I became the King of Ryukyu

"Hahaha, stop pretending, you were the one jumping around the most during anatomy class!" Zheng Yi's hearty laughter attracted the attention of the other passengers who were on edge. He ruthlessly exposed Youji: "By the way, I don't know who was eating breakfast in the specimen room yesterday morning to save time."

"That's still better than some genius from Kume Island who, upon entering the medical school, applied for a part-time job as a cadaver for transporting corpses and airing out bones to prevent insect infestation and rodent damage!" Yuki said indignantly, choosing to hurt each other.

"Oh, you dare to make fun of poor students working part-time? Yuki-kun, you'll go to hell!"

"Thank you. With Jung Eui-jun, who mocked the girl who raised her younger brother alone and took care of her father who was in a vegetative state, I won't be too lonely on my way to the afterlife."

Neither of them could win an argument, and the elderly women on the bus had already started wiping away tears.

Poor kids!

"Everyone, stay on the bus. I'm a police officer!" Ishikawa Aya held up her police badge, which reminded the passengers that they were still next to a pile of bones.

……

The heavy rain, like unbreakable cotton threads, pounded on the broad leaves, and the whole mountain forest echoed with a soft patter.

Zheng Yi and the siblings Yuki got off the car with Ishikawa Aya. By the time the latter realized what was happening, the group was already squatting in front of the skeleton, discussing dating.

"you!"

Just as Ishikawa Aya was about to speak up to stop him, she saw Yuki's expression turn solemn as her gaze gently swept over the broken surface of the shinbone:

"The bone is completely calcified, the medullary cavity is filled with mountain mud, and there are no fresh cracks on the cross-section. The soil layer is an old alluvial layer, and the bone and humus are grown together." Yu Ji picked up a bit of black mud next to the bone, and crushed the fine grass roots between his fingertips. "It was indeed exposed after the slope was washed away by a rainstorm."

"It's not recent; it's been buried for at least thirty or forty years." Zheng Yi nodded in agreement.

"Big brother and sister are right!" Cheye, the chubby boy, pressed his fist against Cheye's chin and echoed.

Ishikawa Aya swallowed back the reprimand that was on the tip of her tongue. It seemed that the little girl who used to follow behind her with a runny nose had grown up.

She was certainly more professional about human remains than the two veterinary medicine students.

"Not thirty or forty years ago, but seventy or eighty years ago. Judging from the tattered fabric, it's all commoner clothing in the Ryukyu style..." Her voice choked slightly. "It should be..."

"They must have been a few of the 100,000 civilians who died in Ryukyu in 1945!"

An aged voice came from the bamboo forest on the mountainside.

At the same time, there was the rustling sound of rain boots stepping on decaying leaves.

An old man wearing a dark brown raincoat walked out of the rain, his straw hat pulled low, water droplets hanging from the eaves. He leaned on a well-worn mountain vine cane, his steps steady as he walked on the slippery mud.

As he approached, he raised his hand and lifted the edge of his straw hat, revealing a deeply lined face with sunken eyes, yet his gaze was as bright as if tempered by mountain winds.

"Grandpa!" Yuki and Tetsuya both stood up, their voices filled with surprise and relief.

"Village Chief Longsong!" Ishikawa Aya also gave a junior's greeting.

"Caiyu, you're here too! That old man Xiuhe has been showing off his precious granddaughter the whole time!" The old man's tense jaw relaxed, and his voice was hoarse as if it had been ground by sand and gravel.

"This is my maternal grandfather, Ishikawa Takamatsu, the village head of Benzan Village." Yuki turned to introduce him to Zheng Yi, and then said to the old man, "This is Zheng Yi, a descendant of the Fukuju family."

"Oh, you've changed your surname back to Tang? Good, very good!" Ishikawa Takamatsu's old hand, regardless of whether it was muddy or not, slapped Zheng Yi's shoulder hard, his old face beaming with joy. "That old rascal Fukuzumi Takeshi really raised a grandson with backbone! ...Ah, now is not the time to reminisce about the silly things I and that old devil Yugu and Fukuzumi did when we were young."

The old man sighed, his gaze passing over his younger relatives and landing on the white bones in the muddy slope. "Another atrocity committed by the Japanese devils and Americans!"

Zheng Yi was slightly surprised.

It was rather jarring to hear an old man cursing "Japanese devils" in Japanese.

Ishikawa Takamatsu pursed his wrinkled lips, tightened his grip on the cane, and lowered his voice: "Although I hold a Japanese identity card, I am a descendant of the Ryukyu Kingdom. I've said this my whole life."

Eighty years ago, during the Battle of Okinawa, hundreds of thousands of civilians perished in the mountains and caves, their remains scattered among the weeds and mud, most without even leaving their names.

Some of them were killed by American bombs, but most were executed by the Japanese for "espionage"—anyone who spoke the Ryukyu dialect was considered a bald spy and shot or bayoneted on the spot!

In just a few months, a third of the population of Ryukyu died, and hundreds of thousands of corpses were scattered throughout the Ryukyu region…

"Yes, over the years my grandfather has collected many bones around Benzan, and many villagers call him the bone digger," Yuki explained.

"Sir, your righteousness is truly admirable!" Zheng Yi bowed deeply to the old man with utmost respect.

Looking at the scattered bones, fragments of clothing, and broken hemp ropes on the wrist bones, Ishikawa Takamatsu's tone was devoid of much emotion, yet heavy as a rain cloud. "They were buried down the slope after the mass execution, but a heavy rain washed them out again. It's time for them to rest in peace."

"Grandpa Ryūmatsu, according to regulations, we have to wait for the forensic team from the prefectural police department to arrive," Ishikawa Ayaka said carefully. "Let's wait a moment."

Ishikawa Takamatsu chuckled, a laugh tinged with the bitterness of a cool rain: "Those people? They just send two young lads over, take a few pictures of the bones, register them, and go back to report. In the end, aren't the bones just thrown into the mountains to feed insects? Haven't I seen enough of this kind of thing in the past forty years?"

"Of course I know they're all good-for-nothings." Ishikawa Ayaka wasn't some idealistic hothead; she said slyly, "Let's bet on how long it will take for this police phone to ring."

As if she had foreseen it, the police phone rang just as Ishikawa Aya counted down from ten to zero.

She shook her head at the crowd with a self-deprecating smile, as if to say, "I know these insects too well!"

She answered the phone, briefly described the scene, and hung up after only a few words.

She looked at the group, her tone carrying a hint of "I knew it": "News from headquarters: the torrential rain has washed away three sections of county roads, and two landslides have blocked the roads. Helicopters can't take off in this visibility. This matter will not be filed; we'll discuss it later."

No wonder Conan became a famous detective!

Although I was already aware of how incompetent the Japanese police were, watching their performance up close again still made me laugh in anger.

Of course, Zheng Yi could also imagine that this was probably not the will of the Okinawa Metropolitan Police Department alone.

Essentially, it is because the Japanese government has long deliberately downplayed the history of the Japanese army's atrocities against the people of Ryukyu and is unwilling to face the historical facts of collective self-determination and massacre that the police simply take photos and file them, and then call it a day.