After the meeting ended, Chen Miao went through the archives and dug out the file on "The Scarecrow in the Fields."
The incident was documented in great detail.
The strange tale had first surfaced a month earlier.
The location was Thatched-Roof Old Village in Miyama Town, on the outskirts of Kyoto Prefecture.
Exhausted office workers from the city would often spend a few days in rural villages during their time off.
Thatched-Roof Old Village was one such destination, somewhat like the farmstay resorts in Great Xia.
It had been October, when the rice was ripe. The paddies were a sea of gold, and the atmosphere was pleasant.
It happened one night.
Two middle-aged men who had come from the city to unwind in Thatched-Roof Old Village were heading back to their lodgings after drinking when one of them said he needed to pee.
But there were no public toilets nearby.
After a quick discussion, the two stepped off the road into the fields to relieve themselves.
They had barely undone their trousers when one of them felt someone watching him. Turning his head, he saw a figure standing in the fields.
It gave him quite a fright.
They were visitors, after all, and city folk at that. They immediately bowed to the figure and apologized.
But a long while passed without any response.
Puzzled, one of them switched on his phone's flashlight and shone it at the figure.
It was not a person, but a scarecrow standing in the rice paddy.
Perhaps he resented being frightened, or perhaps he had already put up with enough aggravation at work. One of them walked up to the scarecrow, swearing, and pissed on it.
Once he finished, the two left.
That should have been the end of it. But early the next morning,