Chapter 21: In the Mirror of Deep Love (2)

"My dear lady, do you think I am beautiful?"

Hearing these words faintly from outside the door, Shigure Rei frowned and said, "What kind of madness are you up to now?"

The woman in the mirror inside the restroom most likely shared the same thought. The faceless, black-toothed woman fell silent for a moment, appearing utterly stunned. Gongsun Ce pressed his advantage while the iron was hot. "Let me state beforehand that this is not a pickup line; I am merely confirming my own level of attractiveness. If you have a different opinion, feel free to speak the truth. I humbly accept objective evaluations!"

"..." The monster in the mirror, which had been on the verge of pressing its face directly against the glass, actually took a step back, looking quite at a loss. The gray-haired young man pursued his advantage. "Is this silence agreement? As expected, even to you at our first meeting, I look quite handsome, don't I?"

"Ah..." the black-toothed woman uttered in a daze, "Ah... ah."

"Thank you for your recognition, unknown lady." The gray-haired young man cupped his fist in salute. "You and I have no enmity, so there is surely no need to resort to blows. Chance has brought us together, which can be considered fate. If you have something difficult to speak of, feel free to share it; doing you a small favor would be no trouble at all. If you are dead set on having a fight, then let us dispense with the small talk and begin immediately. A swift battle is convenient for both you and me—I can finish fighting and eat sooner, while you can finish fighting and clock off early. Ladies first, whether we fight or talk, you decide."

"................"

The faceless, black-toothed woman had presumably never encountered this sort of tactic. She retreated two more steps and said in a very weak voice, "I wish to... obtain..."

"What is it that you want? Anything other than my heart is open for discussion."

Having her lines stolen, the black-toothed woman stammered, "An important... thing..."

At least NPCs in RPG games would say something like, "Please help me buy two liang of herbal medicine from the village doctor's house." But you, on the other hand, just glossed everything over without providing any information at all.

"Fine, then I will help you look for it while I wait for the train after I finish eating. If I can't find it, well, there's nothing I can do," Gongsun Ce nodded. "Until we meet again by fate."

The black-toothed woman vanished, and his own reflection reappeared in the mirror. He walked out of the restroom, and Shigure Rei, leaning against the wall, asked with a sneer, "Mental attack or a Ninshen?"

"Either I am genuinely unlucky, or there are far more Ninshen around than I anticipated."

Gongsun Ce walked back to the table, intending to have a chat with the middle-aged man from the adjacent table who had mentioned the mirror, only to find that the party had already left.

His katsudon had been served. Golden, soft-boiled eggs coated sliced onions, scallions, and shiitake mushrooms, draped together with tenderly fried chicken over rice. The broth, soy sauce, and mirin infused the rice grains with a rich, savory hue. A single spoonful offered an intoxicating aroma, exceptionally alluring.

The esper took a bite and praised from the bottom of his heart, "Delicious!"

"I told you this place tastes great~" Rina murmured "Itadakimasu" before picking up her chopsticks. "Gongsun-san was gone for quite a while."

"I was having a chat with a Ninshen in the restroom."

Rina took a sip of barley tea to calm her nerves, shaking her head as she said, "Oh my..."

·

During the meal, Miss Kyla inside the phone expressed her strong desire to "eat as well" through various methods, ultimately compromising by ordering delivery via her primary body in the City of the Sky.

The cyber idol lady unfurled a digital banner: [* (′；д；`) If I could just hack into a bio-slime and gain sensory-sharing capabilities, then...*]

Don't be like this, Kyla; you already have enough anomalous elements attached to you. If you really turned into a slime idol, even I, your teammate, would be terrified.

Gongsun Ce quickly typed out [Please mind your image], and then concluded his real-world explanation: "...After that, the faceless, toothy-black-toothed lady vanished."

Rina put down her chopsticks and fished a lollipop out of her pocket.

"Ninshen of a similar kind have indeed been recorded, but..." she rolled the candy stick up and down with her tongue, "it doesn't quite match Gongsun-san's description."

"What comes to mind for Miss Rina?"

Izumo Rina's gaze turned somewhat peculiar. She held up her phone, her dark screen reflecting the young man's face.

"A beautiful woman whom one once admired and yearned for appears in the mirror—have you ever heard such an urban legend?"

A female ghost in a mirror was a classic trope for urban legends, and he had encountered quite a few related works in the past. The common plotlines involved the female ghost dragging people into the mirror to kill them, or crawling out of the mirror to harm people. However...

Recalling the cowering female ghost who had retreated just minutes ago, Gongsun Ce said, "I feel she differs from the imagery in urban legends by more than just a little bit. Could it be because I, Gongsun-san, possess such righteous aura that evil spirits dare not approach?"

"No matter how you look at it, it's because you are so mentally deranged that you made the female ghost lose interest," Shigure Rei curled her lip. "If I were a female ghost, I wouldn't want to possess you either; I'd probably end up contaminated by your madness and turn brain-dead."

The esper hurriedly lowered his gaze, adopted an affected tone, and said, "Oh please, Alice-san! Saying things like 'possessing' in broad daylight right in front of others—you're making me blush... How can you resort to violence, you unruly ruffian!"

The blue-haired woman's direct punch was parried, and she made continuous retching noises. "Ugh, absolutely disgusting!"

"Can the two of you please consider the feelings of someone trying to give a serious explanation here?" Rina spoke with the unique sorrow exclusive to normal people trapped among a group of fools. "Let's return to the main point. Just as Gongsun-san said, true Ninshen always differ from their depictions in urban legends. The Mirror Nyōbō I thought of is no exception."

Gongsun Ce paused his bickering with his partner. He remembered that the term nyōbō in ancient Zero Island referred to court ladies-in-waiting, and he recalled it also being used as a substitute word for a wife.

"Mirror Nyōbō refers to a court lady or a wife inside the mirror?"

Rina shook the candy stick in place of nodding. "The latter meaning is intended here. A man sees the woman he has long yearned for within the mirror, falls into a brief state of bewilderment after conversing with her, and finally wakes up hazy in his original spot, with the woman in the mirror nowhere to be found. The Ninshen that triggers this phenomenon is the Mirror Nyōbō."

It sounded harmless enough.

"According to records, she has never caused any major trouble, so we haven't taken heavy-handed measures on our side. For a situation as unusually active as today's, a specialized exorcism method will do the trick." Rina's gaze toward him grew even stranger. "But if she truly is a Mirror Nyōbō, there is one thing that doesn't make sense..."

Indeed, the Ninshen Rina described differed somewhat from the one he had witnessed. The entity he saw in the mirror was by no means a beautiful woman, but a terrifying monster.

"!" Gongsun Ce suddenly understood the origin of the shrine maiden's peculiar look, but his partner also came to her realization at that moment.

"Hey, no way. A faceless woman with black teeth?!" Shigure Rei clutched her stomach and laughed uproariously. "You actually swing that way—for a type that can't even be considered human?! Impressive, Gongsun Ce, I truly couldn't tell your tastes were so hardcore!"

"I can understand that someone from a major metropolis might have rather cutting-edge preferences in this regard..." Rina smiled rather strained smiles.

The esper roared in despair, "That's not it! My fetishes are completely normal; the type I like is a tall, long-legged, handsome silver-haired big sister!"

In his eagerness to defend himself, he momentarily forgot that he was in a rice bowl restaurant on Zero Island rather than a fast-food joint in the City of the Sky, causing Gongsun Ce's fully committed roar to attract the attention of everyone in the shop.

Rina covered her head, thinking to herself that the ninja squad probably wouldn't even need to exert themselves along this journey—the intelligence would simply run straight to them.

·

Chongtie walked out of the rice bowl restaurant, bid farewell to his coworkers, and walked alone down the street.

Early April on Zero Island was not yet sweltering, and the midday sun felt warm upon his body. "Handmade paper folding fans." "Six-pointed amulets that bring good fortune; buy six and double your luck." "Peace of mind Wagashi gift boxes." Small shops along the roadside displayed genuinely enticing advertising slogans—tactics the shopkeepers had learned only after visiting the big city to observe how business was done there. Yet, remote Yunashi Town rarely saw tourists; while many people took the train from here to the big city, very few took the train from the big city to come here. Consequently, these attractive billboard signs ultimately amounted to nothing more than a wasted effort meant for the locals to look at.

"They're all gone..." Chongtie walked in the sunlight, yet his heart felt no warmer than the outside air. He was thirty-six years old this year, a laborer living in the small town. Ten years ago at this time, he was still walking side by side with his girlfriend in the throes of first love, Aoi. In those days, the streets of the small town did not yet feature so many commercial signboards, and he used to talk with Aoi about how many children they should have after marriage.

However, perhaps it was because they watched too many television programs about the big cities, or perhaps because they found countless inspirational stories online of "small-town folks making it big in the metropolis," Aoi constantly yearned to go to Yamato Island to live a glamorous life. Naively believing she could carve out a career just like the protagonists in the stories, Aoi failed to realize what Chongtie knew all too well: without even the stepping stone of higher education, it would be difficult for people like them to find a better refuge in the cruel expanse of Wara than this small town.

His girlfriend, however, did not see it that way. Ultimately, disappointment took hold of her, and she left without a word, boarding a train heading north, never to be contacted again. Chongtie searched for a long time, but never saw the woman he deeply loved again. Until this very morning.

His coworkers told him he had simply drank too much, but Chongtie knew in his heart that it was not an illusion brought on by alcohol. In the morning, just as he finished washing his face and raised his head, he truly saw Aoi, looking identical to how she had ten years ago, with not even her voice having changed. Aoi smiled at him from within the mirror, recounting the affection she had never ceased to harbor over the past ten years, and asking him to step a little closer to the mirror so she could look at his face clearly...

The more Chongtie thought about it, the more distressed he felt. He ran into a convenience store by the street and bought a small women's cosmetic mirror. Staring intently into the mirror, all he could possibly see was his own bearded, stubbled face.

"Damn it! Why did she disappear? Come out, Aoi!"

Clutching the mirror, he cried out in anxiety. Passersby on the street cast glances his way, but the man remained completely oblivious.

"Mister, what are you looking for?"

A voice drifted into his ears. It was not Aoi's voice, but a more youthful one belonging to a young girl. Chongtie hurriedly looked up and saw a strangely dressed little girl walking toward him with a beaming smile.

The girl barely reached his waist. She wore a black-and-white gothic-style long dress, cradled a smooth round mirror in her hands, and wore tall boots, looking like a mischievous child who had sneaked out of a costume party. There were no children dressed like this in the small town; was she a tourist from the big city?

"Did you get separated from your parents?" Chongtie quickly put on an affable smile. "The police station is on the next street over, or it might be closer to retrace your steps back to the station."

The girl walked closer still, showing not a shred of shyness. She peered into the mirror in Chongtie's hand, her eyes rolling, and said in an unfathomable tone, as if she had seen right through his innermost thoughts, "Could it be that you're looking for a girl? Looking for a girl inside a mirror?"

Chongtie instantly held his breath.

"I guessed right! How lucky!" The girl smiled, her expression turning into an excited and greedy grin reminiscent of a hunter discovering prey. "Wait for me, Elder Sister. Once Seventeen makes her preparations, she'll come and take you home...!"

This girl did not seem like a normal person. Chongtie instinctively felt something was amiss, telling himself he ought to stay far away from this strange child. Yet, the mirror in the girl's hands shifted, forcing his gaze to lock with his own reflection in it.

"......!" He could no longer speak, his body refusing to obey as he followed behind the girl. Chongtie's consciousness plunged into absolute terror—what on earth had he run into?