ocean-life Chapter 333 Two Dolls
Chapter 333 Two Dolls
In the living room on the first floor, Shirogane Miyuki patted his chest and let out a long sigh of relief. "Seriously, if they've already moved out, they should have taken the dolls they didn't want with them..."
Natsume hugged Nyanko-sensei thoughtfully, because he swore he was absolutely certain that the two dolls were definitely standing by the window watching them.
But Nyanko-sensei didn't say anything. If it were a monster, he should be able to handle it easily, right?
Uchiha Ryo unconditionally trusted Natsume, even though he hadn't seen anything and hadn't sensed anything when he entered the room.
The wooden, glued doll lying half-reclined in the corner was, in his eyes, just an ordinary doll, containing neither demonic energy nor the spiritual power of an Onmyoji.
However, for Shirogane Miyuki's safety, let's get rid of those two dolls.
"Let's not talk about that. What do you think of this house?" Uchiha Ryo thought it was pretty good. This kind of house wouldn't be cheap in other areas, let alone in Minato Ward, Tokyo.
In Shirogane Miyuki's words, he really got lucky to rent this kind of house.
(PS: The Nohara family in Crayon Shin-chan is a typical detached house with two floors and three bedrooms, living room, and kitchen.)
"I'm very satisfied, and the price is really reasonable. I've already decided that my room will be the workspace on the second floor."
Uchiha Ryo nodded. "The puppet room for Kei?"
"....."
Shirogane Miyuki coughed lightly. "I'm a staunch materialist, I don't care about those things. It's true that the doll room is larger in the two rooms on the second floor. It's normal for a girl's room to be bigger, right?"
"I'll just throw the doll out later. I'm going to stay here for another night."
Uchiha Ryo stood up. "Then take your time trying it out, Natsume, let's go back."
Natsume stood up, holding Nyanko-sensei, as if he was about to leave to do something.
"No, no, no! I'll treat you to dinner! I'll cook for you myself, okay? Anyway, the room here is big enough, so why don't you go all the way and stay with me for the day?"
Uchiha Ryo raised an eyebrow. "You're not scared, are you?"
"Scared? How could I, the president of the Shuchiin Academy student council, possibly believe in such things! It's just that the doll is a little too exquisite. What's that term again? Right! The uncanny valley effect."
"Just a mere puppet? It can't possibly move!"
Click—that sounded like a door opening, followed by thumping footsteps coming from the direction of the entryway.
"ah!!"
Shirogane Miyuki hid directly behind Uchiha Ryo, his voice trembling as he looked towards the living room doorway. "That sound from the entryway... it must be coming from the stairs on the second floor..."
Uchiha Ryo slapped away Shirogane Miyuki's hand that was gripping his shoulder, and then sat down on the spot.
"Natsume, let's stay here with Shirogane for the night. Shirogane, what do we want to eat tonight?"
"Is this the time to think about food?!" Shirogane Miyuki was somewhat exasperated. He wanted to open the door to see what was going on, but he didn't dare to go over.
The footsteps stopped outside the living room door...
"No wonder I saw the lights were on, so there were people here... Are you the new tenants of this house?"
The woman who entered the living room was a middle-aged woman who looked to be in her fifties. She was wearing a headscarf and a cleaning uniform, and seemed to be a professional cleaner.
The woman glanced at the keys that Shirogane Miyuki had placed on the table, then smiled and said...
"I clean for the original owner of this house. I come here every Saturday and Sunday. Of course, if there are tenants, I don't need to come. I will also give the key to the door to the tenants."
As she spoke, the woman took the front door key out of her pocket and threw it on the table.
Shirogane Miyuki breathed a sigh of relief and immediately smiled back to normal. "I'm also here to look at apartments today. I plan to stay one night and see how it goes. If it's suitable, I'll move in next week."
The aunt looked very kind and gentle, which immediately eased the tense atmosphere in the living room.
"In that case, do I still need to clean today?"
"Of course! By the way, you come to clean every week, right? Could you ask why the original owner left two dolls upstairs?"
"A doll...what doll?"
Shirogane Miyuki pointed upwards. "It's that empty room on the second floor."
The woman's expression visibly turned serious. "I've been coming here every week for the past few months, and there aren't any dolls on the second floor..."
Miyuki Shirogane: "..."
"Uh... hahaha, ma'am, are you sure you're not mistaken? Let's go up and check it out now!"
To prove that it was impossible for all three of them to be hallucinating, Shirogane Miyuki led the old woman upstairs to the second floor and opened the doll room.
What a clean and tidy room! A gentle breeze blew in through the window on the left. The room was empty, just like a newly renovated house.
Shirogane Miyuki pointed to the corner where the doll should have been, his mouth agape, unable to speak.
After a long while, the aunt sighed, shook her head, and said...
"Let's go back to the living room first..."
Uchiha Ryo frowned. "Auntie, do you... know something?"
The four returned to the living room, with Shirogane Miyuki squeezing between Uchiha and Natsume, even hugging Nyanko-sensei as if that was the only way he could feel safe.
The cleaning lady sat opposite, looking quite conflicted.
"Sigh... I'll be frank. I shouldn't have told you these things, since the original owner of this house was good to me, and I can't let go of the tenants he finally found..."
"But I can't just watch you unrelated students get dragged into this."
The woman looked serious. "Have you ever heard of that weird story circulating online called the Two-Body Doll?"
Two-body doll?
It is said that the original owner of this house suddenly became obsessed with making dolls in his middle age. As the craftsmanship became more and more exquisite, his dolls even sold for a considerable price online.
But his temper became increasingly volatile, and he was always shouting that he had to create the most perfect work.
Then, somehow, he heard about a kind of witchcraft in the East called Gu, which involves putting insects, snakes, or other creatures in a box and letting them kill each other; the one that survives is the perfect creation.
So the original owner frantically made a large number of dolls and put them in the doll room, then cursed the dolls and left the house for a while.
When they returned, the dolls had all sustained varying degrees of damage, but only two dolls stood there unharmed.
After the original owner succeeded, he proudly claimed that he had created the most perfect doll, but most people thought that he had gone crazy because he had been alone for too long.
No one paid any attention to him, so six months later, the original owner moved out of the house and destroyed all the dolls.
Later, a rumor circulated in the area that at night, people could hear footsteps and the sound of objects moving inside the house. Some people even came to investigate out of curiosity at night, only to run away shouting, "There are two! There are two!"
The rumors about the two-body dolls started in this way, because many eyewitnesses claimed to have seen the dolls moving.
"The original owner of the house was a very cheerful person. Because my son works in another city, he often came to take care of me. After he left, I volunteered to come and help clean the house..."
"About two months ago, another tenant moved in. It seems to be a writer looking for a quiet place to write. He was attracted by the environment and the ghost stories here and was looking for inspiration."
Shirogane Miyuki swallowed hard. "Then... what about that writer?"
The woman sighed. "He didn't stay for more than a week... He collapsed at home due to a heart attack. Because he lives alone and is too lazy to clean, I still come over to help him every week, and that's when I find him and take him to the hospital."
"Is he alright?" Shirogane Miyuki then asked.
"After waking up, she claimed that she could see the Two-Body Doll, and then immediately checked out of the hotel and moved out of Tokyo. I heard that she has already gone abroad."