An infinite journey starting from paradise

However, during the process of getting to know each other, she discovered that the person who caught them having an affair that day was not Hinagami Yumizuru, but someone else. However, while getting close to Hinagami Yumizuru, she was noticed by Hinagami Hideomi. Compared to his son Hinagami Akizuru, Hinagami Hideomi was more experienced and easily pulled Maeda Keiko into bed, which was why Hinagami Hideomi brought her along for the affair.

"asshole!"

Hinagami Hideomi was so angry that he didn't notice Maeda Keiko's evasive look. He rushed out of the room and vowed to find the guy who had exposed this scandal.

However, he searched the shrine thoroughly but could not find Kuroya Naori. As the sun was setting and the wedding at the foot of the mountain was about to end, Hinagami Hideomi had no choice but to go down the mountain through the small path and return to the Hinagami family.

After returning home, he summoned his two sons and other servants who had attended the Chicao Weiye wedding and interrogated them about who in the village had not attended the wedding that day, hoping to identify the peeping Tom.

Soon, a person who did not attend the wedding caught Hideomi Hinagami's attention - Michio Shigusa.

Everyone may have forgotten who this guy is. He is the original founder of the Tianhui Society and the charlatan who cheated on Aishima Kazuma.

He is the son of Rioko Shiragusa and her nominal husband, Yumitsu Shiragusa, and the younger brother of the Shiragusa sisters. Like Kenjeki Shiragusa, Yumitsu Shiragusa is a son-in-law, a "formal husband" used to conceal the relationship between the Shiragusa and Hinakami families. His child, Michio Shiragusa, is also neglected due to his "impure bloodline," and spends his days idling around the village.

He did not attend his sister Ci Cao Weiye's wedding that day and went out to play around somewhere.

Hinagami Hideomi, who hadn't attended the wedding, was familiar with the shrine and dared to enter the inner courtyard. He was convinced that the peeper was the little bastard Michio Ishikusa. So, to cover up the scandal, he decided to get rid of this guy.

However, Hinagami Hideomi ultimately failed to kill Michio Ikusa, as he escaped the village before he could do anything. He then used the mystical tales he'd learned at the shrine to successfully establish a small cult called Tenkei-kai. He then abducted Arishima Ichima's wife under the pretense of blessing her, only to be shot and killed by Arishima. Arishima then took control of Tenkei-kai, partnering with Madoka Nami to expand and strengthen it.

Only later did the concept of "the first generation of the Chinese nation" come into being?

It can be said that Kuroya Naori's "accidental" time travel indirectly caused all the subsequent stories. And the butterfly effect he caused is more than just this...

Kuroya Naori hid in the storage room in the backyard of the Shikusa Shrine. He finally breathed a sigh of relief and sat down dejectedly on the ground. Suddenly, he felt someone grab his shoulder. Startled, he almost screamed.

Kuroya Naoshi mustered up the courage to turn around. However, the moment he turned, the scene before him changed again. He had been in the storage room, but suddenly he was in the maple forest on the mountain. Kuroya Naoshi looked up in surprise, only to find that it was already dark, and a bright moon was hanging overhead.

"What the hell is going on?! What the hell, what the hell...Ahhhhhh!!!"

The emotionally broken Kuroya Naori couldn't care less. He ran all the way down the mountain. He wanted to go back to the village, he wanted to go back to Kuroya Hospital, back home. Back to his father and grandfather... and Nanako. He wanted to see Nanako...

If he could return home safely, he would confess his love to Nanako, marry her, and then inherit the family hospital. He would be a doctor, and Nanako would continue to be a nurse.

"Go home...go home..."

Kuroya Naoshi rushed back into the Doll Village like crazy, but he didn't stop and kept running towards Kuroya Hospital. Until he saw that familiar door. Kuroya Naoshi pushed the door open...

"Oh!"

The sliding door was roughly yanked open, and Hinagami Hideomi peered into the storeroom, or rather, the Ameko's bedroom. In the cramped room, only a young girl in a light green kimono huddled in a corner, seemingly frightened.

"Rika, has anyone come to your place?"

The girl didn't answer, but just shrank back.

Seeing this, Hinagami Hideomi did not check the house carefully again. After all, there was no place inside where people could hide.

"Don't be so afraid of me. Daddy won't do anything to you. You're left to Rito. The Ame-no-Child Festival is coming up in a few months, so Rika needs to be prepared. Prepare to give birth to the heir to the Hinagami family. Just like our ancestors did."

The girl named Hinami Rika did not react at all. She just held the black and red pottery doll tightly in her hand.

……

"Where are you going?"

Gao Yue grabbed the corner of Lin Shangren's clothes and refused to let go: "Take me with you! Take Riko with you too!"

"I said I would take you out of this village, and I always keep my word," Lin Shangren explained. "The place we're going next will be dangerous, so it's best for you to stay here."

Gao Yue still refused to let go: "Then you have to take me with you. If you just walk out of this room, you won't be able to go to Hinami's house!"

"Yeah, if I just walk out of this room, I really can't get to the Hinami house I want to go to."

Gao Yue was afraid that the unconscious Lin Shangren would be discovered by the people of the Shigusa family, so she brought him to this parallel time and space. At this point in time and space, the people in the shrine were holding the Tianzhizi Festival, and no one would come here.

With that, Hayashi Shangren took Gaoyue's hand and teleported. It was as if they hadn't moved at all, except that there was a girl in the room, talking to herself in the mirror—Satsuki, or Riko.

In this way, Lin Shangren finally returned to the "present" Chang Village.

"Is that all right?" Lin Shangren said, "Okay, I'll be back soon."

"No!" Gao Yue still refused to let Lin Shangren leave.

Looking at the two people who suddenly appeared in the room, Riko asked in confusion: "Huh? Gao Yue... Mr. Naoto? When did you get here?"

"Oh, troublesome."

Lin Shangren didn't bother explaining. He used two Eagle Finger attacks to knock the two sisters unconscious. After a moment's thought, he hid them in the shadows of his arms. In order to continue to exist in Chang Village, Lin Shangren should indeed "carry" the villagers of the Humanoid Village with him.

"gone."

Lin Shangren's body sank into the shadows, and he teleported out of the storage room. He intended to go down the mountain to the Humanoid Village, but before he could teleport twice, he heard a strange noise from the Shikusa Shrine.

"What's this noise?"

Chapter 159: Li Mei’s “Acquaintance”

Lin Shangren, who was hiding in the shadows, spread out his shadow-touch perception and found that there were suddenly many more shadows of people in the Chicao Shrine, which was originally deserted. Moreover, these shadows did not exist in different time and space, but all existed in this time and space.

"What's going on?" Lin Shangren covered one eye and teleported it to the shadow outside to observe the situation in the shrine.

Lanterns and colors.

The normally deserted and quiet Shikusa Shrine was now ablaze with bright lanterns and red silk hangings. Numerous villagers from the Ningyo Village, dressed in yukata, gathered there, chatting and laughing, creating a lively atmosphere. It looked like a temple fair, or perhaps... a festival.

"This is the past."

Lin Shangren made a judgment because he saw a familiar person in the crowd - Xu Hai Wenzhi. However, the man Lin Shangren saw this time was much younger than the one he had seen before, and it was obvious that this was indeed the past.

"I was tricked by this little girl."

Thinking this, Hayashi Naoto reached out and pinched Gaoyue's cheek. Apparently, she had seized the edge of Hayashi Naoto's clothes to pull him and Riko into this dimension. Perhaps her intention was to prevent Hayashi Naoto from going to Hinagami's house alone, or perhaps she was simply afraid Hayashi Naoto would abandon her sisters and deliberately trapped him in the same dimension with them.

In short, unless Gao Yue is woken up and asked to take Lin Shangren back to Chang Village, Lin Shangren will not be able to go back by himself: although he can use the stealth shadow to teleport into the shadow of another time and space, he cannot find that Chang Village in the vast time and space, and trying one by one is a waste of time.

But Hayashi Shangren didn't wake Gaoyue. He planned to stay in this space and time for a while longer. After all, judging by the scene here and now, this was the same Ame-no-ko Festival from over a decade ago. Tonight, Maeda Keiko would be murdered and dismembered, her death a mystery. One of Hayashi Shangren's missions was to solve it.

Therefore, instead of wasting time looking for clues and reasoning about the case in the "future", it is better to take advantage of this opportunity to witness the entire process of the murder, and even catch the murderer on the spot and save the widow's life.

"Is it really possible?"

Lin Shangren rubbed his neck.

If this world is based on sequential, mechanical determinism, then traveling back in time won't change the future; it will only facilitate the occurrence of predetermined outcomes. Lin Shangren naturally considered this.

"I should have brought Ximei with me... I hope nothing bad happens."

Thinking of this, Lin Shangren observed the people present through the shadows. Here he saw another pair of familiar faces: Kuchiki Fumiya and Kuchiki Chizuru.

The orthopedic siblings were chatting with a few couples whom Lin Shangren had seen in Xu Hai Wenzhi's investigation notes. They were Hinagami Akizuru, Kuroya (Hinagami) Yumi, and Kuroya Yumi's wife, Kuroya Noka.

They, as well as Hinagami Akinori's wife Hinagami Rika and the deceased Maeda Keiko were all in the photo. Judging from their clothes, the photo was most likely taken today.

It was normal for several young people who were somewhat related to each other to take a photo together, but adding a young widow to the mix was a bit odd. Judging from the information provided by Xu Hai Wenzhi's investigation notes, their relationship was probably not very close.

"There's something fishy."

Lin Shangren listened attentively to the conversation between several people.

"Why is Rika missing?" asked Chizuru Kuchiki.

Kuroyashi Yuzuru said mysteriously, "You'll see her soon." As he spoke, he gently nudged his brother Hinagami Akizuru with his elbow.

“What do you mean…?”

At this moment, the sound of shakuhachi suddenly rang out, and the originally noisy courtyard suddenly became silent.

"It's about to begin." Hei Ya Yuxian smiled and looked at the wooden stage set up in front of the main hall of the shrine.

With the sound of the shakuhachi, the bonfire was lit, illuminating a deep red. The curtain on the stage was pulled up, revealing two people wearing white clothes and red hakama behind them: Kenshige Igusa and Sayo Igusa.

Kenshige Shigusa, who married into the Shigusa family a few months ago, has already taken on the job of being the shrine's chief priest. He slowly beats the taiko, creating a rhythm to entertain the gods.

Next to him was Sayo, dressed in a shrine maiden's attire. Since her sister, Miya, got married and became pregnant, Sayo had completely taken over the shrine maiden's duties. She played the shakuhachi, coordinating with Kenshizue.

The Son of Heaven Festival officially began.

As the music began, the Child of Heaven, dressed in red, with long black hair and a white ghost mask, slowly emerged from behind the curtains onto the stage. Holding a paper fan, she slowly moved her neck to the music, as if surveying all the villagers who were looking up at her.

Then she took slow steps and began to dance the sacred music to entertain the gods, waving her fan from time to time and chanting incomprehensible words.

Lin Shangren had never appreciated Japanese dance: it was either too petty or too abstract. But he remained focused on the stage. He understood what the woman on stage was chanting.

That is, demon language:

"Great Mother Goddess, please grant us mercy and compassion, so that we will no longer be disturbed by the chaos of this world. We will continue to offer our worship to you..."

"Wow, a Japanese ritual with Western-style cult prayers, right?"

In this situation, Lin Shangren could have taken direct action, controlled everyone present, and then extorted information about the Warp Demon from those on the stage. However, Lin Shangren ultimately chose not to resort to such a method, as he was concerned about the Kuchiki siblings.

This isn't to say that Lin Shangren holds them in high regard. While they adopted and raised Fuyuko, Lin Shangren doesn't consider them his in-laws. He's concerned that any action he takes now could affect the Kuchiki siblings' adoption of Fuyuko. If this universe doesn't adhere to mechanical determinism, where changing the future can affect the past, Lin Shangren's rash actions could trigger a time-space paradox. While he, who doesn't belong to this universe, might be unaffected, the fates of Fuyuko, Yura, Yumi, and the rest of Lin Shangren's acquaintances in this world could be drastically altered.

For this reason, Lin Shangren temporarily resisted the urge to overturn the table.

Soon, the Kagura dance concluded. The Son of Heaven knelt on the stage and smashed a porcelain figurine in the shape of an embryo, completing the offering to the young figurine god. The bonfire on the stage burned even brighter, nearly reaching the sky, a dazzling spectacle. Then, the Son of Heaven left the stage, and the crowd resumed its noisy clamor.

"That last pillar of fire was really scary," said Fumiya Kuchiki. "It looked like it was going to reach the moon. If an American plane saw it, I'm afraid it would..."

"Hey, hey, don't bring up such a depressing topic." Kuroya Yuxian interrupted Kuchiki Fumiya, "Our Doll Village is a village protected by the gods. For hundreds of years, wars have not reached here."

"Haha, sorry."

Kuchiki Fumiya smiled awkwardly, but Lin Shangren, who had eavesdropped on their conversation, suddenly had an idea.

"That's right!"

Lin Shangren quickly withdrew his fingers from Gao Yue's cheek. After "disconnecting", the environment around Lin Shangren became dilapidated again. He returned to the time and space of the deserted village, and now he was at the ruins of the shrine that had been reduced to scorched earth.

"It's true. This is the 'real reality'." Lin Shangren made a judgment. He looked around the surrounding environment and scanned it carefully with the [Caterpillar War God's Telescope].

"Sure enough, it's the same gasoline bombs used at Li Mei BBQ. Combined with the postwar US suppression of Hinagami Pharmaceuticals and Aoki Hirokazu's mention of US bombings of Japanese pharmaceutical suppliers' facilities during the war... the real history is that this place was bombed by the US military, but the villagers of the Doll Village were safe and sound. Someone dragged them into another parallel dimension... This isn't right, it's still not right..."

Lin Shangren only felt that the truth was very close, but there were still some inconsistencies that could not be explained clearly.

Chapter 160: Previous destination?

The currently known information about the Doll Village: The village was first built during the Warring States Period in Japan. The ancestors of the Shikusa family and the Hinami family made a deal with an unknown being called the Hinami Doll God, and came to this area of ​​disordered time and space to settle down and escape the war.

The spatial and temporal disturbances in this region can be broadly divided into the following layers: First, two major dimensions: the Deserted Village and the Ordinary Village. The Deserted Village exists in the original world and is a ruin. The Ordinary Village is a parallel dimension to the original world where the villagers of the Humanoid Village reside. Second, the chaotic past: beyond the Ordinary Village and the Deserted Village, there exists a past dimension, stretching back to the village's founding during the Warring States Period and continuing to the present day. The history of the village, stretching back to the present day, exists within this parallel dimension.

Under the influence of the Hina Doll God, the bloodline of the villagers of the Humanoid Village can go to live in the "Ordinary Village" in a time and space parallel to the "Deserted Village" of the original world, and the pottery dolls made of their corpses and soil can be used to stabilize the time and space of the area so that they will not be squeezed and annihilated by each other.

Whenever the heir of the Hinagami family approaches adulthood and is about to marry, the spatial disorder of the Doll Village intensifies. Due to their special bloodlines, members of the Hinagami and Shiragusa families may be passively transported to other times and spaces. This phenomenon is known as "Kami-kakushi."

The girl chosen to be the heir to the Hinagami family is called "Ame-no-Child." She possesses the ability to travel freely through time and space, and is responsible for creating figurines and stabilizing time and space. After the Ame-no-Child Festival concludes and she marries the heir to the Hinagami family, she loses this ability and the memories associated with it. Time and space in the Doll Village then stabilizes until the next Hinagami family heir reaches adulthood, at which point the Ame-no-Child Festival begins.

The Hinagami and Shikusa families are of the same origin, having intermarried for generations to ensure the purity of their heirs' "bloodlines." Only the heads of these two families are aware of the spatial disorder in the Humanoid Village, while the rest of the villagers remain unaware. If widespread knowledge of this spatial disorder were to become widespread, the parallel worlds of the Humanoid Village would begin to overlap and annihilate.

The "deserted village" in the original world is suspected to have been bombed by the US military...

"That's the problem," Lin Shangren pondered. "If the villagers of the Humanoid Village had always lived in the 'Ordinary Village,' why would they create a 'deserted village' for the US military to bomb? After all, what happens in this dimension won't affect the 'Ordinary Village.'

Moreover, the ordinary villagers of the humanoid village are also unaware of the existence of other parallel time and space. So, how was this deserted village, existing in the same world as the outside world, built? What is the meaning of its existence?

Unable to come up with an answer for a while, Lin Shangren followed the shadows of the Kuchiki brothers and sisters he had locked onto and returned to the time and space when the Son of Heaven Festival was being held more than ten years ago.

"Let's first determine the truth behind Maeda Keiko's murder and get some system rewards."

Thinking of this, Lin Shangren, who was walking stealthily, began to look for the trace of Maeda Keiko.

"According to Inuhi Bunji's investigative notes, Maeda Keiko died around three or four in the morning. We still have time, let's go to the crime scene first."

While chewing chocolate to replenish his energy, Lin Shangren used teleportation repeatedly, rushing all the way to the human-shaped village at the foot of the mountain. His target was Maeda Keiko's house.

……

"nobody?!"

When Kuroya Naoori pushed open the door of Kuroya Hospital, he was surprised to find that his own hospital was pitch black and no lights were on.

"how come?"

Ever since his mother's death, his father rarely returned to his quarters in the inner courtyard. Aside from Spring Festival, Hei Ya Gongxian would spend the night in the hospital. Worried about villagers coming to the emergency room late at night, Hei Ya Gongxian always left the lights on on the first floor. His grandfather, Hei Ya Chuang, often complained about this.

Faced with this unusual situation, Kuroya Naoki, who had just breathed a sigh of relief, became alert again. He bravely walked into the hospital, but found that the furnishings of this Kuroya Hospital were very different from what he remembered. The walls here looked much newer.

"I... I haven't returned yet, have I? Here... or in the past?"

Kuroya Naoori quietly walked into the yard behind the hospital. From a distance, he could see that the lights in those rooms were still on, and he could vaguely see shadowy figures swaying.

"Whatever... Dad and Grandpa won't hurt me no matter what. Let's talk to them. Maybe they can know something."

Just as Kuroya Naoori was about to walk over, he suddenly heard a woman's voice coming from the house.

"Mother?!"