My golden finger is not right

twelve,

"You and Tsuruno are both people who have retained their memories, right?" Nadeko asked immediately, "Why did you erase our memories and why did you bring us here?"

"Erasing memory is a ritual, following the principle of voluntariness. But once you accept this ritual, you can have the qualifications to become a half-demon, and you will live forever and remain youthful forever."

"Every girl who is brought up the mountain will be asked by the adults at the bottom of the mountain if she is willing to accept this ceremony after one year."

"You don't need to be hungry anymore, you can wear beautiful clothes every day, play with many friends, and you can resent your parents who sent you up the mountain as a sacrifice."

"Almost all the girls will accept this ceremony at the end."

"But once the ceremony is completed, apart from memory, there is another extremely precious thing that will be taken away."

Masako paused, her tone became more and more indifferent.

"Half-demons are not allowed to have emotions."

-

"Tsuruno is too reckless. She performed a mandatory ritual on you on the first day. Involuntary rituals cannot produce real effects, and they can't even be considered as erasing memories. They can only be regarded as hints. "

"With just a little coaxing, the cues are poked through like tissue paper."

"Because it is involuntary, you still have the opportunity to undergo the real ceremony again."

"At this time next year, if you will."

When Masako said this, she glanced at her calmly, and was slightly relieved to see that although her face was full of confusion and confusion, there was no trace of resentment.

"What Tsuruno did is really too much. If the hint is not exposed, you may always look like a nerd."

"I am also responsible for this matter. If I know that she has such a serious mind for adults, I will definitely not dare to hand you over to her."

"But she has already been punished. She went to find Lord Yamashita last night..."

"Masako-!"

Suddenly there was a shout outside the door, but because of the distance, it was difficult to tell who it was.

But Masako immediately stood up straight, and then walked quickly to the door.

She opened the paper door, looked at the corridor for a while, then turned her head and said, "Cha Naiko came to me, that's all for today, I'll bring food over at noon."

"By the way, if you don't want to read those books anymore, you can also go outside and meet other people."

"Wait—!" Seeing that she was about to leave, Nadeko quickly stood up from the cushion and blurted out the unfinished question, "You didn't pass the ceremony either, did you?"

Masako was leaning against the door frame and putting on her shoes, she was taken aback when she heard the words, she didn't seem to expect that she would ask again, and was about to explain, but at this moment, Chanako's call came from a distance, she didn't dare to waste any more time.

"Neither Tsuruno nor I accepted the ceremony, because for us, the price of eternal life is too great..."

Masako and her stared at each other for a while, then walked away.

The price of immortality is... memory and emotion

I don't quite understand what kind of memories and emotions they can't let go of and can't get rid of...

-

Not long after Masako left, a little girl came to visit. She may only be eleven or twelve years old, but like everyone else, she combed her hair neatly and in a high bun.

Masako's unfinished words also came to an end from her mouth.

"You mean big sister Tsuruno?" The little girl had a nice name, Yingji, and she had a very innocent and cute personality. Nadeko didn't have a few words with her, and she successfully turned the topic to this.

"Sister Tsuruno is a bit strange... She actually went to Master Yamashita to complete the ceremony yesterday. Everyone thought she would never agree to accept the ceremony..." The little girl was obviously a little hard to understand this matter, but she accepted it happily. "But this is also a good thing~ If she doesn't accept the ceremony, she will die soon like Sister Zhilan and Sister Yuzi..."

"After all, the lifespan of human beings is still too short..."

For some reason, seeing such old-fashioned words spit out from the mouth of a girl with a childish face, I felt an indescribably weird feeling.

Nadeko seemed to feel the same way, she almost paused for a few seconds before speaking again: "You all think she won't accept the ceremony"

"Of course, everyone knows that she likes Lord Yamashita the most. If she accepts the ceremony, she will respect him as an elder just like us."

Yingji shook her head, as if recalling something: "Sister Yuzi also said that she would not accept the ceremony, because the price was too high. But I don't understand, how can this price be considered high? Experience it like an ordinary person Birth, old age, sickness and death, and then watching myself grow old, lose my face, and finally go to death... Such a small price is really not a big price."

Everyone has their own pursuits, and it's not good to say.

However, life is short, and there have been many people who are full of amazing talents, full of great talents and strategies, who have done countless foolish things in order to pursue a longer life, and in the end they only lasted for a few moments before turning into a pile of loess.

From ancient times to the present, there are only a few people who can truly accept death calmly.

I fear death too, but more than death...

I silently glanced at the carefree look on the girl's face, ignorant and seeking nothing.

I guess I'd rather be a normal person.

There is trouble and fear, there is pain and sorrow.

"So everyone is wondering if she has been stimulated by something... But that's okay, if she doesn't accept the ceremony, she will be like everyone else before, and after a long time, she will be forgotten by everyone, and even one day, Lian Shanxia Adults will never remember who she is." Yingji paused subtly, with an indescribable expression on his face, "Although I don't remember my past anymore, the feeling of being forgotten by others, I I'll never forget it, it's really scary..."

There was endless blankness in her eyes, as if she was watching things through the clouds, she couldn't see anything, she couldn't hear anything.

Until Nadeko twisted up the veil and wiped away the tears that were about to flow from the corners of her eyes.

"Eh?! Did I cry?" Yingji was pulled back from her thoughts by her actions.She took the veil a little uneasy, and thanked in a low voice, "I haven't cried for a long, long time."

"I only know how to laugh every day, and I don't remember anything worth crying about in life."

"Yes, there are a lot..." Nadeko replied flatly, "Important people have disappeared, things I like have been taken away, things I have worked hard for have not been successful, etc."

"Get rid of these unsatisfactory parts of life, and be carefree forever." Nadeko smiled and touched her head, "That would be very boring..."

Yingji blushed slightly, but still accepted her rubbing her head, but murmured in a low voice with some embarrassment, "Touching your head won't grow much".

"Then will you accept the ceremony?" Sakuraji thought for a while, then suddenly frowned and asked.

Nadeko thought for a while, and suddenly his expression became extremely serious: "I think..."

Yingji looked at her nervously: "Well, how is it?"

"I don't know." Seeing Yingji looking at him with wide eyes like a little squirrel, Nadeko jokingly evoked a genuine, domineering president, smile.

-

Hearing that Nadeko wanted to go out and have a look, Yingji couldn't sit still, she took Nadeko's hand and begged for mercy in various ways, telling her to go roll around in her nest.

So when Masako came to deliver the lunch, she missed something.

"Already eaten?" Seeing that Nadeko still had a smile on her face, Masako asked in surprise as she turned the tray in her hand around.

"That's right, Yingji-chan said that she must stay with me for a meal, I can't refuse... Please come and give it to me, I can treat these as dinner." Nadeko raised his hand and took the other party's tray.Masako raised her eyebrows, but did not refuse.After all, for today's lunch, she brought rice wrapped in vegetables like sushi, and cold food can also be swallowed.

"So it's Sakurakichi..." Masako didn't leave in a hurry, she took a cushion from the shelf, and sat on the edge of the window sill.

Because it had rained before, the air in the room was a bit stuffy, and the light was not very clear.

Masako stretched out her hand out of the window, making a gesture of grabbing something.

"It seems that Sakuraji likes you quite a bit. After all, she hasn't eaten human food for decades, and her skills have become much rusty."

"No wonder the smell is so strange..." Nadeko smiled wryly upon hearing this.

"Sakura has always wanted to find someone to accompany her, but she has been looking for many years, but she has not found the most suitable playmate." Masako looked back at her, the angle of the light made the other party unable to see her expression clearly, "Don't you Will accept the ceremony."

"You want to go home, don't you?"

Nadeko's expression froze slightly, before he could explain, the man said again: "Don't lie to me, I can see it."

"You're not like us."

"Others have either been erased from memory and cannot remember clearly, or it has been too long and they are not very clear."

"But I know, you are not from here."

"Because as far as I am, there are no girls of the right age in the village."

-

Nadeko didn't speak, and the room fell silent for a while, only the faint whistling wind outside the window could be heard.

I held my breath involuntarily, was this identified?

When she was feeling nervous, Masako changed the subject very casually.

"Why do you want to leave? It's good to stay here." Masako slowly raised a pile of hair and played with it, "When I was young, there was a storyteller in the village. He would tell stories at the village head every day. Sometimes It's gossip, sometimes it's historical and literary anecdotes, but what he tells the most is strange stories."

"His stories are many, but the one that impressed me the most was a story he told about Asgard."

"It is said that a hunter strayed into a large peach blossom forest. There, he saw countless pavilions and pavilions, as well as all kinds of beautiful women who are not like ordinary people. They offered him as a guest of honor and provided all kinds of entertainment. Food Good wine and beauties, let him, a hunter who has been hungry since he was a child and worked hard to earn a living, be drunk and dream, and he doesn't know where his soul is. "

"He wanted to stay there forever, but fortunately he didn't completely lose his nature. He still remembered that there were lonely parents, wife and children at home. So he thought for a long time, and chose to leave this beautiful and unreal place."

"When they heard that he wanted to leave, those women didn't want to keep him. They just said that he was no longer a mortal and would regret it, so they let him go."

"It's just that when he returned to his familiar home, he found that the house had changed hands and his family was gone."

"It turns out that one day in the fairy palace is worth ten years in the human world."

"And he stayed there for seven days."

"Then everything will look like 70 years later..."

"Old neighbors saw that his appearance had not changed, and after hearing his stories, they asserted that he must have taken some elixir, tied him up, cut off his legs for the flesh, and hoped to live a similarly long life."

"But in the end he managed to escape, only to lose a leg."

"Same as the storyteller."

I shuddered, not only because of the story in her mouth, but also because of her last sentence.

The storyteller also...is missing a leg?

"What happened to the storyteller?" Nadeko probably guessed something, and asked with a pale face.

"I don't know." Nadeko let go of her hair and stared straight at her, "He disappeared within a few days after he finished telling this story."

"But that winter, every household was given a bowl of broth."

"It's amazing that because of that bowl of broth, no one in our village got sick or died of freezing throughout the winter."