This thing about me becoming a girl

Sawamura Mari Aoi stopped, nodded, and replied.

"Yes, mother-in-law."

Hearing this, the old lady was a little emotional.

"Mr. Furuya, if Izumi knows and knows that you are praying for him, he will be very pleased."

After finishing speaking, I don't know what I thought of. This old woman's hair was completely gray and dilapidated, and she couldn't control her hunchback. The very old grandmother sighed with emotion in her eyes.

"Mo... Furuya-kun disappeared too suddenly at the beginning, no one could find him, and he didn't leave any news, just evaporated in the sea of ​​people...

He is obviously such an excellent person, why did this happen to him... I remember that when my father was alive, I always mentioned him, hoping that after he returned from his studies, he would bring better development to the town...

But time has passed... who knows that when he comes back again, he has already passed away..."

She sighed, indescribably sad.

"People of the same era... now, there are only two or three left, and I don't know how long it will take to go down to find them, and after I go down, if I walk faster... I don't know if Can you catch up with them..."

The old lady's wrinkled face was full of the complexities of time passing by like a knife, and she would not show mercy to anyone.

Yes, this old lady is from the same era as Mr. Furuya, and they both studied in the same class when they were young.

It's just that she stopped studying after middle school, and Mr. Furuya chose to continue his studies. Since then, the two of them have had little communication.

But even so, the name Furuya Hiroki often appeared in her ears. After all, Mr. Furuya later went to Tokyo and was admitted to the University of Tokyo. This is enough to be a glorious thing in this small town .

At that time, almost everyone believed that after returning from his studies, he would bring better development to the town and a better life for everyone.

But no one expected that in such a happy family, such an unfortunate thing would happen.

Immediately, Hiroki Furuya disappeared, and no one could find him.

At the beginning, everyone still mentioned him from time to time, worrying about where he went, but as time went by, this name was gradually forgotten by everyone.

It also includes the old lady at this time.

Then, a few weeks ago, the girl in front of her suddenly appeared in the small town with the ashes of Hiroki Furuya, and went door to door looking for anyone who knew Hiroki Furuya.

After hearing this name, the old lady's dusty memories were all opened up at once, and she fell into inexplicable sadness.

After all.. There is one less person of her contemporaries.

Mr. Furuya in her memory was still so energetic and young...but when we met again, we were separated by Yin and Yang.

Perhaps because she is getting older and her peers are getting rarer, she often falls into memories, for a while, for an afternoon.

Back to the present, the old lady broke free from the memories of the past, and said kindly to Mari Aoi Sawamura.

"I thought of a lot of things at once, it really took up your time, go back quickly."

Hearing this, Sawamura Mariko looked at her and nodded.

"Then mother-in-law, be careful on the road."

After speaking, she turned around and walked to the other side.

As for the old lady, looking at her plain back with a basket on her back, there was emotion and envy in her eyes.

With emotion, she used to have such a young thing.

What I envy is that after she died, there was no one like Sawamura Mariko who prayed for her.

Shaking her head, she walked away slowly with a cane on her back, her back was lonely.

Mariko Sawamura walked towards the depths of the town. Along the way, many people cast curious eyes on her.

The town is not big and the population is not large, so the arrival of outsiders like Mari Aoi Sawamura cannot be hidden at all. In addition, Mari Aoi Sawamura went door to door asking who knew Hiroki Furuya, which also led to the fact that the first God, everyone in the town knew of her existence.

What's more, it is said that she is still from a big city like Tokyo, which makes these simple people turn their eyes on the big city to Sawamura Mari Aoi, full of curiosity.

Especially for those few teenagers and girls, it was like a white swan appeared in the field at home. They wanted to get in touch with her and had countless questions to ask her, but because of their inferiority complex as countrymen, How dare not approach.

For them, people from big cities are always different from them, they are full of mystery, as if their eyes are full of prosperity.

And Mari Aoi Sawamura did satisfy their guess about people in big cities, she was beautiful and proud, and never took the initiative to talk to them, just like a slim green lotus, she was alone on the water.

For this small town that has been silent for a long time, a sudden visitor is enough to cause waves.

Everyone also guessed that maybe this girl was the grandson of the Furuya Hiroki she was talking about, and she came here to find out if there were any relatives still alive.

After all, until now, few people remembered the name Furuya Hiroki.

In this regard, Sawamura Mari Aoi has never explained.

After reaching the depths of the town, Mari Aoi Sawamura walked to a hill and stepped up the stairs.

The stairs looked very old, and they were also covered with fallen leaves. As for the front, there was a red torii gate with peeling paint.

Passing under the torii gate, it didn't take long before Sawamura Mari Aoi climbed to the top of the mountain, where there is a shrine.

Sawamura Mari Aoi returned to the shrine and worshiped the shrine where Mr. Furuya's ashes were enshrined.

The reason why she came to Shigang was naturally because of Mr. Furuya.

After all, Hiroki Furuya wanted to come back here until the moment before he died. This was his last wish.

And Mari Aoi Sawamura didn't want Mr. Furuya to cry out in great distress, and even this kind of thing couldn't be realized in the end.

Although Mr. Furuya has been looking for the child all his life, Mari Aoi Sawamura also knows that for Mr. Furuya, the child is just an obsession in his heart that he does not want to admit to losing, and he dare not face the thoughts used to escape. He is really ashamed. Yes, and it is actually his wife and his parents who he can't forget.

So Sawamura Mari Aoi came back here, planning to bury him with his father and his former wife, or not far away.

But so many decades have passed, and people of the same generation as his parents have long since passed away, so Mari Aoi Sawamura did not find the cemetery of Mr. Furuya's parents, but only found the cemetery of his former wife.

His wife had waited for more than ten years without any hope of him coming back, so she remarried and gave birth to a daughter, but not long after, she fell ill and passed away.

But at any rate, she still left her family behind, and they spread out. Until now, her youngest granddaughter has gone to junior high school.

It is impossible to be buried together, after all, she has been sleeping peacefully for so long, not to mention her descendants, it is even more impossible to agree to such a thing, so Mariko Sawamura planned to bury Mr. Furuya near his former wife.

But just when Mariko Sawamura was planning to do this, she suddenly heard some local folklore.

Perhaps every place has different myths and legends, and it is the same here, not to mention that Shioka is originally a place with a particularly strong culture of gods and ghosts. Various rituals emerge in endlessly, from the famous harvest celebrations all over the country, thank you God, praying for good weather and good weather in the coming year can be seen in the Fire Festival.

For a person who was extremely miserable during his life, if someone is willing to sincerely pray for him after his death and serve the gods for a period of time, then the gods will look at this sincerity and see the sufferings of the person you prayed for in life. In the end, he will show mercy, so that his reincarnation can get the happiness and happiness commensurate with the suffering of the previous life.

At that time, the legend that Mari Aoi Sawamura heard was like this.

Then, she stayed here temporarily and came to this shrine that no longer had incense.

Mr. Furuya has the kindness to teach her. Although seriously speaking, Mr. Furuya has never taught her anything, but when Mariko Sawamura was most confused, it was also when Hiroki Furuya was dying, and he tried to use him to escape. For the rest of my life, I persuaded Sawamura Mari Aoi with kind words not to stay,

Maybe it was because of the regret at the time of dying, or maybe it was the unfinished remorse, which caused him to say a lot at that time.

It's ridiculous to say that it's the first time Sawamura Mari Aoi has heard of teaching her the principles of life so sincerely and without any distracting thoughts. What's even more ridiculous is that it's from an outsider.

Although Hiroki Furuya may not have thought about this at all, maybe he just felt that the child was kind-hearted before he died, and used his own lessons learned to persuade the child not to fail like his own life, but he could not change it anyway. He is really serious about saying this.

At least, people can go back and make up for their mistakes. Only Hiroki Furuya said this to Mari Aoi Sawamura.

What's more, it was also because I was clearly capable at the beginning, but stood by and watched, which led to Mr. Furuya's regretful death in the end.

This is the guilt of Mariko Sawamura, coupled with the kindness of Hiroki Furuya, in short, she chose to stay here for a while, praying for Mr. Furuya to have a happy afterlife.

She got up, picked up a wide broom, and swept the fallen leaves in the shrine courtyard.

Perhaps she thought of something, causing her to look up again and look in the direction of Tokyo.

And just at this moment, an elderly woman in witch costume climbed up the stairs.

She said with a smile when she saw Mari Aoi Sawamura sweeping the floor.

"Truth Sunflower Sauce, I'm sweeping the floor again. It's always like this in autumn. The leaves are falling here and there, everywhere. It's really troublesome for you."

When Mariko Sawamura heard the words, she turned her gaze away from the distant sky, looked at the old man, and shook her head, indicating that it was not troublesome.

464. Wait for me to go home

In the quiet rural forest, from time to time, the sound of the wings of the cuckoo bird is heard, and the stream is flowing, which is crisp to the ears.

Really, the big city and this place are completely two extremes. The rhythm of the former is as fast as it is, and the rhythm of the latter is as slow. It seems that everything here is half a beat.

The town is small, sparsely populated, and even the mountains are not too high.

And in the shrine located on such a not too high mountain, there are one old and one young standing.

The old lady in shrine maiden costume just looked at Mari Sawamura holding a broom in the yard.

After a while, she also took another broom and swept the fallen leaves together, but her movements were obviously not as sharp as Sawamura Mari Aoi, but a little trembling, but extraordinarily serious and careful, as if she didn't want to Let there be dirt in any gap in the courtyard of the shrine.

It didn't take long for the small courtyard in the shrine to be cleaned up, and then the two of them did their daily prayers together, put incense on them, and were devout in their hearts.

After doing all this, it was already noon, and the two sat on the steps of the yard, enjoying the cool, and the atmosphere was full of peace.

At this moment, the old priestess spoke to Sawamura Mari Aoi.

"Truth Sunflower Sauce, have you ever been bored staying alone on the mountain these days?"

Hearing this, Sawamura Mariko glanced at the old priestess, then shook her head and said.

"No, maybe there are thoughts and expectations in my heart, so time always passes quickly, and the current world is clearer than before in my eyes."

Sawamura Mariko said so in a cold tone, and now, she no longer stutters, and she no longer needs to communicate with people with notes.

After all, her stuttering at the beginning was only because she spoke for the first time much later than ordinary people, and she was not born with a language barrier. If there is no accident, as she gets older, the number of times she uses language If there are too many, it will naturally disappear as you become more proficient.

But Mari Aoi Sawamura did not have such a person who allowed her to talk freely, and later, after realizing that she was different from others, she also began to avoid the status quo, stuttering, which is one of the mental barriers caused by avoiding the status quo.

At that time, she didn't want to change anything, and wanted to maintain the current appearance, for fear that after the change, everything would cease to exist, and everyone would find that she was a freak.

Without proper guidance, she was always avoiding when she was young, afraid of any changes, and trying hard to disguise a false shell, so over the years, no matter how many professional doctors she saw, she couldn't make her stutter, There is a slight improvement.

Just like she actually understood at the beginning that Shang Shanmu didn’t come to pick her up because of some so-called father’s love, but she still pretended not to know, and even forced herself to forget about it later, just to make herself more like an ordinary people.

And the fire that night also allowed her to untie her heart barrier for many years, and walked forward for the first time, and this also led to her stuttering, which naturally healed without treatment.

After all, stuttering is only a factor inside the shell she created to escape.

So now, she can talk to people smoothly without borrowing any tools.

But after she woke up, she was more indifferent than before, and she was even more unwilling to talk to others.

Maybe it's a divine grace, or maybe it's a curse. Mariko Sawamura's eyes can see other people's emotions, their good and evil, and all the emotions that come out of your heart, in her eyes, will form a see-through Your picture scroll.

The world in her eyes is different.