In Japanese reasoning, "yokai reasoning" represented by Kyogoku Natsuhiko has become a popular branch of the reasoning genre and has attracted the attention of many readers. In the local reasoning, there is also a "Zhiwei reasoning" with legends and strange things as the clue, for example, the "Mr. Shirasawa Zhiwei Tan" that we are going to share today is a very interesting Zhiwei reasoning novel.
"Mr. Shirasawa Zhiwei Tan" takes a folk Zhiwei note as a clue, through the exploration of scholar detective Mr. Bai Ze and his friend Tao Fangbi, gradually discovering this Zhiwei note that records the so-called bizarre and mysterious case, as if alluding to a local tragedy decades ago! Under the pursuit and reasoning of Mr. Bai Ze, the truth was finally restored. The novel combines folklore and suspenseful reasoning, which is relatively rare in local speculative fiction, and we will ask the author of this book, Jun Hirayama, to share his creative ideas for us.
Author Pingshan Jun: "Mr. Bai Ze Zhi Wei Tan" has a subtitle, called "The Case of Shuluo on Earth", the background of the story is a special historical period that occurred after the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, plus the "Thorn Horse Case", a case that stirred up the Qing court, which triggered a series of murders in Nanjing, the most mysterious of which is the no-one surviving case of Nanjing Ku'er Temple. Since no one survived, the folk began to have rumors that the Shura ghost came out to ask for his life. Decades later, Shirasawa, the detective of the book, finally succeeded in solving the case through a handwritten, autobiographical-like book.
In the whole process of case reasoning, there is no physical evidence, and it is completely reasonable reasoning based on known clues. This kind of reasoning is the mode that "Mr. Bai Ze Zhi Wei Tan" focuses on, because the past certainly did not have such a rich criminal investigation technology as we have now. Moreover, it is precisely because of the lack of ancient criminal investigation technology that many murders, once unsolved, are very easy to evolve into grotesque legends and cloaked in mysterious clothing.
For example, in the Tang Dynasty Li Fuyan's "Record of continuing Xuan Wei", there is a "Xin Ping Shangxian", which tells that the ghosts of the underworld sent to the Daming Palace in Chang'an to receive the emperor "Shangxian", that is, the scene after his death, the text is more strange, but it is somewhat consistent with the history of the Tang Dynasty at that time, so posterity has always suspected that this Zhiwei story is written in a palace coup d'état of the emperor, and the emperor involved may be Tang Shunzong or Tang Xianzong.
In fact, in addition to some grotesque stories, many zhiwei stories are exhortatory and educational, reflecting the customs and folklore of various places and the lives of ordinary people. For example, the story of the Seven Fairies, the story of Meng Jiangnu, and the story of the White Snake, they are all constantly improved in China's history and culture, and in different histories and different regions, the processing of these stories is different and has its own characteristics. And in the end, the essence is preserved, and the bad is discarded.