Hyakki Yagyō (Night Parade of One Hundred Demons)

Chapter 10

Later... I don't remember anything.

Did I do anything?

Now, I have returned to the grove I dreamed of on my first day at Daolian's house.

Am I... not inside that barrier in the back mountain of the Taoist temple? When did I get here?

"I asked you to come!" Behind me was a voice that was both unfamiliar and familiar.

It's that man, I know.

"That vengeful ghost has already been shattered! You still can't control yourself! Now... it's too early for your power to be awakened! If she had obediently stayed sealed in the barrier and hadn't come looking for you, she might not have suffered so much. At least she could have been reincarnated after being elevated by Taoism. Now, she's been annihilated by your power... her past resentment... has become nourishment for your body... She's so foolish... still wanting your body... she'll only make you stronger. Your first time eating a ghost... and it's already at such a high level... you've really had a tough time..."

"Eat a ghost? I..." I turned around and clearly saw the man's face, but I couldn't utter a single word. Strangely, even though it was a face I'd never seen before, I felt a deep sense of nostalgia, as if I'd known him for a very, very long time. It felt like I'd been searching for him for a long, long time. The long hair, the high nose, the cold smile on his lips—it was all so unfamiliar, yet it made me unable to hold back my tears. It felt...like we really had known each other for a very long time...

"Who are you?"

“You know…you just haven’t remembered yet…it’s not the right time…you’ll know on that day! Who I am…and…your past…” He said with a smile, slipping a bracelet onto my wrist. Then he kissed my forehead. “Don’t worry about your friends. They’re perfectly fine. That ghost didn’t actually put their souls into the dolls, because her barrier hadn’t been broken yet; she didn’t have the ability. She just hid them and tricked you into breaking the barrier. Because in the beginning, her purpose in trapping you there was you. She was just too foolish…she went too far and accidentally activated your power too early. Fool, you deserved to be eaten! This bracelet is to control your power. I won’t be able to come find you for a while! It’s dangerous for you to have that kind of power without knowing anything! Go back! When you wake up…everything will be back to normal!”

"Next time... what should I call you when I see you next time... will we meet again?"

"...It definitely will...Just call me D for now! We're destined to meet again!"

Author: Xinxinjun Reply Date: 2005-01-02 01:00:00

When I woke up again, I was lying in the ancestral home of the Daoist family. Dao Lian's maternal grandmother was sitting next to me with a solemn expression.

“...Grandma Dao…”

"Don't say anything more! I also made mistakes this time. In any case, I still want to thank you for saving my grandson. Although he was injured because of you, this kind of setback may not be bad for him. At least it can spur him to cultivate stronger."

"I'm sorry..." I struggled to get up, wanting to apologize to Granny Dao. Upon closer inspection, I saw the bracelet on my hand that the man from my dream had given me.

It's not a dream! That's wonderful... I don't know why, but I feel a strange excitement inside.

However, when the old woman saw my bracelet, her expression changed drastically. After telling me to "rest well," she immediately left, muttering, "He's here...he's here...is this fate...could it...really be happening..."

Is something about to happen? I'm a little scared, but also a little excited.

Does "he" refer to D? Will he come out of the dream?

But back then, I truly underestimated the cruelty of the word "fate." I thought what happened later would be the beginning of happiness, but... I guess I'm destined to never find happiness in this life. If... if... God could give me a choice, I would rather die before I knew anything, before anything happened.

Our subsequent trip to City C turned into a farcical affair. Dao Lian, on crutches, went everywhere with us because his leg was broken. Nana, on the other hand, was perfectly fine, probably because of her incredibly thick-skinned nature! Dao Lian wouldn't tell me anything about what happened when he was taken away, only that he was a month late for school because of it and stayed at the Taoist family to cultivate. I didn't deliberately try to think about what I did during the time I was unconscious, because my subconscious told me that if I remembered… perhaps this fleeting happiness would be shattered.

A fleeting happiness? So, I already had a premonition back then… about the pain that would follow…

Taoist Ancestral Home:

"Dao Ting, go down the mountain! Go to Dao Lian's school. Observe that girl... whether she is good or bad... there are too many factors. If that thing is really going to happen, if she chooses the negative side, then we can only kill her before she knows anything."

"Okay, Mother-in-law!"

"Also, you go and gather the Taoist spiritualists scattered throughout the land; we need to start preparing as well..."

The fourth visitor is finished.

Author: Xinxinjun Reply Date: 2005-01-02 01:01:00

[Zero - The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons, Part 5: The Game of Rumors on a Note]

Rumors, when circulated for a long time, can seem like the truth.

Lies only snowball and get bigger.

Perhaps, in the end, we still won't learn to trust others.

I said, I believe what most people say.

However, sometimes only a few people know the truth.

—Epigraph

Author: Xinxinjun Reply Date: 2005-01-02 01:02:00

This is a game. It started simply because of idle whispers among girls. Everyone wrote their thoughts or gossip about someone at school on slips of paper and passed them on to the next person, one after another, and the gossip grew more and more outrageous. But nobody knew who started the rumor. Once you received a slip of paper, you had to add your own thoughts or inside information about the gossip before passing it on to the next person. It was a very interesting game; everyone loves to talk about others. Girls, after all, it would be strange if they didn't say something behind someone's back. There was also an interesting agreement on the slips: after writing a new one, you had to pass it on to the next person, and if there were any requests on the slip, you had to fulfill them. However, the requests were usually very simple, like "say what you think" or "write down what you know and pass it on to the next person." If the slip of paper returned to the person who wrote the rumor, then she had to write a new rumor and start a new round of the game.

It was 7:30, already quite late. The non-boarding students had long since gone home, but the girl was still sitting excitedly alone in the classroom. No one knew that she was the one who created this game. Moreover, many of the rumors on the notes were completely fabricated. But watching the game spread wider and wider, and some of the fabricated stories gradually becoming true, was truly fascinating. Excitedly, she wrote down a new rumor on a note, planning to slip it into her deskmate's drawer later and watch it circulate throughout the school.

"Hehe..." Thinking of this, she couldn't help but chuckle. After writing the note, she easily stuffed it into the drawer next door, picked up her schoolbag, and prepared to go home. Just then, she noticed a note had fallen to the floor as she pulled her bag out. What was it? How had that rumor from last time become?

She picked up the note, opened it, and froze.

"Shering stayed in the classroom until the very end, and before going home, she went to the women's restroom on the second floor. She talked to the person in the second stall. If she didn't do what was written on the note, she would be hit by a car on her way home. After reading it, add your own thoughts and pass it on to the next person."

Who wrote this? Shering is her name! This note…who started it! How ridiculous! Who would start this kind of rumor game! She was about to crumple the note and throw it in the trash when she suddenly remembered the rules she had made up. No matter what, the note couldn't be thrown away before being passed to the next person, otherwise…the person who threw it away would be unlucky for life. Although these were the rules she had made up, and although she could completely ignore them, for some reason she felt afraid. She grabbed the note and hurriedly ran to the women's restroom on the second floor, knocking on the door of stall number two.

That was the restroom where ghost stories had been told. The girl was a little scared, but she still started knocking on the door.

"Is anyone there? Is anyone there?"

"Creak..." That was the sound of the wooden door shaking. The door opened little by little, but no one was there!

Nobody's here! What am I going to do?! She tried to rush out of the bathroom, but the door wouldn't open. Through the mirror on the sink, she saw her horrified face. Who was that? Was that herself? Why...why was her face so pale? Why was blood flowing from her neck?

Behind her… there's another smiling face? That’s… who… is it her own smiling face!

Day 2

"Ah Ling...look at that girl...she's so strange!" Nana tugged at my sleeve. "Isn't that Sherin from the next class? Who's she talking to?"

I turned around and looked in the direction Nana was pointing. Sherin from Class 2 was smiling and chatting with someone in the second toilet stall. "It's just a normal chat, what's so strange about it? Haven't you ever seen people chatting in the toilet before?" I asked Nana curiously.

"But... I didn't see anyone use that toilet!"

“Perhaps someone went in before us!” As he spoke, Sherlin had already walked past us.

"Hehe... I did what was on the note... Now... I'm fine..." Xie Lin's gaze was somewhat vacant. She walked past us, laughing, and glanced back at us, asking, "Do you... want to play the note game? It'll be so much fun!" I noticed that she was wearing heavy makeup. Isn't the school supposed to forbid students from wearing makeup? Her face was as white as paper, and her expression under the heavy makeup was stiff, like a puppet. After saying that, she left the restroom.

Nana was curious and tried to push the door of the second toilet, but found that she couldn't open it.

"Strange... Is someone inside?"

"There should be! Otherwise, why couldn't I push it open?" I said nonchalantly, slowly walking out of the restroom. Little did I know that this was the beginning of the incident.

"Thump..." It was the sound of a heavy object hitting the ground, and a dark figure plummeted rapidly from outside the corridor window. Nana and I looked out the window, and our bodies instantly stiffened.

It was Sherin, whom we had just met in the restroom! She jumped to her death! The floor was covered in blood; her body lay there like a deformed puppet, her eyes seemingly fixed on Nana and me. A strange smile played on her lips, painted with bright red lipstick, as if foreshadowing the beginning of this tragedy.

"It's happening again... Every year around this time... a few people jump off buildings and die! This year seems to be the first... I wonder if it will be like the previous years!" The whispers among classmates reached us.

"I heard that she climbed onto the rooftop while laughing. At the time, no one thought much about why she would jump down like that."

"It's probably because of too much pressure!"

"That can't be right! Seven girls die at this school every year! They all jump off buildings, and although the manner of their deaths and the locations of their jumps are different, I feel there's definitely something wrong with this school! There must be something..."

"Don't talk nonsense... You might be next..."

Nana and I exchanged a silent glance. Could it be that kind of thing?

"Should we investigate this?" I asked Nana.

"Sigh, Dao Lian isn't at school right now; she's cultivating. There's nothing we can do to investigate her! We'd better be careful!" Nana said helplessly, though I could tell she was very curious.

"I hope... you'll keep your word! I find it hard to believe that a woman with such an incredibly strong curiosity would say something like that!"

"Stop being sarcastic, Ah Ling! I promise I'll keep my word this time!"

But the thing is, the more you don't want something to happen, the more likely it is to happen in the place closest to you.

"Ah Ling, do you know that there's a kind of paper-strip game that's really popular among girls lately?"

"What's that for?"

"Anyway, it seems to be just a rumor. We're often the main characters in this, I don't know if we should be happy about it?"

"Boring!" Nana and I slowly made our way back to the dormitory. The vague unease I felt when I saw Sherlin from the next class this morning was still lingering in my heart, but I tried my best to ignore it.

Just as I was about to enter the dormitory, I noticed a familiar figure flash by on the staircase of no return next to the dormitory.

"Nana, you go in first... I have something to do and need to go upstairs first!" He tossed the bag to Nana and ran after the shadow.

It was the spirit I'd seen twice before, the one at the entrance to our dorm. She smiled at me, pointed towards the rooftop, and said, "Over there... I might be in a lot of trouble for you from now on!" Then she vanished. The dorm rooftop was inaccessible now, but I remembered the small door I'd found during the last lovemaking incident, so I fumbled for it and opened it. The wind on the rooftop was still so chilly; even though Senior Lovemaking had ascended to immortality, the place still felt eerily sinister.

"Hehe...hehe..." A girl sat laughing outside the rooftop railing. Her face was somewhat unfamiliar; she seemed to be a senior from the high school. Her face was covered in the same heavy makeup as Sherlin's that morning, making it almost impossible to see her expression. I only remembered a twisted smile on her lips. She seemed to see me, stiffly turning around and saying, "You're here...I did what was on the note...hehe...want to play a note game? We're all puppets in this game, thinking others are our puppets, but actually we're the ones being manipulated!" She swayed as she stood up, holding out her hand to show me what she had. I noticed it; it seemed to be a crumpled piece of paper.

"Senior... watch out!" I reached out to pull her up because I noticed that half of her foot was outside the roof and she was starting to lose her balance.

"Hehe..." Her body fell backward, and I only managed to touch her fingertips and a fragment of a note that drifted in the wind.

"Ah..." The students passing by below started screaming. I stared blankly down from the railing. The way my senior landed was the same as Xie Lin's this morning! Her eyes were looking in my direction, and a strange smile was on her lips.

I unfolded the fragments of the note in my hand, and could only make out a few incomplete words: "...a conversation with the person inside. If she doesn't do what's written on the note, she will be crushed to death by a heavy object." Is this a popular note game among girls? If so, how could there be such a vicious agreement?

Author: Xinxinjun Reply Date: 2005-01-02 01:03:00

"Have you heard? Yesterday, a girl from the second year of high school jumped down too. I heard she died in the same way as Sherlin from Class Two!"

"This is the second one... This time it seems to be much faster than before..."

"The school said they committed suicide because of too much pressure at school. But I heard that's not the case!"

"It must be that one! It's the annual tradition of seven girls dying!"

"Let's not talk about it! It feels like we're next!"

"You're talking nonsense!"

The people in the classroom were all talking about what happened last night. Nana asked me curiously, "Ah Ling, what did you do upstairs yesterday? Why have you looked so pale ever since you came back? And you seem really strange. Did you see something again?"

"No...it's nothing! I was just thinking that every time something happens, it's somehow related to us...this time..." I muttered to myself.

"Ah Ling?" Nana's voice brought me back to my senses. "Look! The trendy note has finally reached me! Wow! Quick, let's see what's inside!"

A note? I snatched the note away before Nana could even look at it.

"Ah Ling? What's wrong? Oh~ I know you want to see it too, right?"

"...Yeah!" I knew I must look very pale, and the thought of the way Xie Lin and the senior who died last night looked at me made me uneasy. "My stomach hurts so much, I need to go to the toilet! Please ask for leave for me if the teacher comes!" After saying that, I turned and ran out of the classroom.

Only after confirming that no one was in the restroom did I slowly unfold the note: "Big news about the development of Ouyang Ling and Dao Lian's relationship..." No! I let out a heavy sigh, quickly glanced at it, and couldn't help but complain, "What is this?! So boring!" I casually threw the note into the toilet and flushed it away. I really don't know what the girls in school are thinking, playing such a boring game? Is gossiping behind someone's back fun?

"Hehe..." As I was washing my hands, I heard a strange laugh coming from the toilet next door. "You also think this game is boring? But a lot of people can have a lot of fun with it!"

"Is someone talking to me?" "Hmm..." Seeing that there was still no response from inside, I figured someone was probably talking on their phone, so I didn't pay much attention. Not long after, some voices came from inside again, intermittently: "Who's the puppet? Who's manipulating whom? Look at your expressions, you're like stiff puppets... So ugly... What do you think you can do to me?" These words seemed a bit familiar; it seemed like someone had said something about puppets to me before.

As I walked to the toilet door to leave, my shoelace came undone. I bent down and my eyes inadvertently glanced at the toilet from which the sound had just come from.