Chapter 301 Welcome Home
"What happened later?" Yuan Yuzi couldn't help but wipe her tears.
When Ito Mato talks about the past, the residents show their remembrance, interrupting from time to time, adding some small details, making the characters in her mind more realistic.
"Koizumi likes eating dumplings very much and always covers her mouth and chews..."
"Yes, and she likes painting very much. She paints the posters in the village..."
"Sometimes I pat her on the shoulder from behind, and she will be shocked..."
The residents of the small towns now have become middle-aged people. They sit on the edge of the cliff with their husbands or wives, talking about the past with bitter smiles.
The misty sadness was like a wet sea breeze, leaving behind almost transparent salt particles, which accumulated over time and formed a thick white shell.
Since the ferry left the port, Koizumi Ruiye has been standing by the cliff day and night, looking at the sea level.
The boyfriend jumped off the ship with his daughter halfway and disappeared. The crew sent a telegram to apologize, thinking that they must have drowned, and he received a "cargo damage".
Perhaps out of guilt, or perhaps because Koizumi Ruiye picked up the kitchen knife, Mr. Tooya did not continue to entangle, but instead told the news of the loss of luck and pretended to pay a tiny amount of compensation.
After that, Miss Koizumi found a job to guard the tower and looked at the port day and night.
Whenever a ferry enters the port, she will run to look around, repeating Sakurako's name, and gesture clumsyly with her hands. The crew and the fishermen knew her, and when they got back and disembarked, they were all used to waving their hands and shaking their heads.
Ito Mato has also grown up. She has reached a rebellious period and is devoted to the big city outside. Every time she quarrels with her parents, she goes to the lighthouse to find Miss Koizumi. The latter always makes her feel a gentle force, firm in silence, as flexible as wild flowers in the cracks of rocks.
"Why should I continue to wait? Miss Koizumi, have you never thought about... starting over?"
She lowered her head and sat side by side on the lawn with Koizumi Ruiye. When the latter heard this, he reached out and gestured gently:
"She will definitely come back."
"I will wait for her."
...
This wait will last for three years.
Spring goes and winter comes, and cold and heat continue. Ito Mato spent three years of youth. In spring, she went to the mountains to pick flowers, met Koizumi Ruiye guarding the cliff, and said loudly, "They won't come back! Sister, go home quickly!" When it snowed in winter, she and her friends came to build a snowman, but saw Koizumi Ruiye still sitting there, with a thick layer of snow falling on her body.
As white as salt.
...
On the day of Mato Ito graduated, he went to the movie with his friends. The film was screened as "The Tale of Hachiko". She had never heard of Hachiko before, but only knew that it was a story about an Akita dog.
As a mountain man, she actually couldn't empathize with this movie. The male protagonist adopts Hachimoto, which is not a rare thing in the countryside. She also raised an Akita dog, with a bad temper and stubbornness. Later it ran away and she was sad for a few days, and the matter was over.
However, when she saw Hachiko guarding Shibuya Railway Station day after day, tears fell inexplicably.
My friend laughed at her assumption, but no one in the cinema moved. The film was screened in a small country town, and it was really the wrong audience to choose. Everyone was drowsy, only Mato Ito was crying.
"Don't you think it's cruel?" she asked her friend: "What's the point of insisting on this kind of persistence?"
My friend couldn't answer, and thought Mato Ito was very strange. He suddenly made a big splash. Was he really moved by a stupid dog?
Ito Mato suddenly wanted an answer. She said goodbye to her friend and took a bus back to the town. Her parents were very happy to see her coming home after a long time of separation and wanted to keep her at home for dinner. But she couldn't wait for a moment and asked about Miss Koizumi's recent situation.
Unexpectedly, the parents looked embarrassed and hesitated. After repeated questioning, Mato Ito learned that several detectives from the search department came to the town, saying that they were going to fight the violent gang and were asking for trouble for Mr. Tuya and the gang members every day.
Seeing that a reliable policeman came to the town, Koizumi Ruiye thought about asking the search department to help find his daughter. Mr. Tooya was worried that she would call the police and obstruct him in every way, and he would always bring people to the door to intimidate him.
Everyone gave her a trick and suggested that she go to the newspaper and publish a missing person notice. It is better than waiting for her to do it yourself, so as not to anger Mr. Tuya and attract revenge.
Koizumi Ruiye went to Shizuoka Prefecture alone, begging the newspaper to publish a missing person notice, but refused to disclose the detailed address, worried that his daughter would run into Mr. Touya and others when she went home.
Seeing that she was pitiful, the editor-in-chief softly agreed and dropped the joke column in the middle of the newspaper and replaced it with a small missing person notice.
When the search department learned about this, he came to Koizumi Ruiye to interrogate him and repeatedly declared that he would ensure Koizumi Ruiye's safety. The two sides communicated with paper and pen. In order to find her daughter, Koizumi Ruiye told her everything she had experienced. The search department sent a criminal policeman to garrison, and the rest went back to submit reports, go through procedures, and mobilize reinforcements.
That night, Mr. Toiya bribed the garrison policeman, dragged Koizumi Ruiye out of the lighthouse, called all residents to watch, and brought people to beat Koizumi Ruiye with wooden sticks in the square where the bonfire was set off in Hot Spring Street.
"This is the end of the rumor!"
Mr. Toiya killed the chicken to warn the monkey until the residents knelt down and begged him to stop. He then let go of the dying Koizumi Ruiye. Afterwards, he went to the local police station, made some reservations in advance, and reported Koizumi Ruiye's disappearance, asking her not to appear in front of the police again.
That day, Ito Mato cried so hard that she could not hear the answer she wanted.
Residents invited surgeons to get first aid. Koizumi Ruiye struggled for two days on the verge of life and death, but still couldn't recover.
Before she closed her eyes, everyone surrounded her and sobbed in a low voice. Only then did they realize that the girl who used to be like a coal ball was also his family.
At the moment when Koizumi Ruiye returned, she reached out and gestured and explained her last wish.
Everyone said that it was impossible, saying that this was completely impossible, but in fact they kept it in their hearts. They have complained countless times that Koizumi Ruiye is a burden and that it would be better to starve to death earlier.
But in fact, Koizumi Ruiye has never been hungry for a day. She grew up in this place where mountains and seas intersect, until everyone buried her under the lighthouse, which was also considered a fallen leaf returning to its roots.
The low stone pillar is Koizumi Ruiye’s tombstone.
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...
"If one day"
"The person I love, or the person you love"
"Back to the cliff from the other side of the sea"
"Please shout"
"Her name"
"Welcome to home"
...
Ping Yingzi stood on the deck, the cliff in front was pitch black, and the sea breeze whirred, like a ghost.
The sea swayed, and she held the railing and turned to ask how far the crew was - the dancer claimed that Koizumi Ruiye had his belongings handed over to her, so she followed her to the port and took a boat to circle back to the sea cliff.
The crew took a look at the watch and said 'It's almost', which he said half an hour ago. Ping Yingzi was alert. She kept her hands in the cardboard box, holding the gun handle from the moment she got on board.
She has become accustomed to the malice of the people around her, and has become accustomed to her own displaced life. As Fushimi Deer said, this world is full of thorns, and if you want to survive, you can only adapt. Escape is meaningless, and there is no way out behind her that she can escape...
At this time, dawn broke out.
The first ray of morning light pierced the sea, just like Moses splitting the Red Sea, darkness split into two between the cliff and the sea, and seagulls returning from the south flew by in groups.
Ping Yingzi's eyes fell on the edge of the lighthouse, where there were a group of people who had never met, shouting loudly to her, and the sea breeze brought their hoarse shouts to her:
"Sakurazi——"
“—Welcome home!”
Ping Sakurako turned around and looked confused. The crew scratched his head embarrassedly and said, "Sorry, I lied to you, Koizumi couldn't leave anything..." With the help of him, he paused, restrained his expression, and said seriously, "But before she died, she wanted her daughter to know that she had been waiting here and never gave up. There was a harbor that belonged to you here."
Yes, every incomplete soul is looking for a home.
There is always someone who will always be waiting for you.
(This chapter ends)