[3:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m.]

At that time, I was sitting on the stone steps at the bottom of the torii gate of the shrine.

Not far behind, the banquet was still going on...... Maybe it's more accurate and better to call it a festival, but it doesn't matter.

The glow of the lantern hanging from the torii gate overshadowed the faint moonlight, casting my shadow into the darkness below the stone steps.

This position has not left the range of the "Pupil of Enlightenment", and it is still capturing the thoughts of the nearby youkai, but it ...... Enough is enough.

The so-called "Great Youkai" is not just a matter of possessing terrifying powers. The power of losing control, the ability to run wild, these are all abnormalities that can only appear in immature little demons - I've been trying to control my innate ability to read minds for a long, long time, and if this ability has nothing to do with my own will, I'm afraid I won't be able to become a being called a "big monster" like this.

I've tried countless times to control mind reading, and I've had some success. Although it is still uncontrollable to allow the "eyes of satoru" to spy on the thoughts of others when they are in close proximity, if they can leave it a little, they can easily filter out the thoughts that are conveyed as noise.

Thanks to my help in the study of human races more than 100 years ago, humans are able to ignore things outside their bodies in noisy situations, not because their brains are not aware of the images and sounds in front of them and in their ears, but because they discard them as spam and unprocessed.

Inspired by this, when I left the crowd a little, I was able to collect a large amount of thoughts from the "Pupil of Enlightenment" as waste, ignoring and disposing of them, and finally regained a rare purity in many cases.

It's just that, despite this trick and sitting here alone, it still hasn't achieved the expected effect.

Very delicate mood.

"I must be looking ugly right now. As he thought so, he leaned back against the uncomfortable stone steps, resting his right hand on his eyelid, and the murmur that had been masked from the "pupil of enlightenment" gradually became distant......

……

……

My name is Ko Ming Jijue, and I'm a mind-reading monster.

At the same time, he is also the owner of the foreign pavilion located in the underworld, the Earth Spirit Temple.

Underground, not Gensokyo.

This was once a hell where sinners from the other side would come to atone for their sins, but it was abandoned and became a place called the "Old Hell", a deserted place where only so-called evil spirits would appear...... Being in the "Old Hell" can't be completely inactive, even if you help manage some resentful spirits, but these things are okay and don't matter.

Most of the time, there will be no idlers, and the Earth Spirit Hall is such a clean and peaceful place.

And there are various reasons why my sister and I settled in this desolate place.

The first thing that has to be mentioned is one's own ability.

The Monsters - Able to read the minds of others since birth. It's not a blessing or a curse, I just accepted this ability very normally, and my sister chose to give up.

In fact, "mind reading" is very inconvenient.

While it can be a powerful weapon in some situations, more often than not, it is just a burden. Whether you want to or not, with this ability, you can always know the true intentions of the other person behind the fierce words or silent silence.

What's even more tragic is that both humans and youkai can't control their minds - even though I know I can read their minds, I can't hide the truth by my own will.

Further on, it's not hard to guess. Most of the time, both humans and youkai avoid the place where I stay, but since I'm a great youkai based on the human world, I can't help but have moments around others. I didn't feel any injustice in what I had suffered at that time.

It's not anything violent, and few people, whether humans or youkai, choose to express their enmity with me. But, having found that I was indifferent to their thoughts, the men began to use their self-defeating delusions as a weapon against me, and the women cursed me with all the most vicious words in their heads, which were taken for granted.

I know very well about humans and many of the youkai races, but they don't know my way of thinking.

As a mind-reader, I have long understood the common sense and ethics of human beings, but I don't have those things, no matter how vicious curses or delusional insults, or isolated gestures, they can't touch me in the slightest, and it means nothing to me.

That's right, mind-reading monsters are self-conscious, loners, and never care about others, and if I were to explain "selfishness" in the human dictionary at a time to the worst extent, it would be somewhat similar to my personality.

I'm not dissatisfied with this.,This is the fate of the monster.,Because if you care about what others think and think.,Eventually, you'll fall into the same path as your sister.。

Now, I have no intention of judging my sister's own practices, but I feel that I am not a sister in love, and I can't be her.

Of course, there are always a lot of strange things in the human world. Even if I am such a character, it is not that I have never received pure kindness.

I can't remember how long it was, but the Great Barrier was far from being established, and I hadn't gone underground, a long, long time ago.

While walking in the human world, he suddenly received a confession from a young man.

I was amazed that he was doing this without knowing who I really was, something he had never seen before, and I couldn't find any other useful information from his confused mind. In order to determine his true intentions, I talked to him for a few moments with disgust, but in the end, I still did not find a purpose related to him.

Regardless of the fear of mind-reading monsters in human beings, I actually know about human beings. As the most observant race in the human world, I was still quite curious about humans at that time, so I have been observing their ecology.

There is also some understanding of the physical and psychological desires that human beings have evolved in order to reproduce their natural instincts. For the purpose of reproduction, the human body will be stimulated by the hormones secreted by itself, and some feelings similar to reverie or hallucinations will be affected, and eventually their actions and positions will be influenced for a long time.

Its development has a certain process, first feeling the comprehensive influence of the opposite sex's demeanor, manners, conversation, etc., and then expressing acceptance, acceptance, appreciation and other gestures in response, which is a behavioral characteristic with general significance.

However, there are many exceptions, and it is about the time when I experienced the confession - the so-called love at first sight is actually a condition in which human beings are affected by physiological factors and cause their minds to be blinded by hallucinations.

Although I didn't understand it at the time, I gradually learned that I myself actually had a very delicate appearance among humans, but I couldn't let go of one thing, that is, although I had been walking the human world for hundreds of years at that time, I was still ten years old as a big monster, and the posture of my body was not much different from that of children in humans.

What's even more strange to me is that he actually made a confession proposal on the premise of knowing that I am a monster, and if the ultimate goal is the reproduction of the human race, wouldn't it be meaningless?

As for youkai, there are many differences from humans, but most of them have the same end - that is, youkai are not bound by common sense. Humans who practice common sense think that reproduction is a matter of course, and unfamiliar yokai only go their own way, and although this is the root cause of the overwhelming strength of yokai that eventually defeat the humans, this is irrelevant to the topic I am talking about at this moment.

I'm on the same page as other yokai on this point - and even though my sister and I are the last members of the Kakuyokai clan, I don't feel the slightest sense of identification with male yokai in the group. Perhaps it is precisely because youkai are always arrogant and unsociable that many of the youkai races that were originally dominant in a certain period of history eventually disappeared quietly.

Therefore, although the young nobles of this human clan swore that they would not marry in this life, they naturally rejected the kindness of this human in the end.

After about thirty years, the number of Yin-Yang Warlocks gradually increased, and they began to gather and divide into a group of professions called demon slayers, and began to actively eliminate youkai in various places. I'm a youkai who doesn't actively harm humans, but I'm also known for my special abilities. There are many radicals among the demon slayer who believe that all youkai should be eradicated, and thanks to them, I have been sniped by the demon slayer many times.

It was a very difficult time, and he often hid in the mountains with his seriously injured body, and he couldn't slack off all day for fear of a sudden attack, and even the constitution of a youkai rarely felt sleepy.

Now that I think about it, it was because the external pain and exhaustion had reduced my immature willpower, and as a big youkai, I began to think about the so-called "meaning" in the days of solitude.

I think that when both humans and youkai realize that they are going to die soon, they will start thinking about similar questions in order to give themselves psychological comfort.

So do I. I began to wonder what was the purpose of this being called "Ancient Enlightenment"—when I had given in, never considered the character of others, and even compromised after asking myself that I could not get an answer, I began to wonder if there was any meaningful value left in my existence, whether it was for myself or for something other than myself?

There was no answer. I grieved at my pointlessness, so I stopped hiding from the humans and sat at the mouth of a cave deep in the mountains waiting for the chasing demon slayer to kill me.

But perhaps they were tired, or perhaps they were lucky, the location of the cave was not discovered for three consecutive days.

Then, as my mind continued to move, I thought from the standpoint of a human being, and I was inadvertently reminded of the human being in Kyoto decades ago.

The sages of mankind have carved many established templates for the meaning of the existence of the entire race—loyalty, filial piety, benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom, faith, etc.—blind people, or people who do not want to think deeply, only need to find a suitable position from them to live with peace of mind, and among them, there are also human beings who take a certain emotion derived from the act of reproduction, called love, as the ultimate meaning, and do not hesitate to sacrifice everything for it.

Although I was seriously skeptical about this, there was no way to test my position at the time, so I did something that was not wise, and infiltrated Kyoto, which was full of onmyosmans and demon slayers, to find the human in Kyoto, where the world was hunting down youkai and the youkai were wantonly taking revenge on the massacre of human civilians.

It's been so long since the time passed, and I can't remember the appearance of human beings for a long time, and I only vaguely remember the place at that time, and it was really a fluke to be able to find it in the end.

Maybe the immortal species can't understand the suffering of short-lived humans, I haven't seen this human for more than thirty years, I don't recognize this human at all, I don't know who the middle-aged man in front of me is, only through his memories of me in an instant can I be sure of my identity.

I even forgot what I was going to ask, because the man cried when he saw me, and it was very strange, and according to his dress, this young nobleman should have inherited the family business and the official title, married and had children, and the great man who was supposed to pay attention to decency suddenly began to cry.

Because of this strange move, I did not say anything, but looked at him strangely, and read in his very confused mind at the time a certain feeling—remorse for not keeping his promise.

I have always been insensitive, not annoyed by malice, and not pleased with good intentions, but at that time I had a very strong emotion because of this human feeling—disgust.

I didn't understand why I was so disgusted, but it was basically like this, because youkai don't vomit like humans, and it can only be compared to it, maybe it's because of the strong mental disgust that affects the physical senses, so I left immediately without saying anything I wanted to ask.

After that, he stayed in the human world for a while, and for some reason he became more and more disgusted with humans, and even affected his personality who was initially indifferent to the perception of humans, and then he no longer intended to stay.

After going underground with my sister, I don't know how long it took to find that the road to the surface was disconnected...... The world where it used to be has become a trace, and what appears on the ground is the completed Hakurei Great Barrier and Gensokyo.

Although it is unclear what position the original Hakurei shrine maiden decided to side with the chasm youkai, she finally left life for the endangered youkai.

Today's me, the great monster of mind reading, is not the same as before, and the stupid act of being confused about meaning will naturally not appear again, and the search for meaning itself is meaningless.

Today's ancient and enlightened sense is no different from the past, acting only according to personal preferences and living only for pleasure.

……

……

My personal preferences are not very wide, and reading is one of the few pleasures.

No, maybe that's too reserved.

I love to read, and it's a very rare pleasure. I don't know the outcome in advance, I don't want to be deliberately avoided, and I feel the emotions and interactions of the characters in the book, and I can get great physical and mental pleasure.

If I were to spend the rest of my life alone in the Earth Spirit Temple, I would probably only need to have enough books...... In this regard, I have actually considered building a large library in the Earth Spirit Temple several times, but due to the lack of administrators and the lack of sufficient sources of books to fill a library, I have not yet taken action.

About reading、Originated from the story book that circulated among the humans who got it from the monster mountain by chance.,I couldn't help but be fascinated.,When I'm entangled in the next plot direction and the development of the characters' feelings.,But I found that most of these novels that came in from the outside world were incomplete.,At that time, I almost went to the other world to get the follow-up book.。

Fortunately, things always took a turn for the better, and after that, I discovered the treasures hidden in the world.

A novelist with the pen name "Christie Q", he has many short stories that circulate in the village, and most of them can be found in a rented book house called Suzuna-an.

I couldn't help but be immersed in this method of writing, which often tells the whole story in a single volume—of all her works, my favorite is her mystery short stories.

"Elegy for the Loser" and "Death to the Murderer" were still immature in her early short story reasoning style, but from the watershed of "The End of Detective S", her style began to mature rapidly...... This is a very peculiar short story, and even at the end of the book, the author does not point out the suspense left, which made me think that it is not over for a while...... It's just that a few days later, for a moment, I thought of a certain detail in the book, and from this I thought of more things that I hadn't noticed, and when I went back to read it, I suddenly understood several strange actions of Detective S at the end...... It's the original、I thought it was my own over-interpretation.。

Over-reading is sometimes a very unpleasant thing, thinking that the actions and words of the characters in the book have a deeper meaning, and making some reasoning and extension without authorization, only to find out that the author did not mean it, which is occasionally the case in some books that are not too interesting to read earlier. After seeing the true meaning of Detective S, and not explaining it to anyone at the end, I ended the chapter in a daze without even reading it, maybe it contains the will of the detective and the author behind the detective, Christy Q himself...... There's both the arrogance of Detective S and the sarcasm that Christy Q leaves for stupid mortals.

Fortunately, I understood.,Since this one、All the short and medium-length stories she wrote have become extremely high-quality.、I have read and collected each of them.,The latest serialized "Chris's Wish",It tells the story of a utilitarian little Chris who combines money and fame.、A successful career in order to clear the notoriety of his thief grandfather who died in prison to others,And spent a lot of money to hire a private detective male protagonist to find clues and truths that do not exist in itself,His purpose is obvious、 Even if it's a forgery, as long as it's evidence that he can get his hands on, he just needs to erase the stain left on his grandfather and doesn't care if it's real or not...... Although the impoverished detective hero takes on this deal that is not just, but it is not evil. It's just that the detective's instinct to pursue the truth in his heart makes him unwilling to come up with forged evidence, and the protagonist Shunto, who investigates step by step, solves another unsolved case many years ago, but under the impatient urging of Chris Jr., he still does not come up with the perjury he wants...... The final volume has not yet been published, but I have guessed that the suspense in the title of the book, "Chris's wish", is not a reference to little Chris, who is bent on clearing his grandfather's notoriety to make a name for himself, but his grandfather, the true thief, and although the theft is only a small thing of no value or even enough to be inhumane, it is the real reason why his grandfather confessed to his accusation of "stealing" in court.

Strangely, during the serialization of this book, Kristi Q actually reopened a short chapter written a long time ago, "The Unredeemed Child", which tells the tragic story of a disabled and autistic high-IQ girl who fights against several professional criminal gangs alone, leads them to the end, and finally, is beaten to death by thugs on the street for a cat she raises.

This short story, which could not have existed as a sequel, unexpectedly appeared in a new volume not long ago - the heroine was saved by her cousin, sent to the hospital, and saved her life.

Her cousin is far less intelligent than hers, and he has only qualities that ordinary people can have, such as gentleness and humility, patience, etc., but it seems that the title is exactly what the title says, and the child who cannot be redeemed seems to have finally been redeemed.

The next development is a return to Christy Q's ontological reasoning, which is similar to the classical mystery genre, with the withdrawn girl playing the detective and her cousin acting as her assistant - in order to show her stupid cousin, the girl repeatedly solves strange cases, which becomes a good story in the new chapter.

In this regard, I just want to say...... When will the final volume of Chris's Wish be written?

……

……

Speaking of Christie Q, I have to mention another author I like more - Suzutaro.

Compared to Christy Q, who began to experiment with various genres of mystery novels earlier, Suzutaro, who suddenly appeared in the past two years and has created a large number of works in a short period of time, wrote almost all of the romance novels at the beginning, and seems to be very fond of the doomed and unfulfilled love between humans and monsters, and Suzutaro especially seems to have a lot of experience in creating female characters. Even though I have a very different view from human beings, I am not very interested in this kind of subject, but I have always paid attention to it because it is a work that appears in the world, and I can see between the lines that she is the heroine on the page.

It is worth mentioning this year...... No, it's last year, and in the new serialization "Heijo Jing's Last Demon Slayer", her already good writing seems to have reached a higher level, and I am starting to look forward to her follow-up works.

The story is about the Nara period、Because of the "demon eradication order" to clear the world, several unborn big monsters were annoyed, Heijo Kyochu, the onmyomanga warlock was almost slaughtered, and the surviving onmyoji Kamo Tadayuki was entrusted by the emperor to travel the world in search of qualified young people to inherit the profession of demon slayer.

The human male protagonist who grew up in the mountain village was already in love with a tanuki monster before he met Kamo Tadayuki, and when he learned of his talent and what Kamo Tadayuki expected of him, he was faced with not only the choice between getting ahead and his monster lover, but if he refused, Onmyoji Kamo Tadayuki was likely to end his lover in the name of eliminating demons to relieve the shackles in his heart...... In order to prevent the tragedy from happening, he traveled all the way to Heijo Capital with Kamo Tadayuki and began to learn Yin-Yang art under Kamo Tadayuki. Tanuki youkai accompanies him as his wife.

By chance、He discovered through small details that Tadayuki Kamo had long seen through his lover's disguise and was planning to end her life quietly through food。 The actor is terrified, but he doesn't dare to speak out, once he picks it out, the onmyoji is likely to do it directly...... But he couldn't find an opportunity to remind him privately, and he always walked with him, even sleeping with him at night...... In the end, the male protagonist, who couldn't stand watching his lover die unconsciously, snatched his wife's food and stuffed it into his mouth during a meal for three people......

And so ends the story.

The tanuki youkai, a lover who has been left out in the cold for months, who calmly watched her husband die after eating highly poisonous food, and Kamo Tadayuki, who was shocked, seemed to announce the fall of Heijokyo's last demon exterminator...... But what I didn't expect was that this enigmatic short story turned out to be in the second volume.

……

……

It turned out that the tanuki youkai had calculated that Kamo Tadayuki had poisoned her food, that his lover would definitely find an opportunity to inform him, and that he had also calculated that Kamo Tadayuki would secretly stop him, and that even if his lover finally stole his free time, he would pretend that he couldn't understand it, and eventually his lover would be impatient and take away the food that had slowed him to death......

But in fact, this is another scene directed and acted by Tadayuki Kamo. As a yin-yang warlock, he doesn't agree with secular concepts.、He knows very well that once the monster is obsessed with humans.,Most of them don't care about him anymore.,The tanuki monster's mind is only tied to the male owner.,So he didn't plan to kill this monster at first.。

But he also knew that if he took the initiative to make it clear, it would be impossible to eliminate the male protagonist's vigilance, and he Mao Zhongxing, who was not going to let go of the rare genius of yin and yang in the world, decided to take action.

On the way, he inadvertently mentioned to the male owner a plant that is highly poisonous enough to make the monster die slowly.,And let him secretly witness himself adding plant juice to the food for the tanuki monster.,Restrict the man's free movement through various practices...... He hoped that the male protagonist would take the initiative to find out to him after being forced to be helpless, but he didn't expect that the male protagonist couldn't directly devour the food that originally belonged to the tanuki monster......

The food that pretended to be "added" actually made the male master faint, and the tanuki monster told He Mao Tadayuki: "You kill me, let him practice yin and yang with peace of mind." ”

He replied, "I am old, and he is very talented, and I will give him all my money before I die, and I don't want him to hate me." ”

Tanuki Youkai: "Then you tell him that you poisoned my food and hurt him, violating the laws of Heijokyo, and you acquiesced to my existence." ”

Tadayuki Kasmo: "I see. ”

Tanuki Youkai: "Isn't that your intention?, how can I continue to take poison that is harmful to youkai but can't kill at once?"

He Mao Zhongxing laughed: "I have long heard of the ability of tanuki monster transformation, and I can't thank you for your help, but I can't owe him." ”

In fact, it was revealed in the follow-up serialization that the so-called tanuki monster is just a disguise for this monster, and her real identity is a big monster named Feather Fox - one of the several big monsters that dominate the storm.

……

……

This novel, which I thought was a short story, was serialized to the sixth volume in a year.、The male protagonist hides his wife's identity from everyone.,At the same time, he solves all kinds of mutations as a demon slayer.、And the feathered fox has been secretly helping the protagonist.,Even at the cost of carrying the reputation of 'traitor to the monster clan'.。

It seems that Sutaro is very fond of this kind of "clear for the righteousness of the world, but in fact it is only one person", which may be the so-called "romantic" emotion in human culture, which I don't know very well, but I think it is very powerful.

In the latest volume, the protagonist of the official and the big food doctor, Abe Masaki, learned about this old story from his wife before his death, and couldn't help but laugh out loud. At the end of this volume, the tanuki youkai, who has been with him but has not grown old, dies in front of the grave of the dying Abe Masaki with a smile, but the story does not end there, and their child Abe Harumi opens a new chapter in the new capital of Heianjing.

Although Suzutaro's work also focuses on reasoning, she seems to be more inclined to tell a touching story than Christie Q, who is more inclined to inference, and her writing and narrative techniques are constantly improving, and the characters she creates, especially the personality of the male protagonist, are becoming more and more full.

The reason why I suddenly recalled this book in detail tonight is probably because of the "interesting story" I just encountered.

Because of his ability to read minds, this experience is extraordinarily clear - sometimes, what happens in reality, is even more absurd than the experience of the protagonist in the story.

……

……

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PS: The above-mentioned works such as "Elegy for the Loser", "Death to the Murderer", "The End of Detective S", "Chris's Wish", "The Unredeemed Child", and "The Last Demon Slayer of Heijo Kyo" do not really exist in books with the same name or similar references (only available in Gensokyo).