Astartes of the Bear School

Chapter 1480 1152. Tracing
"It's just to clean up the [filth]." The old man, who should be the same generation as my parents, raised his hand and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with his sleeves that had turned black and shiny. Then he subconsciously retorted, "Is it that troublesome?"

He and his son are both urban farmers and are accustomed to bargaining before negotiating anything.

They still thought Wuming was only here to increase the price of the task.

But the demon hunter had already waved his hands impatiently: "I told you long ago, it's not about the extra money, it's the [filth] in your house that is really troublesome, it's not ordinary stuff!"

The old man choked and turned his face away.

But Lan En looked carefully and saw that when he turned his head away, he still curled his lips and rolled his eyes, and it seemed that he still didn't quite believe it.

But whether he believed it or not, the person in charge of a farming family would only be a strong laborer, that is, the middle-aged male owner of this house.

"You often hear the sound of a baby crying from under the non-existent floorboards, right?" Wuming asked him first. "You told me before that there was a miscarriage in your family. So you suspect that this is the entanglement of [Filth]."

The man nodded honestly and dully, while the woman beside him looked miserable.

"But we have already paid a wandering monk from the temple to perform the ritual." The man continued, "But I just don't know why the [filth] still appears. It's been three years!"

The woman next to him didn't say anything, but just hugged the little boy tightly in her arms.

The boy looked to be five years old and should be the older brother of the aborted child.

"Renzi No. 20." Lan En suddenly interrupted and gave the door number. "Do you know this family? Or have you had any contact with them recently?"

"Number 20, Renzi?" The man of the house thought for a moment, looking bewildered. "Two streets away from here? No, I don't go through there when I work. I've never even been to that street."

"Where is the rest of the family?"

Following Lan En's follow-up questioning, everyone looked at each other in confusion and shook their heads.

"Never had any contact?" Wuming frowned and sighed in distress.

She supported herself on her knees, stood up from her awkward sitting position, and prepared to investigate in another direction.

None of the family members had complicated backgrounds, so she didn't think there was any possibility that they would deceive her.

[Residue] When it comes to finding someone to deal with this kind of thing, few fools would choose to avoid the issue. People like that would have been exterminated in ancient times.

The whole family looked anxious. It seemed that after hearing Wuming say that this matter was not a simple one, they were already feeling uneasy.

But just when Wuming wanted to pull Lan En and walk out of the door, the demon hunter held her shoulders instead.

Lan En, seemingly unintentionally, patted the thin wooden wall of the room with his palm, which was at least able to block the wind.

"Your house and the one at No. 20 Renzi are not next to each other, and they are not even in the same line horizontally or vertically."

"But let me tell you straight, that family was found dead yesterday."

Lan En looked at the family. Except for the children who didn't quite understand, their expressions were first astonishment, and then intense fear.

Looking at their expressions, Lan En added fuel to the fire.

"He wasn't killed by the summoned monsters and demons, but was directly killed by the influence of [Filth]."

"Since you are sure that you have no connection with that family and have never had any contact with them. I can only guess whether it is your land.?"

Lan En didn't finish his words, and just like Wu Ming just now, he tapped his toes lightly on the ground.

But the same action refers to completely different things.

Generally speaking, leaving behind "filth" that can contaminate other people in a house and cause death is considered extremely bad.

The influence can be spread beyond a house to a whole piece of land.
"How, how is it possible?!"

The employer's whole body seemed to have gone limp. He slumped to the ground with his eyes blank.

Even a farmer like him could not believe that there was such filth!
As for his father, he expressed his resistance to such statement even more bluntly.

"The whole land is polluted?" He showed the common behavior of Japanese people when faced with an emergency, which is to start shouting and refusing to accept reality.

It seemed that as long as he shouted, the cruel reality would be driven away by his shouting.

"This is in Iwamura Castle! Here are the sacrificial vessels from Kashima Shrine! Every few months, the Lord of the Castle will bring out the sacrificial vessels and parade them around the city!"

"This is also the main transportation route of Mino. All the wandering monks, priests, and shugendo who are traveling and practicing have to stop here. Whenever they come, the city lord will ask them to patrol the city to ensure safety!"

The Shugendo mentioned by the old man is the Japanese "ascetic monks". They combine the characteristics of Chinese Buddhism and the native Shintoism, and improve themselves through asceticism. People also call them "Yamabushi".

Meaning: Someone who lives in seclusion in the mountains.

If he is a true Shugendo, then his ability is undoubtedly stronger than that of ordinary priests or monks, whether in martial arts or in the mastery and understanding of religious rituals and scriptures.

Detecting and dealing with [filth] is a piece of cake.

"Yelling and yelling won't change reality." Lan En spread his hands calmly, "You have a remnant in your family, don't you? Otherwise, why would you hire a monster hunter?"

"But how could [Remnant] remain for so long?" The old woman who had been keeping her head down and saying nothing just now now raised her head and spoke.

"It's been ten years since we moved here. Not to mention the castle town, even this city hasn't had any tragedy. How could [filth] stay on the land for more than ten years?" Again, if [filth] doesn't dissipate on its own as time goes by, then where in this world hasn't people died? Where hasn't life died?
This is totally contrary to common sense and logic.

"I've already said it, this [filth] itself is not normal." Lan En repeated it again helplessly, and then he seemed to remember something, and looked at his employer's family with his eyes slightly narrowed.

"You just said that you moved here ten years ago?"

"Yes, yes."

"So, this area, or the castle town of Iwamura Castle," Lan En pointed his finger around, "are there many people like you who move here?"

"You. Have no idea at all?" The employer looked at his family and asked tentatively.

"What do you know?" Wuming complained, "We are all wandering monster hunters from outside. Who knows what happened in your city?"

The employer quickly got up from the ground, came up to the two men and whispered.

"It was Lord Saito Toshimasa who forced the Toki clan into exile! He killed a lot of people in many castles in Mino! If it weren't for these vacancies, we would still be living in the wild villages!"

Saito Toshimasa is Saito Dosan, the current lord of Mino Province.

Dao San is derived from the Buddhist name he took after he became a monk, "Dao San Ru Dao".

Saito Dosan ascended to the throne by repeatedly overthrowing his superiors, but before him, the "Guardian of Mino" officially recognized by the imperial court was none other than the Toki clan.

The overthrow of the superiors is a coup d'état in itself, and the fact that Saito Dosan was able to succeed shows that he was indeed very capable.

However, no matter how capable one is, it is inevitable to clean up the existing complex forces during the coup.

Apparently, a large number of powerful families were killed in this Iwamura City.

But with such a big move, it is even more impossible to take the handling of [filth] lightly.

In Japan, even if one wants to become a demon due to injustice or resentment, one still needs to have an identity.

The grievances of the common people are insignificant. Only a wealthy family like the Heike or a noble bloodline like Emperor Sutoku are worthy of leaving behind grievances that cannot be dispelled and can only be appeased.

And those wealthy families were obviously not so noble.

After the killing, just use Buddhist teachings and mantras to dispel the resentment and that's it.

Lan En's eyes narrowed slightly, and he felt that he seemed to have grasped an idea.

"That is to say, you are not completely local."

"If you put it that way," the employer whispered, "then there are actually very few locals left in this castle town after so many people have come and gone over the years."

"So there are still a few indigenous families left, right?" Lan En asked quickly, "The longer you live in this city, the better. Tell me about these families you know."

The employer's family looked at each other. Finally, the four adults, especially the old man and the old woman, pieced together several families and told Lan En and the others their addresses.

Then the two people, who were already very agile, immediately began to visit each house one by one.

Although Wuming is simple, he is not stupid.

When Lan En asked the following questions, she basically knew the main point of his questions.

——If this [residue] really has far-reaching influence and is something that has been deposited for a long time, then if you want to find the truth, you must look forward in time.

However, as the two of them visited and questioned each family one by one, Wuming did not feel the sense of relief that the clouds had been cleared and the light had been shining.

On the contrary, the monster hunter who originally just felt it was a bit troublesome now felt a chill in his heart!

"Aju's family? Oh, they haven't been here for a long time. I heard they moved to a village outside the city. But it's strange, their house was clearly handed over to a very close relative, but there has been no news from them for seven or eight years."

"Sanchuan's family? Does anyone still remember them? Let me tell you, they had a terrible time. I heard that when he was out chopping wood, he ran into something dirty, and after he came back, Sanchuan hanged himself! Later, the widow and orphan remarried. When? About five years ago, there was a monk chanting in front of this house for an entire afternoon."

In the castle town, the neighbors are not like those who see each other every day. Everyone is busy making a living. If there is no intersection in the life trajectory, people who don’t know each other will never know each other in their lifetime.

People you have met before may not meet again for more than ten years.

So after visiting and counting all the 'indigenous residents of Yancun City' extracted from the employer's family's memories, it turned out that 80% of them had been wiped out!
Although the number of aborigines was not large after the coup, if the number of people killed was counted, it would definitely be a major event that would alarm Ando Morinari and even Saito Dosan!

The first is the heinous nature of the entire family being wiped out, and the second is that the way they died was more or less tainted with something 'unclean' in the sense of the occult.

However, the number of people who were exterminated was so huge, and all of them were tainted by filth. Because the population was dispersed throughout the city, the time period was also spread out to more than ten years.

Therefore, the huge number of victims appeared scattered, and no one was alert!

Until we asked the last indigenous family, we found out that they had moved out of the city and settled down in a hut to take care of their farmland.

From them, Lan En and Wu Ming learned that five years ago, the land from the Bingzi area to the Renzi area in the castle town was actually owned by a powerful family.

When that powerful family held a family wedding five years ago, the bride loosened the belt of her kimono and hanged herself that night.

I heard that he had a corrupt style of work and was discovered that night, so he had no face to live.

(End of this chapter)