1978 Synthetic Writers

Chapter 640 The Night of Resurrection at the General Store
As the son, Takayuki agreed to his father's request and drove his father back to the general store in his Civic, which he had just bought the previous year. It was just past 11 p.m.

Because his father asked him to stay alone in the grocery store for the night, Takayuki said he would just make do in the Civic until dawn.

The old man was very worried, "Are you going to sleep in the car? That won't do. It's bad for your health."

Gui Zhi clicked his tongue and said, "You're a seriously ill patient yourself, do you have the right to talk to me like that? Try to put yourself in my shoes. How could you leave your sick father in a house that's practically abandoned and go home alone? Anyway, I have to pick you up tomorrow morning, so it's more comfortable to wait in the car."

The old man felt ashamed and apologized to Guizhi. He then handed a letter to his son, saying that he had originally intended to use it as his will, but now that he had told him everything, it was fine to give it to him. He hoped that after reading it, he would swear that he would do as he wished.

When the old man returned to the shop, Guizhi opened the letter:
"Gui Zhi: "
By the time you read this letter, I will probably be no longer alive. It will be very sad, but there's nothing I can do about it. Besides, I'm no longer capable of feeling sadness.

I am writing this letter to you for only one reason: there is one thing I must ask of you, no matter what, you must agree to it.

Simply put, what I need your help with is to announce something to the public thirty-three years after my death. The announcement is as follows:

"On a certain day (which is, of course, the anniversary of my death), between midnight and dawn, the information window of the Namiya General Store reopened. I would like to ask those who have consulted the store and received a reply: what meaning did that reply have for your life? Was it helpful? Or completely unhelpful? I sincerely hope to hear your frank opinions. Please, as you did back then, drop your letters into the mailbox on the store's metal shutter door. Thank you."

You might find my request strange, but it's very important to me. Although you may think it's absurd, I hope you can fulfill my wish. —Father

For most people, the contents of the letter would probably not matter much; they would just think the old man had lost his mind.

But the price difference is significant.

Because he had already heard the old man say something very strange, which was the reason why he had to return to the general store.

When the old man told him about this, he first took out a newspaper clipping and handed it to him, asking him to take a look.

It was a newspaper article from three months ago. It said that several people witnessed a small car plunge into the sea from the pier. After receiving the report, the police and fire department rushed to the scene to rescue the driver. The woman in the driver's seat had no vital signs, but a baby of about one year old was thrown out of the car after it fell into the sea. The baby floated on the surface of the sea, was found and rescued, and was actually unharmed. It was a miracle.

The driver was a 29-year-old woman named Midori Kawabe, who was unmarried. She had borrowed the car from a friend, saying that her child was sick and she needed to take him to the hospital.

The neighbor said that she did not go out to work and was living in poverty. She had been in arrears on rent for several months, and the landlord asked her to move out at the end of the month.

Since no brake marks were found at the scene, police analyzed that it was highly likely the deceased committed suicide while carrying the baby.

Takayuki immediately realized that this Kawabe Midori was the woman who had consulted him last time, the one who had signed herself "Midori River," and who said she was pregnant, but that her husband had a wife and children.

The old man said that because of this news, he suddenly felt a little confused and didn't understand what his answers meant to those who consulted him. Although he never gave perfunctory answers, he didn't know if his answers would help the people who consulted him. Perhaps if they followed his answers, it would bring them misfortune.

So after learning about Kawabe Midori's situation, he became restless and unable to easily offer advice to others. That's why he changed his attitude and directly agreed to his son's request to close the general store.

Then the old man said that when he was hospitalized, he had the same dream every day. He dreamed that someone would put a letter into the mail slot on the iron gate late at night. It was decades later, and it was those people who had written to him for advice and received replies who put the letter into the iron gate and told the old man how their lives had changed.

He felt this wasn't a dream, but something that would happen in the future, which was why he wanted to go back to the grocery store for the night. He believed that if he went to the store, he would receive the letters they had mailed in.

This sounds like complete nonsense.

But Guizhi had no choice but to agree to his father's request. He stayed in the cramped Civic all night and didn't get out of the car until dawn before walking to his father's shop.

Obviously, this is where the chapter title comes from, and the next scene is definitely the most exciting moment in the entire book.

Because Takayuki really saw the reply.

There were more than a dozen envelopes in total, all of them very new, and almost every one of them was addressed to "Namiya General Store".

He stayed in the car all night but didn't see anyone drop the letter into the grocery store.

Moreover, Takayuki was well aware that he had never seen these envelopes before.

Where did these letters come from?
The old man told him that after he sat down there, the letters started coming in one by one through the mail slot, as if they were waiting for him to come home.

He showed these letters to Guizhi.

Guizhi exclaimed in surprise upon seeing them, because these letters were not handwritten, but printed on white paper.

"More than half of the letters are printed, and it seems that in the future everyone will have a machine that can easily print text," the old man said.

This alone is enough to prove that these are letters from the future.

After taking a deep breath, Guizhi read the contents of the letter.

To Namiya General Store:
Has Namiya General Store really been revived? Although the announcement said it was only for one night, what exactly is going on? I've been troubled for a long time and didn't know what to do. In the end, I decided that even if I was deceived, it wouldn't matter, so I wrote this letter.

About forty years ago, I asked the following question.

Is there any way to get a perfect score without studying?

Mr. Namiya, I was just a primary school student at the time, so my question was quite silly, but your answer was remarkable.

You can ask your teacher to create a test paper specifically for you. Since all the questions are about you, your answers will be the correct ones, and you can get a perfect score.

When I saw this reply back then, I thought it was a complete lie. What I wanted to know was how to get 100 points in Chinese and Math.

However, your reply remained in my memory. Even in middle school and high school, I would think of that reply every time I took an exam, which shows how deeply it impressed me. Perhaps it was because I was pleased that you took even a child's mischievous question seriously.

However, it wasn't until I started teaching students at school that I realized how remarkable this answer was.

That's right, I became a teacher.

Shortly after I took the helm, I encountered a bottleneck. The students in my class were unable to open up to me, were not very obedient to my teaching, and the relationships among them were not good. No matter what they wanted to do, they could not get things done smoothly. The students could not unite and were indifferent to each other, except for their own small cliques.

I tried many methods to give the whole class the opportunity to do sports, play games, or hold discussions together, but all of them failed and the students could not enjoy them.

Not long after, a student told me that he didn't want to do these things and just wanted to get a perfect score on the exam.

These words jolted me awake, and I remembered something important. I believe you've already guessed it: I gave the students a note-taking quiz called the 'Friend Quiz.' I randomly selected a student from the class and asked them various questions about that student. Besides their birthday, home address, whether they have siblings, and their parents' occupations, questions included their interests, talents, and favorite celebrities. After the quiz, the student gave their answers, and then the other students graded them.

At first, the students were a little lost, but after two or three tests, they finally began to engage actively. The only secret to getting high scores was to get to know the other students in the class thoroughly. As a result, the relationships between the students improved significantly, becoming completely different from before.

For me, who was still a novice teacher, this was a valuable experience that gave me the confidence to continue on the path of teaching, and in fact, I have continued to do so to this day.

All of this is thanks to Namiya General Store. Although I really wanted to express my gratitude, I struggled to find a way to do so, and I'm so glad I had this opportunity.

—Respectfully submitted by a perfect little devil

P.S.: Will this letter reach Mr. Namiya's family? I hope it can be placed on Mr. Namiya's altar. Thank you.

Guizhi was taken aback. He remembered the child, but he never expected that the child would reply to the old man.

The old man said that he had only answered the somewhat mischievous question with a riddle, and that there was no need for him to express his gratitude, because he had achieved success entirely through his own efforts, through his own reflection, and by applying what he had learned to his own life.

The same applies to the other letters. The reason why the replies are helpful is because the recipients themselves have the right mindset. If they do not have the attitude of wanting to live life seriously and work hard, no matter what others say, it will not help them.

After saying that, the old man insisted that Guizhi read another letter, which was also a highlight of the story.

The person who wrote the letter said that he learned about the Namiya General Store's revival for one night from the internet, and he couldn't sit still any longer, so he immediately picked up a pen.

She had only heard of Namiya General Store. The person who wrote to Mr. Namiya for advice was someone else. Before revealing who wrote the letter, she wanted to explain her own background.

She grew up in an orphanage and only began to wonder after starting school: why don't I have parents?

A female employee told her that her mother died in a car accident when she was one year old.

But the letter writer was still curious about her background. Later, she went to the library to borrow a newspaper and happened to find the report.

A car plunged into the sea, killing the driver, Midori Kawabe. A one-year-old baby was in the car. Because there were no skid marks, the police believe that the driver committed suicide with the baby.

The letter writer realized that the newspaper article was about her mother and her.

That's right, the person who wrote the letter is Kawabe Midori's daughter.

She was devastated after learning the truth.

Because her mother committed suicide, and intended to take her with her, meaning her mother did not want her to live, this event had a profound impact on her.

She felt she should die. Even her mother, who loved her most in the world, almost killed her. So what value did she have in living?
She later attempted suicide multiple times, and her body grew thinner and thinner day by day in despair.

At that moment, one of her good friends arrived at the hospital.

Her friend said that the people at the orphanage told her about her background, and that she only knew a small part of it and that she knew nothing about the truth.

She asked, "Do you know how much your mother weighed when she died?"

The letter writer, of course, was unaware of this.

My friend said it only weighs 30 kilograms.

When the police found Midori Kawabe's body, they discovered that she was emaciated. After investigating her residence, they found that there was no food in the house except for milk powder, and there was only a bowl containing weaning food in the refrigerator.

Kawabe Midori's friend said that she was unemployed and had run out of savings. Because she hadn't paid rent for several months, her landlord asked her to move out at the end of the month. Based on these circumstances alone, it seems reasonable to conclude that she committed suicide with her daughter because she had nowhere else to turn.

However, one thing is puzzling: babies.

Why are babies able to survive miraculously?
The writer's friend told her that it was no miracle that the baby survived.

Before she told this story, her friend showed her a letter that had been found at her mother's house, along with her umbilical cord. The orphanage had been keeping it for her, and after some discussion, the staff decided to give it to her at the appropriate time.

The letter was in an envelope addressed to "Green River".

At first, she thought it was written by her mother, Kawabe Midori, but after reading the contents, she realized it wasn't.

That letter was written to her mother by someone else; "Green River" refers to her mother, Chuanbian Green.

This letter was naturally the old man's reply to Kawabe Midori after she consulted the general store.

The writer learned the secret of his birth from this letter, which dealt him another blow.

The thought that I am the product of immoral behavior makes me feel even more pathetic.

So, in front of her friends, she expressed her anger towards her mother.

Why did you give birth to me?
If I hadn't given birth to her, she wouldn't have suffered so much, and she wouldn't have had to commit suicide with me.

But her friend said it wasn't what she thought and told her to read the letter more carefully.

The letter writer told her mother at the end that the most important thing was whether the child she gave birth to could be happy.

Even if both parents are alive, it doesn't guarantee that the child will be happy. If you can't be psychologically prepared to pay any price for your child's happiness, it's best not to have a child, even if you have a husband by your side.

"Your mother was fully prepared to make you happy, which is why she gave birth to you."

"The fact that your mother has always treasured this letter is the best proof."

"So, your mother couldn't have taken you to commit suicide."

"The truth is..."

(End of this chapter)