The winter sun shines on your body and you can feel a little warm.
The fine snow that has not yet melted decorates the empty streets of Wakasa Bay, dyeing everything you look at with just the right amount of light silvery white. In contrast to this refreshing scenery, is the beautiful girl in front of you.
Because they were walking side by side, Onizuka's profile was in Kamiya River's sight.
The elegant black camel hair coat and the long flowing hair swayed slightly with her steps.
Between the tips of her black hair, you can still see her fair, soft earlobes, which are small and exquisite.
"Achuan, what's wrong?"
Probably noticing Kamiya's gaze, Onizuka turned his face, stared into the former's eyes and asked.
"nothing."
Kamiya shook his head.
He felt that the pulse on his wrist seemed to be bouncing a little more violently.
This beating feeling was not his own pulse, but came from the other end of the invisible red rope tied to his wrist.
"Ah, the old house of the Esaki family is just ahead." Onizuka put his hands behind his back and actively changed the topic, "Our people have contacted the Esaki family before, and he will be waiting there."
Ezaki Takaya is the younger brother of the late folklorist Ezaki Nagayasu.
I usually live mainly in the urban area of Tsuruga City.
Someone from the countermeasures room had contacted him recently and briefly asked about some things about the late Ezaki Nagayasu.
It is reported that Ezaki Changyasu had a house on the edge of Wakasa Bay during his lifetime.
After his death, because he had no children, the house was eventually transferred to his younger brother's name.
Not resold or rented.
The main reason Kamiya and Onizuka came here was to investigate the house again and see if they could find any useful clues left by Ezaki Nagayasu.
Look along the position indicated by the little witch.
On the side of the coastal road, there is indeed a house with a courtyard standing quietly.
That is the destination of this trip.
The iron gate to the courtyard of Esaki's residence is rusty and open.
Standing in the somewhat deserted courtyard was a middle-aged man in his fifties.
He has black hair, is full of energy, speaks softly, is elegant and restrained.
This person is Mr. Ezaki, and his first impression is very good.
"Mr. Esaki, we are coming from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Our people should have greeted you earlier today."
The two Kamiya showed their IDs to the Ezaki family to prove their identities.
"Mr. Kamiya, and Ms. Onizuka?"
"Um."
The two police officers who came all the way from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department looked too young, which surprised Mr. Esaki, but he didn't say anything about it. After seeing their IDs, he acted very cooperatively.
The house that everyone is currently in seems deserted and dilapidated, perhaps because it has been unoccupied for too long.
The stone bricks on the walls are slightly mottled due to long-term sea breeze erosion, and are covered with moss and unknown wild plants.
"I'm really sorry. When my parents were still here a few years ago, they would come here occasionally...but now, I...I almost never come here. This old house is so neglected that it makes you laugh.
"
Said Ezaki Takuya, he led Kamiya and Onitsuka into the interior of the mansion.
The space in the house seems a bit empty and deserted. The floor of the entrance hall is covered with old carpets, which have worn out, exposing the wooden boards underneath. There are very few furnitures, and they are basically covered with white cloth and covered with thick dust.
.
The two young exorcists scanned their surroundings and exchanged glances with each other.
"Mr. Esaki, if possible, we would like to ask you something about your brother."
"My brother...ah, okay, you can ask."
The old gentleman looked a little sad.
In fact, he didn't know why the police started to re-investigate his brother's case today.
There are still some doubts about what happened to Ezaki Changyasu, but on the whole it has been concluded.
Moreover, because the case was more than 40 years ago, the prosecution period under Japanese law has long passed, and theoretically the investigation will not be restarted.
"Mr. Esaki, your brother is a folklorist, right?"
"Well, probably so. He has done some folklore research on his own, and I have the impression that my brother is a bit fanatical about this aspect. When I was a child, I could see some strange things at my brother's house. I don't know about the documents he collected.
The weird objects I found somewhere were piled up in the study room on the second floor. But after my brother passed away, those things disappeared."
"So what was Nagayasu Ezaki mainly studying?"
Kamiya and Onizuka have some information about Ezaki Nagayasu.
However, the content of the data mainly records the circumstances of his death, and the identity of the folklorist is only briefly mentioned.
And the information does not directly record what he is mainly researching.
Before Onizuka Kiri Hotaru came to Fukui Prefecture, she had tried to search for more information about Esaki Nagayasu.
But I didn't gain much, and I only found a few articles published by the late scholar.
The article mainly focuses on the local celebration "Tsuruga Festival" in Fukui Prefecture. The content is not special. It mainly studies the humanities and culture related to the celebration ceremony such as "Mikoshi Togo" and "Folk Ballad".
Normal to a bit boring.
Perhaps Ezaki Nagayasu has also researched or published other more bizarre folklore content, but it may have been under an unknown pen name, or it may have been published in some third-rate journal that no one cares about and has long since closed down.
"My brother's research... I think it was related to the Tsuruga Festival or something like that." Mr. Esaki recalled, "There may be others, but I really can't remember them clearly. My impression of my brother only remains at ten.
When I was many years old. Moreover, I actually didn’t know much about folklore research, and I even had some...some..."
Some conflict.
Mr. Ezaki didn't finish what he said, but his expression was enough to illustrate the point.
After "something like that" happened to his brother Ezaki Nagayasu, people around him said that it was because his brother was always keen on studying some weird things that he became mentally ill.
Such rumors will naturally have an impact on the fashionable and young Esaki family.
He has a certain psychological shadow about this.
"Oh, by the way." Mr. Ezaki seemed to have remembered something, "I remember that for a while, my brother told me that he seemed to be studying aliens and UFOs. What was the specific content?
, I don’t know.”
Study aliens?
Kamiyakawa was slightly confused after hearing this.
Do folklorists still study this?
"Is there anything else you can tell us about your brother?"
"My brother, he..." Maybe he was a little sad after entering this old house after a long absence. Although Esaki's face was slightly calm, he slowly started talking, "He is twelve years older than me. In my impression, my brother
He is a very good person and a very good big brother. He is humorous, optimistic and cheerful. Everyone likes him very much, including me."
"My brother's wife's name is Kazu. Kazu is also a very good person. They have been together since college and have a good relationship. They got married soon after graduation. After they got married, the two of them moved here.
Live in a house."
"Brother is not just...what do you call him, a folklorist? Yes. Not just a folklorist. Those studies are just hobbies. He has a serious job with a good salary. He is a reporter."
"My brother and his wife, Gazin, live a very good life here, really. People around them are envious of them and regard them as role models. Until... that day..."
"I remember clearly that it was a night of heavy rain. My parents answered a phone call, which seemed to be from Gazin. After hanging up the phone, they seemed a little weird and anxious. They told me to stay at home, and then hurriedly
I hurriedly went out."
"Later I found out that my parents went to my brother's place that night. To be precise, it was in this house."
"Brother, he...he..."
Speaking of this, Jiang Qi frowned and his eyes became slightly distracted.
His voice seemed hard, his throat was rolling, and his words were like a mouthful of thick phlegm stuck in his throat. It took a lot of effort to finally spit it out: "...he is crazy."
"The specific thing was that Gazin told my parents in tears that night. Later, my parents slowly revealed what they knew to me."
"One day, without warning, my brother stayed in the study room where he studied folklore materials for a long time, almost frantically flipping through the books he had collected. He became very restless and nervous."
"He said that he could hear strange noises at home. Someone called his name at night, violent scraping sounds echoed in the corridor, and bursts of wailing came from somewhere underground."
"This situation is getting worse and worse, and my brother no longer goes to work at the newspaper office."
"The more Gazin, as his wife, tried to comfort him, the more frightened he seemed. He yelled at the gentle Gazin, telling him to get away. He no longer wanted to sleep in the same room with Gazin, but locked himself completely
When I entered the study, I was sometimes talking to myself, sometimes hysterical."
"When my parents rushed to my brother, he was already very ill. Several people couldn't hold him down and yelled some crazy words. He said that Gazin was not his wife, but was pretending to be Gazin and staying by his side.
Something unknown and terrifying.”
"My parents said that when Gazin was at a loss when he heard his brother say those crazy things, he was stunned and just cried."
"My parents sent my brother to the hospital. After diagnosis, the doctor confirmed that my brother had a very rare disease - Capgras delusional syndrome. He is..." Mr. Esaki's speech became difficult again, "...the disease
Already."
Capgras delusion, also known as "imposter syndrome", is a type of paranoid schizophrenia.
Medically, this symptom is usually caused by damage to the line of visual information from the fusiform back to the amygdala to the limbic system. The core manifestation is that the patient believes that someone close to him or her is being raped by another "person who looks and behaves the same way."
” Impersonated or replaced.
After the symptoms appear, patients have a high degree of insecurity and are often accompanied by violent tendencies.
This is mentioned in the information on Ezaki Nagayasu in the hands of Kamiya and Onizuka.
Based on what Mr. Ezaki just said orally, his brother's behavior after he became ill is more specific.
It sounds like Ezaki Nagayasu's consciousness suddenly collapsed and he suffered from schizophrenia after being exposed to a certain folklore research content.
But to put it bluntly, it seems... reasonable that folklorists would go crazy after being exposed to folklore content that they shouldn't be exposed to?
I just don’t know what Ezaki Changyasu saw before he went completely crazy.
The folklore materials he finally studied should be very important.
"A week after my brother was sent to the hospital, my parents took me to see him."
"At that time, he had already taken sedative drugs and was completely unconscious. But when I walked to the bedside, for some reason, my brother who was still sleeping suddenly opened his eyes. He twisted his body and grabbed me
hands, roaring at me——"
"Jijia! They don't believe me, you have to believe me! The current Kazu is definitely not the Kazu we know! She has been replaced by something. Although they look the same, speak with the same voice, and even smell the same
It’s all the same, but the current Gazin is not the real Gazin, believe me, believe me!”
Mr. Ezaki will never forget what his brother looked like at that time——
His face was distorted, his eyes widened, and the bulging eyeballs reflected madness and fear. His pupils were completely unfocused and beating wildly, as if he was looking for some unreachable phantom.
His body seemed to be controlled by an invisible force and was shaking uncontrollably. The sound was sharp and harsh, like an iron sheet scratching across glass, full of sharp pain.
"I've never seen my brother like that... I've never seen him like that. He was so sick that I didn't dare to get close. I was frightened at the time. I was so scared that I threw away my brother's hand and hid in my parents' house.
Behind him. Then the doctor entered the ward and injected my brother with sedatives... and then he finally calmed down."
"My brother stayed in the hospital for a year."
"Gazin was really sad during that time. Even as a child at the time, I could see it. But she still loved her brother. She was really a good woman."
"She has been taking care of her brother, giving him water and food, talking to him softly, and the family will take turns to visit him. Although he is not very awake most of the time due to the effects of sedative drugs, he
His condition has improved a lot.”
"So the doctor gave us a choice. Continue to stay in the psychiatric hospital, or take my brother home and take good care of him with medication."
"My parents left this decision to Kazu."
"Gazin's choice was the latter. She brought her brother back to the house where they lived together."
"Then...that thing happened. My brother had only been home for half a month...he threw himself into the sea and died in Wakasa Bay."
Ezaki Tekka's tone changed from sadness to pain:
"Witnesses who were at the bay at the time saw their brother dragging a bloody woman, who was not sure whether she was dead or alive, from the back seat of his car and pushing her down the cliff of the bay. He was hysterical on the edge of the cliff.
Laughing, and then...then he jumped into the sea himself..."