"Are there any immortals in the world? They are all demons and delusions. Emperor Qin and Han Wu were so powerful. However, in the end, how can the Liu thief really be able to ascend?"
The third generation general who conquered the barbarians hated the Tatars deeply, and he knew the details of Liu Zhaosun.
"Intelligence shows that Liu Thief, also known as Liu Zhaosun, before he became famous, he was good at pretending to be a ghost and summoning ghosts in the army. In fact, he is a magic stick!"
"Can he become an immortal?"
Tokugawa Iemitsu was indignant. In the first year of Wuding, the Tatars had been completely defeated and their lives were hanging by a thread. Why were they able to come back to life in just fifteen years?
Not only can he be brought back to life, but he can also launch another Eastern Expedition and burn the flames of war to Japan.
The shogunate didn't believe in the theory of ghosts and gods at all. He thought it was just a Tatar trick to deceive people's hearts. It was a trick used by Liu thieves!
"Your Excellency General, I think it's time to go to Kyoto to pay homage to His Majesty the Emperor! He is the incarnation of Amaterasu, and he should be able to deal with the evil god of Tatar."
Master Chun Shen looked calm, returned the katana to Hattori Hanzo, looked up at the shogun, and said word by word:
"Amaterasu is the god of gods. His power comes from the ground. If the emperor comes out of the mountain, Tatar will be wiped out!"
~~~
When Shin Yuemon first noticed the noises in the walls, he thought they were rats.
Later, he heard from his neighbors the stories about Amaterasu that were secretly told by Heijo Kyo wizards.
No one now remembers what the Kamakura witches looked like, but the horrific legend spreads throughout the capital like weeds growing over an abandoned cemetery.
It describes in disturbing detail the horrific sacrifices performed by the strange wizard to Amaterasu at the end of the Kamakura Shogunate.
A witch's sacrifice to an old figurine of unknown origin, bearing a red sun and an octopus-like relief.
As for the old wizard who worshiped Amaterasu, it is said that she came from Nagasaki. She told the people of Kyoto after drinking that she was the high priest of a terrifyingly powerful god who lived under the sea.
The witch also said that the reason why the Mongolian fleet was overturned by the divine wind in Hakata Port was because of her and the divine power she summoned.
This kind of nonsense led to her being publicly executed by the Kamakura shogunate in 1276, the second year of Kublai Khan's third expedition to Japan.
So far, no one dares to discuss the old witch's death at will, but occasionally a drunk wizard will accidentally reveal the old witch's ability:
She is not afraid of fire and can walk in water.
So in the end, the adults in Edo cut her into pieces.
After the witch's death, her old house in Kyoto, which was her base, was abandoned for a time. The old house's bad reputation was well known in Kyoto, so no one dared to live there for a long time.
Occasionally, some foreigners who have just arrived rent an old house and move out in a hurry.
Most of the explanations are vague and unsatisfactory, but they all involve octopuses.
~~~
It was a mouse that brought Shin Yuemon to the "witch room".
He was a writer living in Kyoto, and he wrote the Noh plays that daimyo samurai needed to entertain themselves, such as the famous "Kokusei Ye Da Defeat Liu Zhaosun" and "The General's Conquest of Barbarians and the Ping of Tartars". These themes are seriously outdated.
The life of a homeless writer involves hardships.
In order to have a better (cheap) writing environment, he wandered from Edo to Kyoto and rented this old Kamakura witch house at a very low price.
In the first few days after he moved in, he was disturbed more than once every night by a chattering sound, a long, muffled high-pitched voice coming from the decaying walls.
Shin Yuemon has always been unwilling to accept those random speculations about ghosts and gods. He believes that they are rumors deliberately spread by local dental dealers in order to raise the rent in the surrounding area.
It wasn't until that night, when a lizard (or snake) scurried out of his way in front of the dark entrance, that he began to change his view.
The candlelight in the old house was dim, and the lizard was huge.
The black shadow rushed five steps away, stopped in place, tilted his head and stared at Shin Yuemon.
"A funny little animal, a harbinger of things to come."
This is how the down-and-out Noh drama writer comforts himself.
At any other time, Shinyuemon might have thrown up his shoe to scare the lizard away, then returned to writing.
However, that day coincided with the longevity festival, which was the memorial day of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the great god of power. Masked samurai and ronin paraded in the streets, and the parade artists played and beat, so the streets were particularly noisy.
Shinyuemon had a hard time focusing on his story.
He had no money for next month's rent, and no food for tomorrow. The lizard standing just outside his reach was looking at him with gloating.
Feeling that he was being seriously provoked, Shinyuemon walked towards the lizard.
The lizard quickly crossed the entrance hall and ran to the cellar door deep in the room.
Shin Yuemon was surprised to find that the cellar door was ajar.
It must have been that he didn't close the door tightly when he came to the cellar last time, but he usually kept the door closed carefully because there was draft in the old house. The lizard was waiting in the hallway.
Shinyuemon suddenly felt inexplicably irritable. At this time, the lizard got into the stairs.
He lit the huozhe and followed, and found the lizard in a corner.
Its red eyes looked at the poor writer with burning eyes.
As Shin Yuemon walked down the stairs, he couldn't help but feel like he had been fooled. But he was extremely tired, for the lizard stepped aside and disappeared into a small hole in the cellar wall.
"Gonna catch you."
Shinyuemon repeated it erratically.
The lizard's snake-like head cautiously stuck out of the hole. He explored it, hesitated for a moment, and then pulled back.
Then, it started to behave in an inexplicable and strange way - as if it was drunk.
It moved forward hesitantly, then back again. First it rushes forward suddenly, then pauses briefly, and then jumps back in panic, as if a cat is coiled in front of the hole, blocking the lizard's retreat.
Angry in his heart, Shinyuemon pulled out his katana and reached into the hole to explore.
At this time, when he was very close to the wall, he noticed that there was something strange about a stone slab directly above the Lizard Cave.
Another quick glance at the edge of the stone confirmed his suspicions.
The slabs are removable.
Thinking of the story about the witches in the local people's legend, Shin Yuemon couldn't help but be overjoyed. A wonderful story was right in front of him. His regular patrons had long been disgusted with the Noh drama about fighting against the Tatars. It was time for a change of taste.
He has even thought of a title for the new story:
Edogawa Shinyuemon strays into Kamakura Monogatari
It sounds very attractive.
Shin Yuemon quickly noticed that there was a depression on the edge of the stone slab that could be used as a handhold.
"This should be the door handle switch."
His fingers easily found the small dimple, and he tried to pull. The stone plate moved for a moment, then stopped moving. With a hard pull, some dry dust fell out, and the stone slab turned away from the wall as if it were on a hinge.
A rectangular, shoulder-high black hole appeared in the wall.
A musty, disgusting rotten smell came out of the hole, and Shinyuemon took a step back unconsciously.
A long and narrow tunnel appeared in front of Shinyuemon.
"Is this the Kamakura Witch's secret tunnel?"
The rocks beneath his feet caught Shin Yuemon's attention.
Red, blue, and black are the main colors that resemble the seabed, and thousands of small colored stones form a pattern that Shin Yuemon has never seen before.
Curved lines of red and azure mingle with diagonal lines of green and blue, intertwining into fantastic seaweed-shaped patterns.
There are circles, triangles, a five-pointed star, and other unfamiliar shapes, all of which look like stars over the moon.
Surrounding a complex that resembles an elephant and an octopus.
The tunnel was very quiet, and nothing could be heard from the noisy neighing of horses and horses outside the house and the wild laughter of drunken rascals.
The tunnel was filled with a faint salty smell of sea water, as if something was rotting.
Shinyuemon Carson caught a glimpse of some marks on the inner wall of a shallow niche on the wall, and he slowly walked in that direction.
"Is this writing from the Kamakura period?"
Shinyuemon didn't recognize those characters, but he was sure they were painted on the wall a long time ago. They might not be Kamakura characters, because Shinyuemon couldn't understand them.
The fire was suddenly extinguished, and Shinyuemon fell into darkness.
At that moment, a strange idea appeared in Shin Yuemon's mind.
He fantasized about being at the bottom of a mine, with a column of water pouring down from above, drowning him. This feeling was so strong that he actually thought he heard the dull thunder and the roar of the waterfall.
Shinyuemon felt an inexplicable fear, and he immediately walked towards the tunnel entrance. The sweat on his forehead only receded slightly after he walked out of the room.
Half an hour later, he went upstairs and made a cup of tea. Thinking of what he had just seen and heard in the tunnel, he was still in shock.
~~~
Two days later, Omuramasa, a local samurai, came to visit.
They say it's a visit, but it's actually an extortion of money.
Although Omuramasa is a tall and thin man, his eager gray eyes are topped by thick blue-gray eyebrows, and he looks a bit unruly.
He was originally from Ashigaru and belonged to the Choshu clan. Because he participated in the Kyushu War that expelled the Tatars fifteen years ago, he successfully found a position as an assistant to the acting official in Kyoto after the war. He was mainly responsible for tax collection, criminal investigation and other work in the area under his jurisdiction. .
"Mr. Muramasa's great presence makes Pengyin shine."
Shin Yuemon forced a smile.
Omuramasa rubbed his fingers and said, "You live in a witch's house four hundred years ago. Don't you feel scared?"
Only then did Shin Yuemon realize that the other party wanted to charge him a moving fee.
"Mr. Muramasa, please come in and talk. Yesterday, I found a tunnel behind the entrance. There seem to be some boxes hidden in it. I wonder if they belong to the previous owner..."
