Chapter 11 The Truth

Dozens of demonized villagers had already climbed halfway up the mountain. As soon as they stabilized themselves, they arched their backs and fired bone spurs at the two living people.

"Let's go."

Li Ang swung his cudgel, knocking away an incoming bone spur. He burst out of the gate and rushed toward the woodland on the left side of the slope.

Wang Congshan quickly followed. Dodging the flying bone spurs, they plunged into the forest and headed straight for the Hiratsuka residence along the mountain path.

Like the rest of the village, the Hiratsuka residence was a scene of pandemonium.

Numerous grotesque monsters, seemingly born from the nightmares of bizarre artists, crawled out from under beds, cabinets, beams, and every other corner.

They roared and attacked each other, desperate to tear any moving object within their sight into pieces.

Piercing screams and miserable cries rose and fell, sending shivers down one's spine.

The two players no longer concealed their strength. Li Ang consumed his meager spiritual energy, unleashing attacking abilities like [Falling Flame], [Grease], and [Heavy Stomp].

He swung the Xin Yuan cudgel in his hand, smashing and knocking, forcibly clearing a path through the low-level monsters.

Wang Congshan also held an assault rifle, aiming and firing precisely at the monsters' weak points, constantly throwing enchanted grenades for a barrage of explosions.

The two struggled to break into the gate. The further they advanced, the greater the resistance they faced.

Just as they were about to be surrounded, the human head lantern suddenly shone brightly.

The candlelight extended more than a meter upward, emitting intense light that created long shadows behind the onrushing monsters, causing the shadows to entangle with their bodies.

This cleared a path for the two players.

Correspondingly, the human head candle burned at an extremely fast rate, consuming more than half of itself in a mere instant.

Li Ang understood and raised the lantern high, leading Wang Congshan to run through the front of the Hiratsuka residence, straight to the courtyard.

As the candle burned out, they reached the courtyard.

The ground was covered in black and red filth, littered with severed limbs.

The black-haired creature was unscathed, still standing by the Kisen well, muttering to himself, chanting, "Masumi...Yoichi..."

There was no indication that he had killed the monsters scattered all over the place.

Wang Congshan stepped forward, took out the Jizo statue of mother and child from her pocket, and tossed it forward.

The black-haired creature immediately looked up, instinctively wanting to attack, but paused abruptly when he saw the Jizo statue of mother and child.

He reached out to catch the wooden statue, standing there, whimpering, and actually cleared the path to the Kisen well.

The two players rushed forward without hesitation and jumped into the Kisen well.

Using their hands to grip the gaps in the well's brickwork, they quickly descended.

The well water below was as black as ink, slowly swirling like a vortex, with faint hints of human fingers, eyeballs, and seaweed-like hair mixed in.

Li Ang sank into the well water, feeling the direction and force of the vortex, and realized that the bottom of the well was a horizontal s-shaped water trap.

The so-called well water was actually the water at the bottom of the trap.

Since it was a water trap, the other end would be a place without water.

The two players swam along the bottom for a distance, swimming to the other end of the s-shaped water trap. Soon, they broke free of the water and arrived at a spacious underground platform.

With the help of their dark vision abilities, they could vaguely see that the area was generally circular.

The lower half of the circle, where they were standing, was solid ground.

The upper half of the circle was a cliff leading to an abyss.

There were torch brackets on the walls on both sides of the platform entrance. Li Ang used [Burning Finger] to light the torches. With the light of the torches, they could finally see more clearly—

The ground of the platform was covered with dense Jizo statues.

The ground at the entrance of the platform was paved with sleepers and steel blocks, a bit like train tracks, but narrower.

They resembled the minecart tracks in a mining area.

The tracks extended straight forward, connecting to the cliff.

At the end of the tracks, on the ground on both sides, were two iron nails.

Each iron nail was tied with a hemp rope, hanging down to the bottom of the cliff.

A black-haired figure, identical to the one next to the Kisen well, was picking up one of the hemp ropes, preparing to wrap it around his waist.

Seeing Li Ang and Wang Congshan appear, the figure visibly swayed, quickening his pace in wrapping the rope.

"Don't move."

Wang Congshan shouted and raised her assault rifle, pulling the trigger.

The enchanted bullet spun out, grazing past the black-haired figure's foot, successfully stopping him.

The two players quickly stepped forward, pulling the figure back from the edge of the cliff, and untied the rope from his waist. He didn't even struggle or resist.

Li Ang glanced at the bottom of the cliff.

He saw black mist churning and swirling in the abyss, rising and falling, as if brewing something terrifying and indescribable. Just looking at it made one's eyes dizzy and the brain ache.

Li Ang averted his gaze, not looking at the abyss.

He noticed that the other end of the rope on the cliff edge was tied to a metal box, just suspended above the mist, appearing and disappearing intermittently.

"You want to end all this?"

Wang Congshan looked at the silent black-haired figure and spoke the answer she already knew: "Mr. Folklorist?"

"..."

The figure called Folklorist trembled visibly, but remained standing there, silent.

"Still not admitting it?"

Wang Congshan sighed and said calmly, "You are the Nō mask maker of Enoki Village, the son of Fujimura Shuhei and Fujimura Masumi.

You are also the father of Ogasawara Tetsuya and Ogasawara Ayaka, the Toyo University folklore professor Ogasawara Masayuki, who disappeared in the Enoki Village ruins in Okamori Prefecture in Heisei 21."

The figure suddenly raised his head, the black hair on his face trembling.

"I wonder if you recognize this pair of scissors."

Wang Congshan saw that the other party was silent and simply took the scissors from Li Ang's hand, waving them in the air. "We used these scissors from the Hiratsuka family residence to break the shimenawa seal on the torii gate outside Enoki Shrine.

In the long-abandoned shrine, we saw a large number of corpses wearing kimonos, without obvious external injuries, and embracing each other.

However, there is one thing that is very strange.

A seal, of course, is meant to lock away something evil, ominous, something that brings misfortune.

However, there were no demons or monsters in the shrine, only a pile of corpses.

Instead, all over Enoki Village outside the shrine, there was a night parade of a hundred demons.

So, what exactly was the torii gate's seal sealing?"

Wang Congshan paused, seeing that the other party had no intention of speaking, and continued, "Obviously, the torii gate's seal was not targeting the corpses in the shrine,

but the monsters outside the shrine, preventing them from entering the barrier.

The effect of the barrier was quite good, successfully protecting everyone in the shrine when the disaster struck.

But unfortunately, the survivors in the shrine still all died, dying of hunger and despair."

The figure trembled, his loose and disheveled hair shaking.

"Why are you panicking?"

Wang Congshan tilted her head in confusion, saying calmly, "This disaster that occurred in Enoki Village in July of Showa 54 has nothing to do with you,

because, judging by your age, you were only eight or nine years old at the time.

The real reason for the disaster is the Hiratsuka family, and your mother, Fujimura Masumi..."

"That's not how it is!"

The figure finally spoke, clenching his fists and breathing heavily, "That's not how it is..."

"Then how is it?"

Wang Congshan had no emotional fluctuations, and there was no change in her attitude because the Ogasawara Ayaka she was playing was the daughter of the folklorist Ogasawara Masayuki in front of her. She simply said calmly, "Do I have to say it?

Your mother, father, brothers, and even everyone in the village, died in that disaster because of you..."

"...That's not how it is. You don't understand."

Ogasawara Masayuki took a deep breath and was about to say something when he heard a loud rumble.

The entire underground space trembled and shook.

The solid dome above, which carried countless tons of soil, generated countless cracks.

A large amount of dust fell, as if the entire underground space would collapse and be destroyed in the next second.

"It's too late."

Ogasawara Masayuki looked up and shook his arms forcefully, trying to shake off Li Ang's hand. "You guys go, get out of here. I will end all this."

However, Li Ang held his wrist firmly and, amidst the earth-shattering scene, said calmly, "There's still a lot of time. We have plenty of time to understand the truth."

"..."

Ogasawara Masayuki struggled hard for a while, unable to break free, and had to give up struggling, sighing bitterly, "Why did you have to come looking for me..."

Li Ang and Wang Congshan did not respond. Ogasawara Masayuki took a long breath as if resigning himself to fate. Finally, he spoke, but first told a seemingly irrelevant story.

"Mythical stories are a type of folk literature. They are a kind of spiritual sustenance, either yearning or numbing, produced by ancient humans in difficult living conditions in order to understand nature and control nature.

Those mythical stories that can be passed down through word of mouth in the long river of history usually have their own special features.

Either they can satisfy people's interests,

or they can play an educational role in daily life, so much so that they are considered valuable and can be passed down for thousands of years—for example, to be filial, to cherish family, to keep promises, and so on."

Ogasawara Masayuki paused and said, "This is basic knowledge of folklore, and it is also the basis for folklorists to conduct folk visits.

We need to understand the material basis and emotional logic of the local ancestors when they created stories in ancient times through legendary stories.

The myth of the origin of Enoki Village is still well-known in the surrounding areas of Okamori Prefecture.

Even after the destruction of Enoki Village, this myth has not completely disappeared.

Instead, with the disappearance of Enoki Village, it has become a popular topic in the field of folklore.

You should know this."

Li Ang and Wang Congshan did not say anything. They were not from this world and did not know this.

However, this did not affect Ogasawara Masayuki from continuing his story.

"In this mythical story, the samurai's wife died in childbirth while giving birth to Hiruko. The samurai offered sacrifices to the god of matchmaking and, with the help of a hemp rope, came to the land of the dead to meet his wife. The two had a misunderstanding, and then they resolved the misunderstanding. Finally, they reconciled.

The samurai lived on Mount Enoki with his children. Every once in a while, he could meet his wife in the land of the dead through the rope in the well."

Ogasawara Masayuki paused and said, "The seemingly happy story has a key problem. That is, the Hiruko born to the samurai couple.

Hiruko is a child without arms or legs, and it is almost impossible for him to survive in ancient times.

Even in the mythical story, Izanagi and Izanami, who created the island of Japan, had no choice but to place Hiruko on a boat woven from reeds and let him drift on the sea after giving birth to Hiruko through incest.

Returning to the original topic, the Enoki Mountain story only mentions that the samurai's daughters grew up, found husbands, and established villages on Mount Enoki, which is the later Enoki Village.

So, where did Hiruko go?

If Hiruko was still alive after birth, why didn't the samurai ask the god of matchmaking to restore Hiruko to his original state?

If Hiruko also died, why was there no mention of Hiruko's existence in the land of the dead?

There is only one answer, and that is that Hiruko was personally offered to the god of matchmaking by the samurai himself in order to pray for help.

That is why his existence is completely absent from the second half of the story."

Ogasawara Masayuki said, "This is the biggest problem with this myth.

This myth, which is full of chilling evil, must have originated in a very distant era.

Even some other parts of the story itself are real.

It's just that it is too evil and strange to be understood and admitted.

And I had to use a seemingly normal mythical story to cover it up.

If you speculate on the story itself with the greatest malice, it is not difficult to come to a conclusion—

In order to meet his dead wife again, the samurai offered the dead Hiruko in order to reach the land of the dead.

Because of the strange and special nature of Mount Enoki itself, the samurai was reluctant to move away from this place, so he built a village here and lived there for generations."

"Wait a minute."

Li Ang thought for a while and pointed to the turbid and churning black mist below the cliff. "Are you saying that this abyss below Enoki Village is the land of the dead?"

Even without using his mind abilities, he could feel the ancient and profound evil aura in the abyss below.

If he really used his spiritual sense to look closely, he was afraid that he would exhaust his sanity value and go completely crazy in just a few seconds in his current constrained state.

"Not really."

Ogasawara Masayuki glanced at the abyss as if he was holding great fear, and said, "This is just the entrance to the land of the dead.

Just like the metaphor in the myth,

Enoki Village was built above the entrance to the land of the dead. Only through a specific ritual can the entrance to the land of the dead be opened,

and the real land of the dead can be reached through the sacred shimenawa, which symbolizes connection."