Hiromi Collection - Chapter 23
"Auntie, did you just say I look like someone?" For this rare source of information, Wei Changliao disregarded everything else and simply grabbed the middle-aged woman's other arm.
"It hurts so much!" the middle-aged woman cried out, grimacing. "I...I...I said you look like the Wei family's child, but I heard that child died several years ago."
The Wei family? Wei Changliao found it a bit strange: "Auntie, do you remember what that family's child's name is?"
"Call him Wei Changliao!"
As the middle-aged woman walked away cursing, Wei Changliao remained rooted to the spot, his mind a complete mess.
There are over 5 billion people in this world, of which 1.36 billion are from our great motherland, China. It's not a big deal for men to look alike, women to look alike, or even for men and women to look alike. But if two people not only look alike but also have the same name, there must be some reason for that.
After calming down, Wei Changliao began to connect the dots between his own experiences and those of the novels he had read. Perhaps "Wei Changliao" was indeed "Wei Changliao." Years ago, for some reason, that Wei Changliao was mistakenly believed to be dead, but he had only lost his memory, and only then did the current Wei Changliao emerge. But the problem remained: how to explain that lone household registration booklet?
After much deliberation, Wei Changliao finally decided to go and inquire about the middle-aged woman. Unfortunately, he hadn't thought to get her contact information during their first meeting. The alleyway network was vast, and the woman's location that day might not have been near her home. He wasn't even sure if she lived in that network of interconnected alleys. However, alongside his strong curiosity, Wei Changliao was also someone who, once he set his mind on something, would persevere relentlessly. He waited one day, then two, then three, five, then a week… After nearly two months of waiting, he finally encountered the middle-aged woman again. To her surprise, he learned the address of another Wei Changliao.
Because the other party's home was located in a relatively remote area outside the city, Wei Changliao could only visit on weekends. However, his company arranged multiple business trips for him over the next month. Therefore, when Wei Changliao, filled with excitement, embarked on his journey to the other Wei Changliao's home, nearly four months had passed since he first saw the middle-aged woman. During this long wait, Wei Changliao didn't remain idle. He imagined countless possibilities in his mind: lost twins, himself with amnesia—many absurd scenarios were rehearsed in his mind again and again, analyzed, eliminated, or elaborated upon one by one. Finally, when Wei Changliao finally found the Wei family as he had hoped, he was almost speechless with excitement.
The Wei family's house was a small, self-built building. Although large, its exterior was rough and dilapidated, as if it had endured some calamity over the years. Most of the surrounding neighbors had already moved away, and their houses, mostly demolished, lay abandoned in the sun, looking somewhat comical. Some elderly people sat leisurely in the center of the threshing ground, lost in thought, while the strains of opera singing drifted from an old-fashioned transistor radio.
Wei Changliao stood at the door of the Wei family's house, drenched in sweat, his heart pounding in his chest. He took a deep breath and knocked hard on the door.
One, two, three...
It seemed that no one from the Wei family was present.
Four, five, six...
Wei Changliao's mood began to plummet.
Ten, eleven, twelve...
Wei Changliao finally heard footsteps coming downstairs from inside the door. As the footsteps drew closer, his heart leaped into his throat. Whether it was his long-lost relative behind the door or a complete stranger, everything would soon be revealed.
The footsteps grew louder and closer until finally, the old-fashioned wooden door creaked open halfway in front of him. An elderly woman who looked to be in her sixties slowly peeked out from behind the door. The moment she saw Wei Changliao, her frail figure swayed slightly.
"Xiao Liao, it's Xiao Liao!" Suddenly, the old lady burst into tears. "Xiao Liao is back!!! Xiao Liao is back!!!!"
Before the stunned Wei Changliao, the old lady suddenly collapsed onto the high threshold and began to cry desperately, her voice shrill and tears streaming down her face.
"I told you you would come back, but they didn't believe me. That person told me you would definitely come back..." The old woman cried as she spoke in words that were hard to understand.
"It's my fault. That person told me not to put the eye patch on. I'm stupid, I'm stupid. I couldn't bear to see Xiao Liao go blind..." As she finished speaking, the old lady suddenly jumped up and grabbed Wei Chang Liao's hand tightly, so hard that her nails almost dug into Wei Chang Liao's flesh.
Wei Changliao groaned in pain and paced anxiously, unsure of what to do. His eyes darted around and he noticed a traditional Chinese ink painting hanging in the center of the old lady's main room. The painting depicted mountains and rivers, but there was an empty space in the middle, as if something had once been there.
"Come on, come inside with Mom. Now that you're back, Mom won't let you leave again! Mom won't let anyone see you, and Mom won't let anyone take you away!!"
However, in that moment of distraction, the situation changed again. The old lady forcefully dragged Wei Changliao into the house, as if she intended to lock him up for life.
Oh no! What should I do now? The old woman in front of me is clearly not quite right in the head. I can't reason with her, and I can't use force. Am I really going to let her lock me up for the rest of my life? Just as Wei Changliao was at a loss, his legs suddenly began to weaken, and his head began to spin. In front of him, the old woman multiplied from one to two, and then from two to four...
What on earth is going on? Wei Changliao shook his head vigorously. That painting, the one in the center of the main room, seemed to be attracting him like a magnet.
Ouch! Suddenly, Wei Changliao felt a sharp pain in his lower back. In his dazed state, he had bumped into the corner of a table. In that instant, Wei Changliao regained his senses. He didn't care about anything else at that moment. He threw the old lady aside and ran away, making his way to the market.
"Hey, you're back?" Someone greeted Wei Changliao while he was in a daze.
Wei Changliao looked at the scholar in the green robe in front of him with suspicion for a while, and asked, "You are...?"
"I am Lu Baibi. Don't you recognize me? I've been waiting for you for so long. You've been gone for so long and I haven't heard from you at all." The scholar named Lu Baibi said as he began to search for something among the messy pile of scrolls on his stall.
"I...I don't know you, I'm leaving now." For some reason, Wei Changliao suddenly felt very scared. He was certain that the scholar couldn't possibly find anything like a watermelon knife that could threaten his life from that pile of tattered scrolls, but he was just so terrified, and he didn't even know why.
"Alright, alright, let's use this one." The scholar muttered to himself, pulled a blank scroll from the painting, unrolled it, and casually called out to Wei Changliao, "Go back."
Wei Changliao felt dizzy and lightheaded in an instant, his consciousness easily detached from his body, and when he looked again, he saw a pure white world without any boundaries.
Is this... from a painting?
Wei Changliao suddenly realized, and then burst into laughter. It turned out to be a painting, and he was just a painting.
“Yes, you are a painting.” Lu Baibi spoke to Wei Changliao, who was laughing and clutching his stomach in the painting, “You really are just a painting.”
"Yes, I am a painting." Wei Changliao didn't know why he wanted to laugh so much. He rolled on the ground, clutching his stomach. It was too funny. After searching for his memories for so long, it turned out he was just a painting. He thought of his grieving mother who had once held him tightly in her arms, of the days he had spent with her, of Xiao Li, of Sherry, of his boss, and as he laughed, tears streamed down his face.
Lu Baibi sighed and put away the scroll that was soaked with ink.
I've said it before: you can't paint eyes on the people in the painting, otherwise they'll have their own thoughts and won't be able to perfectly play the role they've been given. Why didn't that woman listen? She sacrificed decades of her life, only to end up with nothing, and even ruined a good painting of her own.
Lu Baibi thought for a moment, then finally threw the painting into the trash can at the street corner. In the distance, he could almost hear Wei Changliao's hysterical laughter coming from inside the trash can…
Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Mirage Woman
Name: Feng Zhi Xuan tide Gender: Female Age: Appearance: 23 years old
Occupation: Owner of a "super giant mirage" farm Address: Bomeiji East Suburb
(one)
"I heard that woman appears at Suzaku Gate every night?" Minamoto no Hiromasa said this while drinking on the outer veranda of Abe no Seimei's residence.
The time is the full moon of Minazuki (the sixth month of the lunar calendar).
According to the current Gregorian calendar, it is around July 10th.
The full moon of Minazuki is June 15th.
At Abe no Seimei's home on Tsuchimikado Street, Minamoto no Hiromasa and Seimei were drinking on the outer veranda as usual.
Seimei, dressed in a white hunting robe, reclined leisurely on his side in the outer corridor. He faced the courtyard, his right elbow propped up, and his left hand holding a sake cup.
In the summer courtyard, weeds grew wildly, almost completely covering the ground.
"It's like bringing in a corner of the wilderness exactly as it was!" Minamoto no Hiromasa thought to himself countless times.
The garden of the Seimei family never seemed to be deliberately tended. Cherry blossoms, gentians, bellflowers, hydrangeas, lady's flowers, and so on—different flowers and plants thrived and grew freely in this garden throughout the four seasons. However, at times, Hiromasa felt that Seimei's will seemed to permeate those flowers and plants, and that the seemingly unconscious plants might be growing according to some of Seimei's intentions.
Of course, this was nothing special. Seimei was an Onmyoji, probably the most powerful one in the world at the time. Minamoto no Hiromasa was often proud to be Seimei's only close human friend.
That Seimei would never let anyone into his house, yet he kept countless shikigami there. People say that even when no one was home, the lights would still be on at night, and the wooden windows would be closed!
"Then what?"
"Then three days ago, someone finally dared to approach her and talk to her. Wasn't that woman pacing back and forth around the Vermilion Bird Gate, muttering something to herself?"
What did she say?
"Well... there are probably about ten people who have seen that woman, but none of them could hear what she was muttering."
"Is the sound not clear enough?"
"On the contrary. Every one of the ten people said that the woman's voice was clear and loud, so beautiful that it made people almost forget who they were or what they were supposed to do, but none of them could tell what she was saying."
"Is it a foreign language?" Seimei tilted his head back and finished his drink. A woman in a dark brown Tang-style dress crawled up to pour him more wine. Hiromasa recognized the woman; she was a beautiful woman named Mitsumi, a shikigami.
"Probably not. It's said she speaks authentic Beijing dialect, but..."
"only?"
"Nobody can understand what she's saying!" Boya scratched the back of his head in annoyance, a puzzled look on his face.
"So that reckless man started flirting with the woman?"
"That's right. That man was originally a samurai in the Fujiwara family, and he was recently transferred to guard the Suzaku Gate. He had actually seen that woman several times before, but he must have been drunk that night, which is why he dared to approach her and start a conversation."
"Miss, what are you saying!" The drunken samurai staggered up to the woman and started chatting her up. "You're always walking around here, it's really annoying!"
The woman seemed not to hear the samurai's words and continued to mutter as she paced back and forth.
"Hey, Miss!" the samurai shouted, but the woman continued walking, ignoring him.
The samurai, already quite drunk, couldn't withstand the woman's arrogant attitude and immediately reached out to pull her away.
What are you trying to do?!
This time, the samurai understood what the woman was saying. Her voice was so beautiful, like heavenly music, that the man was at a loss for words.
The samurai's mouth swirled with phrases like "May I ask your name, Miss?" or "How may I help you?" but he couldn't bring himself to say them.
"I asked you what you want?" the woman said, turning her head.
"And then what?"
"later?"
"What did the samurai see?"
"have no idea."
"..."
"No one knows what the samurai saw. The woman turned around and disappeared shortly after, while the samurai just stood there, motionless. When dawn broke, the guards found the samurai standing there unconscious like a wooden statue, and hurriedly called for people to carry him home. He's still lying at home now, and I heard he hasn't regained his senses."
"As for what I just said, it was pieced together from the samurai's nonsense and what the watchman Tadashi told me. Tadashi happened to be passing by the Suzaku Gate at the time, so he overheard some of it."
At this point, Yuan Boya paused.
"How is it, Seimei?"
"What do you mean, how about it?"
"Could it be some kind of ghost or monster?"
"That's still uncertain."
"So, shall we go?"
"..."
"Let's go take a look."
"Did that guy ask you to do it?"
The person Seimei was referring to was none other than the Emperor.
Perhaps a bit childish, Seimei always referred to the Emperor as "that guy" in private. Every time he called him that, Hiromasa would get a headache.
"I've told you many times, haven't I? Don't address His Majesty that way."
"So, it wasn't that guy?"
"……yes."
"So, you've been asked for help again, haven't you?" Seimei looked at Hiromasa with a half-smile, his red lips, which seemed to be lightly rouged, slightly upturned.
"Well...it's because the Vermilion Bird Gate is very close to the inner area, and we can't just leave it unattended like this! Besides..."
"Besides?"