"Tens of thousands of years?! Are you sure this isn't some mythological tale?"
Keryo Ikari could not conceal her astonishment.
"Hahaha, now this is a rare sight. To think Prosecutor Ikari of the Special Investigation Department would show such surprise. Still, I can understand. When I first heard that description, I was just as shocked. I even wondered whether I had misheard."
Kageryu Nagakura laughed as he spoke, then took out a file and handed it to Keryo.
"According to the terms of the trade we just made, there is no way I should give you this file. You get what you pay for, after all. But you once saved my daughter's life, so consider this my gift of thanks. I hope it proves useful to you. Of course, remember not to let anyone else know that I gave it to you. The National Police Agency has been in turmoil from top to bottom recently because of Black Xu Fu. At a time like this, we should avoid creating any unnecessary complications."
"You really don't need to keep dwelling on that. The first thing my father taught me was to extend a helping hand whenever I saw someone in need. No matter who had been in danger at the time, I would have rushed forward without regard for my own safety.
"Of course, don't follow my example. My parents passed away one after the other long ago, and I have neither married nor dated anyone. I am completely alone, with nothing tying me down. Even if I died, there probably wouldn't be many people attending my funeral.
"You are different. You have already built a career and started a family. Aside from being a public security officer, you are also the husband of a virtuous woman, the father of an adorable little girl, and the pillar supporting a happy family. When carrying out missions and investigations, you must never be as reckless as you were when you were young. When you encounter danger, think about how to avoid it first instead of charging straight toward it."
Keryo accepted the file and spoke calmly. Then, as though she would feel uncomfortable if she did not mock him at least once, she chuckled.
"After all, you are already an uncle pushing forty. No matter how anyone looks at you, the word young no longer applies."
"Good grief. The older people become, the more sensitive they get about their age. Thinking about it that way, I'm almost envious of Black Xu Fu and her immortal life... But then I remember that I would be the only one who lived forever, while my lover and family would still age, fall ill, and die like ordinary people, passing away one after another before my eyes. Once I imagine that, I no longer feel envious."
Kageryu Nagakura lit a cigarette and spoke with a trace of emotion. Then he held out the pack toward Keryo Ikari.
With practiced ease, Keryo took one from the pack and lit it using the car's cigarette lighter. She then began flipping through the documents Kageryu Nagakura had compiled, page by page.
Keryo exhaled a plume of smoke and remarked:
"Captain cigarettes? That's unusual. You used to love smoking Peace. Why did you suddenly switch?"
"At first, I just wanted to try a different brand. After smoking an apple-flavored Captain cigarette, I became rather fond of it. Before I knew it, every time I went to buy cigarettes, I found myself buying Captain instead of Peace."
"I still prefer Peace. It looks like I won't be able to mooch cigarettes off you anymore, all because your tastes changed." Keryo sighed in disappointment.
"Hey, hey, hey. I seem to recall prosecutors earning fairly high annual salaries. Don't talk as though you're some impoverished university student who can't even afford cigarettes... Though now that I think about it, back at the police academy, every time I secretly bought a pack, you would always mooch a few from me."
"At least after taking a few from you, I treasured every single one. When the instructors discovered and confiscated the cigarettes you had secretly bought, you could still smoke a few of mine instead of suffering until you had enough money to buy another pack," Keryo said with a smile.
"Now that you mention it, I suppose that's true... Still, I'm planning to quit smoking."
"For your family?"
"Yeah... I had already quit for a while, but after Public Security became busy some time ago, I somehow started smoking again without realizing it. It can't be helped. Life is fucking brutal. Without a few drags now and then, I'm not sure I could keep going."
Kageryu Nagakura inhaled deeply from his cigarette, then slowly exhaled.
"The world of a middle-aged man truly is difficult. Sure enough, the word easy does not exist in a middle-aged man's world. You've worked hard, Kageryu." Keryo Ikari smiled and glanced at Kageryu Nagakura.
"Take your time reading the file. Ask me if there is anything you don't understand."
"All right. You should rest for a while. One look at you is enough to tell that you stayed up all night again. You could always take leave if it becomes too much. Just consider the credit for this Black Xu Fu incident a gift to our prosecutors' office."
"Had you left out that last sentence, I might actually have agreed," Kageryu Nagakura replied with an offhand laugh.
Keryo spent an hour reading through the documents Kageryu Nagakura had compiled. From the information inside, she learned that Black Xu Fu was something akin to a guardian deity for the Kuchibana family.
Kageryu Nagakura had even written down one of his own conjectures:
[The first family head established the Kuchibana family so that its descendants could protect Black Xu Fu for generations to come.]
As for what Black Xu Fu actually looked like, there were no surviving records. The description in the file was merely something the elders of the Kuchibana family often told their juniors:
"Black Xu Fu is a beautiful woman with snow-white hair and pink eyes. However, even though she looks like a girl in her teens, you must never assume she truly is that young. When you meet her, you must respectfully address her as—Great-Grandmother."
Upon reaching that passage, Keryo Ikari could not help remarking:
"If Black Xu Fu truly has lived in this world for tens of thousands of years, just as the Kuchibana family claimed... Wouldn't that mean monsters genuinely exist in this world?"
"It would hardly be strange for monsters to exist. After all, aliens may very well exist elsewhere in the universe. The amount of time humanity has spent in existence is far too brief compared to all creation. That is precisely why human knowledge is so limited. The existence of monsters and gods beyond the boundaries of human understanding would be perfectly reasonable."
Despite being a public security officer, Kageryu Nagakura strongly believed in all manner of mysterious and unknown legends.
Another hour passed before Keryo Ikari finished reading the documents Kageryu Nagakura had compiled. Leaning back against her seat, she sighed with emotion:
"Black Xu Fu... Her life has endured for ten thousand years without death. Her appearance remains eternally unchanged. Her entire existence wanders through the river of time. She sounds exactly like one of the immortals from mythology."
"Take your time processing it. The seventy-year-old woman I met in Izu is currently the only surviving member of the Kuchibana family we have been able to locate. Although she is merely a distant relative and has never visited Gokugu Village, she definitely knows more about Black Xu Fu than we do. Therefore, no matter how outrageous her account sounds, all we can do is try to believe it.
"Besides, considering her current condition, she probably won't last long enough for us to visit her again and question her more thoroughly.
"I heard that when she was admitted to the hospital, her children had already begun preparing themselves for her funeral. This hospitalization has merely prolonged her life a little longer."
"Once she dies, will anyone carrying the Kuchibana family's bloodline remain in this world?"
"Perhaps there are others we simply haven't found. Or perhaps none remain at all. During the [Massacre] that erupted in Showa 31, nearly every member of the Kuchibana family was slaughtered. Even if someone survived back then, they have probably already died of old age."
Kageryu Nagakura spoke with his eyes closed. Then, as though something had suddenly occurred to him, he abruptly opened them and spoke urgently:
"Right, Keryo. I just thought of another possibility. Turn to the page listing the successive family heads."
"What is it?"
Keryo Ikari asked in confusion as she turned to the page Kageryu Nagakura had mentioned.
"Look here. The first head of the Kuchibana family lived to be one hundred and thirty-two. The second head lived to be one hundred and two, while the third head lived to be eighty-nine."
"All of them lived very long lives, especially the first family head. A lifespan like that... is almost absurdly long. By the way, the third family head was named Kirimei Kuchibana. What were the names of the first two?"
"I couldn't find out, and no one could tell me. At the very least, that distant relative of the Kuchibana family did not know. She had never visited the Kuchibana family, so everything she knew about them came from her mother. Her mother never told her the names of the three family heads before she died. We only know that the third family head was named Kirimei Kuchibana because she was the true culprit behind the tragedy that year, and her name was recorded in police files."
As Kageryu Nagakura spoke, he pointed at the third family head's age.
"The first two family heads both lived for more than a century, yet Kirimei Kuchibana, the third family head, lived for only eighty-nine years. Suppose the first two gained longevity under the protection of Black Xu Fu. Could we then infer that the third family head lived for only eighty-nine years because something happened during her lifetime that caused Black Xu Fu to leave the Kuchibana family?"
"Now that you mention it, that possibility really does exist..."
Keryo Ikari had noticed it as well. For a head of the Kuchibana family, the third family head's lifespan of eighty-nine years could not truly be considered long.
"Moreover, while I was questioning that distant relative of the Kuchibana family, she said her mother had also told her about another bizarre detail concerning the family."
"What was it?"
"All three heads of the Kuchibana family were women. None of them had husbands, and none had ever married, yet each of them had several biological children."
"They had no husbands, yet they had children of their own... How strange." Keryo Ikari frowned and began considering every possible explanation.
"Let me propose a hypothesis. Suppose having that kind of relationship with Black Xu Fu can grant someone longevity... Could Black Xu Fu have been the wife of all three Kuchibana family heads?"
"Wait. Isn't Black Xu Fu supposed to be a woman with long white hair? All three heads of the Kuchibana family were women as well. How could a woman become pregnant with another woman's child?
"Besides, if the Kuchibana family was originally established so the first family head could protect Black Xu Fu, then Black Xu Fu's spouse should have been the first family head.
"The first family head gave birth to children, and one of those children became the second family head. Wouldn't that make the second family head..."
"What if Black Xu Fu can not only live forever but also impregnate women? Seen that way, all three Kuchibana family heads lived extraordinarily long lives and had biological children despite having neither husbands nor marriages. Wouldn't that answer every one of these questions?"
"My instincts tell me that answer is far too insane and unbelievable. But then I remember that Black Xu Fu herself already defies common sense, and your theory gradually begins to sound reasonable."
Keryo Ikari held her head as she sighed. Even as a prosecutor, hearing the possibility Kageryu Nagakura had proposed left her unable to fully process it for a while.
Only after a moment did Keryo Ikari speak again.
"The third family head, Kirimei Kuchibana, was the true culprit behind the Sengetsu Girls' Academy serial murders and the massacre that annihilated Gokugu Village. In the end, while surrounded and pursued by the police, she disappeared into the freezing snow-covered mountains of Hokuriku wearing nothing but a thin kimono.
"The police carried out a blanket search of the mountains for dozens of days, yet they found neither her body nor any trace of her. It was as though she had vanished from the face of the earth.
"When we say she lived for only eighty-nine years, that is merely because we assume she died in the mountains back then. If she died there, then she was eighty-nine.
"But suppose she miraculously survived in those mountains, evaded the police's exhaustive search, hid herself somewhere in the human world, and has remained alive to this day. In that case, she would possess the same longevity as the first two family heads. And the reason she obtained such a long life could also be because she had that kind of relationship with Black Xu Fu...
"Although the possibility is extremely low, we cannot rule it out."
At that point, Keryo placed the documents inside her pure-black briefcase, held the nearly finished cigarette between her lips, and opened the car door.
"Thank you for the intelligence. Once I make progress, I will tell you what I find. For now, I need to go back and properly digest everything you have given me, then study Black Xu Fu more closely.
"A woman with long, snow-white hair and pink eyes, who appears to be a teenage girl despite having already spent tens of thousands of years in this world...
"Heh. If Black Xu Fu truly exists, then I would really like to see what she looks like."
"Good luck. Hopefully, both of us can uncover the truth soon."
"Thank you for the intelligence and the cigarette. Good luck to you as well, both at work and at home."
Keryo looked deeply at Kageryu Nagakura, then turned away and walked toward her own car.
"Senpai, I think your hair has gotten a little longer."
While walking home, Iroha Isshiki noticed that Kotomi Izumi's hair had grown somewhat long. As she pointed it out, she reached out and stroked Kotomi Izumi's snow-white strands.
"Huh, really? Then I'll visit a hair salon and have it trimmed when I have time."
Kotomi Izumi replied. In truth, she had already planned to visit a salon and trim her slightly overgrown hair before the cultural festival.
However, there had been too much to do for the cultural festival. Then, immediately after it ended, she had gone on a hot spring trip to Kyoto with Yukino and Yui. As a result, she still had not visited a salon to have her hair trimmed. Compared to before, her hair truly had grown a little longer.
"Hehehe. Senpai, why not take this opportunity to try growing your hair long?"
Iroha Isshiki proposed with a mischievous grin:
"You're very cute with short hair, Senpai. It makes people want to bully you. But if you grew your hair long, perhaps your entire presence would feel completely different and make people..."
"Make people afraid to bully me?" Kotomi Izumi asked curiously.
"No. It would make people want to bully you even more~" the little devil Iroha Isshiki replied with a wicked grin.
Kotomi Izumi froze, then gave an unhappy snort.
"Hmph. Then I definitely won't grow it long. I don't like having long hair in the first place!"
Hearing Kotomi Izumi say that, Iroha Isshiki could not help becoming curious and asked:
"I've heard you mention before that you don't like having long hair, Senpai, but you've never explained why. Could you tell me?"
—
—
40 Advanced Chapters Available on Patreon:
Patreon.com/DaoOfHeaven