"You have no idea what you're talking about."

The police chief, holding his handgun, said slowly, word by word, "Put down the doctor, and maybe we can sit down and talk..."

Li Ang sighed and said, "Fushen Pingyuan is a very tragic man. Most of his life has been lived amidst the deceit and concealment of others. He's seen too many terrible things, so much so that his brain, in order to spare him more pain, deliberately twisted and altered those memories into things that are obviously fabricated."

The police chief frowned deeply. "What are you trying to say?"

"Remember the two memories of Fushen Pingyuan I told you about?" Li Ang said indifferently. "In the first memory, a young Fushen Pingyuan was running wild in the fields, chased by a wriggling, mochi-like creature. Fushen Pingyuan reached a bridge and saw a choir of demons escorting a headless girl in a Bai Wugou toward the deep mountains. In the second memory, a high school-aged Fushen Pingyuan was retelling a ghost story adapted from his childhood experiences. The story mentions that Jie Yue's limbs and body had been taken away in 'boxes labeled with body parts,' leaving only her head behind. Xiu Lai went mad after seeing the Scarecrow God."

At first, I thought that Fushen Pingyuan, unable to withstand the successive blows of his uncle trying to kill him, Jie Yue's mysterious disappearance, and Xiu Lai's madness, interpreted that memory from May of '77 as the work of demons, and in high school, treated it as a ludicrous ghost story.

Li Ang continued, "But what if those terrifying, ghost-story-like memories of Fushen Pingyuan actually happened? What if the wriggling, mochi-like creature was Xiu Lai, who had seen something he shouldn't have, and the headless girl in the Bai Wugou was Jie Yue—her death also precisely caused by Pingyuan and Xiu Lai?"

The police chief's face showed his confusion. "...What?"

"On March 20, 1977, the Fushen family returned to their hometown in the countryside," Li Ang stated. "On March 24, Fushen Pingyuan, his sister Jie Yue, and his cousin Xiu Lai finished building a secret base. On March 25, Fushen Pingyuan told his uncle about the secret base. On March 26, Fushen Pingyuan's uncle, Fushen Dahe, sneaked into their room, attempting to kill the three children with a knife, but was instead killed by Fushen Pingyuan's parents. They claimed to the outside world that he had lost his mind and committed seppuku."

Li Ang spoke slowly, "Fushen Pingyuan had a very good relationship with his uncle. On March 10, his uncle had even given him an English dictionary and mythology books as gifts. But on March 26, his uncle suddenly wanted to kill the three children. Why?"

The police chief frowned. "Hasn't this already been settled? His uncle was too obsessed with local folklore and went mad..."

Li Ang interrupted, "Perhaps it wasn't madness. Perhaps his uncle wanted to protect Pingyuan, Xiu Lai, and Jie Yue."

"Protect?"

"Yes."

Li Ang nodded. "In May 1977, Fushen Jie Yue had an incident. In 1998, Fushen Pingyuan suffered a bout of migraines, accidentally causing Fushen Xingzi and Fushen Boji to be scalded by boiling water. In May of the Reiwa Gannen Year, 2019, Fushen Pingyuan killed his entire family and kidnapped Weimen Ziyuan. Don't you find the timing quite curious?"

The police chief squinted, the dark muzzle of his handgun still aimed at Li Ang's head, which was hidden behind the doctor. "What timing?"

"1977.

1998.

2019."

Li Ang said, "The three years are exactly 21 years apart. Moreover, Fushen Jie Yue, Fushen Xingzi, and Weimen Ziyuan were all precisely eight years old when their incidents occurred."

"..."

"The Fushen family's old home is in Qifeng Village, east of Wakayama City. According to travel maps, Yiji Shrine, which Fushen Miyoshi often visited for worship, is located in the area between Wakayama City and Qifeng Village."

Li Ang continued, "Yiji Shrine houses the local protective deity, Tennyo Yiji. Legend says that if a person throws themselves into the lake before death, they can be reborn. Because of this legend, many people visit Yiji Shrine each year, including dignitaries and notable figures. Donations from all sectors of society have allowed the Shrine to prosper, and it purchased a large mountainous area as its property long ago. The mountains surrounding Qifeng Village happen to fall within this area. This means that the choir of demons from Fushen Pingyuan's first memory was heading towards the Yiji Shrine.

If the choir of demons was actually villagers from Qifeng Village, and the headless corpse they carried was Fushen Jie Yue, then all of this would make sense. Fushen Pingyuan's uncle, Fushen Dahe, had known for a long time that the villagers of Qifeng Village held a special 'belief' in Tennyo Yiji, and that Fushen Jie Yue had been chosen as a shrine maiden, a sacrificial offering, or something else. But this choice did not initially pose a risk to her life, so he observed quietly.

However, on March 25, Fushen Pingyuan told him about the secret base. The actions of the three children in the secret base must have disrupted Fushen Dahe's plans. Based on what happened next, I believe Fushen Jie Yue was no longer considered 'intact,' making her unable to fulfill her duties as a shrine maiden or sacrificial offering. Since Fushen Jie Yue was the pre-selected candidate, if she were discovered to be no longer 'intact' during the Ritual track in May, she would likely face something terrible.

Therefore, on the evening of March 26, Fushen Dahe sneaked into the room with a knife. He might have decided to scar or even maim Jie Yue to prevent her from being chosen. Or perhaps, he intended to escape the village with her. Unfortunately, he failed and was discovered and killed by Fushen Pingyuan's parents. Fushen Pingyuan was terrified and didn't dare speak of his previous conversation with his uncle.

Finally, on a certain day in May, the adults discovered that Jie Yue did not meet the conditions. However, it was too late to choose another candidate, so they followed some ancient tradition: they killed her, decapitated her, and dressed her headless body in a Bai Wugou. Before the Japan Islands leaned towards Europeanization, white was used as a sacred color for sacrificial clothing, later gradually evolving into bridal wear.

That evening, Pingyuan and Xiu Lai, knowing nothing of the sacrifice, returned from outside and saw their sister's head at home. Panicked, they fled to the fields, only to see on the mountain roads by night their once-familiar villagers, dressed in ceremonial attire, carrying torches, and escorting an altar bearing their sister's headless body into the mountains. This horrific scene drove Xiu Lai mad on the spot and completely terrified Pingyuan, causing him to suffer from migraines from that point on—a precursor to his personality splitting.

Afterward, Xiu Lai stayed in the countryside and was soon transferred to a sanatorium in Wakayama City.

But the story didn't end there.

It wasn't just the villagers of Qifeng Village who held special beliefs in Tennyo Yiji and Yiji Shrine; many others in Wakayama City shared these beliefs. This group was very powerful, and Fushen Pingyuan's parents were part of it. For some reason, they didn't absorb the traumatized and amnesiac—or rather, memory-disordered—Fushen Pingyuan into their organization. Instead, they raised him like a normal child.

Fushen Pingyuan's father likely had a change of heart, hoping Pingyuan would leave Qifeng Village and Wakayama City, distancing himself from the organization. But in college, Pingyuan met his middle school classmate, Yuren Rihui, and proposed to her. He was completely unaware that Yuren Rihui also believed in Tennyo Yiji. He foolishly brought her back to his rural hometown and told his father about their plans to marry.

Pingyuan's father was furious. He didn't want his son to become further entangled with the organization. So, just like Fushen Dahe, he entered Yuren Rihui's room at night with a knife, intending to kill her. However, Fushen Pingyuan discovered him and, in the ensuing struggle, accidentally killed his own father.

Memories began to swirl and muddle in Fushen Pingyuan's mind. The memory of witnessing his uncle's death and the memory of killing his father with his own hands intertwined, throwing him into utter chaos and further exacerbating his splitting personalities.

A year later, Pingyuan graduated from college and, through an acquaintance, began working for a company in Wakayama City. I suspect that acquaintance was also a member of the organization. The Fushen family's surname possessed a unique characteristic, and the distinct bloodline of its members meant the organization didn't want to let him go so easily.

As Xingzi and Boji were born, Fushen Pingyuan's migraines worsened. A certain personality within him (let's call it the second personality for now) constantly analyzed past memories, trying to piece together what had happened. This second personality faintly sensed the true cause of his uncle's death, the existence of the organization, and his wife's strangeness. However, its ability to act was very limited; it couldn't control Fushen Pingyuan's body for long enough to take the children and flee the city, away from the organization.

Moreover, Fushen Pingyuan harbored more than just one or two personalities; there was also a third, stronger personality that believed in Tennyo Yiji. Informants of the organization were everywhere. Any rash attempt by the second personality to assert control or make contact could alert the third personality or the organization, causing the plan to fail. Not only would it fail to save the children, but it would also mean completely losing its own freedom.

Therefore, the second personality could only resort to the method his uncle had once considered. This involved deliberately scalding Xingzi's and Boji's skin with boiling water, creating scars to make them unsuitable for the organization's purposes. This explains what Fushen Pingyuan and his son-in-law mentioned during psychotherapy: that in his dream of scalding his children, he was smiling contentedly."

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