Chapter 19 Strange Stories
In addition to Hanako, there are many other urban ghost stories that are also at the national "goddess" level, such as Hachisha-sama and Slit-mouthed Woman.

The Slit-Mouth Woman is a popular character in modern urban legends. She appears as a woman with disheveled hair and a mask covering her burst mouth.

Since the spring of 1979, the Slit-mouthed Woman has become an urban legend that has spread throughout Japan and is still active today.

There is a rumor about a woman wearing a big coat, a scarf, a pair of big scissors, long hair and a mask. She would ask the children coming home from school: "Am I pretty?" If the answer is "pretty", she would take off the mask and ask again: ".How about this.?"

If the child answered "not beautiful", she would kill the child with a sickle or scissors; if the answer was beautiful, she would cut the child's mouth and make him as beautiful as herself.

The Slit-Mouth Woman was once the most terrifying existence in the ghost stories of an era. Of course, she is not as popular as before, but there are more than 20 ghost stories about her across the country. It can be said that a new Slit-Mouth Woman ghost story appears every once in a while.

Even the image of the slit-mouthed woman among ordinary people has become more and more "beautiful". In fact, it is not only the slit-mouthed woman, but other long-lasting ghost stories also have this trend.

In the evening, the devil's time, from 17:19 to 3:5 in the evening, and from : to : in the morning. It is said that these two periods are when ghosts are most likely to appear, and it is also the time when people and ghosts can appear at the same time.

Office workers and students leaving school make the streets busy.

Yuzuru Nagayama was walking on the street where the slit-mouthed woman was rumored to appear. He drank milk tea while controlling his spiritual power with his fingers. The thin spiritual power turned into a circle and then into a quadrilateral. This is one of the four basic elements of spiritual power: condensation.

According to the newly acquired practitioner's notes, there are four basic foundations for cultivating spiritual power, which are also the cornerstones of the path of cultivation. Only with a solid foundation can a skyscraper be built.

The four basics are refining, breathing, concentrating, and releasing.
Refining: Improving the quality and quantity of spiritual power is similar to level improvement, and can be said to be the most basic of the basics for a cultivator.

Breath: Regulate the release and collection of spiritual power to achieve the best operation of spiritual power in the body, so as not to cause conflicts and problems such as going astray. It can also reduce one's presence and cause misunderstandings from the enemy.

Condensation: Concentrate the spiritual power in a certain part of the body to increase the thickness of the spiritual power, thereby achieving the effect of improving attack power and defense power, and also increasing the intensity of spell casting.

Release: Spiritual energy penetrates the body, which is the starting point of all spells and can directly affect important factors such as the release speed and strength of most spells.

Speaking of which, these four basics sound very familiar. Yuzuru Nagayama always feels that they are similar to the settings of an anime in his previous life, but the spiritual power techniques are indeed the same.

Even the authentic Golden Light Mantra of Xuanmen can be explained by the four basics. If you become proficient in any one of the basics, it will affect the power of the Golden Light Mantra. Moreover, even if you only practice the four basics, you can master the ultimate killer moves. For example, if you reach the pinnacle of condensation skills, you can destroy mountains and cut off rivers.

After three days of trial and error, Yuzuru Nagayama basically mastered the four basics. All he had to do next was to practice the basics very solidly. Three days of hard work did succeed in improving the Golden Light Mantra a little bit, both in terms of intensity and consumption. Now it only takes 1 spiritual power to maintain the Golden Light Mantra for 0.48 second.

Just as Yuzuru Nagayama was walking against the flow of people, the sound of a woman with a slit mouth beside him brought his thoughts back to reality.

In order to find a shikigami that could communicate and form a bond with him, he set his sights on the creatures that could communicate, such as Slit-mouthed Woman and Hanako, because things that could not communicate were beyond the control of a half-baked practitioner like him. Unfortunately, he couldn't even find their shadow in three days.

Every day there are people on the Internet claiming that they have seen a woman with a slit mouth in this area, or that someone had their mouth cut open, etc. Are they really all rumors?
When Yuzuru Nagayama turned around to look for the source of the sound, he found that it was just two elementary school students, a boy and a girl, playing around. The boy was about 8 years old, and the girl was a little younger, about 6 years old.

They mentioned the slit-mouthed woman because the boy was using the legend of the slit-mouthed woman to scare the younger girl. He claimed that he had seen the slit-mouthed woman yesterday and had chased her away, and said that if a girl saw her, she would be scared to tears.

Yuzuru Nagayama listened to the other party's description very vividly, so he greeted them in what he thought was a friendly tone.

"Two little friends, can you talk to your brother about the Slit-Mouthed Woman?"

The little boy protected the girl behind him and was very wary of suspicious people in front of him.

"Uncle, who are you? We don't know what the slit-mouthed woman is."
Yuzuru Nagayama's smile froze. He is an uncle so to speak. The child is ignorant and he knows how to protect his companions, which is commendable.

Yuzuru Nagayama said, trying his best to be friendly again.

"Uncle, I'm not a bad person. As long as you can tell me the story about the Slit-Mouthed Woman, I will buy you delicious food. Do you want to eat fried chicken?"

Hearing about the delicious fried chicken, the cute girl who was protected by the boy couldn't help swallowing her saliva. She was obviously persuaded. A few days ago, when she begged her parents for it, they were unwilling to buy it, saying that it was not good for children to eat too much.

The girl stuck her head out and asked shyly.

“Can I really eat fried chicken?”

"of course."

Yuzuru Nagayama nodded with a smile, but the boy obviously would not be fooled. In his opinion, the smile of the man in front of him became evil, just like those goldfish guys in the rumors.

The small body suddenly grabbed the girl and ran away, warning Yuzuru Nagayama.

"Mom and Dad told us not to eat food from strangers, and if the uncle follows us again, I will call the police."

Seeing the two children walking further and further away, Yuzuru Nagayama shook his head and did not chase after them.

"What an unlovable child! If it were my Xin Hui, I guarantee she would call him uncle sweetly."

As he was talking, Yuzuru Nagayama suddenly realized that something was wrong. If Shinae really reacted like this, wouldn't that prove that he was easy to deceive? If that bastard dared to deceive his little girl, he would definitely die ten thousand times.

Yuzuru Nagayama shook his head and put his messy thoughts behind him. Although the boy did not tell him any information, his mention of having seen the slit-mouthed woman might not be false. With his yin-yang eyes, he could sense a subtle aura lingering on the boy.

【Taichi Aso】

[Miracle of Courage (Level A): Courage will accompany him throughout his life, and he can often accomplish miracles that ordinary people think are impossible.]

An A-rated little boy, what an unexpected discovery, but why is there no bonus shown for joining the shrine?
Taichi Aso pulled the little girl and ran a hundred meters before stopping. The two of them walked into the alley panting and planned to take a shortcut home.

Taichi Aso educated his childhood sweetheart.

"Reiko, you can't talk to a strange adult. The uncle just now might be a man who specializes in eating children."

"Will you eat Lingzi? I don't want it, I don't want it."

The girl named Lingzi hugged her brother and kept shaking her head. She had just been frightened by the ghost story of the slit-mouthed woman, and now she was frightened by the man-eating uncle and had tears in her eyes.

Taichi Aso touched Reiko's head without explaining. Often a little fear can make them behave themselves.

(End of this chapter)