The things he saw with his Divine Eye were exclusively available to him. In the eyes of the others, after he finished talking, he just turned to look at the girls' dormitory.
Marie Takai could not help admiring his profile. By the time she snapped back to reality, the tips of her ears were burning red. Feeling a little embarrassed, she looked ahead in the direction of Baishi Shū's gaze. However, other than the wall and the row of closed windows, she did not see anything else.
'What's he looking at?'
"Baishi Shū-san, what are you looking at?" Marie Takai asked.
"Takai-san, there are no students in this building anymore, right? Have even all the dormitory staff already gone home?" Baishi Shū did not answer her question but asked one of his own instead.
"Yeah, almost all the students moved out yesterday. My dad was worried sick, so he kept asking us what to do when he came home yesterday night. Then, the second batch, who was bold enough to stay back, took leave today after they heard the strange noise again last night," Marie Takai said, sensing that something was amiss.
Then, when she finally understood his question, an icy chill shot through her heart and prompted her to shift nearer to Baishi Shū.
"Baishi-san, do… do you see anything?" she asked with a trembling voice.
In her imagination, she would seize every chance she could find to jump into Baishi Shū's embrace. However, when the chance really came, her fear of the unknown pushed all her previous thoughts out of her head, and she could only act on her instinct.
Baishi Shū nodded because he found no reason to lie to her about what he saw.
"There's a little girl wearing a white dress inside. She seems like she's four or five years old. She's sitting on a bed and playing on some kind of beads while humming a peculiar tune."
After hearing his observation, all the color drained from Marie Takai's face in an instant. "Baishi-san, can you tell me what song the little girl is singing?"
"Well, I can try." Baishi Shū glanced at Marie Takai and sensed her fear. He noticed that her fear did not seem to stem from her experiencing paranormal activity. There was something more to it.
'Does Takai-san know the girl?' he thought inwardly.
After that, he looked at the little girl again. She did not notice his presence since he was observing her using the Divine Eye. If he could be detected, then the Divine Eye would not be the metaphor of an eminent monk anymore.
'In Buddhism, there are three wisdoms and six higher knowledges. The three wisdoms are knowledge of former births, knowledge of the future births of beings, and knowledge that uproots all depravities. Meanwhile, the six higher knowledges include the Divine Eye, the Divine Ear, Telepathy, the Recollection of Previous Habitations, Higher Power, and Knowledge of the Extinction of the Passions. Right now, I have only achieved the Divine Eye. If I have the Divine Ear or Telepathy, then things will be much easier…'
Baishi Shū shooed the thought out of his mind as he knew that this was not the right time for that. Staring intently at the little girl's mouth, he tried to sync her lips and translate it into the corresponding language.
This was not a hard task for him. As he read her lips, he chanted.
"Kagome, kagome
"The bird in the cage,
"When, oh, when will it come out?"
When he was halfway through, Marie Takai chimed in and continued, half-humming, half-singing.
"In the night of dawn,
"The crane and turtle slipped.
"Who is behind you now?"
The nursery rhyme was short. It just kept on repeating and carried a strange and eerie tune.
Baishi Shū retracted his gaze and looked at Marie Takai. By the time he finished the nursery rhyme, the name of the rhyme popped up in his head.
It was known as "Kagome, Kagome", which was also a Japanese children's game. The rules of the game were pretty simple. One of the children would be chosen as the Oni and would sit blindfolded or with his or her eyes covered in the center. The other children would join hands and walk in circles around the Oni while chanting the song for the game. When the song stopped, the Oni had to try to name the person standing directly behind them. If the Oni guessed it right, then the person behind the Oni had to replace the Oni.
Baishi Shū had to confess that most of the Japanese nursery rhymes were pretty scary...
At this moment, Marie Takai almost cried. She felt so cold that not even the sun could warm her up. She kept nuzzling up to Baishi Shū and said falteringly, "Baishi-san, I think I know who that little girl is. She was the pen fairy three years ago!"
"Huh?" Baishi Shū was stunned.
'Isn't that the pen fairy incident that happened three years ago that was solved by a monk from the Senso-ji? He even saved the last girl. How could it be possible for the pen fairy to still be around?'
Baishi Shū did not push away Marie Takai, who was shuddering with fear. He raised his palm and placed it gently on her shoulder.
The Buddha Blessing Palm was merely one of the many techniques that he had created. After having experienced 137 enlightenments throughout the two years, there was no way he would only create a single technique to channel his spiritual power.
A long time ago, he had worked out a way to turn his spiritual power into a comforting force with the Meditation Curse. He amassed his spiritual power on his palm and was appeasing Marie Takai with the help of the Meditation Curse.
The Meditation Spell was pretty successful as Marie Takai calmed down quickly, and the fear and trepidation were wiped from her heart.
Baishi Shū sensed something wrong.
The spell had succeeded too easily!
Right now, there was nothing but a calm expression on Marie Takai's face.
"Baishi-san, there's something that we didn't tell you earlier. The girl who survived the pen fairy incident three years ago is actually my sister, Mayuko Takai. Although she was saved, she kept on blaming herself and lives in perpetual regret. In the end, she was diagnosed with depression and couldn't go back to her usual life anymore. She refuses to leave the house and keeps to herself all the time. I heard from my sister that the pen fairy they saw was a little girl wearing a white dress. She has a cute face and was humming the song 'Kagome, Kagome'. My sister only told me about it. That pen fairy… She is back."
Marie Takai preserved her blank expression and her tone was calm as she spoke. It was as if she was just stating a fact rather than telling Baishi Shū about something that was related to her.
'I guess she will be in this state for quite some time…'
"So, the monk didn't exorcise this Hare-no-yurei but just chased it away?" Baishi Shū instantly understood the entire situation after hearing Marie Takai's account.
'What a lousy monk!' he chided and frowned.
According to the record in Reimei Temple, Hare-no-yurei was a rather special evil spirit. It could appear in both daytime and nighttime, and it was more powerful than other evil spirits and had stronger resentment. Most of the monks found it hard to deal with.
Nevertheless, that was not the case for Baishi Shū. He did not feel that the Hare-no-yurei was particularly strong whatsoever, and this was because of an incident that had happened two years ago. At that time, he just came to this world and was still in the process of familiarizing himself with how things worked. Then, one day, he saw a Hare-no-yurei wreaking havoc in the street and causing a lot of trouble. He was so angry with that evil spirit that he awakened his spiritual power and exorcised that particular Hare-no-yurei on the spot.
According to his calculation method, he had about 40 units of spiritual power at that time.
It was a measly evil spirit that could be settled with only 40 units of spiritual power, yet the monk from the legendary Senso-ji could not do it?
Baishi Shū thought that somebody must have deceived Kondo Private Junior High School by assigning them an imposter monk.
On second thought, the Shinto priests and priestesses were ranked by their ability, so it went without saying that there was a grading system among the monks as well.
After all, both incidents were related to paranormal events. The Yotsuya Suga Shrine had dispatched a fledgling miko to help the police department, so it was also possible for the Senso-ji to have sent an inexperienced monk to investigate the pen fairy incident that year.
Baishi Shū sensed that he just learned the truth.
Apparently, the monk that Headmaster Takai found from the Honmon-ji was probably an unfledged monk. Perhaps he had not even activated his Divine Eye yet.
The three wisdoms and six higher knowledges in Buddhism was not a superpower. They were some kind of abilities that could be achieved by every monk.
'That monk must've been goofing around with scripture reading. Otherwise, why hasn't he activated his Divine Eye by then?'
"Since that monk failed to exorcise you, then let me send you on your way," Baishi Shū said.
When he thought of the million yen he would get after exorcising the Hare-no-yurei, Baishi Shū was so excited that he could not stop rubbing his palms.
'Amitabha, you have too many sins on your back. Let me send you back to the side of Buddha to chant scripture to pay for your sins. I will take the million yen as a sponsor from you. As long as I have my own room, I will have more time and freedom to read scripture and learning. If I can invest more time into learning, I can become stronger faster and can save the living from the suffering sea faster. In this way, it can also be considered as you are atoning for your crime.'