El segundo libro de la serie El mago de Oolong, titulado La mente normal

Capítulo 1

The female corpse in the closet

Prelude Fire

The first to notice the smell of smoke was the second daughter, Yuriko.

In fact, among the three sisters, Yuriko has the most sensitive intuition.

A burnt smell wafted over, but it wasn't the smell of food being burnt while cooking. It was a burnt smell that hit the nasal mucosa directly and was extremely irritating.

Startled awake by the burning smell, Yuriko jumped out of bed, and almost simultaneously, her head slammed against the upper bunk with a "thud." Ignoring the sharp pain, Yuriko blurted out, "Ugh! You beast!" No one would have imagined that such a vulgar word would come from the mouth of a 17-year-old girl. Meanwhile, her younger sister in the upper bunk was still fast asleep.

The bedroom, which housed the three sisters and consisted of eight tatami mats, was pitch black. Yuriko rubbed her forehead as she got out of bed to find the light switch.

In a moment of desperation, Yuriko's instincts bordered on madness. The switch could have been turned on with a simple press, but instead, she yelled "Hey!" and swung her arm at it as if trying to knock it away. The fluorescent light flickered two or three times and then came on.

White smoke seeped in through the crack in the door, gradually making the air in the room murky. The quick-witted Yuriko immediately realized what was happening.

Without delay, Yuriko climbed the ladder to the top bunk, pulled back her sister Tamami's blanket, grabbed her shoulders, and shook her violently.

"Jummi! Wake up!"

"Huh? What's wrong? What's going on? What time is it?" Zhu Mei asked groggily.

Zhu Mei is 14 years old. She wanted to sleep in today, but was suddenly woken up by her older sister. She doesn't know what happened.

"Fire!" Yuriko shouted anxiously.

"Huh? It's nine o'clock? (The pronunciations of "fire" and "nine o'clock" are similar in Japanese, making them easy to confuse.) We're going to be late!"

"Idiot! I said there's a fire! Get out of bed!"

Zhu Mei glanced under the bed and saw that it was indeed surrounded by white smoke. "Sister, what should we do?"

"Get down quickly!"

"Sister! Get up! There's a fire!" The two sisters shouted to their older sister to get up.

The two sisters shook their eldest sister desperately, but Ayako just whimpered softly and refused to open her eyes. Due to low blood pressure, she was notoriously difficult to wake. Once asleep, ordinary noises wouldn't disturb her sleep. She probably hadn't even felt Yuriko and Tamami's earthquake-like commotion.

"elder sister!"

"What are you doing..." Ayako finally opened her sleepy eyes.

"Fire!"

"Fire? Where?"

"Our house is on fire! Get up! We have to get out!"

Ayako only realized the seriousness of the situation when she smelled the smoke, so she immediately climbed out of bed, only to be choked by the smoke and unable to breathe.

"Stand up quickly, or you'll choke to death from the smoke."

"Hmm..." Being choked by the smoke, making any sound was already a huge effort for Ayako. She staggered to her feet and asked:

Where is Dad?

"Dad is away on a business trip."

"Oh, that's great."

"You still have time to talk so leisurely? Run!"

"Wait! Hold on a minute." Ayako grabbed Yuriko's wrist and said, "I'm still in my pajamas. Let me get dressed first."

“It would be even uglier if you were burned to death!” Yuriko couldn’t help but shout angrily.

"Okay, okay, I know." Ayako said with sleepy eyes and a defiant tone, "You look just like Mom when you're angry."

"I don't have time to waste with your nonsense." Yuriko said as she opened the door, but she froze when she saw what was outside. Red flames had begun to engulf the opposite wall, and the ceiling was surrounded by flickering flames.

"This way is blocked, jump out the window quickly."

Yuriko slammed the door shut and ran to the window. Fortunately, the three sisters' house was a single-story building.

“But there’s metal mesh on the window,” Zhu Mei said.

To keep mosquitoes out of the room, there was a thin metal mesh on the window. Yuriko, in a moment of inspiration, exclaimed, "We have to break the mesh! Use a chair! Yes! We'll use that!"

Yuriko picked up the chair next to her sister's desk and rammed it against the metal mesh with the chair leg. The chair leg punched several small holes in the metal mesh.

"One more time! Tamami! Don't just watch, come and help!"

Zhu Mei hurriedly grabbed a chair and rammed into the metal mesh with her second sister.

With a "snap," the chair flew out of the window, and the metal mesh was smashed open, leaving a large hole.

"Jummi! Jump out of there!"

"Should I jump first?"

"Stop nagging and jump! Sister, you jump too."

Ayako stood there, arms crossed, half-asleep, and said, "You jump first, you're the younger sister."

"This isn't the time to talk about this, there's no time, jump!" Yuriko thought. If she jumped out first, leaving her slow-moving older sister alone, she might just yawn and go back to bed. So, Yuriko pulled her sister to the window with all her might and then pushed her out forcefully.

"Okay, I'll jump first. Don't push me, it's dangerous!"

Wasn't it dangerous to stay in the fire? Just as Yuriko pushed Ayako out the window, the bedroom door suddenly collapsed. With a loud "boom," flames shot straight up to the roof.

"Sister!" came Tamami's shout from outside. In her haste, Yuriko also broke through the window and jumped out. But Ayako, who had jumped out first, was still sitting under the window, and Yuriko landed right on top of her older sister.

thump……

Ouch! That hurts!

The two men, enduring the pain, limped and crawled away from the fire.

"Sister..." Zhu Mei's voice trembled slightly when she saw her sister escape.

Yuriko stood up and looked back at her home. Just seconds before, the window she had jumped out of was now spitting out yellow flames, like a giant gas torch. The entire house was now engulfed in flames.

“Our home… is gone…” Zhu Mei said dejectedly.

“Hmm…” Yuriko stood there blankly, unable to speak, only nodding.

Although the three sisters' home was within the newly developed residential area, it was some distance from other houses and built on relatively high ground. While there were neighbors on either side, the houses were not close together, so there was no need to worry about the fire spreading.

The problem extended to someone else's house. Moreover, under such circumstances, the three sisters hadn't even considered these issues.

“Yuriko…” Ayako said to herself.

"What's up?"

"We didn't call 119."

"Um……"

"What's the point of calling 119 now?" Yuriko wanted to scream, but she suppressed her emotions and nodded. Because that's just the kind of person her older sister is.

People tend to become more forgiving when they suffer misfortune.

Just then, footsteps could be heard in the distance.

"Hey! Are you guys alright?"

"Ah, it's the teacher."

Approaching was Mr. Anton, who lived in the front and taught Chinese at Zhumei Middle School. He was wearing pajamas and slippers.

What's going on?

"I don't know, we were all sleeping when suddenly the fire started."

"Is everyone alright? Where are your fathers?"

"Dad is away on a business trip."

"Oh, is that so? Are you the only ones home? That's great."

Just then, a crackling sound came from the three sisters' house.

"Danger! Everyone, retreat quickly!"

The roof beams collapsed, and countless sparks danced in the night sky. Faced with such misfortune and witnessing such a scene, Yuriko found it beautiful.

2005-3-14 13:29:00

"I didn't bring anything with me," said Ayako, the eldest sister, who had finally fully regained consciousness. "Even the insurance certificate was burned."

"At least people are still alive!" Teacher Anton said gruffly. "Isn't it better that everyone is alive and well than anything else?"

Although that's the logic—Yuriko's mind was filled with images of the items in her home: the desk she'd used since elementary school, the handbag she'd just bought, the pretty dress, and the shoes she'd only worn once… Now, they were all gone, lost in the raging fire.

Oh, and the photos of my deceased mother were also burned.

—The sirens of fire trucks came from afar.

"They've finally arrived," said Teacher Anton.

Ayako asked, "Teacher, did you make the fire alarm call?"

"Hmm. I thought they'd be here soon..."

Yuriko thought, it looks like everything has been burned down. The sound of sirens gradually grew closer, and the surrounding residents, all wearing pajamas, came out one after another. All of this came into Yuriko's view in the firelight.

The fire gradually subsided because everything that could be burned had been burned.

Yuriko also began to feel the chill of the night, her body shivering in the cool breeze.

: 2005-3-14 13:31:00

Chapter One: Ruins and Debris

"--Good morning."

Sasamoto Yuriko opened her eyes, momentarily confused.

She always gets up first to prepare breakfast. If she gets up a little later, she'll pull her younger sister, Tamami, up to help. But now, the one looking at her with concern is the face of her high school classmate, Atsuko Katase.

“Ah, Atsuko. I…” To avoid bumping her head on the upper bunk where her sister slept, Yuriko sat up with her head slightly lowered—only then did she realize that this was Atsuko’s house.

"How are you feeling?" Atsuko asked with concern.

Yuriko suddenly remembered everything—her house had been burned down, so she was temporarily staying at Atsuko's house. "That's great," Yuriko yawned, feeling as if she'd slept all day. "What time is it?"

"Eleven o'clock. Can you get up now?"