I opened my eyes and found myself slumped sideways in the back seat of the car.
The dream had ended just like that.
It took me a few seconds to accept reality.
Honda seemed to have gone on to his next life. He hadn't become a ghost or gotten trapped on the mountain.
I remembered the red scarf.
It seemed to be the same one Honda had seen—the red scarf tied around the Jizo statue.
What did it mean?
And Mrs. Shimada... Her reaction had been far too surprising. That wasn't something a composed old woman would do. She'd been too calm—so calm that it felt wrong.
Mrs. Shimada had been running the inn herself all along. That made her the prime suspect.
Had she provoked a ghost and suffered its vengeance?
In other words, had the film crew, Nantian, and Honda all been caught up in this through no fault of their own?
I sorted through what I'd seen in the dream before calling Wu Ling.
After I finished telling her everything, Wu Ling shared what they'd just found out.
"Yoko Shimada's husband died a long time ago. Her son, Hikaru Shimada, was only seven at the time. Afterward, she ran the inn and raised her son on her own. We also found out that Mrs. Shimada's husband's identity is unknown. They weren't married. Her husband seems to have been undocumented—possibly a deserter, or a prisoner of war or laborer from another country who was stranded there at the time. There's no detailed record of how he died. The land where the inn stands was originally registered in Yoko Shimada's name. Her son took her surname, too."
"You mean her husband died under suspicious circumstances, and now he's come back for revenge?" I tried to recall the scene from