---

“I understand your heart. I empathize with you…”

Such a clear sound.

It’s like a voice whispering right up to my ear.

Yet, no matter how ill I may feel, if someone were that close, I would surely notice.

Where is it coming from?

From where is it speaking to me?

“Ah, from deep within your heart, I deeply empathize with your emotions…! This piercing sense of solidarity that approaches so intensely…! Your heart, like the waves in a stormy night sea, appears calm beneath the surface while relentlessly churning and yearning to burst forth…! Ah, your deep longing reaches all the way to your very fate…!”

My vision is blurry.

In the distance, I seem to see a black silhouette.

In the kitchen with a refrigerator and a small table, I have the feeling that someone is standing there…

But my hazy vision cannot capture it clearly, and perhaps due to dizziness, it twists and shifts shapes, resembling smoke.

Isn’t that the Black Wuchang, the grim reaper from Chinese mythology, appearing all dressed in black? The head of that distorted figure looks like it’s wearing a long hat, and the draping black cloth looks similar to what they wear.

Something seems to be trickling down from that elongated shape, is it a tongue? Or part of the clothing?

If that’s a tongue, it could match the protruding tongue of someone who was strangled, and if that’s a talisman or some fragment of clothing, it feels like it could easily choke a person…

The shape contorts chaotically and speaks to me.

“Do noble families and high officials really have a special lineage? In ancient times, people cried out that noble births are not distinct, but really, haven’t nobles always held their status from birth?”

A sound like a whisper in my left ear.

No, is it the right?

“Have you ever seen the grass growing by the roadside? The weed poking its head between the pavement is nothing but useless and valueless. But what of the crops growing in a farmer’s field, the flowers blooming in a park, or the magnificent trees sprawling within the walls of the rich? Can it be said that there’s no noble lineage even before that?”

I can’t understand.

I don’t know where the sound is coming from.

“Though we are born bare, everything we wrap ourselves in thereafter speaks of our lineage… Wrapped in silk, donning garments embossed with luxury logos, holding expensive toys made from materials with dizzyingly long names, that’s how we go on living.”

Is it ringing in my head?

That black shadow is over by the kitchen.

“Do you remember your childhood? Can you recall the moment you first emerged from your mother’s womb, the moment this clothing first touched your body? Do you remember the clothes you wore when the midwife wrapped you and placed you in your parents’ arms?”

Clothing…

The first I wore as a baby…

“That memory, which will not even show itself in a dream. But your body knows. Because you were so young, even if the fragments of that memory are left behind in your mind. Your body clearly knows.”

Clothing…

What is this?

My body…?

“Come, think back. I… slowly… will enter your memories… Your spirit descends deep into the darkness, and as if sinking into a swamp, your body is heading downward…

But your body is filled with comfort, as if wrapped in a cozy blanket during winter, warmth and snugness enveloping you… From your toes, the strength wanes, your legs completely loosen, giving the feeling of being immersed in a warm bath… Your weary body, like that, feeling comfortable, and as it sinks down, right to your head…

Ah… in such comfort, you naturally start to recall your memories…

Just one thing, the sensations within your memories…”

Sensations…?

“Do you know the touch of silk? When you run your fingertips over it, it’s so soft that it sends shivers down your spine, and when you wrap it around your body, it feels like a fairy has enveloped you in a mesmerizing sensation? Do you possess any experience of the silk being so light that you thought you weren’t wearing anything at all?”

…No.

I’ve never felt such a sensation…

“Come, think back. What do you feel at your fingertips? What is the sensation that defines your first feeling, the ‘standard’ of this world? Is it a sensation as soft as the skin of a fairy? A feeling so soft that it feels like brushing against clouds…?

Come now… what is the feeling of what wraps your comfortable body right now?”

The feel…

I can sense it…

It’s somewhat coarse, with little fibers sticking out here and there, the unique feeling of torn fabric…

There are areas that feel different with wear marks, and the long-used cloth emanates a scent…

Cloth…

Just some ordinary cloth you can find at the market…

“Poverty can arrive overnight, but for most, it arrives over generations…

Your parents were the same. Even after the warlords faded and peace was supposed to return to the nation, their lives didn’t get better. Walking paths that turned into mud with rain made every step difficult, to be grateful just to wear shabby cloth, and sometimes, they toiled desperately to avoid starving when the whole country ran out of food.

Even trying with all their might to escape such poverty, life showed no signs of getting better, while under the guise of progress, they merely fed the wealthy, creating another breed of nobility. If their one meal matched the yearly food budget of your parents, would you truly believe it…?”

That’s…

No…

It isn’t true…

“Don’t deny it… You knew. No matter how loudly the party shouts, no matter how much they brainwash you. With eyes and ears, how could you not know…? Yet fearing that speaking out would topple even the small happiness you possess, you understood well how futile it would be to throw an egg against a rock, so you simply turned your gaze away, closed your eyes, and lived each day.”

No…

“Deep despair, an unjust society. But as fury builds with no outlet, the chance for revenge never seems to arrive. Day in, day out, you chew on a single cheap piece of bread given for labor, and a few vegetables that seem freshly pulled from the ground, still caked with dirt. Alternating bites between raw leeks and bread and being thankful that salt could be added with a bit of saltwater. You have lived like cattle.

Ah. If you were a beast, you might at least let out some sounds.

You must be trampled upon, knowing that even having a slight grievance would bring terrible consequences.”

…The kitchen comes into view.

“Come. You and I… heh…

You wish for wealth and honor but see no path, you long for power yet can never obtain it…

“To cut the eyes of a person, they called it ‘people’ (民)…” They gouged one eye out, blinded a person, and sacrificed them. The people, if left alone, are mere weeds multiplying, sacrificial animals for offerings.

From ancient times to the present, the people were never truly human.

We are not human…”

In the kitchen stands the shadow of a person clad in black.

Even through my dizzying vision, I can see it clearly.

“Humans offer respect to the heavens and pray to the heavens.

The heavens’ net may appear loose, but it doesn’t let the evil escape; no matter how unfairly one is treated, heaven does not let the wicked escape, ensuring they pay for their sins…

But how could cattle dare to petition the heavens? Neither the Supreme God above nor the ascetics practicing the way, nor even the fairies serving the immortals—they listen only to the words of human beings and never cast their nets for non-humans.

Ah, therefore, where can non-humans express their grievances?

Dare they lament or plead anywhere?”

Draped entirely in black fabric.

With a face teeming with insects staring back at me.

Ah…

That is neither a human nor a Black Wuchang.

How could something with a body made of insects be called a person…?

That is a Yokai.

Something bizarre and grotesque.

“If a person speaks from above, it stands to reason that the non-human speaks from below.”

The Yokai whispers.

“Build an altar.

Through the ritual, I will grant you the opportunity for revenge….”

And with that whisper, my eyes are closed again…

…

…

…

When I opened my eyes again, the splitting headache and fever were gone.

And there was no one in the house, no trace of anyone having come.

Yet the voice I heard when I was ill still lingers too vividly.

Convincing myself it was just a dream, a vision seen in pain.

‘…An altar.’

Now, even in this moment, thinking of the wealthy who are bathing in water and eating delicious food stirs my heart.

So,

‘…What did they say to make it?’

I found myself wanting to try that ritual.

 

---