Chapter 340: Beware the Rabbit (14) – Bargains and Costs

“My wish all along was to leave Rabbit God Town for a look around; I never thought Father would fall ill at this very moment…” Qi Si’s expression was sincere, his tone earnest. “I really want to go out and take one look. Reiko, will you come with me?”

“Sure.” Reiko blinked and agreed readily. “Let’s go this way; we’ll pass the Prayer Tree and can write our Prayer Ribbons while we’re at it.”

“Then thank you, Reiko.”

Qi Si kept a smile on his face as he walked side by side with Reiko toward the southeast quarter of the street.

Stalls lined both sides of the road and the foot traffic was thick; unlike the deserted silence when they’d headed northwest earlier, the place brimmed with the bustle of everyday life.

Adults greeted the pair when they spotted them, behaving no differently from the living and showing no sign of displeasure.

If they kept walking, it really did feel as if they could leave Rabbit God Town by this road.

“Shichirō, Shichirō!”

After a short while, a boy in a long-sleeved black kimono dashed toward Qi Si, scolding, “I’ve been looking everywhere—why are you wandering around? Father wants you; he has something to say.”

Qi Si stopped and studied the newcomer. A system prompt told him the boy’s name—Kannin Rokurō.

From those words he deduced that the “Little Seven” he was playing was apparently Kannin Shichirō. He idly wondered if the family also had a “Daishirō” lying in bed waiting for a dose of poisoned soup.

“You’re always dazed, day-dreaming all the time,” Kannin Rokurō berated him with a little-adult air. “When Father wants you, nobody can find you.”

Qi Si kept his head down. Reiko quickly smiled and smoothed things over. “Since Shichirō has business, let’s part here. Too bad I’ll have to hang my Prayer Ribbon by myself later.”

“Yes, what a pity.” Qi Si put on a regretful look and the next second Kannin Rokurō dragged him into a narrow side-alley as if facing a mortal enemy.

“The Rabbit-God Festival is almost here—how can you still be so childish and irresponsible?”

Rokurō glanced left and right; once sure no one was watching, he turned back to Qi Si and said gravely, “Father told you not to get too close to Reiko, yet you keep running around with her.”

“But Father never told me why.” Qi Si’s brows drew together slightly, as if honestly puzzled. “Do you know the reason, Older Brother?”

“Her mother’s a madwoman—she’s always afraid we’ll harm her and attacks us on sight,” Rokurō said angrily. “Besides, after the festival you two will probably be parted forever; getting too close now will only hurt more.”

“Parted? What do you mean?”

They had arrived at a wooden mansion, deep in an empty lane, standing in stern silence like a forbidding tomb.

Rokurō led Qi Si inside, crossed a courtyard carpeted with fallen cherry-blossoms, and halted before a closed inner door.

He tilted his head toward Qi Si and sighed quietly, “Father will tell you everything you need to know.”

With that, Rokurō backed away in small steps, leaving Qi Si alone at the threshold.

The incense from the shrine and the faint sweetness of simmering medicine drifted out, mingling into a hazy cloud that wrapped around Qi Si—quiet, solemn, devout.

The master inside was doubtless gravely ill, kept alive by potions while praying for divine protection.

Qi Si could guess this was the usual narrative stage where background lore would be filled in; the occupant would soon divulge some secrets.

He stepped softly into the room. Layers of dark-blue gauze curtained his view; flickering candle-lamps lined the way, only to vanish behind the drapes, easily conjuring the fancy that Ghosts lurked nearby.

A carved ebony bed, veiled by black curtains, crouched in the gloom like some beast; beneath the medicinal scent lurked the taint of decay, lingering in thin threads.

Qi Si lifted the drapes and advanced; for an instant he felt countless eyes fall on him from every direction, as if celestial Buddhas were gazing down impassively.

In the deep shadows of the corners something lay in disorder, looking like the tiny bones of small animals.

He muffled his footfalls and slipped along to the base of the wall, finally seeing clearly: a neat row of dead rabbits lay there—some barely beginning to rot, some already reduced to white bones.

The corpses were packed against the foot of the wall like grotesque ornaments, or some macabre ritual, exuding an eerie horror.

“Shichirō, you’ve arrived, haven’t you?” An aged voice croaked from behind the curtains, so hoarse and weak it sounded ready to break off at any moment. “You’re the brightest child of our line, always digging to the bottom of things—whether that proves blessing or bane I cannot say.”

“Come, sit by me, my boy; it’s time you learned certain matters.”

Qi Si obediently sat down by the bed and, through the curtain, addressed him as “Father,” feigning worry. “How is your illness? We’re all so concerned.”

The man on the sickbed was undoubtedly the Kannin Family Head, the one stricken with illness and hoping to pray to the Rabbit God at the coming firework festival. Those words had been flawless.

Yet from behind the curtain came a bitter laugh: “Hah, this isn’t sickness—it is the price every son and daughter of Rabbit God Town must pay, the fate none of the Chosen can escape.”

Qi Si arched a brow slightly and waited in silence for the head to continue.

The patriarch changed tack, sighing with utmost sorrow and worry: “Shichirō, they say you’re the child most like the Rabbit God… Stop telling others the Rabbit God’s legends; do not let His gaze fall on you, do not resemble Him so closely. I should have died fifty-four years ago; the extra years I’ve lived mean I need no more cures… I only wish you to live on well, not to repeat my fate.”

To children who understand nothing, “resembling the Rabbit God” sounds like fortune, but to adults privy to certain secrets it is clearly otherwise.

The child most like the Rabbit God will be chosen at the festival, most likely to become the vessel for the god’s descent and die a miserable death.

Qi Si had once taken part in a small Rabbit-God Festival the girls held back at Hope Middle School, and had already formed suspicions about the plot behind it.

Yet before the Kannin patriarch he played a bewildered child and asked, “Father, why?”

The family head coughed for a while, then rasped slowly: “Two hundred years ago our three great clans joined forces to imprison the Rabbit God and forced Him into a bargain…”

A secret history spilled from the old master’s lips, utterly different from the tale Reiko had told.

Two centuries ago the tiny Kannin, Edo, and Kurokawa clans haunted desolate Rabbit God Town, sheltering from the wars outside while often cooperating in various ventures.

During an autumn hunt the children of the three families wandered into a cave and found, at its bottom, a rabbit skeleton half the height of a man, wreathed in phantom golden vines—spectacular and uncanny.

It was a huge, fearsome thing, yet it radiated a boundless, desolate sorrow that stirred the children’s pity; they wished to carry the bones out and give them proper burial.

The Kannin patriarch sighed. “Our ancestors had never encountered such a miracle. They tried to move the skeleton, but none could shift it an inch. In the end they swore one another to secrecy and sealed the cave together.”

“They grew up, inherited their respective families, and the childhood incident sank to the bottom of memory like a half-forgotten dream—until one night a world-renowned shaman sought them out…”

The shaman said: “You witnessed a dying god; it is fate’s appointed chance. Though He hangs on the verge of death and His power wanes, for frail humans He can still grant whatever you desire.”

Only then did the three children—now heads of their clans—realize that the immovable rabbit skeleton had been a god all along, a Rabbit Deity who could grant their every wish.

As the children grew, they exhausted every ounce of innocence and kindness, becoming slaves to greed and desire. In perfect unison they asked the shaman how they might please the god.

The shaman smiled mockingly. “If you pray to Him, He will not answer. You must imprison Him so He cannot leave; worship Him so He cannot perish; bargain with Him so the rules compel Him to serve you.”

His words were light as clouds, devoid of reverence, as though gods and mortals alike were no more than weights on a balance—playthings in the hands of something higher.

The clan heads were shaken by such audacity, then inspired; in their hearts a seed sprouted in secret, its name ambition.

After the shaman left, the three patriarchs met night after night, plotting how to confine the deity and how to divide the spoils once they succeeded.

Every clause in the Contract was haggled down to the tiniest fraction, yet still they could not bring themselves to sign.

After all, to mortals a god is untouchable and unassailable; the very idea of caging one felt insane.

Yet before vast profit, courage and resolve need only a single spark to ignite.

In the mountains, years slipped by unnoticed; outside, the chaos of war soon ended. The great Fujiwara clan arrived in Rabbit God Town and demanded the three families bow and submit.

The newcomers came in force, aggressive and overbearing. On a moonless night the three heads gathered once more in the secret chamber.

Before the month’s firework festival, under the pretext of a divine rite and following the shaman’s instructions, they ordered their clansmen to hunt rabbits.

With the rabbits’ corpses they formed an array that suppressed the god’s power inside the cave, then moved the skeleton to a shrine already built for the purpose.

The Rabbit God waited in vain for rescue; instead, freedom was stripped away. Red eyes opening, He asked coldly, “Humans, what do you seek?”

Remembering the shaman’s counsel, the patriarchs replied, “We wish to honor You and trade with You.”

The moment the word “trade” was spoken, the Contract rules of Heaven and Earth stirred; countless golden vines entwined the three men and the god, forcing Him to accept their terms.

Ever since, we have offered sacrifices to the Rabbit God each year, and in return He grants us fair winds and rain, keeping war at bay. Every eighteen years He chooses the child among the three clans who most resembles Him, possesses the boy or girl, and descends to fulfill several wishes.

The possessed turns into a monster and, after the firework festival, must be buried in the cave where our ancestors first found the Rabbit God. For the next eighteen years it haunts the dreams of blood-kin, terrorizing them unto death.

And this year, the Rabbit God is about to descend again…”

Clan-head Shinno paused here, gasping for breath.

Qi Si pressed, “Father, you said you should have died fifty-four years ago—what happened back then?”

“I was meant to be chosen… but your grandfather, my father, begged the shaman for a way to save me. He smeared rabbit blood over my entire body, and from then on neither gods nor Ghosts could see me.”

“Every member of the Shinno family carries an ornament soaked in rabbit blood; as long as we keep it on us, we remain unseen… But starting this year, all the rabbits we kill bleed no more. The Rabbit God has discovered our trick and is punishing us…”

Clearly, Clan-head Shinno had planned to repeat the old method, using rabbit blood to craft hidden talismans so the whole clan could evade the god’s gaze.

But with the rabbits now bloodless, he could only hope that Shichiro looked less like the Rabbit God and would not be chosen.

Qi Si recalled the recorder Lu Ming had left behind; when he held it, the dorm matron and the girls could not see him—apparently the same principle.

The journal 【Lu Ming’s Diary】 had shown an image of Lu Ming wiping the rabbit skeleton; no doubt he had treated the recorder with rabbit blood.

But how did he know?

In the haze of medicinal incense, the clan head laughed brokenly, voice like torn cicada wings: “Shichiro, our Shinno house no longer needs the Rabbit God’s power… beware the other two clans, lest they harm you… They say the god must grant the chosen child’s wish. These next few days, keep away from children your own age…”

Times change; two centuries on, some houses have risen while others decline. A bargain that once benefited all can, with time, become a curse.

When food is scarce and life a struggle, being haunted by Ghosts or cursed by gods is a trifling cost. Yet what prosperous family would sit beneath the Sword of Damocles, harassed by spirits day and night?

The old pact now teeters; twists and turns breed fresh variables.

Qi Si stepped out of the inner chamber and, without noticing, found himself in the bustling town center.

Scarlet ribbons fluttered across the sky, golden threads upon them spelling out the wishes people most longed to fulfill.

The ignorant townsfolk remain in the dark, believing the Rabbit God’s protection flows from their pious hearts. They cling to the lovely legend, unaware that cold bargains and murky schemes lie behind it all.

Beneath the dazzling fireworks and ten-li parade of lanterns are pus and clotted blood; no one knows when the two-hundred-year lie will be exposed.

Judging by the usual tricks of word-games, the firework festival on the seventh of August should be the flashpoint.

Behind a stall draped in wishing ribbons, a white-haired woman waved cheerfully at Qi Si. “Little Shichiro of the Shinno lord’s house—what a darling child!”

“Really? Thank you.” Qi Si put on a harmless smile and strolled over unhurriedly.

The old woman chuckled. “You haven’t made a wish this year; I’ve kept the longest Prayer Ribbon just for you.”

“Thank you, Granny.” Qi Si’s eyes curved as he took the red silk. “Actually, I haven’t thought of what to wish for—I’m afraid the Rabbit God might find it too much.”

“Oh, but this year the god himself will descend; wishes will be granted more readily,” she urged.

Qi Si gave a casual chuckle, recalling the faded Prayer Ribbons he had seen at the bottom of Hope Academy’s lake.

They belonged to a past long buried, yet they let him glimpse a corner of the future—an invitation to step into the game.

He already knew what to write.

【Eerie Game, rule, Contract】

Qi Si lifted the golden brush and wrote on the ribbon the three words he had seen beneath the lake.

Fate, unseen, snapped into place; golden threads bit their own tail, forming a Möbius loop.

He already knew that, on one world-line, a version of himself had succeeded in seizing the Rabbit God’s power.

The script was written, the answer given; he would meet that destined end without flinching.

Qi Si threaded his way through the dense ribbons, choosing where to hang his while scanning the messages on each strip.

On a foot-long ribbon he saw delicate handwriting: 【I want to be with Little Shichiro. —Reiko】

Since the child the Rabbit God chooses is certain to have the wish granted, and since the adults have secretly arranged for Reiko to be chosen,

she will die yet wants to be with Shichiro—so Shichiro must die with her.

Unless they flee Rabbit God Town.