I loaded the geek game

Chapter 774: The Virtual Boat Incident
The findings at the Ezaki family were quickly reported to the Countermeasures Office.

The body of Kazu Ezaki was also taken away by the staff of the countermeasures room.

Three days later, in the Countermeasures Office building in Tokyo, Kamiyagawa, Onitsuka Kirihotaru, Yusaka Makenyu and other top officials of the Countermeasures Office gathered in a small office and began to discuss what happened to the folklorist more than 40 years ago.

"It can now be confirmed that Nagayasu Ezaki did not suffer from Capgras delusion, also known as impostor syndrome. His wife was really replaced by something unknown. Here, we will call that thing an 'impostor'."

"More than 40 years ago, because there was a medical record issued by a doctor, the police who took over the case of Ezaki Nagayasu investigated the incident as a case without supernatural elements and closed the case. The incident was not reported to the countermeasures office at the time, and no exorcists were involved. Therefore, no one has ever discovered the cellar hidden deep under the old house of Ezaki."

"According to speculation, the so-called auditory hallucinations that were consistent with schizophrenia during his lifetime were probably the sounds he perceived from his wife's ghost in the underground."

"The spirit of his wife, Ezaki Kazu, was trapped underground and did not take the form of a wandering spirit. It probably dissipated after a short while. However, when Ezaki's body was discovered, there were still tiny fragments of her soul attached to it. Onizuka Miko communicated with the tiny fragments of her soul, and here is the report..."

This high-level confidential meeting was still chaired by Kensuke Yuki, who gave a general account of the incident.

The truth behind this incident is strange and bizarre, and there is a certain possibility that it is related to the Demonic Time, so it has attracted the attention of the Countermeasures Office.

"Mr. Yusei, I don't know much about mental illness. But through the case of Ezaki Nagayasu, we know that there are real 'impostors' who can replace someone silently. Does that mean... there is no such thing as Capgras delusion in this world?"

The exorcists in the conference room began to look through the materials, and soon someone raised this question.

Kensuke Yuki shook his head. "I consulted with experts and scholars in the field of psychopathology yesterday about this. Capgras delusion is a real mental illness. Although it is rare, there are indeed a certain number of people suffering from it worldwide..."

Uncle Jiecheng is very efficient in his work.

He has personally consulted several psychiatric pathologists, and has also asked his assistant Nagatomo Masao to take several exorcists to contact and investigate other patients in Japan who have been recorded as suffering from "impostor syndrome."

Assuming that there is no so-called "impostor syndrome" in the world, it indirectly shows that there are already a considerable number of "impostors" active in the world.

But preliminary judgment shows that impostor syndrome is a real mental illness.

Moreover, the patients that Nagatomo Masao came into contact with and investigated only had uneasy delusions that someone around them was "replaced" because of their own cognitive impairments and problems.

unless……

After the impostor replaced the human being, he existed in a state where even the exorcist could not detect any abnormality.

Then things become very serious and terrifying.

In short, Nagatomo is still contacting and investigating related patients, and may find someone with the same situation as Ezaki Nagayasu next.

For now, we can only treat Nagayasu Ezaki's case as a special case.

As an ordinary person, he probably has a high level of perception, so he was able to notice that something was wrong with his wife.

This former folklorist was truly pitiful, because his original behavior, whether it was "auditory hallucinations" or "delusions", was completely consistent with the symptoms of schizophrenia from beginning to end.

In this case, it seems that we cannot blame the doctor who diagnosed him at the time for making a misdiagnosis.

Once "diagnosed" and labeled as having a mental illness, from Ezaki Nagayasu's point of view, he no longer had a way to prove to the people around him that he was not crazy.

He was forced to undergo compulsory treatment and take sedatives for a long time, which have serious side effects and are harmful to the body.

In such a situation, he can finally fight back against the "impostor" with his own will...

It only shows that Nagayasu Ezaki is so determined in his judgment that he is somewhat "paranoid".

Of course, considering the truth of the matter, the so-called "paranoia" can be considered a compliment.

Someone in the conference room soon asked another question: "Even so, we still can't determine how many impostors there are in this world, right? Moreover, since the impostor is an extraordinary creature, let's classify it as an extraordinary creature... Then we have to reasonably doubt whether Ezaki Nagayasu really killed the impostor Ezaki Kazu."

"That's right." Kensuke Yuuki nodded.

There may be only one "impostor" in this world, or there may be many.

Furthermore, when Nagayasu Ezaki was investigated, the body of "Kazu Ezaki" was not found in Wakasa Bay, so it is very likely that the impostor was not killed.

"I don't know if this description is correct, but the impostor feels a bit like... a cicada."

The person who spoke this time was Onizuka Kirihotaru, who was involved in the investigation of the incident.

The imposter is a bit like a cicada—

With humans as pupae, they hide underground. After a certain period of time, they "break out of the pupae", return to the ground, and integrate into human society with a new identity.

The exact principles of this process are still unknown.

However, after the former Ezaki Kazu was replaced, although Ezaki Nagayasu noticed that something was wrong, neither Ezaki Nagayasu nor his relatives mentioned that Ezaki Kazu had ever disappeared.

Therefore, it is reasonable to speculate that this process should be relatively fast.

There is no need to stay underground for several years like young cicadas.

Another point is that Kamiya and others now suspect that the impostor was attracted by a folk survey that Ezaki Nagayasu had done in the past, so he appeared by his side and replaced his wife.

Afterwards, the impostor most likely disposed of all of Ezaki Nagayasu's research materials.

But strangely, Kazu Ezaki was still left in the basement of their house.

Even if the underground space itself is not easy to be discovered, leaving behind Kazu Ezaki's body will not do any good for the impostor.

Why does it do this?
Not sure.

If we combine it with criminal psychology to explain this question, it should be the same as "Why do murderers like to return to the crime scene?" The reasons are very complicated.

She replaced his wife and left her twisted body at the feet of the husband who was believed to have gone "crazy". People could admire closely the poor husband who had discovered the truth and was struggling...

"The truth is right under your feet."

For the time being, we can only understand this as the imposter's extremely bad taste.

And following this line of thought, it is not difficult to see that the imposter seems to have an extreme sense of "arrogance" towards the humans it fools.

So far, the Countermeasures Room has come into contact with many human-like extraordinary or supernatural species.

For example, "Aoyagi" who can regenerate through flesh and blood and infect other human individuals; for example, the Ozaki family who were disassembled and created by the craftsman god to act as a "faith relay station."

But the "impostors" discovered this time are different from these known humanoid species.

Even after "Qingliu" infected humans, it still had obvious and distinct characteristics.

But if the "impostor" can continue to "use people as pupae" and replace them, then it can be anyone if it wants.

Once it is integrated into human society, it is not so easy to find.

Onitsuka Kiri Hotaru: "The impostor's ability to replace the victim allows it to become anyone. Our initial investigation was to track down Jiichiro Hisada, who was once a friend of Ozaki Juzo and leaked the information about Tianjin Mara to Ozaki Juzo."

"Investigating Hisada Jiichiro's network of relationships revealed that he had known Ezaki Nagayasu. And three years before Hisada Jiichiro disappeared, Ezaki Nagayasu's wife was replaced by an imposter."

The little witch re-examined the connections between the recent investigation events.

Now there is a speculation -

After replacing Kazu Ezaki, the impostor also replaced Jiichiro Hisada.

He also used the identity of Hisada Jiichiro to contact Ozaki Shigezo, who was very suitable to become the "ritual vessel" of Konyama Bikogami, and then disappeared again.

There is no evidence to support this speculation, but if the series of events recently investigated are driven by imposters...

Then this thing is most likely the "Hour of Pig" that connects the entire Onmaji organization.

In the process of maintaining the Fengmoshi organization, Haishi may have been changing his social identity at will.

"I communicated with the fragment of Ezaki Kazu's soul, but that soul was too small, so I didn't get much information. I could only confirm her identity and the approximate time of her death. But I also 'saw' the only flashback of her memory - before Ezaki Kazu's abdomen was cut open from the inside, she swallowed something into her mouth."

"This is it. We found it in the throat of Ezaki Kazu's corpse. According to Ezaki Kazu's flashback before her death, this thing is related to her husband's previous research."

Onizuka continued to explain and showed several photos to everyone in the conference room.

The photo was taken of what was later taken out of Kazu Ezaki's throat.

A small scrap of clothing.

Probably the corner of a woman's shirt.

The cloth had been soaked with blood, so it was mottled with bright red.

This thing has been preserved to this day and has not completely decayed because the last bit of life in Ezaki Kazu has stubbornly attached to it.

After a series of mysterious technical processing by the Countermeasures Room, a pattern that was once scrawled in blood on the clothing fragment was restored -

Generally speaking, it is an elongated cross, with a curved line extending from each of the four ends of the cross.

It is obvious that Kazu Ezaki was aware of the folklore research her husband had done.

At the end of her life, and even after her death, she tried her best to preserve this hand-painted symbol.

In every sense, Nagayasu Ezaki and Kazu Ezaki are a perfect match.

It is still a "match" in a positive sense.

They each tried to fight back against the impostors in their own way.

The impostor may have destroyed the research content of Ezaki Nagayasu, but he left behind Ezaki Kazu's body with a sense of humor. This extreme arrogance made Ezaki Kazu's "deathbed resistance" effective today, more than 40 years later.

Later comers like Kamiyagawa regained clues that were supposed to have disappeared.

Kensuke Yuki: "Our people have consulted a lot of existing information in the countermeasures room and compared it with the symbol left by Kazu Ezaki. Finally, they found some possible related information. After a series of investigations and re-comparisons, we now believe that this mysterious symbol is related to the previous 'Hyper Ship Incident' -"

"We found this symbol in an ancient scroll that records the events of Xuzhou."

The term "Xuzhou" comes from "Zhuangzi·Shanmu", which means "an empty boat without a helmsman".

In Japan, this term refers to a bizarre incident that occurred during the Edo period, namely the "Uroshu Incident" or the "Uroshu Barbarian Woman Incident."

It is said that one day in the spring of the third year of Xianghe, fishermen on the coast of Jihe County discovered a strange ship floating on the sea.

Curious fishermen rowed their boats closer and pulled the strange ship floating in the waves onto the beach.

The strange ship that drifted by looked like an oval incense box, with an estimated length of more than 5 meters and a height of about 3 meters.

The entire ship seems hollow, the upper part of the ship is made of red-coated rosewood, and the bottom is welded with iron, which seems to be used to protect the wooden hull from being damaged by sharp rocks. The hull has lattice-shaped transparent glass windows, and pine glue is used to fix the windows to the hull.

The fishermen could see the general structure inside through the window, and there seemed to be something crawling inside the boat.

Then, a panel on the hull suddenly opened, and a beautiful woman walked out.

The woman was wearing a long, smooth dress made of unknown fabric, which was tight at the waist and loose at the ankles. She was holding a wooden box with unknown characters and symbols in her hands tightly, unwilling to let go.

The woman looked to be about 18 to 20 years old, about meters tall, with red eyebrows and hair, a pink face, and a long white ponytail that reached down to her waist.

The hair was believed by the fishermen to be animal hair or dyed with white powder.

Later scholars who studied folklore believed that the appearance of the "Hyūshu Barbarian Woman" was obviously not from China, Ryukyu, Korea and other places that had trade with Japan at that time. She should have drifted from Britain, Bengal or Russia.

In addition, some people believe that the "Xuzhou Incident" was a UFO incident related to aliens.

Nagayasu Esaki's younger brother, Shoie Esaki, once said that he had the impression that his brother had studied aliens.

This coincides with the Xuzhou incident.

As for the symbols left behind by Ezaki Kazu before his death, they correspond to the symbols on the wooden box in the hands of the "Hyper Boat Barbarian Girl" in the ancient scroll.