Ma En felt it was quite coincidental; he had found a new source of information as soon as he stepped out, and his mood brightened. Asuka said that the rumors about unit number four on the thirteenth floor of that high-end apartment building were quite famous around here.
Moreover, the date mentioned in the rumors was approaching recently. If one wanted to hear any gossip, just going to nearby public places would suffice. She recommended the fountain plaza in the nearby commercial district; there were various clubs there, with customers covering the elderly, middle-aged, young adults, and married women. Many pregnant women and new mothers often gathered to chat in the public spaces there. Of course, that commercial area also had many trendy shops, ranging from big brands to private self-owned brands.
Old customers left the shop one after another, and new customers also came in succession. The shop's business rarely had a moment of rest. Ma En left after finishing his noodles; he and Asuka agreed he would come back to the shop tomorrow. Although the Japanese-style ramen wasn't quite to his taste, living here required getting used to it. Ma En didn't plan to complain about these minor issues.
Exiting the shop, he walked in the direction Asuka pointed out.
After walking for about twenty minutes and crossing several more streets, the commercial atmosphere became even denser. The sounds of pedestrians, vehicles, and sounds coming from some open-style shops mixed together, exceptionally noisy. Ma En walked and stopped, carrying his black umbrella. Although his goal was the fountain plaza in this commercial district, the daily atmosphere of this unfamiliar country still felt novel to him; he felt it was better not to rush over there.
Most pedestrians on the road walked hurriedly; people as leisurely as Ma En were uncommon. In this area, the number of pedestrians paying attention to him because of his large black umbrella noticeably decreased; there was a sense of urgency, having no time to bother with strangers. But to say everyone was this hurried wasn't entirely true either; the benches by the roadside and some entertainment venues squeezed into buildings were also fully occupied, with no vacancies. There were many cyclists, and moreover, the styles of most bicycles weren't trendier than those in his hometown; most were women's bikes with front baskets, but ridden by both men and women.
These people, buildings, facilities, and tools gave Ma En a feeling that was both familiar and strange. Familiar because his hometown lacked no similar functional substitutes; novel because the attitudes of both sides towards these things were distinctly different. Although he felt a sense of alienation being in a foreign land, he also felt a sense of intimacy, as if about to be absorbed by the local atmosphere. Walking, looking, feeling, he began to think he could quickly integrate into the life here.
As for whether the living atmosphere here was good, Ma En felt it was quite nice.
Ma En would also occasionally walk into shops to see the differences between Japanese shops and those in his hometown. He originally didn't plan to buy anything, just wanted to look, and also chatted briefly with shop assistants and owners. Knowing it was his first time in Japan, quite a few shop owners gave him small gifts, such as accessories and snacks, which conversely made him feel bad not buying anything. He wondered, was the other party's enthusiasm genuine kindness, or shrewd business acumen? Or perhaps both. Regardless, he still bought several bags worth of things – although he wasn't sure if these purchases were actually useful to him.
Carrying several paper bags and the large black umbrella, he finally arrived at the fountain plaza Asuka had introduced. Piano music came from the corner of a shop on the street. He followed the sound and saw several people who seemed to have just exited a shopping mall, standing near the piano without moving.
The piano must have been used for a long time; the body's color looked old, and it was covered with red and green labels and posters, but the piano sound was perfectly in tune, seemingly always maintained by someone.
The person playing the piano initially was a clumsy young man; the listeners didn't complain about his inexperienced technique. After he left, a girl with shoulder-length hair immediately came over; judging by her youthful trendy attire, she should be a female university student.
The girl's technique was quite good; as soon as she played, it was clearly vastly different from the previous boy, a difference even people who hadn't heard piano music could distinguish. After one passage was played, bystanders applauded, but Ma En didn't recognize which famous piece it was excerpted from. Later, hearing bystanders say, it was the theme song from "XX Love Story."
Ma En asked about this "XX Love Story," and was momentarily stared at by that person and his companions with looks as if seeing an alien, seemingly feeling asking this question was very inappropriate. However, the other party still gave an answer: "XX Love Story" was a recently popular TV drama, moreover adapted from a manga, and related animation was already in production. In Japan, people who didn't know "XX Love Story" were truly like they just arrived from outer space.
Ma En wasn't from outer space, but from another country. As soon as he explained this himself, it immediately aroused the other party's interest again. More outgoing people immediately asked some things about the mainland, of course, all trivial daily life content. Ma En chatted with them for a few sentences, then excused himself and left.
Ma En walked around the fountain plaza once. Sure enough, just as Asuka said, there were quite a few beautiful women, both married and unmarried. Middle-aged and elderly people, as well as young men, were also numerous. However, most gathered in small circles. Women with women, men with men; occasional mixing was the exception. The fountain suddenly erupted powerfully, the splashing water causing people by the pool edge to quickly move aside; bursts of laughter instantly drowned out other sounds.
What a prosperous and peaceful place. Ma En thought this, also choosing an empty spot by the pool edge to sit down. There were people all around him, front, back, left, and right, but not a single person mentioned the apartment ghost stories. It was somewhat different from what Asuka said, or perhaps he misunderstood Asuka's meaning. However, Ma En didn't feel it was a waste of time; listening, feeling, the gains obtained from this were not just information.
Soon, an old woman in her sixties or seventies sat down beside him to rest, then came an old man
also in his sixties or seventies, leaning on a cane. The two sandwiched Ma En in the middle. Ma En initially thought the two didn't know each other, but unexpectedly, the two began exchanging pleasantries just like that, across him, as if seeing an acquaintance. Ma En's position made him somewhat awkward. He wanted to stand up, but was told by the two elderly people: "It's okay, it's okay, you just sit here." This left Ma En unsure how to respond.
This situation was truly a first for him. Before he could make an excuse to leave, the old woman familiarly asked: "Young man, what do you do?"
"...Planning to do administrative work at a school." Ma En paused, then sat firmly, replying friendly.
"Oh, just graduated looking for work?" the grandfather-generation man asked.
"No, I just arrived in Japan yesterday, first time abroad. Originally did administrative work at the post office back in the mainland," Ma En replied truthfully.
"Ah, so you're a foreigner." The old woman looked him over seriously, then said: "Are you planning to be a foreign language teacher?"
"Not clear yet, have to wait until after the interview to know."
"Teaching Chinese is good too; Chinese is very popular now," the grandfather-generation man interjected. "My grandson is only five or six, already being urged by his son and daughter-in-law to learn Chinese; he hasn't even mastered Japanese yet." Sounded like there was significant resentment.
"Learning Chinese makes it easier to find a good job, convenient for going abroad too," the old woman mumbled. "If I weren't old, I would have gone to learn long ago."
"Don't you know Chinese? Back in our time, who didn't know a sentence or two of Chinese?" the grandfather-generation man said this, immediately speaking a few sentences of Chinese, which somewhat surprised Ma En, feeling the pronunciation was even more authentic than his own.
The grandfather-generation man and the old woman started bickering again. Although there was no real anger, it made Ma En, sandwiched in the middle, inconvenient to interject, only able to listen blankly.
"Hey, young man, are you married?" the old woman suddenly asked.
"Ah, no," Ma En quickly replied.
"No girlfriend?" the old woman asked again.
"No."
"Not planning to find one? Let me introduce you to my youngest daughter, only twenty-five, very pretty," the old woman said with a sales-pitch tone.
"Haha." Ma En could only smile.
"Indeed, Yoshiko is a stubborn fellow, but her youngest daughter didn't inherit this trait at all; she's very easy to talk to, but just too gentle, so she's easily bullied," the grandfather-generation man said. "It must be because she was born when Yoshiko was older. Yoshiko ah, you were quite lucky too, wanting to give birth at such an old age."
Only then did Ma En confirm that the two really knew each other.
"I just like it. What do you old men understand? Two boys and two girls are perfect," the old woman immediately retorted.
"Haha," Ma En could still only smile. He couldn't help but think, are there elderly people in Japan too who randomly grab people to play matchmaker?
The old woman went on for quite a while about how good her daughter was. Gradually, Ma En felt this wasn't matchmaking, but purely showing off her daughter. The grandfather-generation man and the old woman sandwiched Ma En, talking back and forth, but only letting Ma En know that the old woman's youngest daughter was gentle and sensible, had a generous personality, was beautiful and charming, had a good figure. However, specifics like her appearance, age, job, and more detailed personal information were not revealed at all.
Ma En spent half an hour with the two by the fountain before finding an opportunity to interject, asking about the ghost stories concerning unit number four on the thirteenth floor of the apartment. Unexpectedly, the two were also knowledgeable about it. Although the young female kitchen helper, Asuka, at the ramen shop earlier had mentioned that people in the public places in this area would know, the actual situation was somewhat different from Ma En's prior imagination. Even so, these two outgoing elderly people he accidentally encountered still gave Ma En a peculiar feeling.
In his previous twenty-four years, he had never encountered anything peculiar. After obtaining "Seven Revolutions Cave Profound Secret Record," his life seemed to have flipped an invisible switch, with situations continuously arising afterwards. Seemingly coincidental, yet it made one feel as if a thread of fate was truly manipulating everything. Otherwise, why would he move into a room with ghost stories as soon as he arrived in Japan? Why would he encounter knowledgeable people on the morning of the second day after moving in? It was as if this thread of fate, at a fast pace, was leading him into another kind of life entirely different from the past.
However, to say his life had already become completely different from the past wasn't entirely accurate either. Ma En had only been in this country, which sounded familiar but was actually very strange, for just one day. Even if a ghost story was casting a peculiar color over his life, honestly speaking, the peculiarity in the ghost story completely lacked actual evidence; the deaths might just be a coincidence; encountering knowledgeable people might be because this ghost story had already circulated for some time. All this seemed to imply some peculiar and dangerous event was about to happen, yet nothing had actually happened.
Ma En found it hard to be certain how much of the peculiarity he felt was due to the unease and excitement of arriving in a strange country, how much was from the passion of about to start a new life, and how much was truly because this encounter was genuinely peculiar.
"It's truly surprising. Someone told me about this rumor before, didn't expect to consecutively meet knowledgeable people today," Ma En couldn't help but sigh this.
"That's not strange at all. Young people might not remember much about that unit, but for us older generation, that's a ghost story close at hand. I remember when the first person died, it was reported, but everyone at the time just thought it was an ordinary murder case, right?" The old woman asked the grandfather-generation man for confirmation in a slightly raised tone.
"Murder case? Not likely, right? I remember it was an accidental death, just reported because it was a high-end apartment. Just gossip news," the grandfather-generation man said this. "However, several more died consecutively later. At first, everyone didn't realize it, but I don't know which report it was, that wrote out all the coincidences of the deaths, only then did people feel this definitely wasn't some normal death."
"Ah ah, right, right, everyone didn't pay attention at first. By the time they paid attention, several people had already died," the old woman muttered. "Dying too coincidentally makes people feel uneasy."
"Young man, I think you'd better move out early," the old woman advised in a earnest tone. "You might not believe it, nor be afraid, but if you don't court death, you won't die. Encountering this kind of thing, whether it's real or not, staying far away is the right principle."
"I understand, Pópó," Ma En smiled, then asked again: "However, I have a friend who is a writer researching ghost stories. He also asked me to help find some material. If Pópó knows anything, please tell me more."
"Ghost story writer?" Hearing this, the old woman showed a complicated expression, fell silent for a moment, as if recalling something, then looked at the grandfather-generation man, but said to Ma En: "Having such a friend is truly unfortunate."
This sentence left Ma En unsure how to respond. The "writer friend" he mentioned earlier was naturally Asuka, but Asuka wasn't actually a writer. Besides this girl he just met, he really had no other friends interested in stories like ghost tales.
"The people who died, all died on August 24th. The initial body was left in the room for a month, only discovered after it started to stink. The later ones were probably discovered in two or three days. Probably the apartment people paid more attention, knew that room was ominous, so they would pay a bit more notice," the grandfather-generation man said calmly, without much complicated emotion. "Because people died, the room was renovated several times, unknowingly keeping up with the times. See, that building still looks very new now, right? And the grade is getting higher and higher. The operator is very dedicated, even dead people can be turned into capital; the apartment owner must have made a fortune. Heard they travel abroad for more than half the year."
If it was just this information, it was actually recorded in more detail in Ueshima Kousuke's materials, even accompanied by newspaper clippings of each death, and images of the room's specific state after each renovation. Ueshima Kousuke seemed to have sought out acquaintances in the police and news industry, digging out quite a few things from the bottom of the archives. It had to be said, Ueshima Kousuke's influence was even greater than Ma En initially thought. Moreover, the other party's efficiency and foresight made Ma En feel as if his coming to this country was precisely to resolve this incident.
Still the same old saying, his life seemed to be taking on a peculiar, brand new color.
Ma En hoped to get more, whether specific details or rumors,总之 (in short/anyway) new information not in the existing intelligence. At this time, the old woman mentioned: "I heard... hmm, just heard, that the deceased people would all go to Sannagi Park before they died. Going to the park is actually very normal, but there seems to be a bit of coincidence in the dates too."
Ma En became interested, pressing: "Specifically how?"
"Initially it was said they would go the day before death. Later there were rumors they would go frequently within the month before death," the old woman recalled. "Ghost stories, they always involve places like cemeteries, and always involve some strange behaviors. I don't know if those few deceased people usually went to that park often, but that park was indeed rebuilt on top of a cemetery. So, everyone said, could it be because they were entangled by retribution."
"Ah, retribution, right, I remember now too," the grandfather-generation man seemed to have new memories as well. "Reportedly, when the deceased's body was discovered, the hair was tied up with rope woven from grass from that park. One deceased was bald, so the grass rope was directly tightened around his neck."
"So, one of the deceased was strangled?" Ma En asked knowingly.
"No, all were strangled, but only the bald one was strangled with a grass rope," the old woman confirmed the grandfather-generation man's hearsay, which, of course, also matched the materials Ma En already possessed – the deceased all died of asphyxiation, autopsy characteristics consistent with strangulation. However, the grass rope mentioned by the two elderly people was completely absent in the materials. Moreover, in all the materials, no murder weapon was ever mentioned; it wasn't treated as a homicide case.
"Indeed a bit strange," Ma En nodded.
"There are many other strange aspects, but can't recall them right now; getting old, memory isn't useful," the old woman said this, then added: "Maybe my youngest daughter knows even more. Why don't you two meet? Forget it, let's talk again after you move out of that unit."