Becoming A Monk In Tokyo

Chapter 49: Kind-hearted Monk

Baishi Shū walked out of the unit after he finished chanting the Rebirth Mantra.

Inspector Aoki swam into his sight the moment he walked down the stairwell. He was smoking by the side of his car and looked rather restless. Perhaps he was startled by what happened to his colleagues, standing very far away from the wall. However, Baishi Shū wondered if that would be helpful. Since Yokai Akiko could drag people into the wall, it should be able to drag people through the ground as well.

Speaking about that, it was yet another strange phenomenon he could not fathom.

Yokai could go through walls since their body was basically constituted of energy, but how did humans do it? Could it be that the wall opened up like a mouth, engulfing its targets and then closing again?

But this led to another problem. Walls had no consciousness, so how did a yokai control them?

The world of yokai was truly full of wonder. He was certain that the knowledge involved would be able to tip off the science of modern society.

Inspector Aoki did not know about the thoughts in Baishi Shu’s mind. He snuffed out the cigarette and asked, “It seems that you took a longer time today, Master Baishi.”

According to what he had seen last time, he expected Baishi Shū to complete the entire exorcism process within two minutes.

“I took a longer time to chant the Rebirth Mantra,” Baishi Shū replied simply. Then, he continued, “By the way, the unit on the third floor should be the house of that little girl. Her name was Morishita Akiko, right? Well, there are three corpses inside. One is male, one is female, and another is a little boy. I suppose they were her family. ”

While they were chasing Yokai Akiko, Inspector Aoki had filled Baishi Shū in on some information. After hearing what Baishi Shū said, Inspector Aoki was stunned for a short time. However, he soon regained himself and replied, “I guess the case is solved, then? So in the end it is that little girl who killed her family after turning into a yokai? What a poor little girl. She was so adorable, yet the abuse that she received from her family and her friends turned her into a monster…” Inspector Aoki lamented.

He was quite disappointed with himself. As a guardian of a city, it was supposed to be his job to take care of the citizens, and a case like Morishita Akiko’s should not be happening. Nevertheless, it was not entirely his fault as well. Several years ago, the Japanese government had established a few laws to tackle school violence, which were met with little success. There were still hundreds of students who committed suicide due to school violence every year.

The main culprits that led to this kind of situation were the parents, the perpetrator, and also the school, who turned a deaf ear towards those poor kids’ distress calls. Everyone should be held accountable for this. One could blame the community for being too indifferent towards the things happening around them or one could blame the world for being so unfair. The only one who could not be blamed was the monk.

‘Of course they cannot blame me. I am just a monk who exorcises evil spirits and performs ritual rites. What has this kind of thing got anything to do with me? Besides that, I did not just stay idle and waste my time doing nothing. I have been trying my best to enrich and strengthen myself to save the world!’

He did not say these kinds of seemingly irresponsible words to Yokai Akiko. He just told it that he did not have an answer to its questions.

Besides that, it made no sense to answer its questions at all. After all, it had already accepted its identity as a yokai. Its heart was filled with hate and anger, and it had killed its family.

Under such circumstances, there was nothing Baishi Shū could do. It was impossible to cleanse it of its resentment with words alone. That was the reason he said he did not know how to answer her questions. All he could do at that time was send it to the Western Paradise and hope that Buddha could untie the knot in its heart and cleanse away its resentment.

As for why he could not just let it go and let time heal its wound? Well, Yokai Akiko had killed its family. Its hands were tainted with blood and it had committed a sin. There was no way it could become a human again, and if he let it go, more and more innocent people would die.

Therefore, Baishi Shū sent it to Buddha’s side.

…

Baishi Shū had been very quiet after he got into the car. While he was driving, Inspector Aoki glanced at him through the corner of his eyes.

“Are you still thinking about the thing just now?”

‘Master Baishi seems down. Well, it can’t be helped. No matter how powerful Master Baishi is, he is still just a teenager who needs to go to school. Exorcising a girl younger than him might still be too hard for him,’ Inspector Aoki thought inwardly.

Baishi Shū nodded. Indeed, he was still thinking about the thing just now, but it was not about Yokai Akiko anymore. Although Yokai Akiko was dead, this matter was far from over. It was just the beginning.

Morishita Akiko was a yokai created by subjecting it to the effect of the soul orb. She was just a puppet and the main culprit was still on the loose! If he was left alone, there would be more Ayumi and Yokai Akiko in the future. But how was he going to single out the perpetrator out of the hundreds of thousands of people in the city?

There was one way to do it—The Divine Eye. He could utilize the ability of the Divine Eye to monitor the Morishita family’s home from afar.

There must be a reason why the person chose to turn Morishita Akiko into yokai using the soul orb. It was impossible that he just went around the city and randomly picked his candidates.

If that was the real case, then Baishi Shū had nothing to say. However, if the person had his own agenda, then there was a probability that he would return to check up on Morishita Akiko’s home.

Baishi Shū was going to bet on that flimsy probability as he did not have any other way to fish out the suspect. All he could do was pray to Buddha and hope that the culprit was a doofus who would return to check on Morishita Akiko’s house.

As for how far of a distance his Divine Eye could cover? If he really wanted to, he could see the other side of the world without any trouble.

According to the scripture, Buddha used the Divine Eye to observe three thousand realms as well as the life of all living creatures. Although his Divine Eye was not as powerful as Buddha’s, he was able to see over a long distance. When he raised his head at night to admire the stars, he could even see the surface of the moon.

This kind of ability was usually not needed in his daily life. At most, he would only use it to observe his appendix.

Now it was time to put this ability to good use.

He did not have to pay full attention while he was observing Morishita Akiko’s house. His Divine Eye would notify him when someone showed up. Right now, there were some questions he wanted to ask Inspector Aoki, as he did not have time to do so just before, since they were busy chasing Yokai Akiko.

“Inspector Aoki, what kind of measurements would the police department deploy against something like this, since there are citizens involved? Would you guys reveal the truth to the public or you would just report it as an accident?”

There was one question he did not ask.

Even though he had saved all the people trapped in the wall, he had exposed his ability as well. As a monk who favored online literature, he was a little worried that some mad scientists might want to experiment on him.

Even if they experimented on him, he was certain that they would not be able to find anything useful. After all, he had observed his own cells with his Divine Eye. From the surface, the cells before and after the reinforcement were the same; the only thing different was their capabilities. This was within the realm of spiritual power, so it could not be replicated through ordinary means.