In Wise Village, there lived a fool. He was foolish by nature, unaware of how many days there were in a week, what time it was, how to think, how to feel, or even why he existed.
When all the wise people around him had left, turning Wise Village into Fool Village, the fool suddenly realized he was all alone. So he followed the advice of the last wise person to leave and ran into the village library.
For that wise person had told him, "Only by reading can you escape your predicament."
But the fool did not know that the library's shelves were three times his height. Even climbing a ladder, he could not reach a single book.
Just as the fool felt despair, an earthquake struck. The brief tremor sent a book crashing onto his head.
The fool was overjoyed, believing he was about to become wise. But when he opened the book, he discovered that every page was pure white.
It was an Empty Book.
(1)
Toji sat on the edge of the bed with his back to me. His head was bowed, and in the dim night, his silhouette resembled a rugged mountain. I was the traveler gazing up at it, only to discover there was no path through.
After sitting in silence for a long while, he rose and left the room with quiet steps.
Nothing he did had ever broken the room's silence, because he never said a word.
Before entering, had this man with his back to me imagined the conversation that might take place inside? Had he tried to work out how to put his thoughts into words?
Then why had he chosen, once again, to keep his mouth shut?
I rolled over and sat up, then moved to where he had been sitting. I imitated his posture, carefully feeling out that inner confusion in the stillness of the night.
(2)
The cup clinked crisply against its saucer. As ripples spread across the black coffee inside, I heard Toji call my name.
"Yuanli."
I set down the cup and saw a man who wanted to speak but hesitated.
"What is it, Dad?"
His gaze drifted to the hem of my clothes, and I instantly remembered that knife wound.
Yesterday had been the time to close the net. The infighting I had instigated within that organization had reached its final stage inside that building. The battle between the old and new factions, the change in leadership-everything had gone as I expected.
While I was deciding whether to destroy them or support them, the man I had deceived managed to bite back. He was not skilled with blades, so he only left a shallow cut on my lower back. Compared with that, the shock of seeing my true face was far more fatal to him.
Adults could accept being deceived by someone their own age, but they could never bear the fact that the person who had fooled them was merely a child.
He pointed at me and screamed that I was a monster. Perhaps calling me that made it easier for him to attack without hesitation. He raised his knife again, but before I even needed to draw the Gun, the Followers, crazed with bloodlust, dealt him a fatal blow.
His name and face, like that wound, soon slipped from my memory.
I had never expected that remembering it now would cause another complication. Unconsciously tugging at my hem, I told a childish lie: the children at the park shut others out... someone had pulled my clothes... the branches in the play area were sharp... I would not go there again.
-Did he believe me?
As I lowered my head to drink my coffee, I caught a glimpse of his grave expression. I sincerely hoped it was concern born of believing me.
But I had never imagined that this lie would send what followed beyond anything I expected.
(3)
The hour hand crawled onward until a crisp click sounded, and the hour, minute, and second hands all aligned at midnight.
Twelve at night. Another day had passed.
Counting it up, Toji had been away from home for four days.
When I used Megumi's phone to call Toji, Megumi wore an indifferent expression. "He won't answer," he said with absolute certainty.
For some reason, little Megumi's expression gave me the strange feeling that he had already lived through nights like this thousands upon thousands of times.
Sure enough, the call did not connect. No matter how many times I dialed, all I heard was the cold, mechanical recording on the other end.
I went outside and stood in the street, like a fly without a head, unable to find my bearings.
At that moment, I discovered that my superficial understanding of my father, Toji Zenin, could shatter at a single blow.
I knew nothing of his other family or friends, nothing of his past. I did not even know where he might be on a cold night like this.
Was it because I had hidden things from him? Or had I failed to do things right again?
"Come on, Yuanli." Megumi stood beside me and took my hand. "There's no point waiting. He won't come back."
He pulled me back hard, as though trying to return a stranded fish to the sea. Tonight, his hatred was laid bare.
Megumi Fushiguro was not a child who would hate someone without reason. Not unless he had a reason that no amount of sentiment or kindness could shake.
And that reason was inextricably tied to Toji Zenin.
I should have asked him. In this situation, what I needed to do was let go of the child's hand, then seriously probe that secret and force him to tell me everything, if only so we could find the family member we shared tonight.
But I could not do that.
Because Megumi Fushiguro had never regarded me as family. Nor had he regarded Toji as family.
The person in control of this body was a fifteen-year-old boy who had fallen from the sky, appearing out of nowhere. Perhaps he was Megumi too, but I had never existed in his past.
To him, I was a friend related by blood. He would never call me his sister, because I could guess that in his memories, there was a gentle, wonderful woman, completely unlike me, who was his one and only older sister.
Then what was I?
A passerby who had taken it upon herself to quietly stay by his side.
Then what was Toji?
An enemy who had appeared in his past and remained one even now.
Sooner or later, he would leave us. Just like Toji now, just like me before, he would throw caution to the wind to search for the people he truly cared about.
Realizing all this, I felt the world falling apart.
Everything seemed false. The house seemed false, and so did those days. The person who had held me, the person who had taken my hand-all seemed like reflections in a mirror, the moon on water.
Was the familial love I had worked for, yearned for, even tried to build with piles of money, false too?
I gently pulled free of his hand. "Please don't hold my hand anymore, Fushiguro."
Megumi Fushiguro looked at me in surprise. "Yuanli, what's wrong?"
I watched him quietly, remembering the day he had opened the door and looked at me in exactly the same way.
Back then, Megumi Fushiguro hadn't actually meant to comfort me either, had he? He was simply kind.
It was like coming across the body of a stray kitten. He could not bear to see it die without dignity, so on a whim, he had given it a decent funeral.
He should not have to spend his life haunted by that ungrateful kitten's ghost because of it. Nor should he have to face the enemy who had troubled him in his previous life.
"You have your own real family, don't you, Fushiguro? Let me guess. Their surname is probably Fushiguro too. If it's a woman, she's probably an older sister with a gentle-sounding name. Does she have long hair like mine? Otherwise, looking at me wouldn't make you think of her. Right?"
"Yes..." He seemed not to have expected me to say it aloud.
I had known from all those sunny afternoons when he stared at me, lost in thought. Like Toji, he was looking through me, missing another person dear to him.
"It's all right."
I took several bank cards from my pocket. All of this was money I had stolen to make them stay. Altogether, it amounted to two billion. Enough for him and Toji to go on living.
"There's two billion in these accounts. The PIN is your birthday. If Toji comes back, split it evenly with him. You can spend it on whatever you want." I pressed the cards into his arms and hugged him one last time.
Let this be my final farewell to Megumi Zenin, the little brother whose heart had once been filled with me; to the child whom the reason had treated as Plan B; and to fifteen-year-old Megumi Fushiguro.
If I could not make them stay, then I would let them move forward.
I had to leave-leave this house, leave this district. I would go to that mountain and find the reason. Then I would carry out the plan I had never put into action.
-Sorry, reason. I've put this off for too long. Wait for me a little longer. It won't be long now.
Before you continue