Tokyo people don't talk about Wude

Chapter 427, Section 424: A Day in the Heart of the Red Center

On the last morning before the Night of Gensokyo, everyone was busy making final preparations. Only Crimson Ember said "Let's go for a walk" and then disappeared without a trace.

Ota Ward, Tokyo
As the southernmost ward of Tokyo, Ota Ward faces Tokyo Bay and is known for its fishing industry and various small workshops.

Within this area lies a high-end residential area called Denenchofu.

Unlike the crowded and noisy scene in Tokyo, Denenchofu has wide and quiet streets, with neatly trimmed hedges and flower bushes and low and elegant Western-style houses on both sides. The chirping of insects and the sound of flowing water intertwine and echo in the air, just like a paradise outside the world.

As dawn breaks, rays of light dapple through the verdant leaves and new branches, creating an atmosphere of perfect peace and harmony.

In a detached house with a plaque bearing the name "Matsui", a family of six, consisting of grandparents, parents, and their two children, is busily packing their luggage, seemingly preparing for a long trip.

The residents of Tengenchofu are all upper-class and wealthy people. Most of them have received "tickets" to the new world. Some have already escaped to the shelter arranged by Ryuma Shinazumain, while others will evacuate within the day.

The Matsui family was no exception. The patriarch of the Matsui family, Matsui Genji, was a veteran who participated in both World Wars. After the war, he used his connections in the military to start a business and made a lot of money by riding the wave of the times.

Now he is over eighty years old, with three generations under one roof, a fulfilling life, and enough assets to support him in his old age.

Even though Ryujin Shinazugin was secretly plotting something called "Gensokyo Project," Neji Matsui quickly learned about it through his connections and successfully bought his whole family's entry into the new world.

In the villa's meditation room, a gaunt old man with white hair and eyebrows knelt hunched over on a prayer mat, his hands clasped together in prayer before a small Buddha statue on the altar in front of him, his mouth reciting scriptures like an old monk.

"Father, the luggage is packed, you should get ready too!" The silhouette of a middle-aged woman appeared outside the paper door; she must be the daughter-in-law.

After a moment of contemplation, the old man slowly opened his eyes and said in a hoarse voice, "I understand, Huizi."

Tonight, the Gensokyo Plan will be officially implemented. They need to get to the nearby shelter as soon as possible, otherwise they'll run into those protesters and be in trouble.

This world is tragic. For the vast majority of civilians in Wano Country, even if they know they are destined to die as fuel, they cannot change their fate or save themselves.

All they could do was take to the streets, protest and vandalize wantonly, to vent their discontent with their predetermined death.
Like a rat driven to desperation and driven to rage in a helpless frenzy.

However, no matter how much Matsui Genji despised them, he wouldn't actually provoke these rioters. That's why he arranged for his family to drive away before the protests started this morning, to avoid running into them.

After finishing his prayer, Matsui Genji rose unsteadily.

Praying to Buddha brings him peace of mind; it is his daily ritual, even before the end of the world.

Just then, a sharp scream shattered the precious tranquility.

"Ah—mmm~"

This is the sound of a woman trying to scream before being killed by a bayonet, but her mouth was covered.

Matsui Genji felt a sense of disorientation, as if he were dreaming back to decades ago, to the voices he often heard when he was in Yanhuang.

But the next moment, Matsui Genji immediately realized something was wrong. He instinctively grabbed a purple clay pot from the table, swung it around, and shouted sharply:

"What happened! What's going on?!"

However, everything returned to calm once again.

Just as Matsui Genji was about to push the door open to check, a dark figure appeared outside the paper door.

It was the silhouette of a man with long, flowing hair and a fierce appearance. Even just seeing his silhouette through the paper door, Matsui Genji felt a chill run down his spine and his legs trembled like leaves.

"Shh-!"

The paper door slowly opened, and a long-haired man, covered in blood and repulsive like a corpse, walked in with a serene yet eerie smile on his face.

"Aaaaah!" Matsui Genji's mind went blank, and he roared as he smashed the purple clay pot at the man.

The purple clay pot accidentally fell at the man's feet, but the man remained unmoved and approached Matsui Genji step by step.

"Who...who are you?" Matsui Genji asked in alarm, his gaze falling on the corridor behind the man.

There lay five corpses, men and women, old and young, lying haphazardly, all of them gruesome deaths, their bodies incomplete.

Matsui Genji recognized the clothes on the corpses; they were his wife, son, and daughter-in-law. Even his grandson Kensuke and granddaughter Miyu had been killed by the man before him!
"You...ah...ah..." Matsui Genji suddenly collapsed to the ground, his throat as if it were being choked, unable to utter any screams, only making a muffled sound like teeth clapping together, and spitting out a mouthful of sour water.

Hong Zhongjin ignored the old man's outburst and showed no emotional fluctuation despite the recent killing. He simply stepped forward and asked softly:
"Matsui Neji, you know Fushiin Ryujin, right? You were one of his former subordinates."

"Ahhh." Matsui Genji was unable to move or speak any more.

"Shh~ Don't be nervous~" Hong Zhongjin put his index finger to his lips and smiled.

"I just want to know more about my opponent before the final battle. It's okay, you don't need to say anything—I have a way of finding out."

After saying that, Hong Zhongjin grabbed Matsui Genji by the hair and pressed him to the ground in a kneeling position.

"Why?" Finally, Matsui Genji spoke with difficulty and obscurity: "Why...killing their innocent children?"

"Hehe~" Hong Zhongjin just grinned and pulled his head up slightly.

That eerie laughter was all too familiar to Matsui Genji. It was the laughter of a demon, the laughter that these "Yamato soldiers" had most often uttered when they wantonly slaughtered on the battlefields of Yanhuang and used prisoners of war for biological experiments.

Matsui Genji struggled to lift his head, and in front of him was the Buddha statue he prayed to every day.

In an instant, his cloudy, decaying eyes met the Buddha's deep eyes, and the two seemed to transcend time and space, miraculously converging together.

In a daze, Matsui Genji recalled some past events—events he no longer wished to mention.

He saw the youthful face of the man who had just joined the Yamato Empire's army and was heading to the battlefield on the Yanhuang Continent.

He saw how, after being assigned to the Hyakki Yagyō (Night Parade of One Hundred Demons) troop, his initial resistance gradually turned into numbness, and finally into enjoyment.

He saw his comrades from the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons watching the prisoners of war howl and writhe in the laboratory, as if they were livestock.

He saw him looking down contemptuously at the fleeing peasant woman from the enemy country, ignoring her pleas to "spare the child," snatching the child from her arms, and then stabbing the woman to death.

He saw that before he was transferred from the Hyakki Yagyō (Night Parade of One Hundred Demons) troop, he received personal commendation and encouragement from the troop leader, and the vice-commander of the Immortal Institution was also smiling at him. To him, who was full of vigor at the time, these two men were like a majestic mountain and a dazzling sun.

He saw that after the end of World War II, he was transferred out of the Hyakki Yagyō (Night Parade of One Hundred Demons) unit early, so he was lucky enough to escape the punishment of the military court. On the night of his release, he went to Kabukicho to drink and celebrate, feeling that he had survived a great calamity and was bound to have good fortune in the future.

He saw himself rise from nothing after the war, becoming a small-time businessman, living a life free from want, and having a happy family. As for the tragic war, he had long since put it behind him, regarding it as just a few hardships on the road of life.

Finally, he heard the sound of chanting in his ears, like the tolling of a bell signaling his impending doom.

He saw the Buddha statue in front of him speak to him.

In an instant, his mind was struck as if by lightning, and his cloudy eyes gradually cleared.

"Sow good seeds, reap good fruit; sow evil seeds, reap evil fruit." Matsui Genji struggled to move his Adam's apple, and then, inexplicably, he laughed.
"All things in this world arise from a single thought, and are borne by a single word. Karmic retribution is endless, a continuous cycle. It is without end, and there is nowhere to escape." "Hahaha. No one can escape. I cannot escape, you cannot escape, and he cannot escape. Hahaha. Buddha, now that things have come to this, you must have mercy on me."

"Hehehe~~ Namo Amitabha—"

The old man knelt before the Buddha statue, reciting the Buddha's name with utmost sincerity for the first time in his life. His mind was as calm as still water, without the slightest ripple.

Unfortunately, before he could finish reciting, Hong Zhongjin, who was standing behind him, opened his blood-red maw and bit off his head with a "crack".

At six o'clock in the evening, as night fell, Sirius, dressed in a secret agent uniform, found Red Ember on an abandoned city observation deck.

The other person was half-squatting on the railing, gazing thoughtfully down the mountain.

The city has come to a standstill; the neon lights of yesteryear are gone, leaving only a deathly silence.

"Have you had enough fun?" Hillis asked coldly, her tone irritating.

"Getting impatient?" Hong Zhongjin jumped back off the railing and sneered.

"You," Hillis was quite annoyed by the other party's disorganized and undisciplined attitude, but too lazy to retaliate at this moment, she could only toss him a walkie-talkie:

"The Fire Bearer has something to say to you."

Hong Zhongjin took the walkie-talkie and said, "Speak, Kagari Yotonu."

"Hehe, my tracker shows you had a lot of fun today~" A sophisticated yet teasing female voice came through the walkie-talkie:

"For example, you killed the entire families of three World War II veterans. If there's anything in common, I guess they all had some contact with Ryujin Fushiin during the Yanhuang invasion war."

"Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated. You've all been thinking too much about that old ghost." Hong Zhongjin, however, was unsurprised.
"I found quite a few traces of Shinazugin Ryujin in the minds of those veterans, and I roughly know what kind of guy that old devil is."

"Oh~ What is he in your opinion?" Kagari Otonashi asked curiously.

Hong Zhongjin suddenly grinned: "A person is still a person, after all."

"So, you're confident you can defeat him?" Kagari Otonashi asked again.

"Given the current situation, I'm 100% confident that I can reach Tokyo Tower," Hong Zhongjin said confidently.

"However, fate is always unpredictable, and accidents always seem to come uninvited," sighed Kagari Otonashi.
"But we've already staked everything on doing our best. So I'm not too worried, haha~"

Hillis glanced at her watch and couldn't help but interrupt, "Gentlemen, isn't this the time for idle chatter?"

"Has the show you arranged already started?" Hong Zhongjin asked with a smile.

"Yes, everyone is fighting for this city, this country, this world, and themselves," Kagari Otonashi affirmed.

"【Twilight Shadow】, hand over the equipment to 【Bloodfinger】."

Hillis pursed her lips, took a large sports bag from the trunk of the van behind her, and then used all her strength to pull out a giant sword that was almost as long and wide as a door panel, and slammed it to the ground with a bang.

A moment later, Hong Zhongjin changed into a full-body black cloak combat suit—this suit maximized the defense of joints and weak points of the body while maintaining mobility as much as possible, which was better than nothing for him.

He also had a specially made cleaver hanging horizontally on his lower back, several daggers and a pistol hanging on his left belt and leg strap, and a bomb gun and ammunition pouch on his right.

Finally, he slung the greatsword over his back with a special leather belt, looking like a black-clad agent carrying a heavy sword, or a fully armed warrior wielding a giant sword.

Upon seeing Hong Zhongjin's wild appearance, which seemed to be a fusion of magic and science fiction and only appeared in violent action blockbusters, even Xilis was stunned for a moment and was deeply attracted.

She had to admit that, even by her own standards, Hong Zhongjin was the most manly man she had ever seen.

However, as a special agent, she can distinguish between mission and emotion, and she has no liking for Red Ember, a guy with a monster's core.

"Oh, right~" Just before Hong Zhongjin was about to leave, Kagari Otonashi called him back again:
"I have something else here that belongs to Mr. Mikazuki. Would you like to see it?"

Hong Zhongjin took out his phone, and a photo popped up on the screen. It was an untitled haiku written in calligraphy:

Spring rain covers red cherry blossoms

Asura is destined to be a hero.

The blades are cold after falling.
"."

“This is what we found among his belongings. It was written to you before he passed away, and I felt we should show it to you,” Kagari Otonashi said.

"Hehe~" Hong Zhongjin chuckled lightly, without making any further comments. Instead, he put away his phone and looked up at the night sky thoughtfully.

In the sparsely starlit night sky, a crescent moon hangs in the heavens.

The waning moon is the most incomplete and broken form of the moon, but it also represents "the end of the moon's waning and the approach of new life".

But who knows if the moon will rise as usual tomorrow?

Hong Zhongjin stared at the moon for a long while with his bloodshot and deep eyes, then said inexplicably:

"What a beautiful moon tonight!"

After saying that, he walked to the edge of the viewing platform, leaped into the distance, and disappeared into the night.

Hillis stared at his retreating figure for a moment before scratching her head in confusion and asking, "What strange thing is he saying now?"

Despite being a Westerner, she was still a spy and had naturally heard of the metaphors the people of Wano Country used to refer to the "moon."

In this country, if a man says to a woman, "The moonlight is beautiful," it is equivalent to saying, "I love you."

Why is Hong Zhongjin suddenly saying all this in such a serious manner? Is he confessing his feelings to himself or Lady Kagari? Heh, but after all, he's a madman who always says things that don't make sense.

"The moonlight is so beautiful, I think so too~" Unexpectedly, Kagari Otonashi murmured with a hint of intoxication, almost making Siris cringe.

"You two crazy people, do you really think it's romantic to confess your love to each other in front of me after all this mess?" Hillis took a deep breath and said angrily.

"This isn't a confession; he wouldn't do something so childish." Kagari Otonashi smiled gently.
"It seems you don't know the other meaning of 'the moon is beautiful'?"

“What?” Hillis asked.

"The long night is not yet over, and the world is still uncertain; this is the meaning of the [moon]." Kagoya Oto recited softly.

"That's right."

"A beautiful night with a bright moon, this is the night to die, this is his resolve."

(End of this chapter)