I have a life simulator.

As if she had made up her mind, she suddenly stood up and took Karuizawa Megumi's hand:

"Let's not wait any longer, let's go!"

"Huh?"

Grabbing the hand of a startled girl, Karuizawa Megumi ran wildly out of the temple and arrived at the mountain path leading to the summit. Only then did she realize what was happening and hurriedly asked:

"What, what's wrong?"

Ichinose Maki, who had been jogging all the way, stopped and, panting, explained:

"Actually, my older brother and sister are coming soon."

"Huh? Kitagawa-senpai and the others are coming?"

"I don't know what my sister is planning, but I think it's best if you two don't meet."

Ichinose Maki turned off her phone and said to Karuizawa Megumi with a serious expression:

Do you like your brother?

Caught off guard by the overly direct question, Karuizawa Megumi blushed and stammered, unable to give a coherent answer, even though the person standing in front of her was a girl two years younger than her.

"You like it, right? I know, after all, we're the same."

Ichinose Maki put her index finger to her lips and whispered:

"I'll tell you a secret..."

"My brother is a liar, the kind of big liar who would be a shame if he didn't go into acting."

"Kitagawa-senpai doesn't seem like the type to lie."

Karuizawa Kei was a little confused by Ichinose Maki's overly abrupt topic and subconsciously retorted.

"I know of several, just by looking at them."

"For example..."

"I never confessed my feelings to him."

Ichinose Maki said this.

Chapter Thirteen: The Actor (Part 2)

"I felt like I was being treated like a rabbit."

"Rabbits wouldn't eat that much soy, would they...?"

"I actually think that those tofu skin, tofu strips, and tofu puffs taste much better than all kinds of leafy green vegetables."

"I heard that half an hour ago, someone was making a scene here because they didn't like the food and ended up being taken out by the staff. It seems like they were a group of thugs, but they behaved themselves when they saw the security guards."

"It wasn't that bad, although it was definitely a bit disappointing for tourists."

Kitagawa Ryo and Ichinose Honami, who had just walked out of the tourist restaurant, smiled and greeted the monks passing by, then turned around and began to complain about the vegetarian meal they had just eaten.

"I think I need to eat something."

Kitagawa Ryo rubbed his stomach. The free vegetarian meal he had just eaten not only perfectly embodied the characteristics of 'vegetarian', but was also pitifully small. For a boy his age, the portion was about the same as a dessert before a meal.

There are also sandwiches in the bag.

Honami Ichinose checked her backpack and took out two homemade ham and egg sandwiches.

The temple, built on the mountainside, was quite large. The two of them strolled from the front courtyard to the main hall, drew lots in the main hall, and then strolled from the main hall to the back courtyard. It took them almost an hour to see the whole attraction. When they reached the back courtyard, near the exit, Kitagawa Ryo finally finished his third sandwich and drank lemon flower tea with satisfaction.

In the middle of the backyard, a platform was set up, where three old monks with white hair and beards sat. The fortune slips that tourists drew in the main hall were interpreted here. However, what surprised Kitagawa Ryo was that the temple here did not interpret marriage fortune slips. Curious, he secretly approached a group of tour groups next to him, where the tour guide was indeed explaining the origin of this custom.

Kitagawa Ryo has always been unwilling to listen to such legends. In his view, most of the various stories, whether true or fabricated, circulating about each tourist attraction are born when the tourism bureau selects the place as a tourist resource for development. With a stroke of the pen, a writer gives each mountain, shrine, and river its own legend. Only in this way can the enthusiastic local tour guides have the capital to boast to the visiting tourists.

It's all business at its core. Kitagawa Ryo didn't want to be led around by a tour guide who would say this rock looks like a monkey, that rock looks like an elephant, and then everyone would rush up to take photos. For him, this kind of tourism was no different from torture.

However, this was the first time Kitagawa Ryo had ever seen a temple where the fortune slips for marriage were not explained. Coincidentally, someone from a nearby tour group also raised this question, so he took the opportunity to go over and listen.

The story is actually very simple.

Hundreds of years ago, a very long time ago, two brothers in the mountains fell in love with the same girl. They each sought a match and were both granted a suitable partner. Because of this girl, the two brothers became bitter enemies and fought fiercely, but neither could defeat the other. Finally, they both begged the girl to make a choice, vowing that whoever she chose, the other would accept and never seek revenge. However, to their surprise, the girl was also conflicted. She enjoyed the fact that both brothers loved her wholeheartedly, yet she struggled to make a decision.

For her, as long as she didn't make a choice, there would be two people who loved her. If she made a choice, the two loves would become one. In order to keep having both loves, the girl jumped off a cliff in front of the two of them, thinking that this way the two of them would remember her forever.

"and after?"

As Kitagawa Ryo recounted the story, Ichinose Honami asked curiously.

"Later, the two brothers got married and started families, and their families prospered, leading happy and fulfilling lives."

Kitagawa Ryo twitched the corners of his mouth, trying to calm himself down after hearing the story.

"What does this have to do with the temple's inability to interpret marriage fortune slips?"

"Because these two people jointly donated funds to build this temple in their later years, and this is also a rule they left behind. They reached a consensus in a miraculous way when their time was coming to an end."

"You can't predict marriage at all!"

Looking at Kitagawa Ryo, who was equally speechless, Ichinose Honami, who was also speechless and choked with emotion, whispered:

"My initial idea was that the two of them would renounce worldly life and become monks, severing their ties of marriage."

Kitagawa Ryo looked at the marriage fortune slip that Ichinose Honami had been holding all the way, and tentatively said:

"So what do we do with this thing?"

"Give it back."

Now that they knew the temple didn't interpret marriage fortune slips, the two lost interest and returned the wooden slips to the monks who collected them.

"This can be kept as a souvenir."

The monk in charge of collecting the fortune slips looked to be only in his early twenties. Seeing that Ichinose Honami had given him a fortune slip related to marriage, he explained:

"Although our temple does not interpret marriage fortune slips, visitors are allowed to take them away."

"Do you want to keep Liang as a souvenir?"

"This is the fortune slip that Honbo drew. Honbo can decide for himself."

Kitagawa Ryo appeared uninterested, standing with his arms crossed, waiting for Ichinose Honami to make a decision.

Honami Ichinose looked at the wooden fortune stick in her hand again. It was indeed an extremely cheap piece of wood. The smooth part at the top was wrapped in a red cloth with the word "marriage" written on it. Usually, a few seemingly nonsensical verses would be carved on the fortune sticks, and then the fortune teller would interpret them. However, according to the unique custom of this temple, it was probably just for show.

Don't you want to take a look?

She seemed to have overheard Kitagawa Ryo saying something, but just then her phone vibrated with a message notification. Ichinose Honami, ignoring it, handed the fortune slip to the monk with a slight apologetic expression.

"We don't want it anymore. We might just throw it away as trash if we keep it. Please take it back."

"Ok."

The monk didn't try to persuade him any further. He nodded and solemnly placed the wooden stick into the box on the other side.

Did you go to the mountaintop...?

Hearing Ichinose Honami muttering something, Kitagawa Ryo looked at her suspiciously.

"what happened?"

"It's alright, let's go to the top of the mountain too, or we'll be too late to come down."

Unable to contact Ichinose Maki, Honami nonchalantly put her phone back in her bag. However, thanks to the location-sharing app she had previously installed on her sister's phone, she could still clearly see her sister's location.

"I was just wondering if Maki and the others had already reached the top of the mountain."

"That's true, we haven't seen them yet. But there are two paths leading to the top of the mountain, so maybe they didn't come from the temple side."

Kitagawa Ryo took Ichinose Honami's shoulder bag and slung it over his shoulder. It was around two o'clock, and the blazing sun shone brightly at its highest point, relentlessly releasing its heat.

"Let's go to the top of the mountain."

Five minutes after the two men left, another man who had finished interpreting his fortune sticks asked the old monk in the middle with great interest:

"Master, is the fortune telling about unresolved marriage issues at your temple really as the tour guide described?"

The elderly monk twitched his eyelids slightly and slowly began to speak:

"The story is roughly the same."

Just as the man showed a hint of disappointment, the monk suddenly smiled, his aged face, as weathered as withered tree bark, wrinkles pressing against his eyes, making them almost invisible.

"However, there is another version of the story circulating in this temple."

"The last words left by the two benefactors who funded the construction of this temple were actually:"

"The matter of fate is not such that a very auspicious sign will suddenly make two unrelated people fall in love, nor will a very inauspicious sign immediately separate two people who like each other. If you are fixated on the result of the marriage fortune, you will not be able to see your true feelings."

"Therefore, our temple never interprets marriage fortune slips. If couples come to us for help, we will only tell them that marriage is a major life event and they can only interpret it themselves."

"Master, I understand now."

The man bowed his head deeply, with an expression that said, "I understand everything."

“You are truly insightful, benefactor. It seems you have many understandings about matters of the heart.”

The old monk also looked at the other person with a kind and compassionate gaze that said, "This child is teachable," and stroked his long beard.

"Master, actually I am thirty-nine years old and single."

The old monk, nearly choked by the man's answer, coughed twice, beckoned a young monk to come over, and continued speaking to the man with a smile:

"If you are single, you can also choose the temple's customized marriage fortune-telling service."

"Imagine you bring your crush to this temple to draw a marriage fortune stick, and the two of you anxiously await the result. But then the temple suddenly tells you that you need to interpret the fortune stick yourself. So you tear open the fortune stick in front of your girlfriend, and there are the words you chose on it. What a romantic scene that would be!"

The old monk, with an expression that said, "This is a trade secret of the temple, I won't tell anyone else," stroked his beard smugly and chuckled:

"I've been interpreting fortune sticks here for twenty years. I've helped at least 800 to 1,000 couples get together through this method. I've seen all sorts of sweet nothings. If you pay extra, our temple also offers a writing service."

The old monk raised his hand, and the young monk beside him took a hard book wrapped in kraft paper and handed it to the man:

"These are the sentences used in the custom marriage fortune slips over the past year. You may take a look."

"If the two loves last for a long time, how can they be in the morning and evening?"

"This is a poem by Qin Guan from the Song Dynasty."

The man seemed genuinely intrigued, muttering to himself as he flipped through the pages.

"Two by one, swimming like ducks. But alas, on the floating duckweed, frost and dew easily melt away."

"This is a sentence from the Manyoshu."

"I will take care of you for the rest of my life."

"This is surprisingly simple."

The man, who appeared to be quite cultured, was commenting with great interest and ease when he suddenly froze as he turned to the last few pages:

"One more!"

"What does it mean?"

He scratched his head in confusion, unable to find similar sentences in Tang and Song dynasty poems or in the poems of Matsuo and Furukawa.

"Feelings are indeed too difficult to understand."

The man shook his head and sighed.

-------------------------------------

Karuizawa Megumi stopped in her tracks.

Whenever Karuizawa Megumi saw Eura Emi, she couldn't help but feel disgust and hatred welling up from the bottom of her heart. However, she was also very clear that buried beneath this emotion was a deep fear and avoidance. Just like how she would always ask for leave from swimming lessons and close her eyes every time she took a shower, she avoided this woman she hadn't seen for two years. Even though the scar on her waist and abdomen had long since stopped bleeding, Karuizawa Megumi still wouldn't touch it.

She locked this person and the wound she had inflicted in a cage, sealed it, and sank it into the deepest well. But when she saw them again, the other person had not fermented, rotted, or disappeared. Karuizawa Kei looked at the girl in front of her, who was the same age as her, and felt a strange sense of unease.

The face that had flashed through my memory countless times was no different from two years ago; it seemed as if it had only been enlarged a few times according to the proportions of her features. The heavy makeup made her look like an apple soaked in preservatives, with an unnatural reddish-white hue.

"Hey, Karuizawa, it's been two years, hasn't it?"

Her lips, painted with bright lipstick, opened and closed, and the words that burst forth made Karuizawa Megumi feel as if she had been hit hard by something coming straight at her, almost making her lose her balance.

But Karuizawa Megumi still stood in front of Ichinose Maki, her right hand, which was tucked behind her back, had a cell phone screen that was shining.

"What? Someone Hye-mi knows?"

The man with the buzz cut standing next to Jiangpu Huimei looked a few years older than her, around twenty years old, and he grinned as he put his arm around her shoulder.