Editing Ghost Hunt:Volume 5 Chapter 3 (section)

===7===

In the end, before sunset neared, we went to measure the stairs. Step by step, we carefully measured, then recorded it faithfully on the diagram. Then, during this process, John found ''that''.

''That'' was near the center of the building, in the middle of a short flight of stairs.  Along the corridor there were about 10 steps ascending. There was a room directly facing the top of this flight of stairs. From there onwards, the corridor split into slightly narrow left and right branches. Where the corridor was wider; the walls on both sides were covered with whitewash. From where I stood, up to my chest height, there was a 10cm wide protruding panel. It was engraved beautifully with a relief sculpture of creepers. Beneath that decoration…

“There’s a door here.”

John, who had squatted down to measure the height of the step, spoke. Looking closely at it, on the wall, next to where John was squatting, beneath the relief sculpture, half a door could be seen.

The door was the same color as the white wash. Due to the protrusion of the relief sculpture, it blocked our vision of this door previously.

Half of the door was covered by the stairs. Even like this, from a higher position, a small door handle could be seen. John grabbed this handle and pushed. The door opened easily inwards.

I shone the torch into the dark room.

That was a narrow room about 3 tatami’s size. The floor was covered with dust; there wasn’t a thing that looked like furniture. Although there was a window on the inside, no light shone through it. It was clearly sealed from the outside.

John jumped into that room. The dust was all stirred up; John coughed a few times gently.

“Is there anything inside?”

Although Bou-san spoke to John like that, the room was just like what we saw with our first brief sweep with the torch: besides the dust, there was nothing. No.

“There’s a frame hung on the wall.”

We stretched our necks to see the large frame pointed out by John.

“Besides that, there isn’t anything else, is there?”

“No.”

John removed the frame and passed it back out of the room. I took the dust covered frame, then Bou-san and Yasuhara pulled John up from the room.

There, I carefully rubbed the dust on the frame. It looked like a portrait.

After rubbing the dust even more carefully, the canvas became uneven, and the remnants of an oil painting appeared. A male was drawn on it: a frail, shrewd looking man of about 40. His hair was neatly combed, and he wore a black overcoat over his black kimono. 

“There’s a signature here.”

Bou-san pointed to the bottom left corner of the portrait. Sloping yellow lines were written there. Rather than calling them lines, they should be called patterns made from lines. As for what was written above, we all couldn’t see clearly.

“… this is the Kaō.”

“Kaō?”

“Aah, a Japanese style signature. It’s a stylized method of writing Kanji etc. … I really can’t see a thing on this one.”

Bou-san tilted the frame. He turned the portrait around to look at its back.

“There’s something written here.”

On the frame was a row of black words written vertically.

“March, Meiji 32. Self Portrait. 浦户(Urado)”

These words were written in neat calligraphy.

“March, Meiji 32. Self Portrait. Urado. Is it?”

Bou-san looked a few times at the signature on the right side.

“No wonder. This word looks like the word ‘浦’ (Ura).”

That is to say the Kaō was designed from the character ‘浦’.

Yasuhara thought for a moment.

“That’s really strange. Normally aren’t signatures made from first names? ‘俊树(Toshioki?)’ and what not. This is a surname, right?”

“There’s that too.”

It was Urado-san’s self portrait. But who was this person called Urado?

Yasuhara also thought the same things as I did,

“If the self portrait of this person is here as decoration, this Urado person should be a relative of Mr Miyama.”

“Was he an artist of relative fame?”

Yeah~, but I’ve never heard the name ‘Urado’.

“It’d be better to ask Ohashi-san about this one.”

Bou-san returned the portrait to its frame as he said that. Then, he patted John’s shoulder.

“Come, John. Let’s go measure this room.”

… Thank you guys.

The two of them carried tape measures, crawled into that narrow room and measured the dimensions and direction of the room. Then they started measuring if the floor was sloping or not, and what height the floor was from the staircase.

While they were measuring, I looked once more at that picture. Mr “Urado” somehow looked like a cold person. He had a thin face, sunken eyes, a mouth that was closed into a straight line, and a long and narrow nose; perhaps it was this external appearance that gave me that impression.

When we returned to base, the sun had long set; hence we were severely scolded by Naru. He said, didn’t he tell us to return before dusk etc. Whatever~, we were clearly working desperately. He’s really such a grouse. 

Only when I quietly asked Ayako, did I find out that no one had found the entry to the X level yet. That was why his mood was so bad. This person is really headstrong.

Regardless, we still told Naru etc about John finding a hidden room. After I showed the frame in question to Naru, his attitude changed slightly.

“March, Meiji 32, Self Portrait, Urado.”

Naru repeated.

“The signature… Ura.”

Naru suddenly raised his head. He searched the tabletop and pulled out an envelope. He pulled out the paper money from the envelope.

“What’s up?”

“It is ‘浦Ura’.”

Naru let the light shine through the note.

… ah. There was indeed the word ‘浦Ura’ written on the note.

Naru handed the note to me. I looked at the note with light shining through it. Bou-san’s head also moved closer.

Amidst the overlapping blotches were words written with a fountain pen or something. Near the center was the word ‘浦Ura’. After looking at the words nearby…

“Isn’t this ‘户(do?)’, next to it?”

“It’s true. This is ‘户’.”

… Urado. 

So that’s what it was. Bou-san picked up the envelope on the table as he spoke. The characters we had seen yesterday were written on it.

‘吧(ba) 走(walk) 了(already) 浦(Ura) 被(by) 听(hear) 死(die) 都(all) 这(this) 来(come)’

Bou-san wrote the word ‘户’ next to the word ‘浦’.

‘吧(ba) 走(walk) 了(already) 浦户(Urado) 被(by) 听(hear) 死(die) 都(all) 这(this) 来(come)’

“Why are these words written…? ‘被(by) 听(hear)’… this is ‘被 听(listened by)’ right? ‘浦户(Urado)’ ‘死(die)’ ‘都(all) 这(this) 来(come)’… ‘来这里的都 (all who came to this place)’…?”

“What type of speech is this considered?”

“Exactly.”

Bou-san and I let out a sigh.

“And I was still thinking there could be some clue.”

At this time, Yasuhara spoke.

“Wait a moment. This is wrong. ‘户(do)’ is on the left side.”

“Ai?”

Yasuahara took the envelope, rubbed off Bou-san’s words, then rewrote the word:

“吧(ba) 走(walk) 了(already) 户浦(do-ura?) 被(by) 听(hear) 死(die) 都(all) 这(this) 来(come)”

“户浦(do-ura?)?”

Everyone tilted their heads.

“I’ve got it!”

Yasuhara snapped his fingers.

“This is read from right to left.” 

… Ai?

Bou-san also agreed.

“It’s like this. If you think about it from the perspective of the era when these words were written, it’s actually more natural this way.”

Yasuhara rewrote the words on the note.

“来(come) 这(this) 都(all) 死(die) 听(hear) 被(by) 浦户(Urado) 了(already) 走(walk) 吧(ba)”

We looked at the note with light shining through it several more times.

“This and this are joined together… between these two words there is a word…”

We mumbled to ourselves while we re-wrote the words beneath it again.

“来(Come)? 这里(This place)? 全都死了(Have all died) 听说是被浦户(heard it was Urado who)?? 的(particle)? 走吧(go)”

“How is it?”

We took turns reading the paper passed around by Yasuhara.

Wuu, even if it’s like this, we still don’t understand anything.

“The first sentence should be comprehensible.”

Yasuhara mumbled. Bou-san spoke with a stiff voice.

“I think it’s comprehensible too.”

Ai?

“Isn’t this ‘come to this place… have all died’?”

“Ah!”

“Perhaps it refers to the people who came to this place. But it’s not too clear if there are 2 or 3 words in the space in between.”

The people who came to this place have all died…

“If that’s the case then the last sentence should be simple.”

Ayako said with extreme displeasure.

“This is a message left for a certain person. ‘The people who came to this place have all died. … run away’…”

(tl/n: this incomplete is actually ridiculously difficult to translate, since the word order used in Chinese is different from English. 

The sentence in Chinese with the missing words replaced by a question mark goes: 

来? 这里? 全都死了。 听说是被浦户?? 的。? 走吧。 

If I take the liberty of filling in the missing words, I can get: 

来''到''这里''的''全都死了。 听说是被浦户''杀'' 的。 ''逃''走吧。

Translating that to English: 

''Those'' who c''a''me to this place have all died. Heard they were ''killed'' by Urado. ''Run'' away. )