Lingen Building is to the west of the park, and Zonggu is to the north. It takes about ten minutes to get there. "I received an order from the agency to help intercept another spirit body."

"But there seems to be a lot of chaos over there at Lingen Building..."

Ayumi Moriyama was also in a dilemma, not knowing what to do.

The other party was a pure newcomer, and Zonggu quickly realized that she shouldn't let her make the decision, so he said he would make the decision himself.

"Okay... then I'll trouble you."

After hanging up the phone, Zong Gu weighed it for a while and felt that solving the issues in the building would be a higher priority.

When he arrived at the Lingen Building, before he could enter, a figure suddenly fell from the sky and fell straight to the grass in front of the building.

After lying down for a few seconds, the figure got up again, moving without any hindrance.

"..."

Anyone who can jump from a ten-story building without any injuries, except Superman, is dead.

And Soya's job is to make him die more completely.

After confirming the target, he chased him to the grass and before the other party could react, he used the plastic ruler he carried to separate his head.

"ha!"

Zonggu turned his head, and there was a teenage boy standing outside on the grass, imitating the action he had just made with a ruler and cutting off his head.

"Shuichiro..."

Another middle-aged woman hurried over and took the child away.

Before more people noticed him, Soya walked out of the grass and called Moriyama Ayumi to report the situation here.

The witch on the other side was very surprised, "It was solved so quickly?"

"Well, it's a coincidence..."

He looked back and saw that the spirit body that had lost its head had completely dissipated.

"I understand. Thank you for your hard work, Soya-san."

Just as he was about to hang up the phone, Moriyama Ayumi suddenly said, "Please wait a moment."

Soya listened with bated breath, and a faint voice came from the other side, which was soon repeated more clearly by Moriyama Ayumi.

"Sotani-san, please go to the Moriya car dealership next to Notogawa Junior High School. The employees of the repair shop called the police and reported that there are 'ghosts' who are destroying everywhere with wrenches and have already damaged several cars."

He took a deep breath and said, "I'll go there now."

After crossing the park and rushing to Moriya's car dealership, he smashed the head of the troubled ghost for the tearful auto repair shop manager. Before Soya could take a sip of water, he received another notification from the agency.

"Two spirits broke into the city branch..."

After running around four or five times, Soya rented a sports bike from a bicycle shop he passed by, but he still didn't have much time to stop.

"North of the park..."

"The izakaya on the east side of the middle school..."

"Please help..."

The busy day passed quickly.

In the evening, when he dragged his extremely tired body back to Notogawa Kaoban, he saw Moriyama Ayumi greeting him at the door. Soya suddenly understood how his colleagues who had returned one after another when they were on duty two days ago felt about him.

"Thanks for your hard work……"

The only good thing is that you can leave directly after handing over the work, without having to wait for other tasks at the same time.

I declined the invitation of another miko who was riding the train together. After two stops, Soya got off first.

When we walked out of the station, it was getting dark, and the smell of fireworks was in the air.

"Has it started here too?"

It's the smell of burning hemp branches.

When he was still on the Noto River, he had already seen the "Yinghun Huo" that got up early on the roadside or by the river.

It’s Obon Festival, and today is the first day of the Bon festival.

As dusk deepened, I walked past someone else's yard, and the white smoke rising from the burning hemp branches became invisible. Smelling the increasingly obvious smell of fireworks, Soya went straight back to Kirino's old house without stopping.

"Sogu is back."

Mr. and Mrs. Kirino are here, and since it is the day of the baptism ceremony, the izakaya will also have a night's rest.

A pottery pot for the soul fire has been placed in the yard, piled with hemp branches, and a newspaper placed underneath to light the fire.

"Sotani doesn't look very good." Kirino Keiko called Sotani over, "Is the work at the shrine very hard?"

He forced a smile and said, "It's not easy."

"Sogu, let's go over there and rest first." She pointed to the edge where several girls were sitting, and then asked her husband to light the fire.

Soya sat over and watched Kirino Hiroyuki light the match, and suddenly understood: "Are you waiting for me?"

Asagiri Suzu looked at him, Kirino Akane and Anko both nodded.

He opened his mouth, but finally said nothing.

The newspaper was flammable, so when a match was brought close to it, the flame instantly rose up, engulfing the hemp branches piled above and igniting it, causing the flames to dance.

"Nowadays, only in rural areas like ours, we light soul fires." Kirino Keiko crossed her arms and stared at the fire that gradually dimmed after the newspapers were burned. "In order to prevent fires in the city, people always put a fire at home.

There’s an Obon lantern.”

"I still prefer this traditional way." Kirino Akane murmured.

Kirino Keiko looked back at her daughter and laughed again.

"It only needs to be liked by the ancestors."

According to legend, Obon Festival is a ceremony for the souls of ancestors to return to the human world. The fire to welcome the souls is lit to prevent the ancestors from getting lost when they return home.

The hemp branches burned for a while, and the open flame became smaller and smaller, gradually disappearing. A thin and long wisp of white smoke floated into the night sky, becoming part of the smell of fireworks that filled the air.

"alright."

Kirino Keiko turned back to the house and bowed before the Buddhist altar set up in the living room, "The ancestors have come back, it's time for us to have dinner."

Looking at the pottery pot with only a few embers left, Kirino Hiroyuki picked up the shoes that his wife had taken off and walked towards the entrance.

Soya stood up, while Kirino Akane was still sitting on the edge, looking up at the starry sky connected by white smoke.

"Have the ancestors come back..."

She looked at him again.

Zonggu shook his head.

"Sure enough...it's just a legend after all."

Back in the living room, Akane Kirino pointed to the Buddhist altar filled with vegetables, fruits and flowers, "I helped prepare this in the morning."

"Yeah."

"Mom said the time to set up the pot shed should not be later than noon."

She bowed to the spiritual throne in the middle of the altar, knocked the copper plate again, and then pointed to the eggplant and cucumber next to it, "I also strung the elf horse and elf cow together, so they're not bad."

Zonggu looked at it, then nodded.

"It's quite similar."

There are four thin wooden branches stuck under each of the two melons and fruits. Because they resemble cows and horses, they have become the sustenance of the ancestors' souls.

The elf horse is a cucumber, hoping that the souls of the ancestors will speed up and return early to reunite with their relatives;

Eggplant is an elf cow, and its steps are slow, and it also expresses the hope of walking more slowly when parting from the ancestors. The cow can also carry more sacrifices for the ancestors to return to the other side to enjoy.

The incense in the incense burner was about to burn out. Kirino Akane picked up a few incense sticks and was about to put them on the candles to light them. After thinking about it, she turned back and said, "Do you want to put on some incense?"

The three of them nodded one after another, and each received a stick of incense.

After offering the incense, Zonggu also paid his respects.

"If Soya has any wish, my ancestors might help make it come true," Akane Kirino said.

He smiled a little, and after a while he bowed a few times to the tombs of the ancestors of the Kirino family, and then rang the bell.

bite--

"Hey, what did Sogu wish for?"

"I hope that after my duty ends tomorrow, the next shift schedule can arrange for me to stand guard at the intersection of the county road at night."

"Ah, it's so realistic."

"By tomorrow night, we will know whether this wish has been fulfilled."

Arriving at the restaurant, Kirino and his wife prepared dinner.

Soya sat down next to Asagiri Suzu, glanced around, and found that Tsukuyomi was still upstairs, so he went upstairs to ask him to come down.
To be continued...