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II: Lily of the Valley
Chapter 127: See the Capital
There was an inexplicable feeling of stability.

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The sky was high and far away.

The black road wound and slide through the mountains, old-fashioned telephone poles stood on both sides of the road, and slender wires were stretched on the rows of roofs, like sharp pencil lines.

After the heat that lingered on the asphalt road faded, the road inevitably looked deserted. Occasionally, a truck would pass by with its roaring engine, leaving behind a burst of choking exhaust fumes.

Megumi spent several autumns here, and it was a long time ago that he settled here.

The memories of his childhood have been almost worn away in the long memory. The remaining part told him that before settling here. He had been taken by that man moving around between various women without a fixed address, until one day, the man got married for the first time, and the other woman was just like that man, single, but had a child.

That child was his sister, Tsumiki Fushiguro.

Maybe it's because that man didn't know how to write the word "peace" by nature, or it may be that things like "peace" were too luxurious for him. After the two single-parent families merged, he still rarely appeared in Megumi's sight, and he went his own way. Going his own way, he left Megumi alone to his step-mother. The step-mother then left Megumi to her own daughter, until one day, his step-mother disappeared completely because she couldn't bear to bear the responsibility of two children alone. She silently left her daughter and Megumi in the old house and left quietly.

The year after his father and step-mother disappeared, a very suspicious high school boy approached him. He was tall, had strange sunglasses on his face, and was wearing strange clothes. He looked like a very suspicious guy no matter how he looked. He looked like a human trafficker who abducted children.

His father was a Zenin runaway clan member.

He was sold to the Zenin family by his father.

He was sold by his father, and his father disappeared after selling him.

The strange high school boy helped him solve all the problems. He didn't have to worry about the Zenin family coming to trouble him, and he didn't have to worry about being unable to survive due to lack of financial resources in the following days.

He knew these come at a price.

Just like the most basic concept of cursed technique, equivalent exchange.

To get benefits, you must pay the same price.

•

The blue sky suddenly hit his eyes.

Vehicles dragging cargo boxes roared past the road, leaving behind bursts of choking exhaust fumes.

His attention was withdrawn from his wandering thoughts, and his emerald green pupils trembled a few times. The boy with spiky hair raised his hand and pinched the center of his brow, lowered his eyelids; his long eyelashes covered up the strange color under his eyes.

He heard Yuji and Nobara chatting all the time, and Nitta interjected from time to time, and it finally turned into a discussion meeting between the three of them.

Megumi breathed a sigh of relief, luckily none of the idiots noticed.

He habitually concealed his emotions, and once he was discovered by others, he would always feel an indescribable discomfort in his heart, but it was not embarrassing at all.

"Fushiguro-kun, your face doesn't look good. Do you want some water?"

A familiar voice suddenly sounded in her ears, and Megumi's nerves began to stiffen subconsciously. The moment he turned around, he almost punched the mineral water bottle cap in his face.

The sea urchin head with spiky hair looked into an olive green eye in a daze.

Junpei's hand holding the water bottle paused in the air, just shy of almost hitting Megumi's face.

"Thank you." Megumi took the water handed to her by Junpei uncomfortably.

On the deserted road, the chirping birds chase the people passing by under the autumn sky. The rolling mountains surround the neat houses. Behind them was the 24-hour convenience store on the road, which was convenient for people nearby to buy daily necessities and for travelers passing by to replenish supplies.

Usually very few people come to buy things during this time period, and it took a long time for a customer to show up.

Megumi leaned on the front of the black car and looked at the two people, one large and one small, who seemed to be a father and son. The adult had the child in one hand and a bulging shopping bag in the other. There was a packaging box exposed in the bag, which seemed to be the sweets that children now like. The child let his father hold his hand, he was holding something in his other hand and lowering his head to fiddle with it.

The father casually reminded the child to look at the road. The child pouted his lips and reluctantly said, "I know."

Megumi's eyelashes fluttered, and his gaze inadvertently glanced at Junpei's thick bangs on his forehead.

"Why did you go out of your way to cover your forehead?" He tried to find a topic, but as soon as he said it, he regretted it. He hadn't spent much time with Junpei, but he also knew that he wasn't the type to have a hairstyle that would obstruct his vision just because he thought he was handsome.

Junpei would not do such meaningless and silly things.

Junpei's reaction was much calmer than he expected. The boy raised his hand and smoothed back his thick bangs, revealing the scar on his forehead, which looked like an ugly scar on the road full of potholes.

Junpei smiled.

When the Yoshino family moved to Tokyo, three other first-year students came over to help.

Megumi had met Junpei's mother, Nagi. She was a woman with a big personality. Even though she was middle-aged and haf such an old son, she was still a beauty. When she smiled, it felt very comfortable.

Compared to his father and adoptive mother who left him and Tsumiki, such gentle people could be called real parents.

Junpei took after his mother in appearance, and when he smiled, there was always a hint of Nagi.

"Sorry." Megumi looked away.

"It doesn't matter." Junpei put down his bangs. The thick bangs covered the ugly scars. "I've stopped being angry a long time ago."

"The reason why I cover it up is just because I don't want to scare others." The boy scratched his face shyly, "After all, it's really ugly."

"Fushiguro-kun seems to be very familiar with this place." Junpei said carefully.

"My home... is in this area." Megumi paused and spoke slowly, "Tsumiki and I live here."

"Tsumiki is..."

"My sister." Megumi said, "My only family member."

Junpei paused, "The only family, that’s so nice."
The only relative, such as his mother.

Nobara, who was having a three-person meeting in the other room, looked up and saw Megumi's face unexpectedly.

Telephone poles cast long shadows, and the shadows cast by floating clouds in the sky were disappeared. The shadows were reflected on the beautiful but expressionless faces of her classmates.

The other person's expression always stank all year round, but no matter how she looked at it today, it made her feel even more stink.

So she simply shouted at the top of her voice, "Fushiguro! Why is your face smellier than usual?!"

Megumi: "..."##

Just at this time, Yuji turned around, and what caught the little tiger's eyes was the smelly expression of his sea urchin-headed classmate, "Maji? Fushiguro?"

Megumi: "You two, please shut up."
Suddenly, the sorrow of separation was gone for these two people.

"Fushiguro-kun, did you think of something?" Junpei asked.

Megumi paused.

"I think you're angry." Junpei said.

Megumi pursed his lips and denied, "No."

He had forgotten that person a long time ago. He couldn't even remember what that person looked like. How could he be angry?

Being angry with someone proved that they care about someone.

Was he resenting the father who abandoned him?

•

The sky was silently dyed with a thin layer of lead gray, and the green plants on both sides of the road flashed past the car windows.

After entering the residential area, the road became narrower, and houses were neatly lined up in the field of vision, with wires on the roofs like pencil lines.

Nitta parked the car not far from her destination. The few people who got out of the car saw the white imperial lantern under the eaves from a distance. The sign at the door was Morishita.

The purpose of visiting Morishita's house was to ask the head of the household something.

For three consecutive months, three people were stabbed to death by a cursed spirit at the entrance of the apartment they lived in. Before their deaths, the property management of the apartment they lived in received the same complaint — the automatic door at the door could not be closed. The time was too long, and the remnants alone could not confirm that it was done by the same cursed spirit. It could only be confirmed that the curse was planted in the same place, and the curse was activated as time passed.

Most curses would stay in the same place. The "window" gave the information of three people. Junpei was sitting in the passenger seat. Through the front view mirror, he saw Yuji and Nobara craning their necks to look at the tablet in Megumi's hand, who was sandwiched between them. Megumi looked up with a paralyzed face. His eyes met Junpei's in the mirror, and he looked like he really wanted to change places with him.

Junpei laughed dryly.

According to the investigation information provided by "window", the three people who were cursed to death graduated from Urami East Junior High. They graduated at the same time and were in the same class. They were cursed to death in the same way. The three people had a common acquaintance— Morishita-san, who had passed away.

When they saw the funeral, several people knew that their trip was in vain. Nitta asked Morishita-san's parents about something. It was said that Morishita-san was stabbed to death in the entrance hall. This area was full of traditional Japanese-style houses, there was no automatic door, but Morishita-san always complained to his family that the lock was unlocked but the door could not be opened.

Morishita-san's parents couldn't tell what happened to Morishita-san and the other three people. The only clue was broken and things became a little tricky.

Nitta took several high school students and drove to another destination— Saitama Urami East Junior High.

Saitama Urami East Junior High was still the same as before. The landscape plants in the green belt have been neatly built by gardening workers, and the crisp chirping of birds fills the shallow afternoon sunshine.

A familiar smell of tobacco in the distance could be smelled.

Several people saw a yellow hair and a regent-style haircut from a distance. The cigarettes in the two people's hands were still emitting sparks. The yellow haired boy's cigarette butt was pressed into the ground, apparently trying to put out the flame.

Megumi barely recognized these two people. He had beaten these two people before. He had beaten many people. He could only recognize these two people because one of them had his hair dyed into a conspicuous yellow hair, and the other was permed into a regent-style haircut, eye-catching hair color, and hairstyles that couldn't control the desire to make people want to complain.

The yellow haired boy and the boy with regent-style haircut were Megumi's juniors and were still junior high school students in school.

The two people whose names were called by Nobara subconsciously put on the standard faces of two delinquent boys. When they saw Megumi, they were frightened. They raised their heads, straightened their chests, pulled in their stomachs, stuck out their butts, and made a deep bow, shouting "Fushiguro-san" in unison.

Nobara: "..."
Yuji: "..."
Junpei: "..."

One high school girl and two high school boys' thoughtful gazes fell on the face of the sea urchin who wore a world-weary expression all year round — what have you done?

"I studied in junior high school here." Megumi turned his head unnaturally, as if he felt embarrassed after being exposed.

As a result, Nobara pinched his face. The girl looked at the yellow haired boy and the trembling eyes of the boy with regent-style haircut and vigorously pushed Megumi's face away, which he tried hard to turn away.

All the delinquents and gangsters in this area were beaten by Megumi.

It was unimaginable that something like this, which only a street boss would do, would happen to this sea urchin head who always wore a world-weary expression.

From now on, Megumi could only speak a single word, so Megumi was slapped in the face by Nobara and Yuji.

In the end, the person who saved him from the clutches of the two men was Takeda-sensei, a staff member of the school. The teacher with glasses on his nose recognized this handsome-looking sea urchin head who was extremely ferocious during the fight at a glance.

The two sides had a brief exchange. Since both sides had acquaintances, they simply gave him the task of gathering information. After the pleasantries, Megumi went directly to the topic.

Morishita-san and the other three people graduated from Urami East Junior High nearly 20 years ago. Takeda-san was a teaching staff in the establishment. He had been in this school for a long time and was also old. The four people who died are all problem children, students who gave many teachers a headache in the school.

Nearly twenty years ago, it felt like yesterday when he recalled it. Takeda-sensei looked shocked when he heard the news that three people had passed away.

"Although he is not as good as Fushiguro-kun and the little red-haired kid from back then, he is still a problem child." Takeda-sensei said.

Several people strangely focused on the word 'little red-haired kid'.

"Little red-haired kid?"

Five pairs of eyes, perhaps because their gazes were so weird, Takeda-sensei was so frightened that he had goosebumps all over his body.

"It happened ten years ago." Takeda-sensei smiled, "That girl was born with red hair and was very small. Many people privately called her 'little redhead'."

"Amamiya-san usually doesn't cause trouble, but once she does, she is really... sometimes even more... well, more powerful than Fushiguro-kun." Takeda-sensei carefully searched for a suitable word.

The faces of the five people were numb. How many red-haired people named Amamiya were there in the world?

"I know!" The yellow haired boy, who had been silent all the time, suddenly raised his hand and spoke, "In the legend circulated in the school, there is a 'Bloody Dusk' that is comparable to Fushiguro-san! The flying red hair in the dusk, the terrifying fists like ghosts and gods, beating people until they cry!"

Nobara: "..."
Yuji: "..."
Junpei: "..."
Megumi: "..."
Nitta: "..."

There's still that?

"Time is so unforgiving." Takeda-sensei said with emotion, "Amamiya-san is already married. Oh, by the way, she brought her husband back some time ago and is your guardian, Fushiguro-kun."

Nobara: "..."
Yuji: "..."
Junpei: "..."
Megumi: "..."
Nitta: "..."

Okay, okay, you don’t need to say anything, we already know who the redhead was.

After the episodes of "Bloody Dusk" and "Fushiguro-san", they tentatively got a clue about the bungee jumping at the Eighty-eight Bridge. All four of us have been to the Yasohachi bridge. It was a famous supernatural place nearby. It's popular among delinquents to go to the Yasohachi bridge. The late-night bungee jump from the Yasohachi bridge was for the so-called "test of courage". Not surprisingly, this "test of courage" was criticized by Nobara.

The four people who were absent from class for no reason were missing for a whole day and were found lying under the Yasohachi bridge. After the four people woke up, they unanimously insisted that they did not remember anything and had eaten a good meal.

This kind of supernatural place was very easy to accumulate curses, just like schools. Similar places would be inspected regularly by relevant people from jujutsu technical school. Megumi, who was a junior high school student, was temporarily responsible for patrolling the Yasohachi bridge at that time. There were no accidents after several visits. It deserved its name, but it was also a normal traffic road.

When leaving, Megumi sat in a crowded car. He changed seats with Junpei as he wished. There were five people crowded in a car, and there were two noisy guys behind. The two chatted and were thrown into it. Junpei, who was sitting in the back seat, also joined in the chat.

The roar of the engine sounded, and the black car drove slowly into the distance. The ringing of the bell echoed in the Urami East Junior High left behind.

Megumi paused, holding his chin and chin, listening carefully to the noise of the three people in the back seat. Something silently settled in his heart.

There was an inexplicable feeling of stability.

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· Genuine translation can be found only in OchatimesBlogspotCom, FanFictionNet, and Wattpad


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