The Legend of Tokyo Taoist

Chapter 721 Hope and Despair (24)

After Qian Xiaoyi asked the question, the air suddenly became silent. Inuyama Jun stared blankly at the unfinished hamburger, as if there was something on it. Qian Xiaoyi was completely unable to connect this down-and-out homeless man with the high-spirited business elite in the previous photo.

After a while of silence, Inuyama Jun finally made up his mind and spoke: "At that time, something... very bad happened. My wife, Heita's mother, fell ill."

Inuyama Jun tells a very clichéd story, at least in Qian Xiaoyi's opinion, it is very clichéd, so clichéd that he has seen countless similar real events.

At the beginning of the story, they were a happy family. The husband was successful in his career, the wife was virtuous and gentle, and the son was innocent, just like the setting in a children's storybook.

However, things don't always go as planned. The mother in the family was diagnosed with a terminal illness, which marked the beginning of the family's breakdown.

"I spent a lot of money to treat Mayuko." Inuyama Jun said, "But cancer, which should have a high cure rate, can't be cured in Mayuko..."

He clenched his fists.

Qian Xiaoyi remained silent. Birth, aging, sickness and death, the law of reincarnation, this is the fairest thing for human beings, but it is the most unfair to the people around them.

"At the beginning, she and I were very optimistic because the doctors said the cure rate was very high," said Jun Inuyama. "But as time went on, the situation got worse and worse. We kept changing the medicine, from commonly used domestic drugs to foreign targeted drugs. We tried everything, but it was useless... We could only delay her death and make her suffer more. That was the most painful period of my life."

"Is that when you came into contact with the Church of Hope?" Qian Xiaoyi asked. People who are at the end of their rope need to find a spiritual sustenance, otherwise they will collapse, no matter how ridiculous and absurd that sustenance may seem to others, and cults love to take advantage of such times.

"Yes." Inuyama Jun showed a hateful look. "I learned about the Hope Church through one of Mayuko's fellow patients in the hospital. At first, I didn't believe in those things because Mayuko and I were both well-educated people. But at that time, Mayuko was already terminally ill. I took a chance and followed that person to attend a few Hope Church meetings. At that time, the scale of the Hope Church was not as large as it is now... After a few meetings, those people learned about my situation, and then, they showed me... some magical sights."

Qian Xiaoyi asked, "A magical sight? Do you mean the magic that can preserve the souls of the dead?"

Inuyama Jun lowered his head and said, "Yes, my worldview was impacted at the time, and I really had no other options, so I believed in them and wanted to join them. I wanted Mayuko's soul to be preserved and go to the other side with me, Heita, and me."

"What happened next?" Qian Xiaoyi asked, "Why did you stay home and wander around? What happened to Pingtai?"

"That's exactly what I wanted to say." Inuyama Jun said, "In order to obtain the qualification, I gave almost all my money to the Hope Church, but they were still not satisfied. They just said that I didn't have the qualification yet. When I asked them how to get the qualification, they said that I was not sincere. After knowing that I have a son, they told me that if I can make Heita a [spiritual child] in the church, then the parents of the spiritual child will have the qualification to go to the other side..."

"Then, you gave your own son to the Church of Hope?" Qian Xiaoyi looked at Inuyama Jun with a look of scum. Inuyama Jun didn't dare to look at him, but said: "At that time, Mayuko had passed away, and Heita and I missed her very much... At that time, I really believed those people's lies, and believed them without a doubt. Heita himself agreed, so I thought it was a good thing for Heita. Maybe if Heita became a spirit boy, he could call Mayuko back from that world and reunite us..."

His voice got lower and lower until his face was filled with shame and he was trembling and unable to speak.

Qian Xiaoyi shook his head and sighed. This is how people who are deeply involved are. They wholeheartedly believe that they are doing it for the good of their families. They have gone insane and invested too much. They stubbornly believe that they are not wrong and cannot be awakened by words.

Because once they admit that this is a mistake, everything they have done will be wasted, and it may even prove that their life is a joke.

"What did they do to Pingtai?" Qian Xiaoyi asked.

"It's said that he tests whether there are any spiritual children, and then uses experiments to stimulate the children's potential." Inuyama Jun said, "But I don't know the details. I only know that he stays with many children of believers, and there are many people who participate in that kind of test..."

Qian Xiaoyi asked: "Then what? Why did you run away and become a homeless person? What happened to Pingtai?"

Inuyama Jun said: "They kept telling me that Heita's aptitude was not good enough. If he wanted to become a real spiritual boy, he had to invest more resources in potential stimulation experiments. But I had no money at the time. My family had nothing but an apartment. So I started to embezzle the company's money... But before that, I had already put the apartment in Heita's name. Even if something went wrong, they would only hold me accountable..."

"What's next?" Qian Xiaoyi asked.

Inuyama Jun fell into memory: "Then one day, they sent Heita back. At that time, Heita looked very abnormal, just trembling. Those people said that the experiment failed and Heita did not have the qualifications to become a so-called spiritual child. I asked Heita what happened, but he couldn't explain it clearly. His mental state completely collapsed. He often screamed inexplicably, as if he saw something terrible... I felt that I was deceived, so I went to find the people who hoped to teach me, but they turned their backs on me. At this time, my embezzlement of company funds was also exposed..."

"Then, you ran away?" Qian Xiaoyi asked, "and left Pingtai to live alone?"

Inuyama Jun said dejectedly: "I can only do this. Once I show up, Heita might also be implicated and have no place to live... Before I ran away, I asked my mother to leave the last sum of money for Heita's living expenses and tuition... But later, something seemed to have happened, which scared my mother, and she returned to her hometown alone..."

Qian Xiaoyi was unable to comment on this. Perhaps at that time, Inuyama Heita could not control his own abilities and affected the people around him.

Fortunately, Inuyama Heita gradually adapted to the new life and gained the ability to live alone, which is how he grew up to this age.

(End of this chapter)