》Prologue
I think there must be many people who are similar. The memories of my childhood are all locked in darkness.
What I can clearly remember is what happened after I moved to this small town with my mother in the late Taisho years and entered the second grade of elementary school here. Before that, that is, I lived in my birthplace, a small village in a neighboring county, for a few years - what should I say? It's like reaching into an abyss, blindly searching for something that's sunk at the bottom of the water, with no clue at all.
I remember one time, I let ink smear a page in an important book. I tried desperately to recognize the words from the smudge of the ink stain. Whenever I wanted to recall things from my childhood, I would have Similar anxiety and helplessness.
Of course, not everything is painted in pitch black, just like a few words will remain in the gaps of the ink stains. There are a few scenes that I can still recall as clearly as photos.
But I have no way of knowing what the meaning of these scenes is and the order in which they are arranged.
The darkness of the years has combined these scenes
The tethers were cut, and they became fragments scattered in the memory.
Using these clueless scenes as clues, I can explore a story hidden in my childhood, which has been my life so far.
I really want to know.
No, I should say, I must know.
In the darkness of my childhood, there was a scene that I can't forget even now.
The shadow of a woman, with a knife in her hand shining in the faint white light like a candle, pounced on the shadow of a man. The man's shadow fled desperately on the tatami, and the woman's shadow used all her strength to cling to him. The two shadows entangled and overlapped, then swelled up like angry waves in the night, pounced on the rocks, and finally collapsed, causing splashes of water. Although it is a blurry image that melts into the darkness of memory, I can still vividly remember the terrifying tension brewed by those two black figures, the blood mist that splashed when they exploded, and the scarlet color.
The murderer was my mother. I wanted to know the meaning of the blood spilled from my mother’s hands.
Why did the mother have to kill that man? Who was that man?
I hope to connect this scene with several other unclear scenes in my memory and explore the meaning of the knife in my mother's hand - I should say, this is everything in my life.
If my mother killed someone, if I was the son of a murderer, if my life was stained with the scarlet color of sin when I was young, then I think it is my duty in this life to explore the truth of the matter. Bar.
"one
My mother took me away from that small village when I was five years old.
It was the twelfth year of Taisho. Instead of moving directly to this small town, he first went to Beijing to seek refuge with a relative.
After living in Tokyo for nearly two years, they moved back to a small town not far from their hometown. Only then did the mother and son begin a life of dependence on each other. At that time, I was already in the second grade of elementary school, so my memory at that time was much deeper than before.
However, after living in Tokyo for two years, I can only remember fragments of a few past events, not to mention the events in the previous village, which were all blurred into one piece, as if a layer of dream had been added to the darkness.
The only scenery in the village that I can recall, and I don’t know when and where I saw it, is a broad, wet field covered by a dark sky like light ink. In the ink painting, which is dark and dim, as if ink has been splashed, the lines are blurred, as if they are sinking under the water. It is not clear whether it is because of the rain, the dusk has fallen, or the memory has been eroded by the years. But maybe it's because the harvest period has just passed. On the fields where the thin mud is rippling at the bottom of this scene, there is a forest like a black cloud rising into the sky, lifted up by the treetops of the forest. A few roof tiles are winding there, and these are clearly imprinted on the meninges. The roof seemed to have gathered the twilight when the sun had just set, making the stone tiles shine brightly, forming a huge battle helmet. Just below it, an inexplicable rusty face was hidden in the shadow of the trees.
That is the roof of the main hall of Seirenji Temple, a small temple of the Soshin sect, which is the ossuary hall for people in this area.
I am the eldest son of the abbot of Seiren Temple, Kameno Tomoshu.
Regarding my father Ji Zhou, in my memory he was just a man hanging around me when I was young. However, according to the photos my mother showed me, he was a poor-looking man with a tapering chin, sunken cheeks, and extremely thin shoulders. . This photo was taken shortly after I was born. My mother was wearing a heraldic dress and sitting with me in her arms. Standing next to me was my father in white silk clothes, shrugging his shoulders as if to hide his fatigue. At that time, my father was thirty-two years old and my mother was twenty-two years old. The mother wore a bun like a newlywed lady, and unlike the father who stared solemnly in front of him, his eyes were slightly lowered, as if staring blankly at his own shadow on the tatami. It can also be seen from this photo that the mother's skin is so white that it almost doesn't look like she came from a rural area, and the deathly whiteness like the mask of "Omi" in the "Noh drama" makes people feel like there is a touch of gloom on her face. superior.
My mother's name is Ah Mo, the third daughter of a rich farmer in a neighboring village. She married her father when she was twenty years old. She is the daughter of a landowner since the Tokugawa period, and her appearance is also outstanding. There is a reason why such a person would marry into a small temple in a poor village, and from the photos, it seems that she has a father who is not good-looking and has no redeeming qualities. .
That's because - in today's world, I'm afraid no one will believe it - that's because in the neighboring village, people believe that she has a bad destiny.
According to what my mother told me, strange deaths have been happening around her since she was a child. First, the night my mother was born, her grandmother passed away. This old grandmother had been ill for a long time, so it could be said to be a coincidence, but starting from this night, people died in the village for three consecutive nights. One of them, a strong young man, suddenly fell ill for no apparent reason, and died quietly before anyone could wake up. This man first fell ill at the landlord's house, and he fell ill at the same time as the baby who was born three days ago. Rumors were flying all over the place, and as if to prove that the rumors were true, just one year after my mother was born, my grandfather passed away, and in the third year, her mother - my grandmother Ayuan - also died.
That's not all. It is said that when my mother was four years old, an unexplainable murder occurred in front of her.
At that time, the young mother was walking on the field path in the spring light.
During the plowing season, there were farmers from several villages working in the fields with their feet buried in the mud. One of the women, who was as strong as a man, turned her tanned face and saw her mother walking on the path. She suddenly straightened her bent waist and stood upright in the field. Then, the hoe in her hand fell, she straightened her body, looked at the small figure on the path quietly for a while, and then took a big step. The woman just walked to a huge cherry tree at the end of the field and stepped into a pond there. Everyone was soaked in the water, but they still didn't stop and walked towards the depths as if they were possessed by an evil spirit. When everyone rushed to the pond in shock, everything was over. The late-blooming cherry blossoms were blooming in the spring, leaving a few quiet ripples on the water with their shadows. The woman never came back.
Just before that, women worked so hard. There was no motive for the suicide, and no one could offer any explanation. So the villagers had no choice but to think that they were possessed by some kind of evil spirit and were lured into death. So where does evil come from? It was believed that the culprit was my mother's little body.
For this reason, even though my mother was the daughter of a landowner, she was still looked down upon by the villagers, and her family also had a bad opinion of her. As a result, when she was twenty years old, her grandfather said:
"If this child really has demonic nature, then give it to the temple. Consider it as dedicating his life to gods and Buddhas. Maybe he can atone for the sins of his previous life."
In this way, my mother married my father, who was still unmarried in his thirties at the time.
It is said that some among the believers objected to the marriage. Come to think of it, the strange rumors about my mother have also spread to neighboring villages. In the nearly five years since the death of the previous abbot, my grandfather, it was the believers who supported the young father Zhizhou and guarded the temple. They believed that although he was the work of the big landowner, there were such terrible rumors. , if such a woman is allowed to come to the temple, wouldn’t it be an insult to the church?
Although the real power in the temple was held by these believers, and my father could hardly raise his head in front of them, he must have liked his mother's outstanding appearance so much that he stubbornly insisted on his will and married his mother into the Qing Dynasty. Lotus Temple.
I was born two years later, and five years later, a total of seven years, what my father and mother's married life was like, I can't imagine. My mother did tell me all sorts of things about my father. For example, my father is a quiet person; although his voice is a bit thick, he is very clear when he chants sutras; he likes to wander around, so he often stays alone on the porch to paint ink paintings; he often boasts that the painting hanging in the room is The portrait of Master Shinluan is a very valuable painting; he also has mysophobia, such as wheel lamps, candlesticks, etc., after his mother wiped them, he must wipe them again; and although it is so gentle, the wine is not very good, and he occasionally drinks a few Cup, then blushing and throwing a tantrum. But how her father treated her mother and what happened between them, she never mentioned. I don’t know whether it was because those things could not be told to children, or because my mother knew that she and I had to leave our hometown and therefore did not want to think about the past again.
I feel that mother's and father's reticence are different. She is the youngest girl and has a smile that makes people approach her. Therefore, she is very popular with the wives of believers. In addition, she was not yet thirty years old, so she took very good care of the villagers and was universally respected. However, some of the more conservative believers still couldn't help but gossip behind their backs: "That woman has demonic nature and will bring disaster to Qinglian Temple sooner or later."
My mother diligently walked around the homes of such believers, and sometimes even went down to the fields to help. In the end, she was still unable to brush away the rumors that had haunted her since she was a child.
When I was five years old, the main hall of Qinglian Temple caught fire, and my father Zhizhou was trapped in the fire cave and burned to death. That night, he came back drunk, fell asleep in the main hall without taking off his cassock, and kicked over a candle holder - this is what my mother told me. The father did die because of his own carelessness, but the villagers blamed the mother for the accident. "There is still evil in that woman, and it was this evil that burned down the temple. Not only the temple, but also the village will be burned down next time." Some people were making noises like this. In this way, even people who had a good impression of the mother were also Start rolling your eyes. My mother couldn't bear it any longer. After Qiqi's rituals were completed, she took the young me with her and left her hometown to Tokyo as if she were running away.
In an alley near the train station in this town, my mother and I bid farewell to each other for more than ten years. Under the smoke of the locomotive and the noise of the whistle, we lived in a small house in an alley, and my mother raised me by teaching the children nearby about flower arrangement, calligraphy, and tailoring.
Around the time I was about to graduate from elementary school, I began to wonder about the meaning of the scene composed of a shadow that was more vivid than the darkness etched in the darkness of my childhood memories. Why did the quiet and gentle mother, in that scene in my memory, become a disheveled shadow that pounced on a man like an evil spirit? From the face of the mother who held the hands of the children and taught them how to arrange flowers so kindly. What is the meaning of that unimaginably distorted face? Also, how could the mother's delicate hands, which were inappropriate even for holding flower-cutting scissors, grab the blade with such terrifying force in that scene and slash at the shadow of the man who was desperately trying to escape? Who is that man?
However, even though it is still young, I still know that it is the past that my mother will never allow anyone to touch. Even if I ask, I will not tell it. When I faced my mother, I didn't dare to ask anything. I just let a scene in my memory that was unlikely to be a clue regurgitate in my mind.
"two
In my memory, there is still a burning fire.
When I heard from my mother that my father was burned to death in a fire in the main hall, I thought that the fire in my memory was the same fire that burned my father's body. However, in the dark night, the sail of flames was raised, the wind was blowing, and the fire was burning like a blazing fire that was about to hit the roof of the main hall into the dark sky. In a sense, it was more vivid than the scene of my mother beheading a man. The ground burns the darkness in my childhood memory. That's probably because the memory of seeing the roof of the main hall from a distance over the treetops overlaps with it. Only the roof was left, and the burning appearance of the main hall really looked like the huge face under the battle helmet was burning. It made me feel as if the painful breath from that face turned into clouds of black smoke and spread out in all directions. Burst out.
In the memory, there are still the terrifying sounds of flaming whips lashing the night wind, and the shouts of dense people, which sound like the accompaniment of a picture of hell; on the other hand, there is also a feeling under the dark water. Listen to the noisy silence on the shore. That's because I remembered my mother's face when she looked at the fire. My mother and I seemed to be standing in a gatehouse-like place, some distance from the main hall. Perhaps they gathered to put out the fire. The villagers were running back and forth with the flames as the background, and they kept screaming "danger" and "terrible". This kind of noise didn't seem to reach her mother's ears. She let her white face turn red and looked at the flames burning her father's body with such quiet eyes. Since I can't even remember what my mother was wearing at that time, the face of my mother mentioned here may have been taken for granted based on the impression my mother gave me later. No matter what, now in my memory, my mother at that time was indeed looking at the fierce flames with her quiet, clear and silent eyes. It is also because of these quiet eyes that people's shouts sound like the sound of reading the Bible to me.
Then there was a crackling sound like setting off firecrackers, and then sparks shot out. After a while, it turned into a rain of light, and they landed a little farther away from us. In order to prevent sparks from falling on me, my mother spread her sleeves to cover me. When the flames disappeared in the darkness under my mother's sleeves, my memory was also cut off.
I moved to a small town and until I was old enough, I still replayed the memory of fire in my dreams and was afraid of it.
In such a dream, sparks fell on my shoulders and immediately turned into sprays of blood. The countless figures squirming in the flames also turned into only two. One of them had disheveled hair and raised a shining knife to cut off the horizon. The last two shadows merged into one and fell down - as if they did not sleep deeply enough, in a dream , I always repeat the same scene in my memory.
Needless to say, I have no idea where the place in the dream is, who the man on the other side is, or what his face looks like. Perhaps because the light was too dim, the surroundings melted into a mist, and I was always paying attention to my mother's relationship.
Just when the shadow shattered into blood and collapsed on the tatami, and everything ended and silence suddenly returned, the scream that had been stuck in the throat burst out.
--Mommy mommy……
The faint light illuminated the mother's face. Rather than saying that she was surprised that I was watching right next to her, it was more that she was desperately twisting her face in grief to tell me something. Sometimes in dreams, just when the sparks are about to fall on my shoulders, the wind blows and lights up, then turns into a stream of gray.
Whenever this happens, I will recall in my dreams the main hall that I saw in the dim light of dawn, completely burned to ashes. The ash was blown up by the wind and flew up like sparks. In the blur, I saw a black block.
It lay there for a long time. At first I thought it was a burned wooden pillar and looked at it casually. Then I suddenly realized that it was a burned person, so I screamed in my dream.
It seemed to be the remains of my father who died in the fire the night before, but the strange thing was that there were several identical corpses next to that corpse.
"Is it really only my father who was burned to death in the fire?"
I remember when I was about ten years old, I mustered up the courage to ask my mother one time.
"Yes! But why do you ask this?"
I said that I seemed to remember that there were other corpses besides my father, and my mother lowered her face slightly and replied:
"Shi Lang may not remember. There were three big Buddha statues in the main hall, and they were all burned. The gold foil fell off and the Buddha statues were burnt to charcoal. Yes, I remember that my mother thought they were human corpses and ate them. Shocked."
Hearing her say that, he felt as if he was not a human being. However, even though he knew it was a Buddha statue, the terror burned into his memory could not be wiped away.
Even when I was in middle school, the flames, blood, and dusty corpses in my dreams still made me cry like a toddler. Often, the dream ends with flames falling on my face. The splashing blood and flying ashes turned into fire again, burning blazingly in the darkness. The little shadow of me in the dream would strangely want to bury its face into the burning flame. Of course, this is what I fear most.
However, in addition to this feeling of terror, there seemed to be some force of fate controlling my little will, just like a hungry dog rushing towards the bait, hoping to get his face close to the flame. While I was shouting "Afraid, afraid", I tilted my face with indescribable joy and got closer to the flame.
Is this just a dream? Or maybe there was a similar behavior in the past and it was exaggerated in the dream, I don't understand. On my face, from the corner of my forehead to my right eyebrow, there is a faint bluish-purple color that is slightly different from my skin color. It looks a bit like a burn mark. Time has diluted it, and now it is rarely visible even in broad daylight, but I feel that its color seemed much brighter when I was a child. Of course, I also asked my mother about this.
"That's right, when the main hall was burning, a piece of wood fell on your face. Mom helped you brush it away, so you just touched it, but it left a serious scar."
After the mother said this, she lowered her face sadly again.
When my mother said this, I felt like this was the case. Could it be that what fell on my mother and I standing under the gatehouse were not sparks but larger pieces of fire? Will it be on another occasion when my mother covers me with her sleeves? Was this scene strangely distorted in the dream, turning me into the flame?
All in all, the dream was interrupted the moment the tongue of fire licked my forehead. I let out a horrible groan, and I woke up from the fright of the sound. The lingering fear in the dream made me shiver slightly, dripping with cold sweat. I panted fiercely and called my mother desperately, "Mom" - at this time, my mother's hand would reach out to me from the darkness in time, and As if I was still dreaming, I tightly hugged the white hand floating in the darkness.
Until the age of sixteen, I shared the same bed with my mother. When I was in middle school, my mother made another quilt for me, but that night, I was still scared half to death in my dream, so the next night, my mother only made another quilt.
My mother must have noticed what kind of dream I was dreaming from my murmurs and moans, so she felt guilty because the residue of her past sins became memories and remained in my body, making me frightened and terrified, so she Like a baby, he hugged me tightly, who had begun to mature into an adult, and nursed me as if to myself:
"You're thinking about the past... Shi Lang, are you thinking about the past?"
She held me tightly with both hands, as if she wanted to squeeze out the scene in my memory.
I wasn't the only one who was frightened in my dreams. The frequency is less than mine, but when I am sleeping soundly, sometimes my mother will cry out in the midst of intense panting, making a sound that tears through the darkness of the night.
"Ahua...No, Ahua..."
Whenever this happens, I will reach out to my mother's body. My mother woke up with a start, covered in sweat, and groped my body desperately. She also let the terrible memory of her childhood reappear in her dream, and then she hugged my hand as if to escape from that memory - that was the memory of a peasant woman suddenly sinking into the pond in front of her young mother. .
"I tried desperately to stop her, but her back still sank like that. Her head disappeared, and a cherry blossom petal fell on the water... I seemed to feel that the petal was the woman vomiting out from the bottom of the water. His last breath..."
My mother, who was usually so dignified, actually made a childish voice that didn't sound like the same person at all. With tears in her eyes, she shook her head unconsciously and bit the old scar on my right wrist.
I also have memories of this little gesture from my mother. I can’t remember when and where I got the cut on my right wrist, but I remember clearly the feeling of my mother’s tongue desperately sucking the dripping blood. As if she had been injured, my mother twisted her face in pain and sucked the blood flowing out of my body. She was terrified in the dream, showing the same face as in her memory, biting my old scars.
I let her bite me like that and looked at her neck slightly exposed under her messy pajamas, and then I remembered a memory from my childhood. There are blue birthmark-like spots scattered on the mother's snow-white neck. I also have a memory of this spot.
——It seems to be at dawn, or maybe at dusk, when the red sunlight splits the thin veil diagonally, revealing the back of the sitting mother. Mother took off one sleeve, lowered her head, raised the rosary beads in her hand, and struck them between her long neck and shoulders. Time and time again, it was as if I was trying to cleanse my dirty body. The sound of the rosary beads passing through the air, and the sound of the beads touching and rubbing against each other, still rings in my ears to this day.
The location seems to be in the main hall. She was sitting alone in that empty and silent place. She had a pair of eyes that were clearly not human. I thought they must be those of a Buddha statue. They were guarding her so coldly - I thought that was what it looked like.
Although what I saw was only this one time, since there are those spots left, it can be seen that my mother made that string of rosary beads ring many times in places I didn’t know. I guess my mother did this to cleanse her body. However, every time I see the bruises on my mother's shoulders, I feel that only that part of my mother's pure white body hides the dark skin. sin.
Regarding the rosary, I can also think of a silhouette of my mother. Mother stood by the water. That posture reminded me of Guanyin, because the mother's hands wrapped with rosary beads were clasped on her chest, and the setting sun was reflected by the mirror-like water surface, forming a faint halo around her feet.
If it were just these, it might not be retained in my memory, but because my mother then behaved strangely, it was imprinted in my memory. The quiet atmosphere was suddenly destroyed by the mother's hand. Mother was so rude, grabbing the rosary beads with both hands, as if she wanted to break them. The mother is like an ascetic practicing, holding the rosary beads and moving her hands vigorously. Suddenly I heard my mother exclaim "Ah", and at the same time, the beads scattered like a black light, shooting in all directions, causing ripples here and there, spreading and disappearing.
There is a sound. Not only the sound of beads falling into the water, but also the sound of some kind of gunpowder exploding, like charcoal on fire, came intermittently. The noise gradually grew louder, and finally swallowed up the mother's figure, and the memory was also interrupted. Because it was as clear and crisp as the sound of a drum, I thought it might be the sound of a wooden fish, but I didn't know whether the water surface was a pond or a river, so I couldn't be sure.
No, it should be said that I can't figure out the meaning of that scene itself or its connection with my mother's murder.
Although I don’t know when and where this scene happened, I did witness it with my own eyes. This is quite certain. However, because of the passage of time, it is impossible to distinguish whether it is a dream or reality in some places.
Sometimes, when I was about to fall asleep, my mother would reach out her fingers and touch the scars on my face. At this time, my mother was watching over me, and a touch of sadness would suddenly pass over her face. This is also my mother’s expression in my memory.
That was not the mother's face, but the face of a four or five-year-old girl. She looked at me like that, and then, like my familiar mother's face, she scrunched up her shoulders and started crying.
"Afraid..." the little girl yelled, turned around and ran over, and I also ran away in the opposite direction. It seemed like something happened on the earth embankment under the hot summer sun. The little girl was wearing red plaid clothes and a straw hat on her head. I slid down the grassy earth embankment, ran desperately across the river bank covered with white stones, and crawled down when I reached the water's edge. After I finally stopped breathing, I bravely glanced at the water surface - it should have been reality up to this point, but what I saw in the next moment could not be reality.
My face reflected on the water was just white. On the white skin, the eyes, nose, and mouth melted. The next moment, the wind seemed to rise, and the ripples shattered it. I lay down on the river bank and cried. Why is it in vain? I have no idea. I guess the reason why the little girl was frightened was because I still had distinctive scars on my face. Thinking about it, it was a face like that that made me feel sad when I was a child, so I always hoped that I would have a white face like a ghost. So one night, I dreamed that my face turned white, and this dream It's strangely mixed with real memories, but I have another unforgettable memory of this white face. No, it's not so much a memory, maybe it's just a dream from many years ago that remains so vividly in my mind.
In the dark night, there is a bridge floating over the abyss. The moonlight dyed the dark night into two parts, dark and light, and a human figure stood in the shadow of the railings stacked in several layers. When I was still young, I stopped in the center of the bridge when I noticed the figure sticking his head out from the railing and peeping into the water. The little head stuck out of the railing, and the moonlight shone sharply on that part, making it look like a lantern was hanging there.
He's a boy with a very similar build to mine. As if I met an acquaintance on a terrible night road, I breathed a deep sigh of relief and called his name loudly. I don’t know what the name was, but I was called by a name anyway. The shadow turned around, and at that moment, I stopped my legs from running over. The head that came back was slightly pale under the moonlight, expressionless and unpretentious, just like the hole in the paper door in the dark, completely white.
Just like the eyebrows and lips on a crudely carved Noh mask, the colorless face expanded and filled the entire darkness. At this moment, my dream - or maybe it was a memory - came to an abrupt end.
When I was young, there was a child nearby who had extremely white skin. I was frightened by his deathly whiteness. Maybe it was this kind of experience, having that dream - or remembering it. I posed this question to my mother.
"I don't remember there being any 'white boys' in the village." My mother answered under the electric light without stopping her hand making a girl. "Moreover, you were so well-behaved that it was almost worrying. You rarely played with the children in the village. So I believe you won’t remember anyone...probably only Sadaji, whom your aunt in Tokyo often brings. Every time you come here, you play with him. Speaking of which, Sadaji is indeed very white and has pretty features. But it may be that he died too early and that’s why he feels like that.”
It is said that he was hit by a big earthquake when he was four years old and died. I have no impression of this cousin at all. But I remember my aunt in Tokyo very clearly.
The father's sister is Haru Kaizuka. She married a small civil servant in Tokyo one year before her mother married to Seirenji Temple. This little civil servant is the elder of a landlord in the village.
Second, he and Aunt Achun were childhood sweethearts, and they were a couple tacitly approved by both parents.
The mother and this aunt should be as good as real sisters. After the mother came to the temple, the person she relied on the most and discussed everything with was not her sibling from her natal family, but the one who would return to her natal family every first month and Zhongyuan. sister-in-law. It is said that my mother often took me to Tokyo when I was still young.
After Qinglian Temple was burned down, my mother had to leave the village, and the first person she sought refuge with was this aunt. After being introduced by her aunt, her mother stayed in a small hotel and became a servant. It was only about a year after I moved to Tokyo that my memories began to gain more vividness. Every once in a while, my mother would ask for leave from the female boss and go to her aunt's house in the suburbs. Perhaps it was because we met not long ago that my aunt loved me very much. The civil servant uncle was a scary man with a beard like Zhong Kui, but he always looked at me and my mother with tender eyes - I still remember all this clearly.
Tokyo, but my aunt will definitely come two or three times a year, bringing with her rare local products from Tokyo. I think it was because Qinglian Temple was burned down, my brother Zhizhou was no longer here, and my aunt no longer had relatives from her natal family, so she came to our small home to see us in the mood of returning to her natal family. Although my mother said that my cousin Kaizuka Teiji was very fair, my aunt was a little charcoal, with thick lips similar to my father in the photo, which gave people a rough and mean feeling, but she smiled easily, and some little Trivial matters can also make her laugh heartily, which makes me not dislike her. She still loves me, especially every time she comes to our house, my mother will make a rare laugh. Therefore, from this point alone, my aunt's visit is what I look forward to. After putting me to sleep, my sister-in-law eavesdropped while I was asleep, hoping to find clues to the scene in my memory from their conversation. However, whether intentionally or not, they never mentioned anything about the village or their father.
Once, when the three of us were having dinner together, my aunt talked about the movies she had seen in Tokyo in a very interesting way.
"It's so interesting. The doctor's wife added poison to the medicine and planned to poison the man to death..."
My aunt seemed to realize that she had slipped up, and suddenly stopped laughing, stopped talking, and looked towards me. Mother was still picking up vegetables and eating quietly. My aunt looked at me seriously for a brief moment before dismissing my previous words.
I didn't miss it. Even though it was just for a short moment, she was really worried that her words would remind me of something at a young age.
>Three
When I was about to enter middle school, I began to wonder if the person my mother killed was my father in the scene in my memory. If I only relied on the feelings in my memory, I couldn't tell which happened first, but I I feel that the scene of my mother beheading a man and the scene of the burning temple are very close in time, as if they happened one after another. From the way my mother looked, I felt like she had never been to jail.
In this way, the only witness at the scene of my mother's murder was me, a young and innocent person. Then hasn’t the mother’s crime been discovered yet? To put it another way, didn’t the mother complete what is today called a “complete crime”? Did the mother assassinate the father and then, in order to destroy the evidence, set a fire in the main hall, making the father's death a pyre?
Sometimes, I watch my mother hold the children's hands and teach them how to write, or sit on the porch and shake a fan, watching the sunset gradually setting on the grass in the yard behind her, or lazily stroking her red neck after taking a bath. Looking at my mother's peaceful face, doubts suddenly arose, and I couldn't help but feel horrified. No matter how calm the mother pretends to be, it is the face of a woman who hides a crime in the past. My mother killed my father. This is a terrible idea, but I cannot conclude that this is not the case.
However, a small thing happened soon, which dispelled my doubts. In the summer of the year I entered middle school, I came back from school and saw a woman sitting under the eaves of the porch smoking a cigarette. The gorgeous clothes are torn in some places, and the greasy hair is tied up in a bunch. He must be about forty years old.
"Are you Sister Ah Mo's son?"
The woman asked as she stared at me with slightly bulging round eyes. I nodded, and she said again:
"I'm going to wait here for her to come back."
She seemed to have a cold. Her throat felt like it was bandaged and her voice was hoarse. My mother seems to have gone out.
I went up to put my schoolbag and sat down in a corner of the room. The man looked at me rudely for a while, then suddenly said: "Your mother is a murderer, do you know?"
Then he said:
"She killed my husband. She did good things to my husband and ended up killing him. Do you remember? Didn't you say you saw it from the beginning to the end? People in the village said that you were splashed There was a lot of blood. That was my husband’s blood.”
When the woman said such terrible words, she reached out a hand as if nothing had happened and scratched her exposed foot. When the woman was about to speak again, her mother came back. After putting the things needed for dinner in the shopping bag, he stood behind the door. When he saw the woman, his expression suddenly changed, but he went up and sat down facing the woman without saying anything. "What's the matter?"
Mother said solemnly.
The woman twisted her mouth slightly and said with a chuckle:
"You, you really will hide, but finally let me catch it. You can hide the police, me, but it's not so deceiving. I ask you if you are afraid of me. ?”
"Why do I hide? I don't need to hide."
"Ah, kill my husband, and say this."
"That's not my fault. The police have already investigated and confirmed. That kind of occasion has to look like that."
"That's nice to say!"
The woman got up, her voice became bigger. My mother said with her white face and said:
"Shi Lang, go outside to play."
When the mother took out the pocket and wanted to pay a few small money, the woman seemed even more angry. Throw the slippers, rush to the tatami, trembled and said, ""
"Let this child listen to it too. No, if you ask him, can he be the truth about the truth? But he saw the witness from the beginning."
"This child didn't see anything." It had to look like that. "
"That's nice to say!"
The woman got up, her voice became bigger. My mother said with her white face and said:
"Shi Lang, go outside to play."
When the mother took out the pocket and wanted to pay a few small money, the woman seemed even more angry. Throw the slippers, rush to the tatami, trembled and said, ""
"Let this child listen to it too. No, if you ask him, can he be the truth about the truth? But he saw the witness from the beginning."
"This child didn't see anything." The woman seemed to be touched. My mother hugged me and avoided sitting next to the paper door.
"And this child is still so small."
"What you see, all you see. Didn't it mean that when the police came to the temple, did the child whole body blood? This is, he saw everything. The mother pulled the man into the quilt. Putting others -my husband, kill. "
The woman said like a roar, but the mother didn't let the other party finish, and Ruo Ruo floated silently from the water and got up quietly. There was already a scissors in the hand.
"Please go back."
Just like responding to the quiet voice of the mother, the scissors showed a cold light, cutting over the dark.
"Please go back, please don't come again."
The woman did not seem to have the trick of her mother, which was deterred, and immediately converged the momentum of the square, but she was still in her mouth for a while, so she sneered a few times and closed the glass door and left.
After a woman's rude wooden sound disappeared in the alley, she just stood more sharp mother than the scissors in her hand, paralyzed on the tatami, and hugged me tightly into my arms. It seemed that at this time, the scissors passed through the mother's fingers, leaking a drop of bright red blood from the index finger, and dripping on my eyebrows. The mother's eyes seemed to be cast in the distance. After thinking quietly for a while, she stretched out the index finger, just to describe the blood stains on my face as if drawing ink with her fingers, and repeatedly said:
"That's good, Shilang, so good."
I also have a impression of the movement of this little finger. I was sitting in the middle of a pile of things such as rouge, white powder, and eyebrows. My mother was applying something sticky to my face. Makeup -Mother is made on my boy's face? The mother's eyes were close, and they contained a touch of urgent light, fixed in my face. I seem to remember more than one time, but I have had the same thing many times.
When I saw my face in the abyss, I might just see that the blood with white powder was sticky on the eyebrows, thinking about these. Because the woman said that, I understood that what my mother was killed was not his father, which made me relieved deeply. That's right, before the father was buried in the fire field, the mother killed other men -although it was still not more, they also felt that there was an unusual and dirty relationship between the man and the mother, and the blood case was it. result. In this way, you can know that the reason why his mother was not trapped was adopted because of the legitimate reason of the mother and exempted the punishment.
Women did not appear again in the future, but another thing happened the next day.
In the evening, there was a picture of the voices of the porch, but there was a bouquet of flowers under the corridor eaves. Summer's disabled sun shines on the floor. Under the shadow, the white flowers seemed to be slightly weaker, wrapped in the dark. It is water lily. The white petals are like layers of fire, surrounded by each other. It seemed that it was just out of the water, and there were dewdrops shining.
"What's wrong?"
The mother also came out, and when she saw the flowers, she was frightened. The woman's look the day before was as promising as in front of her, so because of this, so the flowers that were not seen in front of me, and the flowers left without sounding sounds are more like a word of strange words. I feel gloomy. Later, I understood it, but the mother was pale face now, and she hurried down without wearing a slippers. She opened her hands and picked the sculptures and walked into the alley and threw it into the ditch in front. My mother was so panicked, so I was surprised by me. It is worth mentioning that at this time, I crossed my mind's memory and held my mind firmly.
Until the age of twelve, I never remembered that I had a strange memory about spent. The scene that was completely forgotten, because the mother looked like this, it resulted in clearly.
It seems to be a place for the dungeon. I ca n’t think of it in the morning or evening. The red sunshine is woven into a grid pattern, and the clothes of the mother sitting inside are dyed. The place like a cell, below was muddy, my mother squatted in a sting, and her back towards me. The hair dangled on the ground and swayed, because the mother was digging the soil. I can see my mother's hand moved slightly. The white fingers were stained with a lot of mud, and when the fingers stopped, they hid in the cuffs, took out the white things, and threw it into the digging hole. At first, I thought it was a man's hand and was shocked, but immediately understood that it was flowers. I don't know if my mother hides a lot of flowers in her sleeves. I repeated the same movements again and again. Finally, the potholes are filled and the petals come out. The mud fell from the fingers and buried the flowers. The flowers received the weight of the soil, ranging, bounced like a living thing, and gradually sinking into the dirt disappeared.
Seeing my mother throwing the flowers into the ditch, I think the white flower buried in the memory may also be the water lily.
In the place of the jail, I might not say it is below the main hall in the temple.
I understand that my mother is buried with flowers and is still unwilling to let people know, but why does the mother have such a move? This is what I puzzled.
"Four
Since her mother moved to this town, she died at the age of forty -one and never returned to her mother's house in the neighboring county. Grandma Xu Mei had an average of about once to see us once a month.
At first, I couldn't believe that this beautiful woman and mother with white hair were mother and daughter of the same blood. Later, they learned that the biological mother died in the third year after her mother was born. When the mother was married to Yoshino's family when she was five years old, her mother's stepmother.
"Shi Lang, blood relatives are really strange. The brothers of the compatriots never said a word to me, but others who had no reason became blood kiss. People are so good that they can't be better. "
In fact, the grandmother sneaked in some fabrics and foods. I ran over to see us, and loved me like treating my biological grandson. The grandmother always took the excuse of listening to the show, so I must go back every time the sunset was oblique, and whenever she at this time, it became my task to send her an old man to the train station.
One day, when she was sent to her grandmother halfway, she suddenly stopped and said:
"Shi Lang, do you see, are you beautiful?"
The grandmother refers to the corner of the pond, from a green leaf paved on the water, and the water lotus blooms like a crown. "Still like that, the lotus flowers in the whole village are dead."
In September, it came to an end, and the grandmother squinted her kind eyes, looking at the flowers blooming in the cool autumn wind, and I couldn't help asking for such a grandmother.
"Grandma, do you have water lilies in the village? It's smaller than this lotus."
"Why ask this?"
"Nothing
I pretended to be, my grandmother nodded and said:
"Your mother is the same as me and likes the most like water lilies. When your father is still there, he moves from the pond at home to the pond in the temple.
Really unexpectedly.
"That is to say, there are ponds over the temple."
I thought that my mother sprinkled the beads of the rosary, and it turned out to be in the pool in the temple. Also, the mother was buried at the main Highness, and it must be water lily.
"I remember it seemed that it was a big earthquake in Tokyo shortly after. After a long time, Ah Mo returned to her mother's house, saying that because the water lilies in the temple were dead, there were so many water lilies at home. It was a matter of shortness to the temple before the fire, so I remember very clearly. "
I guess that my mother buried flowers was something before and after. However, how could the mother bury from the mother's house?
"Shi Lang ..."
The voice of the grandmother suddenly became serious. "Do you remember Ahmad -that's what your mother is, right?"
"What is that matter?"
"Your mother takes that person · ... ·"
The grandmother swallowed the words talking to her mouth, and pretended to laugh in a panic, just like the last time my aunt said:
"No, nothing, let's go."
Saying my hand, I walked down the station and walked down the station.
"five
Before his mother died, another person had been here from his hometown.
My grandmother started to walk in my house. It was the year when I entered middle school; after two or three years, it was when I was fourteen or five years old.
It was a low man's voice, and I responded to the porch.
"May I ask Miss Ahma?"
This is a man who is fifty away. He is dressed in simple clothes and is burly. It seems that he seems a little timid. I haven't shouted yet. My mother came out, and it was still a little surprised. "Please, please come up."
The man entered the house.
"Shi Lang, you go out for a while, your mother has something tight."
I was about to turn around, and the man stopped me and said, "Are you Master Shi Lang? Wow, I can't recognize it." There is a local tone.
After I got around the house, I peeped from the seams of the wooden board wall. The half of the yard was pushed to half in the past. You can see the man's half of the back, and the sound can be heard clearly. "Miss Ahmad, I'm really sorry for you." The man bent deeply on his back and bowed again and again.
"It was Xu Mei told me that you lived here, and I rushed over. Why did you tell me earlier? After the temple was burned, no one cared about it until now. It will look like this, shouldn't ... "
The mother had never been ringing, and got up when she heard it. It seemed to be aware of what I was overheating. When I closed the paper door, I had to walk away. After about two hours, I got home, and the person was gone. Only the mother sat there silently.
"Who came just now?"
My mother only replied, "It's an acquaintance."
When my grandmother came outside this month, I told her the man's face, and asked if there was such a person in the village. I was from the old man's tone and a black face. I guess it may be the people in the village.
"It must be the representative of the believers of Qinglian Temple, called Zong Tian, and he asked me the detailed address here."
I told my grandmother that the man had been apologizing to her mother, and she said:
"That's because when the Qinglian Temple was in trouble, the leader of Zong Tian was very polite to your mother. Your mother had to take you and escape from the village. Later, there was no successor in the temple. Think, you must come back, but your mother will never agree. "
Although my grandmother said so, I felt that his meaning was different from what his grandmother said from the tone of Zong Tian.
In the summer of the Showa Twelfth year, when I entered Kyoto University, my mother died in the lung disease, as if waiting for me to go back. After the summer vacation, I fell ill as soon as I returned to my mother. The obstacle to returning to school has ended his life in just forty -one years.
The last rain in summer fell from the narrow eaves and hit the alley, making a noisy sound. In the afternoon, when I saw the cicada shell in the backyard, when I was picked up, my mother lying on the bed called me.
"Shi Lang."
I was next to her. During this month, my mother was so thin that she turned the white face that was about to disappear to me and said:
"Shi Lang, do you remember your mother's sin?"
The sound is weak, and the sound of the rain is so wet. The sound of the rain is wet. In such a room, I heard the sigh -like sound, which made people feel particularly silent.
I nodded. "The blood of that time was indeed the sin of the mother. The mother knew that it was a crime or held a knife, and the mother decided to kill him. However, no one knows the real reason. No one has never known it. That's it. Mom doesn't want to let people know. Nor does it want you -no, it should be said that you don't want you to know that your mother is just a person who kills for this. "
The words are like a slutter. The more you say, the more you get it, the lips are pale, and the eyes become empty. The mother stretches out from the quilt to start becoming a transparent hand. I stroked my face a few times with my fingers, and finally touched my eyebrows, and she seemed to know it, and a smile appeared slightly. That smile, it seemed like forgetting to die, just like a child innocently playing with. The shape of my eyebrows, she did not use her eyes, but remembered it with her fingers. At this moment, in the darkness, she stared at it so clearly.
Until swallowing the last breath, her smile did not disappear, she kept stroking with her fingers, and then the hand suddenly fell on the tatami -it died so calmly.
I was not able to believe that my mother was past, and I was still listening to the next sentence of my mother. I sat still, and my mother seemed to have nothing to say, making the lost lips slightly open.
The paper door with a thin and light ink seemed to penetrate the rainwater, and a fuzzy shadow of a lonely zero was cast, and I sat there that .. Until the thick paint fell down, the mother's face completely covered the face of the mother's face completely. I didn't move.
"six
What the mother said before dying: The reason for the killing does not want anyone to know, especially if you don't want you to know -the real reason that I don't want me to know in this words, I hope to know.
During the funeral, not only the grandmother and the aunt of Tokyo, but even the uncle and aunt I had never seen before, coupled with the villagers of the believers of the believers Zong Tian and the former Qinglian Temple believers, but no one asked me to ask me. What words. In order to understand the murder of the murder, we must first understand the incident, but I think that talking about such a thing next to my mother's remains is really a roughness to the soul of the deceased. In fact, I have another way.
After the funeral, I came to Kyoto with the ashes. I explained everything to a classmate Fujita who met in the spring after entering college in the spring. Please help me check the incidents that happened in the village 145 years ago. I met Fujita shortly after. I knew he was from the same village as me. At the moment, I did not say my life, but I thought that one day I wanted to ask him.
"It turns out that you are that person. The surname of Keye is very rare, so I have always remembered it, but ..."
Fujita seemed to be shocked. I glared at me for a while and said, "That's nothing to investigate, because I have heard my mother said a lot since I was a child."
Listening to that tone, although after more than ten years after the incident, it seems that it is often mentioned. It is no wonder that a small village, especially so small, just saw everything at the scene of the murder of my mother. This special situation is particularly interested in the villagers.
According to Fujita, things happened when I was four years old.
——In at that time, in addition to our family, Qinglian Temple also lived in another couple. The man's name is Naita Manji. He is about the same age as his father's father, Zhi Zhou. The wife is about five years old. Manji was a foreigner who had flowed into the village during the Ming Dynasty. The abbot of the previous generation picked him up and raised it with his son Zhi Zhi.
When Manji grew up, he married the girl in the village and became a miscellaneous service in a temple and lived in a house in the temple. Later, Zhizhou attacked the temple, and Manji supported and helped him from behind the scenes. Since the intention of the previous generation of abdomen was the same as Zhizhou, he could enter the monk in the future, so he was awarded the scriptures since he was a child. He is white and dignified, and a talent. Although he grew up in the village, he has a pretty look of the local soil and water. Therefore, he is particularly noticeable by the villagers, especially the girls in the village. Beauty on the side. He was silent, holding his back at four o'clock, giving a serious impression, but Bai Jing's body put on ink monk clothes, and seemed to give people a sense of nothingness. According to rumors in the village, he goes to the street every time he lives for prostitutes. This rumor continues after marrying Jiemei, and every time he goes to the street, Jie Mei will go back to his mother's house with annoyance. This beauty moves fast, but because it does not repair the width, coupled with a black black, the hair is messy. Although it is five years younger than Manji, it looks much older. Later, Zhi Zhou's sister Achun married to Tokyo, and Zhi Zhou also married Ah Mo. For about six years, she was calm. Jiemei became a good helper of Ahmad. When I was born, I even assumed the work such as "Xien Fa" in one hand. After Zhizhou had a child, the weight suddenly increased, and Manji still silently observed his position behind the scenes.
Six years later, one night when I was in the winter of the four years old, things happened.
That night, I was in Xueyu, and Zhizhou visited the believers of Zong Tian's family. He had not returned. Man Ji's wife happened to return to her mother's house. The incident happened under such a situation.
When my mother was coaxing me to sleep, Man Ji returned from the street and was soaked. He did not return to his own house, but walked across the corridor and opened our paper door. The mother did not even have the time to call, and Manji had rushed to the mother in a water -stained manner. The mother had been engraved with the Guanyin statue of the wood this night, holding the chisel on the side, and the Manji chest that pressed her lower body stabbed. The blood flowers immediately splattered, not only my mother, but even the blood red when I slept aside. In this entangled, I was awakened. In a pair of sleepy eyes, I saw everything.
The witness was more than one of me. It happened that a villagers came to the temple to discuss the next day. The shadow of the villagers named Shannei noticed from the shadow reflected by the small lamps on the paper door. The shadow's movement and the sound of the tangled collision and the voice made the mountain know what happened in the house. There was no time to stop and stopped. It was almost a moment, and everything passed.
Because of the testimony of Yamaya, the mother's confession was affirmed and was relieved of criminal responsibility. Jiemei returned to her mother's house. The parents and the villagers only appeared as a nightmare on the surface. It seemed to forget the incident. But it seemed to be defended by his father for his mother, but it was still left.
Then, in the next autumn, the temple burned, and his father was taken away by the fire.
With Fujita, I finally understand the significance of the bleeding incident in the scene in memory. Who was killed by my mother, and my mother had to kill that man -however, after more than ten years, Star Cream, The mystery in the darkness was revealed, but I couldn't let it go. It can be said that there was just a explanation, and a group of dark fogs that I hugged in my mind for more than ten years still did not disappear. When I was four years old, I felt by my body, and with this instructions, there was still a fine, but very clear cracked.
In the impression, there is something similar to the mothers who are about to assassinate the man's mother. And my mother's words before dying -I killed him, and there were reasons that I didn't know about anyone -according to this sentence, I couldn't help but believe that there was another layer of truth in my memory.
I remembered that when I was twelve years old, a woman who came to my house in my house would be a woman who came to my house. This person must be Naita's wife. ... "Mother and the man named Manji, is there something before the incident?"
I asked Fujita bravely.
Fujita frowned and said for a while:
"This is not convenient to tell you, so I didn't say it, but there were indeed rumors. I guess, maybe it is just because of such an incident, so some people are far -fetched. Mother……"
The year the year when my mother was born, I left the village for about half a year. I heard that she was a aunt's house in Tokyo. At that time, Man Ji's wife couldn't move her temper, and often returned to her mother's house. Many villagers heard the sound of quarrel in the residence of Jie Mei and Manji in the temple. After half a year, the mother came back and lived daily life calmly, and the rumors quickly disappeared, but the incident was spread again after the incident. It is rumored that my mother and Manji had been ambiguous before. Soon after I was born, my father knew it and then sent the mother to Tokyo.
After returning from Tokyo, the relationship between the two was cut off, but after three years of peace, a rainy evening, Man Ji could no longer bear it, attacked her mother, and the mother was unwilling to fall into the mud, and would kill him to kill him. Dead -this is the rumor.
If this rumor is reliable, then I think that after my mother returned from Tokyo, I still have an abnormal relationship with Manji. The mother is to make a break, call Manji into the house, and hold the chisel - The testimony of the man surnamed Shannei for his mother was inexplicable. Yamau said that his mother was really resistant, and he said he heard the sound of his mother's escape.
Another thing I can't understand is that from the photo of his father Zhizhou, he is a timid and cautious person. Due to timidity, I still have to avoid the trouble of my mother and Manji, despite being annoyed in my heart -is this so? Also, after the mother killed Manji, did the father still unable to forgive the mother, so he lived a dull life?
Thinking of this, I felt that my father's death was not a simple accident. His father's death was also wrapped in a dark fog -would he set fire on his own, and he was for liberation?
"You said that, I remembered half a year before your dad died, and he hurt the disease of neurasthenia. He also heard that about a week before the fire in the temple, he suddenly disappeared. There was a big earthquake in Tokyo. Tokyo looked at the aunt who was killed. In the evening, the temple was burned -also like you said, he is a rumor of suicide. "
Speaking of this, Fujita suddenly remembered something like:
"The scars left by the fire are almost invisible. I still remember, that for a while, your face was covered with bandages." "Is my face covered with bandages? White bandages ..." I asked . In the memory, on the earth embankment, the girl's shocking face, and the water in the river, the white face scared me myself. Will this be because my face is covered with bandages?
"seven
On the day of her mother Qiqi, the believers, Mr. Zong Tian, came to my apartment in Kyoto to see me. The autumn was deep, and the bells in the nearby temple became particularly clarified.
After my mother's head was seven, I moved away from my residence, only took my mother to remain the bones, and returned to Kyoto. Zong Tianlai asked me to bury my mother's bones in the grave of my father.
I have only seen Zongtian twice. He is familiar with my childhood, so he is very kind to me.
When the temple bells that were approaching the night sounded, I saw the old man who saw Xiangxiang Ten and worshiped. I suddenly thought of asking him something.
I pretended to be heard from my mother's mouth, not listening to Fujita's tone:
"But Mr. Zong Tian, why can't I believe that my mother kills Naita Manjiyoshi just for such a reason -Mr. Zong Tian, do you know some of this?"
"Honestly, on the one hand, it was just for this that I ran to see the young master."
Zong Tian lowered the slightly turbid old eyes, then made his determination, and suddenly raised his face and said:
"Miss Ahmad once prohibited me disclosed to the young master, but I always felt that I should say to the young master. Since Miss Ahmad did not say to you, it was painful to tear up the promise from me ... ... I will tell you honestly. "
Zong Tian turned his face when he said this.
"Killing Naita Manji, either Ms. Ahmad, the abbot keys of Qinglian Temple, or Lord Zun."
My guess was correct.
Since the return of Tokyo, Manji and his mother continue to have the original relationship. The timid father has been deaf for three years. On the night of snow and rain, I finally couldn't bear it, and the whole outbreak broke out. Because of the rain, my father returned home from the believer's house in advance. He saw that my mother and Man Ji let me sleep aside. The two of them slept at the scene of a quilt and grabbed the chisel around me. His father killed Manji and called Zongtian before calling the police. In a short period of time, his mother, father and Zongtian discussed properly.
Zong Tian bought the Yushan Mountain and made a perjury. His mother also lied to the police in accordance with the plan.
"Everything is to protect the temple. If it is judged by the crime of adultery, Mr. Zhi Zhou should not be asked, but I hope to protect the flesh of the key wild. When the old residence is dead, I will take care of Zhizhou. So Miss Ahmu agreed, because I believe she knew that she was the first. Ms. Ahma betrayed Mr. Zhi Zhou, but there was no other way to go. The temple was burned, and Mr. Zhi Zhou died. No matter how I went to find it, I couldn't find the person who was willing to inherit the abbot, and the temple was almost abolished. At this time, I knew that I made a little plan I made. How terrible the consequences are here, I am so scared. I begged Miss Ahma to find a way to revive the temple and let the young master inherit the abbot's position in the future, but Miss Ahmad does not agree. According to her, I left the village soon. The village said that I forced her away. In fact, it was not the case at all. Miss Ahmad came to sin. Rely on this method to keep the credibility of the temple. Responsibility. Thinking of this, I'm so sorry for Miss Ahmad ... "
Watching Zong Tian let the pus -like tears rolled on a wrinkled face, I shouted in my heart: "No!"
wrong. Killing Manji -that is, the man in the memory is definitely not his father, but a mother. The mother's hand held the chisel, and let the blood dyed the hand -the mother once said: "Can't let anyone know the real reason. Does the mother have not spoken the real reason to Zong Tian? I have a feeling that as what people in the village believe may be a lie made by Tsoda; similarly, what Zong Tian believes may also be faked by his mother.
In the homicide scene in my memory, there was no shadow of my father. The murderous scene in my head exists is the shadow of my mother and the man, plus a small, my own shadow entangled with two shadows.
It was dark, I ordered the lights. When I saw two long shadows entangled together on the tatami, I suddenly thought that it was the only way to make my father also exist in my memory.
——If that his father is not a victim, he wraps with a victim and the shadow of his mother?
"eight
If my mother killed my father -then the scene I witnessed the scene was that when I was five years old, Qinglian Temple burned a little before.
No, it may not be a little before. Since the father left the village about one week before his death, the mother might kill his father, and it may be a night before. The mother hidden the body temporarily, and then put it in the main hall while setting off the temple.
"Mr. Zong Tian, did your father go to Tokyo a week before his death?"
"This means……"
"Isn't it just what the mother said that?" "Yes. At that time, Mr. Zhi Zhou seemed to be a bit abnormal. Everyone was worried about where he ran. So everyone felt wrong -at that time, the young master was really not easy. "
In the last sentence of Zong Tian, I didn't feel different, but asked again in a row.
"In the evening of the temple, did anyone see my father come back from Tokyo?"
"Some villagers said that he saw Mr. Zhi Zhou really walk from the earth embankment to the temple."
"Yes? Is it really a father?"
"Well ... ............ It must be seen from a distance. Wearing monk clothes and hats, it should not be, it is Mr. Zhou. That's what he said at that time."
When you see a monk's clothes from a distance, it is impossible to conclude that it is his father. Put on the monk's clothes and deliberately let people look at it. This woman can also do it -I think my mother has killed her father and hides the corpse's head for a week. This is almost certain.
However, where is the question that can make the corpse hiding for so long? Why isn't it on the night of killing and burning the temple?
"Mr. Zong Tian, I heard that there is a pond behind the temple?"
I remembered that my mother was standing by the water, her hands folded, and the beads of the rosary beads were sprinkled on the water surface, so she asked again:
"I vaguely remembers that I heard the sound of gunpowder like gunpowder at the pond."
"Master, I believe it is the sound of water lily."
"Is there any sound in water lilies?"
"Yes. Water lilies bloom in the morning, and it is closed at noon. At the time of Tianming, the flowers will bloom, and there will be a big voice at that time. It is what you say, it seems to be bursting. Once, it was a bit like iron piano, very crisp. In the pool of Qinglian Temple, there was a pool of water lilies. "
It has nothing to do with flowers, the problem is the leaves. If the pond is covered with flowers, isn't the entire water surface covering the leaves of water lilies? Because she couldn't see the bottom of the pool, her mother sank the body in the pool.
In mid -September -It should be the downtown of the last season of Water Lily. In order to be afraid of attracting people's eyes, the mother took off the flowers and buried it in the soil.
Yes, the mother killed her father, and then sank the body to the bottom of the pool for a week. But why must it be for so long? There is no eyebrow at all. No, in addition to this, there is another bigger problem.
"Mr. Zong Tian, when my father killed Naita Mantye, is I really at the scene?"
Zong Tian nodded. "why?"
"this……"
He supported his words, but I felt incredible. At the age of five, my mother killed her father, and I remembered clearly. At the age of four, my father killed Naita Manji's scene, but there was nothing in memory. I think that the scene of his father's killing Nomato should be stronger. Although she was one year old, I just remember that the mother's murder scene was impressed by the father's killing scene. Isn't this unnatural? Not only that, my mother begged Zongtian to reveal to me revealing the truth of his father's killing Nona Mandy, and it became a completely unpredictable thing. Because it is useless to ask, I was seeing everything at the scene! It was not a mother, but my father killed Manji -that is, the truth of the incident that my mother begged Zongtian not to disclose. I saw it with my eyes. And why do my mother want Zongtian to keep the truth about killing Manji?
"I heard that the year I was born, my mother stayed in Tokyo for half a year, right?"
"Yes."
"Is there any special reason?"
Zong Tian asked the circles to appear under the electric light. After thinking about it for a while, then said:
"I still tell you everything. Say it out, no one cares about it now. That's it. Miss Ahmad has giving birth to a child in Tokyo." "Give birth?"
"Well, it is the younger brother's brother. But the father is different. The child's father is Namota. There are not a few people who know this. Your aunt, Miss Achun often brings the children who play here, everyone thinks it is Miss Achun is born. Miss Achun will not have a child herself.
"It's Zhen Er, the one who died during the Great Earthquake in Tokyo."
"Yes. But die, maybe it's lucky."
"why?"
"When Ms. Ahmad left the village, she said. She said that Zhenjie, the child, has a full -time blood."
"What disease?"
"It is the disease that is gradually rotten ... but this disease of Manji will not be revealed, only the nerves are rotten. It was about half a year before being killed -he found that he burned his hand with fire and used a needle with a needle.来刺，都不会痛。在这以前，连他自己都不知道这些。他被丢弃在庙里，好像也是因为这种病。”
如今，这种病已经明确和遗传无关，可是当时人们都相信，这种病会一代代传承下去。
“满吉发现到这种病的时候，贞二已长得好大了。这孩子一直瞒着大家，说是阿春生的。将来长大，病发了以后就再也瞒不下去了。不管为了谁，这孩子的死，都是件好事。”
我想起了乃田满吉肤色白，贞二也正是如此。这使我联想到映在河水上自己死白的脸。
“宗田先生，听说我小时候，有一次脸上都缠着绷带。您还记得庙烧掉时，我受到灼伤的情形吗？”
我指了指自己的脸，宗田却诧异地看了我一会儿，这才说：
“灼伤?不可能，少爷不可能在庙烧掉的时候被烧伤。因为那个晚上——少爷根本不在庙里。“那个晚上，您住在我家。我想不起怎么会来我家住，可是还记得庙正在熊熊燃烧的时侯，您睡得好甜。 "
"..."
“少爷受到灼伤，不是庙里失火的时候，而是东京大地震的时候。”
意料不到的话，使我的眼睛都瞪圆了。
“大地震的时候，我是在东京吗？”
“是的，少爷和阿末小姐正在东京。那年夏天，阿春小姐带着小孩回娘家来了，回返东京的时候，阿末小姐和少爷也一块去了。没几天就传来大地震的消息，所以担心得不得了。还好，过了三四天你们就狼狈地回来了。难道少爷不记得了吗？”
“不记得了。我记得的是庙里失火的事。”
是真的吗?我记得的是站在好像是庙的山门边，看着熊熊燃烧的火。震灾的时候，据说东京有一部分成了一片火海。如果附近有庙，可能过去避一避。也许我和母亲逃进一座庙。如此，那就是站在山门，从内侧往外看着市街在燃烧吧。
而且大火烧过的，躺在一片灰烬里的尸体，好像不止一具。说不定可以看作是大火烧死了更多更多的人才来得更真实。
如果是这样，那么母亲为什么把我的灼伤说成是在庙失火时受的——母亲是在隐瞒大地震的时候，我们刚好在东京。 Why is this?
“从东京回来的时候，我的脸上缠着绷带吗？”
宗田又点头。这倒不出意料之外。
被记忆的漆暗包围住的大正十二年九月，母亲、父亲，还有我身上，究竟发生了什么，总算明白过来了。好不容易地——不错，过了十几年岁月，好不容易地才“最后还有一件要请问您。父亲杀死的那位乃田满吉，是不是眉毛很稀的人？”
“是的。我不晓得那是不是由于他那种病，因为眉毛薄得异常，所以面孔看来更白。”
我担心如果我再追问下去，宗田说不定也会想到我正在想的事，因此把话题岔开了。
电灯光变得有点刺眼的时候，宗田辞去了。从窗口看着老人那不稳靠的脚步在巷子里消失了以后，我无意间看到映在玻璃上自己的脸。我仿佛懂得了母亲为什么在我的眉毛上涂了墨，又为什么用指头上的血来抚摩它。
我从窗边离开，看了一会儿榻上长长的影子，忽然想起来似的取出了火柴，把一只手指头凑近火，烫得我连忙熄了火。我能感到那种灼热，是由于我的想象错了呢？抑或那种事还没发生？
这我就不晓得了。
不，我相信想象没有错。可是，我心中突然涌起了不可思议的感觉——仿佛觉得我自己的影子带上了不同于往常的色彩，茫茫然地在那儿站住了。四岁的时候，我置身父亲杀害乃田满吉的现场，而它在我记忆里，却是完全的空白——我不得不相信，那理由只有一个。
我不是键野史朗。
我猜想，当东京大地震发生时，我那个五岁的哥哥键野史朗死了，于是母亲想到了一个计策：让我来替换已死的史朗。
我在东京，由姑妈阿春抚育到四岁，其间屡次被姑妈带着，回到故乡庙里，和哥哥史朗也见过几次面。我想站在桥上栏杆边的男孩，应该就是史朗。某夜，是在庙的回栏，或者通往住房的柱看到月光下史朗的脸留下了不可磨灭的印象。我不晓得史朗是不是也白白的，但四岁的我与五岁的史朗，体形上应该不会差得太远。
只要把面孔遮起来，李代桃僵不是不可能的事。为了这，母亲才把我的脸灼伤，用绷带来缠住。
从某种意义来看，一切都是由偶然凑合而成的。
母亲从乃田满吉口里得知在我体内流动的血，而刚好这个时候，她开始想到差不多应该让我离开姑父姑妈手里，就那么凑巧，偶然上了一趟东京，遇上大地震，丧失了史朗。母亲于是向姑父姑妈吐露了我体内的血，提出了她
子上吧，反正就是像桥的地点，的计划。姑妈夫妇俩，与其说是恐惧我体内的血，倒毋宁说更同情母亲想把我当作史朗亲自抚养的愿望吧。于是，我罹难而死而史朗受灼伤的漫天大谎，得到了姑妈夫妻俩的合作。
母亲比起智周，更爱我的生身之父乃田满吉。自然而然，比起史朗，她便也更爱承袭了满吉血统的我。即令满吉的血是污浊的，不，应该说，唯其污浊，母亲才更不得不疼惜。这不是史朗与我谁更可爱的问题，在母亲来说，承传着智周或满吉的血，才是重要的事。我猜，自从满吉故去后，母亲便有了让我待在她身边的愿望。史朗在大地震的时候猝亡，这在母亲看来，该是绝妙的机会吧。
回到村子里，把父亲杀害，还烧毁了庙，应该是为了充作离开村子的借口之一。她不可能一直在我脸上缠着绷带，何况这又不是能向父亲透露的秘密。母亲必须在没有人认识史朗的地方，把我当成史朗来抚养。
这种意义下的计划，在母亲来说并不是太困难的事。母亲靠绷带来瞒过了村子里的人们，然后到东京，把我当作史朗来养育。
由于这缘故，把我改变成史朗，在外表上算是轻易成功了，问题在于能不能在我的内心里另创一个史朗。人的记忆，随着成长而多数埋没进漆暗里，幼小时尤其如此。只是人到了四岁左右，开始略略懂事，如果有特别的见闻，便形成为相当明晰的影像，一直留存下来。
就这一点而言，键野史朗是在四岁时，经历了非常特殊的体验，如果生存下来，必定会记起那个可怕的场面——因为他亲眼目击了那血流五步的现场。
母亲害怕将来我知道了那件事，觉得自己对那可怕的场面一无记忆，太不可思议了，然后去探查真相。
如果是普通的人，也许就不会害怕了。可是母亲本身，在一般年纪的时候目击了一个死亡，那种活生生的恐怖，一直留存在她的梦境当中。于是她认定，为了使我成为史朗，必须记住那个场面。
让我目击一年前发生的那个凶杀场面——母亲这么想到。
不用说，让父亲再来一次同样的杀人凶行是不可能的。幸运的是人们都相信父亲的凶行乃是母亲所为的。四岁的小孩所看见的，是母亲刺杀一个男人的场面——就照这个世上人们所相信的事件再来重演一次，这是母亲所能办到的。
知道键野史朗四岁的时候真正看见的，只有父亲、母亲、史朗自己，此外就是两位信徒。只要央求这两位信徒，即令将来两人中有人向我说了事件的详细悄形，仍然可以使我不致怀疑。不，宁可说，母亲为了在未来的日子里，当我听到事件经过时，能够借此确认自己的身世，终于毅然地实行了行凶。
母亲所以选了父亲作为她的凶杀对象，我想不仅是由于父亲是李代桃僵之计的最大阻碍。母亲不但对父亲从未有过爱，并且他还是把她所爱过的唯一的人杀害的凶手，因而怀恨在心也未可知。
然而，最大的原因，还是为了给我一个重要的记忆，为了让我成为史朗，为了守护世间的咒骂，不管谁也好，需要一个男性的被杀者。母亲纵火烧正殿的一个礼拜前，把喝醉了酒的父亲引到住房里，在我安眠的榻旁，重演了一年前的犯罪场面。记忆里看不到那男子的脸，乃因母亲用自己的身子来挡住我的视线，不让我看到的缘故。一切告终后，母亲回过头来看我。母亲的面容，是在急切地向我诉说着什么，如今我能了解那个意思了——看到了吧，贞二，妈妈不惜用血来染红自己的手，希望让你看到的，你要清清楚楚地烙印在心上。从这一刻，这一瞬间，你真正成了键野史朗了。妈妈能为你做的，就只有这些，只有这些。
我相信为了重现行凶现场，母亲最困扰的，是季节的问题。父亲刺杀满吉是在隆冬时节的一个晚上，而母亲却必须在九月份里头行事。母亲尤其担心花的问题。在她自己记忆的泥沼里，其所以记住了一个女人死亡的季节，是因为一瓣樱花之故；而清莲寺的水塘里，这个时候开满着睡莲，分明诉说着与一年前事件发生是在不同的季节。母亲把悲惨的死，用美丽的花的形式烙存在记忆里，她因而不由得担心在我的记忆里，也会留下存在于事件前后夏日的花。摘下睡莲埋入土中即是因为如此。母亲在泥土里埋葬了花，同时也埋葬了一个季节。
为了怕我的记忆连贯下去，母亲等了一个礼拜，这才从池里拖出父亲的遗骸，放在正殿里，然后放了一把火。接着，让我的脸包在绷带里，离开村子，前往没有人认识我们的东京，而我也从这一天起成了五岁的键野史朗。渐渐地，我长大了，直到宗田老人来访那天，我都是活在母亲所创造出来的别人的记忆里。
母亲的失败，在于未能看透她所郑严要求守密的宗田终究向我透露了事件真相；我不仅把凶杀现场，连那一阵子的母亲的奇异行动，也都留在记忆里，还有就是由于母亲想对我隐瞒，结果反倒触发了我对事件的好奇心。
宗田这个人的良心，反把母亲不惜染污了自己的手想保守有关我血缘的秘密暴露出来了。
如果没有宗田的话，说不定我就照藤田所告诉我的话，丝毫不怀疑自己不是键野史朗的可能性，送走我这一生。
然而，我对宗田，一点也不怨恨。
母亲在我的生身父亲乃田满吉死后，依然深爱流在我体内的他的血。她吸吮从我手上流出的血，咬我腕上的伤痕，抱住我睡觉，用血来抚摩我的稀眉毛，母亲是这么地爱他。而他的血正奔流在我的体内，纵使那血是污秽的，我觉得我仍然能以它为荣。母亲周年忌那天，我依宗田的话，为了把母亲的遗骨纳入坟墓里，走访村子。
暌违了几十年的村子，是由于斗转星移，失去了昔日面目，抑或是我的记忆趋于淡薄了？几乎无一能引发我的回忆。只有从那道土堤下去时，蓦地展现在眼前的田畴一端的树丛，与我遥远的记忆里的景象重叠在一块。想是到四岁那年，每次回到村子里，都被阿春姑妈牵着手走下那土堤的吧。
然而，那树丛下的战盔形屋瓦，却不复可见。
和宗田老人一起至墓，纳安了母亲的遗骨之后，我独自来到如今已无人居住的庙。土墙和屋瓦都龟裂了，空荡荡的正殿屋迹上杂草丛生，秘藏了两桩罪行的住屋，也已倾塌一如退了色的历史画里的废屋。
占了庙园近一半土地的水池已浑浊，浮泛着一些垃圾，不过纯白色的花朵倒也在那儿反射出夏末的残照绽放着。
看着这些花，我陡地想到了母亲葬花的另一层意义。
莲花是真宗里所说的“极乐净土”上，以各种颜色绽开的花。母亲在下决心杀死父亲的E听甲任自己的音志手了那此里，不只埋葬了季节，连死后的美丽世界，也是恶人所不被允许住的世界，也一并埋葬了。为的是在其后的生命里，只看守着罪，只当一个恶人；还有为了守护我的血。
