Tokyo: Rabbit Police and Her Evil Partner

Chapter 58 Street Artist

The Sugamo in Toyota District is like some kind of nocturnal animal. It lies dormant in steel and concrete during the day, and gradually boils at night, extending its colorful tentacles in all directions.

The vertical signs hanging on the street lit up one by one, and Fushimi Ka held up the map and took notes as he walked. The shops along the street opened their shutters one by one, and the signs above the street lit up with the characters "Sugamo Jizo-dori Shopping Street". Due to poor contact, the word "Jizo" flashed red.

People poured into the street from the west, including workers getting off work, street gangs, violent gangs watching over the place... the noisy crowd gathered together, making Yuan Yuzi dizzy.

Fushimi Shika looked at the map and realized that Sugamo was divided into two parts. The area near Ikebukuro Station was Nishi-Sugamo. The environment there was clean and tidy, with two elementary schools, a historic landmark, the newly built Sunshine City shopping mall, and major corporate office buildings. It looked like a gathering place for the upper class elites.

The area where Fushimi Deer is located is Higashi-Sugamo. There is no place name "Higashi-Sugamo" on the landmark, only "Nishi-Sugamo" is marked separately, but the locals call it that - Higashi-Sugamo is a synonym for the poor.

"Ghost in the Shell will be released in a few years, right?" He sighed in his heart, and finally understood why Japan in the 90s was able to promote cyberpunk culture.

Even if the economic bubble bursts, the elites who are truly in power can still take advantage of the situation to expand their capital. In a few decades, even the "Higashisho-duck" will probably be demolished and renovated, and the salarymen will either rent houses in Adachi District to catch up on their commutes, or live in the wilderness under the bridge.

Yuan Yuzi looked like a naive person, following behind Fushimi Shika, looking around. Occasionally, a drunk passerby would yell at her, "Ma Po, get out of here!" She didn't understand what that meant, so she pulled at Fushimi Shika's clothes and said, "It seems like the people here don't welcome us."

"You don't understand this," Fushimi Lu said, "'Ma Po' refers to a kind of evil spirit. There is a special custom in Sugamo. When the locals see foreign tourists, they will shout 'Ma Po get out', which means to help the other party to drive away the evil spirit. The more ferocious the expression, the better the effect of driving away the evil spirit."

"Eh...Is that so?"

Yuan Yuzi remembered that her grandmother had a similar custom, but they just sprinkled salt on people and chanted strange spells.

The commercial street was not very large, and besides the izakayas there were cheap sex shops, which took the four words "food, sex, and nature" to the extreme. It took them less than 20 minutes to walk from beginning to end, and they felt that the public security was good, at least no one was drunk and causing trouble on the street.

Fushimi Ka did not stop and turned into the alley between the shops according to the markings on the map.

Next, they will enter residential buildings for inspection, which is the main part of the inspection work.

There are eleven old-style apartment buildings on both sides of Chaogao Street. After the war, it is unclear who owns the property rights. Some of the vacant houses have no one to collect rent, and some "three non-" people have gathered here, so it naturally became a Feng Shui treasure land that is a den of filth and dirt.

The alley was dark. Fushimi Shika squinted and saw a punk man standing at the end, spraying paint on the wall. The man noticed a patrolman coming in, subconsciously pulled up his mask, and said angrily: "What are you doing here? Get out of here!"

Yuan Yuzi was stunned, thinking that the local residents were really enthusiastic. She straightened her back and said seriously: "Thank you very much! I will work hard!"

"Ah? Ma Po should get out, this is not the place for you—"

"Yoshi! Thank you for your encouragement! I will definitely patrol carefully and keep Sugamo safe!"

"Uh, you, here, I'm scribbling here..."

"We are so sorry to disturb your creation, we are just passing by," Yuan Yuzi tugged at Fushimi Shika's sleeve and whispered, "Go, go, don't disturb the artist's work." Seeing that Yuan Yuzi didn't seem to be joking, the punk man felt a little embarrassed. He was cursing with his tongue rolled, but the other party still said thank you and even praised him as an artist.

This female patrol officer is unfamiliar, probably a new graduate. Not only is she cute, but she also speaks so nicely, and seems silly, as if she could be teased...

Just as he thought this, he saw another patrolman put his right hand on the holster and looked down at him. The look and aura were like a gangster who was ready to kill someone himself.

People who hang out on the streets for years can tell at a glance which people they shouldn't mess with. The punk man said nothing, turned sideways, and continued to stand by the wall and devote himself to his "art painting".

When Yuan Yuzi passed by, she took a sneak peek and saw him spray-painting a factory emitting black smoke on the wall, hidden deep in the cave between her legs. Her face turned red and she turned away in a hurry.

The entrance to the apartment building was very low, and Fushimi Lu had to bend down slightly to avoid hitting his head. After entering, the corridor was a little wider, but not much better. There was not even an induction light, and it was pitch black.

Gen Yuzi was a little afraid of the dark. She subconsciously grabbed the corner of Fushimi Shika's clothes and pulled out a flashlight from her waist. With a click, a beam of light lit up in the corridor.

"It's so eerie, are there really people living here?" She raised a flashlight and looked around at the mottled walls. The corners were filled with black spider webs.

Fushimi Shika thought that the eldest lady really had no idea of ​​the sufferings of the world. If he had not gone to the police academy for training, he would probably have come here to become a sewer rat - it was just a little old and broken, and it was already pretty good without the mountains of garbage.

The two walked up the stairs. Each apartment building was built in a U-shaped structure, which meant that they had to go around each floor to complete their patrol.

Yes, the work of Japanese patrolmen is so trivial. In addition to daily patrols, they also need to visit community residents regularly to understand the flow of people in the community, the composition of members, and their needs and opinions.

Although this was the rule, Fushimi Shika had no intention of following it. He stood at the entrance of the corridor and waved his flashlight around, which was considered completing his patrol of the first floor.

Such a perfunctory approach naturally made Yuan Yuzi dissatisfied. She was determined to drag Fushimi Kaka along to knock on doors of every household to get to know them, and to investigate where the gunshots during the day came from.

Fushimi Shika flatly refused. If she continued patrolling like this, 12 hours a day would not be enough. This bad tendency of involution must be nipped in the bud.

The two were arguing in the corridor. Fushimi Shika was about to use his trump card to cast a spell and chant, when suddenly a deep and ethereal singing voice came from the depths of the corridor:

"Is this ghost a spirit or a monster? Once the bow is struck, we will know for sure..."

Fushimi Shika didn't feel anything special, but Gen Tamako was so scared that her scalp went numb. She could tell that this was a line from the Noh ghost play "Aoi". This familiar and strange feeling is hard to describe in words, just like a Chinese person hearing a woman singing in an old apartment building late at night.

She turned the flashlight and shone the beam to the end of the corridor. As the two watched, a door in the corridor creaked open. The singing became particularly clear, with the faint accompaniment of the shamisen, as if a ghost was whispering in her ear.

"The sky is pure... the earth is pure... the inside and outside are pure... the six sense organs are pure..."

(End of this chapter)