them as a side job.”

“Now you’re blabbering about household chores too, you damned beast.”

With heavy thuds, he began crossing the bridge.

“Ah, you mustn’t go there!” she cried, raising her hand to stop him—but before she could intervene, fire crackled at his feet. He sprang forward, and the instant he leapt, the log bridge plunged into the water with a heavy splash as yellow smoke billowed up—thick and suffocating.

“What do you mean, 'mustn't'?”
“What's this side job nonsense—washing some damn leaves?”

While trying to restrain the courier in her panicked urgency, the wife let a strip of placenta slip from her pale arm.

“Well now—though whoever let that flow might suffer a lonely miscarriage back in that wretched mortal realm—but more importantly, you! If you hadn’t gone leaping across the bridge like some rash fool, there might still have been room for remedy or reason. But now you’ve done it.”

“You idiot! It’s just some puny stream I hopped over—no reason I can’t hop right back!” he snapped, whirling around—only to find it had become a boundless, vast river stretching beyond thousands of miles.

The courier, dizzy with a start, clung to his wife.

Though visibly uncomfortable, she did not resist even when pressed—

"Please let go. If we're seen, it'll be trouble."

"Help me."

"Oh my, what am I to do…"

fretting with feigned coquetry,

"In any case, please come to the house."

“Help me.”

Disheartened by the river's terror, the man could barely stand—his wife took him by the hand and led him to a peculiar dwelling not far off: blue-bricked with a thatched roof, standing amidst a dense grove of pagoda-like trees.

While the courier was taking off his straw sandals, the wife lowered the hem of her kimono.

It was still before dinner.

The moment the lamp was lit in the room, there came a light knock-knock at the entrance door.

Bringing her mouth close to his pale cheek while whispering urgently,

“Who’s there? Who is it?”

“My husband.”

“Ah—the demon?”

With a resentful glare, he stared sharply at his wife’s face,
then scrambled under the bed.

Covering himself with the cloth,

“Coming! Just a moment!”

She opened the door—and he slipped inside.
The footsteps made no heavy thudding—exactly as one would expect—as he removed his horned mask like a hat and casually hung it on a wall nail. When they saw his face—what a shock!
A fair-skinned man with delicate features and neatly parted hair—a dashing modern gentleman.

“Ah, truly—today at Yama’s office we were swamped with inspections. Utterly worn out.”

Perhaps he was hungry too—his haggard appearance. Lurching unsteadily, he plopped down onto the chair before the courier’s head—then shuddered violently, his slender body quaking.

“It reeks of human. Strange.”
“It reeks something fierce—sniff, snort.”

He sniffed around,

“This is a raw, vivid stench.”
“It truly reeks of human.”

For some time now, the wife had been raising and lowering her hands, her chest heaving.
Realizing she could no longer keep him hidden, she propped herself up on hands and knees, pulled out her former husband the courier by the hand, then knelt at her current husband’s feet and pleaded desperately.
She pleaded:

“I beg of you…” — and she explained the circumstances.

The dragged-out courier raised a face no different from how any human would raise theirs in such a situation and locked eyes with the Ox-headed Demon.

The two men exclaimed “My wife!” in unison—but at the moment when they should have said “Thank you for your continued kindness,” both simultaneously swallowed their words and fell momentarily silent.

“At that time—well, you saw my face, but I wanted to show you the Ox-headed’s face too.”

It is said that after being revived and some years having passed, Tei Rei privately told this to his brothers-in-arms.

At that moment, the Ox-headed Demon courteously renewed his greeting.

“Please raise your hand.
“My wife is—well, ours is no ordinary bond,” he began without a trace of displeasure, glancing between the woman and his spouse.
“To speak of our close relationship—and furthermore,
“You are a benefactor to me.”
“You listen well too—in that dilapidated hall where I commute daily, this person deigned to clean with their sleeve the pitiful state of me: face drenched in sweat, covered in dust, with spiderwebs sealing my eyes and mouth shut in terrible weakness.”
“...How could I not deign to save you?”

The Trafficked Woman

“It has been exactly three years since I left my hometown and bid farewell to everyone.”
“During that time, I... I...”

With downcast eyes, the girl—who had sold herself for her family’s livelihood and been led abroad by traffickers, vanishing without trace—now returned as if in a dream, like one risen from the dead, and spoke in a feeble voice to the people surrounding her, her form haggard.
It was during the time when human trafficking was openly practiced in Shina.

"...There's no proper way to tell of it—shameful, humiliating, agonizing, and strange ordeals I endured, it was."

“After crossing the border, I could no longer tell east from west. I was taken by that trafficker on a long journey, you see. And the place where I was separated from him—far from here, its shape unseen—was the home of a country doctor at the foot of a high mountain.”

“When they lodged me for one night in what seemed to be the doctor’s detached guesthouse, by morning I had choked down a breakfast that wouldn’t go down my throat. It wasn’t long after.”

Being in the countryside, there was no such fence to speak of. As I gazed at the lonesome clouds while walking along ridge paths behind the rice paddies—leaning on a goosefoot staff from the mountain’s foothills—an old man shuffled into the detached guesthouse: white-bearded, ruddy-faced, tall-statured, clad in a brown coat with a hood drawn over his head. I thought he might be the priest from our family temple—perhaps even retired.

This priest bent down before my very eyes, propping his goosefoot staff under his chin like a rest. He swayed his white beard to and fro, not uttering a word as he stared piercingly at every inch of my body.

How utterly repulsive.

Even if my liver were to be gouged out on a medicine grinder, I thought of fleeing toward the main house where the doctor resided—such was that priest’s repulsiveness.

The situation proved unavoidable, you must understand...

As I tried to rise and flee, the staff’s tip thudded against my hem. With force like a rake snaring its catch—just as I startled and began to fall—he seized my hand and yanked me upright.

"What? As I writhed trying to slip free," the doctor opened the door and peered out.
"What’s this thrashing? You go with the Sage," he growled, glaring.
Then, as if before a daimyo, the doctor pressed his forehead to the floor in full prostration.

I was taken there at once.
"I thought having my liver ground on a medicine grinder would be better than this—being dragged off by that sage. When I wondered where we were headed, there we walked along a rice paddy path, me forced ahead with the sage behind."
...When despair made me falter, that goosefoot staff would jab my waist from behind, I tell you.

When we reached the foothills, he gradually forced us deeper into the mountains.
"What will become of me? I wonder—my mind filled with deepest dread."
“然業已賣與無如何――”

Thus it is written in this chapter—the characters are stiff, but their essence flows with tender pathos.

“...Close your eyes tight.”
I was grabbed by the staff.
“If you disobey, you won’t live.”

Before long, in mountain recesses far from any village, the Immortal Sage straightened up and declared.

Even in such a state, clinging to life, after closing my eyes as commanded, all I could perceive was the hem of my robe swirling around my legs like a whirlpool and the wind striking both ears with a fluttering resonance.

When I was told “Enough,” and opened my eyes, I was not inside a hole at the bottom of the earth.
I found myself atop a platform where another tower had been erected upon a towering peak that rose like a raised hand.
The rooms and railings glistened as if made of jewels, and I thought I had been cast into a realm of strange stars.
The Immortal Sage was nowhere to be seen.
There came out over twenty women—their ages ranging from fifteen or sixteen to about thirty, all uniformly beautiful yet despondent—who must have shared circumstances similar to mine.
“It’s so pitiful,” they all said kindly.

“I—am I going to be killed?” I asked through tears, whereupon the older woman said, “No, we merely attend to the Immortal Sage’s needs. It cannot be helped.”
“But here—mountains of gold and silver, damask silks, brocades, exquisite dishes, rare confections—all stood in such abundance that what little remained lacking would appear when the demon messengers clapped their hands. Nothing wanted for anything.”
“The daily provisions were wasteful beyond measure—comparable to a feudal lord’s.”
“In exchange—”

“Just hearing ‘in exchange’ made my body tremble—isn’t that right? —Yes, in exchange.”

“...What? Even that,” the older woman cut in again, “it’s just that you endure a bit of pain once each month—”

Well… that—I thought I’d be killed as I braced for that suffering and waited.

…Pressed against the railing—when I saw distant peaks spewing thin smoke that might’ve been my homeland’s sky—I imagined those were flames devouring me. Leaning on a stone pillar under the sickle moon, I saw it too as a blade slicing through me.

“You there—it’s time.”

Ah!
Now, that time had come.
Within a month, my body had healed completely. It was the very next day that the Immortal Sage, leaning on his staff, descended several altars and moved some distance from the mansion, then took me to a rockface so steep it seemed meant for climbing.
It was high noon.

There was what they call a tengu’s cutting block—a massive, flat surface—where a cut log from a large tree had been placed.
On top of it, I was stripped of my inner and outer garments and then laid down.
The Immortal Sage took from within those wide sleeves a single crimson cord—viscous, lustrous, woven like serpent scales—and bound my limbs so tightly to the great log with thread-like precision that I couldn’t move a muscle, then twisted a cotton-wadded ball into my mouth so that no sound could escape.

When he glared at me with those glinting golden needles in hand, I had already lost consciousness.

When I came to my senses, my arms, under my breasts, and the pulse points of my wrists were all soaked with blood, and I realized pure white medicinal powder had been sprinkled over those areas.

The following month, during the second time, even then, I did not lose consciousness. And then I realized—what the Immortal Sage held was not needles, but golden tubes; he inserted them into my pulse points, and through those tubes, my fresh blood was sucked out. The pain during that time cannot be called just momentary.

However, when the medicine was applied, the wounds would scab over and fall off by the next day, leaving no more trace than an insect bite.

Yes, enduring such torment, I could see clouds and rain alike far below my eyes—there in the azure sky’s high-peaked mansion, I spent my days keeping him company.

“It was just recently,” she continued. “Without warning came a white wind fierce enough to shake roof and pillars—blowing like loosed arrows—and within that radiant azure sky spread a pitch-black cloud as if dropped from an eagle’s claw, its wings spanning the peak to envelop the mountain and swirl about the mansion’s roof. Then from his daytime bed—for the Immortal Sage never slept at night, ascending instead to kneel before the moon and worship stars atop his tower—he came rushing into the great hall with one assigned woman tucked under his arm, shouting ‘Everyone, come here!’”

His voice trembled as he frantically gathered us twenty-some captives, forcing us into layered rings around him—our pale skins forming a living screen amidst blossoming silks and robes—until we stood frozen like fleshly panoply.

This appeared to become a protective charm. Through the window it spread like a hand—that black cloud inching closer, then retreating, inching closer again, then retreating once more—as the Immortal Sage’s back became visible undulating like waves, shifting forward and back. But then, when a dreadful sound rang out, the form of a dragon appeared within the clouds. Thinking it had risen like a pillar, it then appeared about the size of a winnowing basket. Opening its lightning-like claws, it hooked the Immortal Sage’s feet above the women’s hair—and when I saw that, the ceiling burst apart, leaving nothing but black clouds and the raging wind within. It felt as though it were happening right before my eyes.

When I was nursed by the villagers, I found myself collapsed on a roadside in an unknown country.

"There, when I asked around, I first learned my hometown lay not so far—forty or fifty *ri* away—then sold my hairpins and obi, using plants and trees as guides, until at last I returned after many days."

Ah, this woman—and before long, it is said, she met a feeble end.

Fox

Rumors have it that recently, a certain Mr. Nan—a Tianjin playboy—returned home around 2:30 PM in a daze, having vacated the residence for two days to visit a new lover.

"But my wife is beautiful too."
"That fierce jealousy of hers surely stems from how deeply she cares for me."
"This differs from those who deal in charms - you can't grasp her heart through schemes or jests."
"Heh heh."
"You...there it blazes crimson."
The rouge on those eyelids resembled nothing so much as a drunken hibiscus.
"I don't mean to boast, but even foreign lands might lack its equal."
"To glimpse anew those bashful hues from our wedding night was no simple feat."
"Merely likening her pout to flames was enough to set my ears burning."

In the June sunlight, his sleep-deprived pallid face damp with listless sweat and muscles seeming to melt, he staggered toward the mansion.

However, beneath the window of the wife’s chamber—sweetly alluring and deeply hued, where Chinese paulownia flowers bloomed—there lingered the warm shadow of a young student’s figure.
It is written of that person: "In countenance, elegant and beautiful."
Though regrettable for the young master, it cannot be helped—it is written thus.

This figure became clearly visible through the distant shrubbery from outside the gate—and in the blink of an eye, the beautiful youth’s form left behind a great butterfly’s shadow in the southern sunlight as he abruptly—though not ascending to the second floor—entered a high-windowed chamber.
The tale resumes.
That was the wife’s chamber.

The young master—his head flushed crimson with rage—mindlessly scrubbed at his hat while stealing along the garden path to creep beneath that window.
Inside drifted a coquettish voice:
“Well now! You’ve come at last—I’ve been waiting right here for you. Our hearts must be in tune, hmm?”

A voice so drippingly seductive it defied description—that was the wife's voice.

Wouldn't the young master have flared up in rage?
He jumped back in retreat and plunged into pitch darkness through the middle entrance, but then stood rigid outside the room's door like a trembling nail, fists clenched.

“Rin! Rin! Gonpei! Gonpei! Rin! Gonpei! Bring me the sword! Bring me the sword! The sword!” he shouted, but neither Gonpei nor Rin made so much as a sound.
Who would dare bring a blade here?

The young master, stomping his feet,

“You—you! Who’s in this room? Who’s here with you, you—?”

he shouted.
To perceive an enemy within yet not charge in like a wild boar—this was precisely the playboy’s nature.

The wife’s shock defied comprehension.
Was this a meeting across a table? With chairs placed side by side and shoulders pressed together, she trembled so violently she could not speak.
Pushing with her arms, brushing away with her hands—in her frantic struggle to separate from the beautiful youth rather than conceal him—her form seemed to grasp at empty air.

The beautiful youth made no attempt to pull away.
With one hand still gripping the wife’s hand firmly, then using his hip to slide the chair closer, he sat upright facing forward, his composure unshaken—a sight even more worthy of awe than a hero handling a crisis.

Had she wanted to escape, he had already leapt in—and there was even a window—

"That's it.
One decisive move: the pistol!"

A voice muttering in strained breath outside the door; a sound like a bullet flying off.
Suddenly, footsteps charged with murderous intent—like a wounded boar’s assault—thundered toward the door.
Moreover, though the door lacked even a Kanse-twisted chain and would open with a single push, until that moment the beautiful youth had maintained his unperturbed demeanor.

Moreover, when he realized the young master had returned pistol in hand, the youth smiled faintly and tightened his one-armed embrace around the woman’s shoulder.

The wife’s anguish and terror during this ordeal were such that the sweat wringing from her body turned to blood, and crimson droplets dripped steadily down.
Her predicament reached its limit—she nearly went mad and let out a scream.

“Ah! A robber—me—me—”

“What do you mean, a thief? I’m your lover, aren’t I?”

the beautiful youth declared loudly.

“What?”
“A robber! A lover!” she cried out as he threw the door open with a bang, charged inside, thrust his pistol forward—then upon seeing what lay before him, shouted “Ah!” and instinctively recoiled.

Bizarrely, the one who had placed a hand on the wife’s shoulder and arranged the chairs joined as one was not that beautiful youth.

It was because of this that she—the young master’s own new mistress, a beauty who had opened his house last night and now come murmuring farewell—sat there with his wife, the two of them blooming red and white side by side.

This beauty's surname was Hu, and her name was O-Kō-chan.

In essence, this young master—originally a man of amorous inclinations—had established a riverside villa about three ri downstream from his mansion as a secret rendezvous for his affairs, given that his wife Zhang-shi was beautiful yet prone to jealousy. He had made it his practice to lure various women to this villa. Then one spring day under splendid weather amidst warm willows where peach blossoms bloomed languidly, while strolling upstream with a slender cane, he encountered this beauty approaching alone along the bank from upstream—her figure swaying willow-like in the current, delicate and pensive. Without restraint, he cast amorous glances at her—welcoming her gaze and lingering on her departure—thus unleashing his customary prowess, which marked the beginning of their entanglement.

Could flowing water truly be heartless?
When they exchanged words, she stated her name without concealment.
According to O-Kō-chan’s account, she declared herself a young widow.
The young master’s scheme unfolded exactly as intended.
And so she explained how—with male relatives provoking, tormenting, acting high-handed and tugging at sleeves—amidst the helplessness of this plight, she would stealthily observe the world’s flow from willow-hidden seclusion by the water.
Ah, how poignant—how deeply it seeped into her being—the vows exchanged on spring evenings took on the hues of hazy moonlit nights, and there she was, poling a silver oar through peach-hued currents: O-Kō-chan herself steering a small boat beneath the moonlit green leaves’ concealment to visit the young master’s villa—a scene utterly modern in its affectations.

Since then, under the pretense of reading the Hundred Schools' texts and studying philosophy, she had continued residing at the villa—shutting its windows yet leaving its gate open.

This was none other than O-Kō-chan herself.
……

Compared to his wife Zhang-shi, she was a girl some five years her junior—dressed in plain garments yet exuding an elegant grace.

At that moment, upon seeing the young master, she turned eyes like dew-lacquered jewels toward him—her fluttering bangs tinged with color—and smiled faintly with a sidelong glance.

Yet the hand resting on Zhang-shi’s shoulder—the chairs having been arranged side by side—remained pliant yet made no move to withdraw.

Needless to say, in the wife’s eyes as well, [the youth] had uniformly transformed into a woman, so her shock shifted and turned her pale.

The young master stood dumbfounded for what felt like half an hour.
Before anyone could utter a sound, as though mist had taken on color, the girl transformed into a beautiful youth in an instant.

The change occurred now, before her husband's eyes.
The wife trembled and tried to recoil, but the hand that had lightly draped itself over her back—like a boulder anchored by a thousand ropes, akin to a thousand silk threads—left her sleeves and collar frozen in place.
Dazed, she became a shameful doll burdened with guilt.

This was the doing of a supernatural being.

"Back! I'll shoot you dead!"

He pressed forward.
The beautiful youth grasped the young master’s hand as if welcoming it—then from the fingertips turning into snow—transformed once more into the white-clad beauty.

“I forgot… just a moment…”

Then, sliding her white hand to press against the young master’s chest with her arm, she gazed intently with cool eyes. Her allure defied description. Peerlessly seductive, she still embraced the wife’s back.

All while knowing this, the young master’s body—melted from his soul into limp instability—slumped helplessly into the chair. Between two women lay a trance-like dream.

“Hohoho, you handsome rogue—it’s been nigh half a year since you took up with me.”
“And half a year since you took up with your wife too.”
“While you came to me, I was ever coming here as well.”
“Oh my, pulling such a face now.”
“Rogue darling.”
“While meeting me, your wife wouldn’t be needed in those hours—would she?”
“If unneeded, then whatever befell her in that span should matter naught—yes?”

“Hey there, Young Master—it’s me who can’t stand you.
But even if I say I dislike you, you’d never grasp what it means to be disliked yourself, would you?
You imagine every woman you set your sights on will just meekly agree to whatever you say.
What a mortifying way to be perceived.”

“So everything happened exactly as you envisioned—and in exchange for what I gave you, I took payment from your wife.
Isn’t that perfectly fitting?”

“This much is already more than sufficient.”

Having said this—suddenly transforming completely into a beautiful youth once more—he placed a hand on the wife’s flushed cheek. But slipping free with fluid grace, he stood atop the chair.

The young master—spirit-weary, soul-exhausted, dazed and unable to lift a hand.

After the beautiful youth had withdrawn, the husband and wife sat facing each other, their eyes meeting—both unable to endure the shame—and bowed their heads.

Startled, they looked up to see someone clapping sharply overhead and roaring with laughter—the youth, raising his hand in a lofty salute, declared: “I take my leave.”

“Farewell—I take my leave.”

And transforming into a fox, they vanished through the window like a bat in broad daylight.

This was not a moral lesson—it was stated in an annotation added to the main text as fact.

March of Taisho Year Three