Month: October 2020

Many years later, after the truth about his atrocities surfaced and became known to the wider public, the reporter, working for the Japanese national newspaper wrote down the following sensational subtitle: “He kidnapped women from China and Korea, turned them into sex slaves in his underground palace. Like an imperial emperor, he entertained by torturing, maiming and mutilating his victims. When he got bored, he killed them.”

TRUE CRIME DOCUMENTARY

translated from Japanese

On April 23rd, after being sentenced to death, Mizuno Ken was executed in the Fukuoka’s Sawara-ku’s northeast district. With a crisp gun-shot sound reverberating through the clear, fresh air of the bright noon, Mr. Mizuno ended his bloodthirsty criminal life, but his atrocities still lingered like a dark cloud that refused to dissipate, especially so for the local Chinese women who had come to Japan to work and study. Whenever they were reminded of the mournful ghosts floating in the pear garden, their hair bristled up and their bodies trembled uncontrollably.

Above the pear garden, over the quiet night sky, a young woman’s pleading shot across the air, “Please save me. I need to go to school.”

Mizuno Ken was the owner of the largest pear garden in the Fukuoka prefecture, a well known businessman with many connections in the trade of agricultural export to China, Korea, and Taiwan. Six years ago, on a shimmering, aestival day of March—just the season when pear flowers blossomed, sitting in front of his pear garden—thousands of pear trees had the entire place covered with luscious green leaves—as the snow-white pear flowers floated whiffs of fragrance in the air, Mr. Mizuno pondered the implementation of an evil scheme.

Spending over the span of a year, with elaborate planning and intricate design, he built a secret underground palace in his own pear garden. From the outside looking in, it was a wooden shack, plain, simple and commonplace. Nothing special, you would say if you saw it. However, the interior was complex, maze-like, and spacious. The underground palace had two structures. The shack above ground served as a cover-up, but once you remove the wooden plank covering one of the corners in the shack, you would see an opening, and following the long, serpentine path spiraling downward, you would be led to the menacing underground chamber.

Once inside, you would see an upholstered king-sized bed with mahogany on one side, a throne made with golden frame and beige velvet right in the center. A few other household items all neatly displayed on the other side of the wall: the most distinctive ones being knives, hem ropes, industrial grade duct tapes, a pair of heavy-duty scissors, a steel-grip plier, and a forged iron fire tong.

Anyone who entered this underground chamber never came out alive.

Mr. Mizuno called this secret location his “梨園の地下宮殿”, (the pear garden’s underground palace).

“The palace has been built, the only thing missing are beautiful, young women.” Darkness, like a furnace of foul reeking smoke, filled the chamber. Mr. Mizuno sat on his throne and pondered, “If only I could get a few beautiful young women to accompany me inside my palace, how wonderful that would be! There will be delicious fruits during the day, and voluptuous, sensual females to play with at night. This is the heavenly paradise that Mizuno Ken pursues.”

Chen Xiao Jing was Mr. Mizuno’s first prey. At the time she was only 18 years old, immigrated to Japan with her mother from northeast China when she was ten. Her face was a perfect oval, white and smooth like porcelain, and long silky black hair fell to her soft creamy shoulders. Her virginal innocence, angelic purity, and dainty feet and delicate hands made Mizuno dying with lust the first time he saw her.

On March 22nd, 1998, as Mr. Mizuno was coming from the Hakata rail station he bumped into Chen Xiao Jing who was accompanied by three other Chinese girls. He walked up to Jing. After greeting her, he said: “The flowers in my pear garden are very beautiful. There’s a lot of small butterflies. And bees. Glow-worms at night. Oh what a wonderful sight! Do you want to see?”

Jing said, “I want to see,” and threw her book-pack to her friends and came to Mr. Mizuno’s pear garden. Seeing she had been completely isolated from her friends, Mr. Mizuno revealed a lascivious, evil grin that bared his carious teeth. He stripped Jing naked and pushed her into the shack, threatening her that: “If you scream, I will kill you.”

Chen Xiao Jing was 5 feet 2 and weighed 90 pounds; Mizuno Ken was 6 feet tall and 200 pounds. Years of farm work made him strong and muscle-bound.

Like a starved beast tormented by sharp pangs of hunger, Mr. Mizuno raped Jing over and over again, quenching his dreadful, evil thirst. After the fourth time of ejaculating inside her vaginally, he groped all over Jing’s body with his hands—rubbing her breasts, fingering her vaginal opening until he became hard again—and penetrated her anally and ejaculated, this time directly into her rectum. Until he could no longer maintain erection, he proudly stood over Jing’s puny body and proclaimed: “Now you will belong to me forever.”

After the repeated rape, he shoved a gag—consisting of two steel claw hooks that artificially held the victim’s mouth in an open position—into Jing’s mouth so she could not speak. Then he used the hem ropes to tie her hands and feet together behind her back, so she was in a hogtied position. He put her into a large burlap sack, and ditched her into a hole that was dug up previously using a shovel. With a slab of concrete to cover the hole, he left and waited to use her for the next installment of rape.

Mr. Mizuno returned home, walked around his neighborhood, and did not notice anything unusual. He felt his heart stopped pounding so violently.

“Initially, my heartbeat was driving me crazy. My whole body was shaking. I was sweating so much. The front and back of my shirt were all soaking wet. I was looking at myself from the outside. An out of body experience. Jing was my first victim. I will never be able to forget her.” Mizuno Ken said according to police report.

Later that night, Mr. Mizuno returned to the pear garden, dug her out of the hole, removed the burlap bag so that she was half-sitting inside it. Taking off her gag—while caressing her naked body with one hand and using another hand to embrace her into his massive chest, he said to her, looking into her large, round, tearful eyes: “If you obey me, I will let you go.”

Jing was wrapped and confounded in mind-numbing fears. She stared pleadingly at Mr. Mizuno and nodded. Her pitiful state of weakness and submission provoked his bestial lust again and he inflicted on her young and poor flesh another round of brutal rape that lasted for five hours. During the process he bit into her flesh with his bare teeth. Her breasts, buttocks, and inner thighs were covered with bloody teeth marks. As he penetrated her both vaginally and anally, he lifted her body upward and then slammed her against the ground and the violent impact caused Jing to break her rib bones. There was fracture in her left arm. Her wrists and ankles were bleeding from laseration.

After the rape, once again, Jing pleaded with her abuser: “Please let me go. My homeworks are not finished yet. I need to go to school. Please let me go.”

Grinning, Mr. Mizuno said, “Forget about going home. The underground palace will be your home from now on, and your purpose in life hereafter will be to serve me, satisfying me in any way I desire. You are from now on my sex slave.”

He wrapped several layers of industrial grade duct tape around her eyes and mouth, only leaving her nose for breathing. Putting her back inside the burlap sack, he ditched her into the hole for the second time and put the concrete slab back in place.

The night—hateful, vaporous, foggy—was silent to the extreme, like a guilty burglar scared to reveal his crime. Suddenly, the ear-piercing siren could be heard. There were people shouting Chen Xiao Jing’s name. Groups of people holding flashlights were looking for her. Mizuno Ken also joined them. They went and searched, ran and cried, furious and begged, frustrated and mourned, angered and stomped their feet in the ground, until the morn, in russet mantle clad, walked over the dew of yonder high eastward hill.

The next day, around 9 A.M., Mr. Mizuno went over to his pear garden, dug Jing out of the hole, and gently tapped her, while shouting, “My sweet angel. My child.” His purpose was to wake her so he could molest and rape her again, but Jing never opened her eyes again. There were only streaks of tears crisscrossing her round and smooth cheeks that radiated with hatred over the bright sun. Hastily, Mr. Mizuno buried her corpse under his pear tree.

Ever since, the pear garden was covered by the shadows of something mysterious and terrifying.

“Getting on the Death Table. Eager and Willing to leave the living behind.” The words Mizuno Ken carved on the stone spirit tablet for every woman he killed. Were they really so eager and so willing to leave the living behind?

The hot afternoon of a bright summer day. The glorious sun, scorching the earth with heat. The pear garden, filled with the buzzing of cicada. Beneath the ground, from the underground palace, stealthily, faintly, one heard the sound of laughter and crying.

Mizuno Ken was sitting on the golden throne in his underground palace while several completely naked, young East Asian females served him. Sometimes he made them sing for him. Sometimes dance. Sometimes massage his back. Sometimes massage his feet. When he was in the mood, he had sex with them. After he vented his lust, those naked females crawled on their hands and knees and begged for mercy. They prostrated before Mr. Mizuno and kissed his feet. And if any of them dared to annoy or disobey Mr. Mizuno, he used corporal punishment to maintain discipline. Light infractions involved whipping, spanking; wearing electric shock collars, handcuffs and ankle cuffs for extended period of time. Heavy infractions involved mutilation, dismembering, disemboweling.

In order to prevent escape, Mr. Mizuno ordered those women to be completely naked both day and night, making them live the most primitive lifestyle. And if he ever got bored with any of them, he killed them one by one, and buried their corpses under the pear trees in his garden, as pear trees’ organic fertilizers. Then he would start to hunt for his new prey. Kidnap them. Enslave them in his underground palace. Train them. Discipline them. Domesticate them.

Police: “Why only Chinese and Korean women?”

Mizuno Ken: “Because it’s easier to kidnap non-Japanese women. The Japanese police would not take lots of time and effort to look for non-Japanese Asian women. After all, many of them are illegally trafficked to Japan anyway. Nobody cares about them. I have seen beautiful Russian women too, but I was afraid white women will cause too much problem. East Asian women are cheap and exchangeable.”

A day in 2001, August, Mr. Mizuno was riding his motorcycle on the countryside road and he saw a gorgeous, young East Asian woman, around 30 years old. Immediately he went back home and changed to his van to start hunting for his prey. This woman was Li Xiao Cui, 29 years old. Due to marital disputes with her husband, she decided to come to Japan looking for work. Mr. Mizuno used the pretext of hiring her for a job successfully seduced her to come to his pear garden’s underground palace. When Cui realized that something was amiss, she started to run. Using a baseball bat, Mr. Mizuno hit her over the head, causing her to become unconscious. He then dragged her into the underground palace, stripped off her clothes, tied her hands and feet. Over the course of one week he raped her 15 times. In order to prevent her from escape, he did not give her any clothes to wear. And if she screamed, he put the gag over her mouth.

Police: ”How long did you keep Li Xiao Cui.”

Mizuno Ken: “I kept her for two weeks.”

“How did you treat her?”

“So, my everyday routine was—come into the palace, have sex with her, and, after I have sex with her, beat her. I beat her until I became aroused again. Have sex with her again. And repeat.”

“Then what happened?””

“Her whole body was covered with bruises. I used a plier to twist her nipples. I loved hearing her scream. I used the same plier to twist her clitoris. I got so thrilled from looking at her pitiful and painful expressions—the way her whole body trembled as soon as I held the plier in her face, the way she cried and begged me to stop—it was so hot. I’m different from other men. I get turned on by the sight of women in pain. After I fucked her vaginally, I fucked her anally. Even as I fucked her I used my leather belt to whip her ass. I used a lit cigarette to burn her nipples and pussy. I felt this calmness and unspeakable comfort and joy. After I cummed in her, I stood up and pissed in her mouth, but she spilled some of the urine on my legs, which made me angry. So I used a fire tong, burned until it’s red hot, and pinched her clitoris. Then it would be about daytime, and I would head for home. The next evening I would come back.”

“Do you ever feel remorse or guilt?”

“Initially, yes, but afterward, the feeling would cease.”

Another time, Cui cursed at him, so to punish her, Mr. Mizuno used a sewing needle and thread to stitch her upper and lower lips together, with a total of 12 stitches shutting her mouth completely. Then, he stitched her vagina shut by sewing her outer labia together, with a total of six stitches.

“I can’t even stop laughing as I remember it. The way she tried to scream as I sewed her vagina shut. She couldn’t open her mouth. She got tears and nose water all over herself.”

Unable to feed or properly urinate, Li Xiao Cui begged and pleaded with her tormentor for release. With brinish pearls dropping from her once bright eyes she mumbled: “Please. Please. I do anything you want.”

So Mr. Mizuno decided to get her anti-inflammatory drugs, hemostatic, and bandage for some simple first-aid. But Mr. Mizuno never stopped tormenting her. Very soon, she became mentally unstable: everyday, naked and shackled, she crawled to and knelt by the toilet that contained her own feces. Morsel by morsel, she chewed and gulped down her own excrement.

The pear garden under the veil of pitch darkness, the shifting kaleidescope of darkness: gentle breeze caressed pear tree leaves to a rattle noise. As if to savor a momentary glimmer of consciousness, a shooting star slid across the sky above the pear garden. Poor Xiao Cui. That night she was raped and tortured by Mr. Mizuno for the very last time. After her mouth, vagina and rectum were all pumped full of Mr. Mizuno’s semen—the seed of monstrous birth brought out of hell itself, he bound her left arm to left foot, right arm to right foot, duct-taped her mouth, and holding a girdling knife—used for pruning off tree barks—sliced off her breasts, vagina, and her thighs, until she stopped breathing. Thereafter, he dragged her out of the secret chamber, a trail of blood like a dreamy rivulet slithered and meandered on the ground, unwinding, curling, strengthening, circling, in irregular patterns toward the exit.

“The Ambrosial joy of power, and victory, I feel when I maim and kill those weak, and inferior Asian women. It’s quite inexplicable. It’s the feeling of heaven. I felt like a god. My pears are also so sweet and delicious because of them, knowing that each bite I took was fostered by the decomposition of their once sweet, fragrant and tortured flesh.”

Like the previous victim, Cui was buried under a random, indistinguishable, nameless pear tree in the pear garden.

Asano-Yang Yuki (Yan-Li) was a voluptuous, young housewife with big, round breasts, a wide hip and upturned buttocks, and a slim dancer-like waist. Her eyes were large and bright; her lips juicy-red. Her face was as clear as morning roses newly washed with dew. She was 26 years old at the time, 5 feet 7, with a sweet, seductive voice that mesmerized men. One night, Mr. Mizuno kidnapped her into the underground palace. He stripped her clothes, and made her sing and dance completely naked to entertain him.

She swung her wide hips from side to side and waltzed to show off her salacious buttocks and shamefully-exposed pussy as she was singing to the tone of popular Japanese love songs. Using her long and slender fingers she massaged her own breasts, squeezed them, lifted them, then shook them. Her sweet, melodious voice reverberated the cold, damp, heinous room filled with death, torture, rape, and slavery. As she stood with her back toward Mr. Mizuno, she slid down and knelt on the floor, spreading her sensual, creamy thighs, and then, pulling her silky, long black hair into a pigtail, she humped the floor, her naked hip bouncing up and down like balloons and her breasts and her pigtail moved synchronously. Her bright red toenails and fingernails appeared brighter under the electric pale lamp. Still on the floor, slowly she turned around to reveal to him her welcoming pussy, and two streaks of tears like two vertical scars cut across her face.

Ken Mizuno: “As I watched her, I thought to myself, if I had not kidnapped her, and enslaved her in my underground palace, I would have been her slave, because her beauty had enthralled me. So I had to do what I had to do. I had to enslave her to free myself from the lust that was burning inside me.”

While she was crying, he was smiling from ear and ear, licking his lips and smacking them together from time to time. As he watched her erotic dance and listened to her love songs touched with the shade of melancholic boughs, he took another big bite into the lewdly over-ripened pear, masticating a big trunk of it in his open mouth.

After he finished eating, like a crazed beast, he used a knife to stab into Yan-Li’s lily-white feet. Blood splattered and flowed, as if her red nail polish became amoebas and multiplied. Then he said: ”From now on, you are my slave. You are to be naked. To serve me. And if you try to escape, I will dismember you. Cut you into five pieces. You will be left with only a limb-less torso, like a pumpkin.”

Yan-Li was so scared that her whole body shook uncontrollably. Her teeth were clacking non-stop. All her wits banished the frail sepulcher of her flesh. Like a shell of her former self, she let him reign freely and wantonly over her, without any resistance.

In the pear garden’s underground palace, she had entered an alternative reality, into a world where there was no longer any morality. No more humanity. No more bounds of law that held the civil society together. Only the most depraved sexual desire of sadism reigned.

“I remember when I was a little boy, I used to vivisect little animals like rabbits, rats, and frogs. And I felt immense joy after doing this. This secret desire that I have carried has been living with me for my entire life. I wanted to withdraw from the outside world so I could live in a world of mine own making, where I am a king, an emperor, a lord, a deity; where I have the freedom to freely torture, rape, maim, kill. I feel so happy. So satisfied. I have lived a life that most people don’t even dare to dream of. Only in their nightmares maybe.”

Police: “Do you have any humanity left in you? Do you not have a wife? Do you not have any children? How could you do this kind of thing?”

“Where will be your bright star if it were not for the darkness? Where is the glory of your god if there is no evil? I simply did something that any man would do when he had completely given a free reign to his desires. I simply am living according to my true nature as a man. I forgo the mask of morality and civil society that enslaves man and inhibits man’s most natural and most rapacious desire. I did nothing wrong.”

The police officer felt his skull numb.

“How did you meet Asano-Yang Yuki (Yan-Li).”

“I met Yuki two months after I killed Cui. I was at a karaoke bar and I heard her singing. I like torturing women like her. Her body was so sensual and erotic. From her accents,I knew she wasn’t Japanese. So that fit my description. I went there everyday to meet her, showering her with gifts. From chatting with her, I learned she was married to a Japanese man. Now divorced. And a single mother. I told her I had a cousin, a doctor, still single, and very wealthy, and that one day we could get together for dinner to introduce her.”

“How did you kill her?”

“But she was tough. She didn’t want to obey me. I had to whip her everyday. I poured salt on her open wounds. I beat her in this way for ten days. There was not a single healthy patch of skin left on her body. But she still did not submit. The next day I used a piece of branding iron, burned red hot, to brand her. On her nipples and on her back. She just couldn’t take it anymore.”

Everyday of her life in the underground palace felt as long as a year. Yan-Li had tried to escape, but she never succeeded. After the branding torture, she eventually submitted. She called him her lord and master and obeyed his every command with an absolute obedience. One day, after Mr. Mizuno’s bestial desire was quenched, as he was lying on his king-sized bed, Yan-Li, her feet shackled to the bed frame, was kneeling by his side and massaging his body, and she said: “My lord, please take pity on me. My parents are old and bed-ridden. I also have a child who’s only 7 years old and needs to go to school. Please just let me go take care of them at home. Once everyone is taken care off, I will come back to be your most obedient and royal sex slave. Everyday I will serve you. I will satisfy you in anyway you wish. My good lord, my merciful master, please, okay?”

Mr. Mizuno laughed, then became angry, and said to her: ”Every woman that had ever walked into my secret chamber has never came out of here alive. If you want to live, this is how you will end up.” He pointed at the hangings on the far end of the wall. On that wall, plastered with pale white paint, were several dismembered female genital parts.

He pointed at them and beamed with pride.

“I have this habit, where, whenever after I kill a woman, I sever her genitals and hang them on the wall like trophies. This is to warn the other females in the secret chamber that their only way out is to serve me with devotion and obedience, or else, they will become another mournful 怨霊 (ghost) under the pear trees.”

A hazy Autumn night, the sky canopied in the kingdom of perpetual night. Dark clouds, moonless, starless. Frosty air piercing to the bones, deadened and distorted by the moisture of rain, quivering like arrows in the resonant, empty expanse of dread and terror where foul deformity and misshappen chaos reigned. The thunderstorm roared infants from their sweet dreams with tormenting sights of hell, and then, as sudden as it had come, the Furies left and all was quiet again.

Mr. Mizuno raped Yan-Li once again, and felt like it was time to let her go.

“I felt bored with her. She was not obedient. It was meaningless. I bound her hands and feet together. Stuffed a sock into her mouth, then using a needle and thread I sewed her mouth shut. A total of 12 stitches from upper lip to lower lip. Then I sliced off her vagina and breasts. She was in a lot of pain. She pissed and shat all over herself. It was good enough. I decapitated her. Dragged her headless body out and buried her.”

Asano-Yang Yuki (Yan-Li) was buried under the pear tree of the 6th row and 39th column.

“Getting on the Death Table. Eager and Willing to leave the living behind.” written on the spirit tablet, located at pear garden’s south-eastern direction, third row, counting from the northern direction the 42nd column, for Wang Xue Mei. Second row, 12th column, the same spirit tablet, Yu Riyin (Rikio).

“I believe in Buddhism, so I would carve a little stone placard for every woman after I have slept with her. One, I want to remember them. Two, I hope their spirits will not torment me. Even though I conquered every single one of them in my secret chamber, their mournful and revengeful spirits often surround me in my sleep. Their images appear in front of my eyes. One night, I dreamed of them. I saw Xiao-Cui, Jing, Yuki, Mei holding my legs and arms, pulling me in all directions, and dragging me toward a cauldron full of boiling oil. I was scared to death. Thankfully I woke up and realized it was a nightmare.”

Did Wang Xue Mei really want to leave the living behind? In her diary she writes: “1998, after I graduated from technical school, I was full of hope for life. Infinitely bright and radiant everything seemed. But my failed marriage had such a severe impact on me. Once, I was sitting by the bank of Shinano river and I wondered, how much release I would obtain by letting the turbulent river swallow me alive! But then, I saw a seagull. She was struggling against the mighty and contentious river. The tumultuous waves looked as if it was going to drown her. But in a brief moment, she reappeared on the surface of the water, and slowly, rose toward the blue welkin. Humans should strive to live, with the same fortitude of the seagull.”

From then on, Mei decided to reinvigorate her courage to live and rekindle her belief in life, A day of 2002, September, she came to Fukuoka to discuss with her good friend Yu Rikio about starting a massage-parlor business, and when they were looking for a store-front, unbeknown to themselves, they had become Mizuno Ken’s hunting-targets. Once he learned about their intentions, he started to cajole them: “I’m the owner of the largest pear export incorporated in all of Fukuoka. Right now I need female technicians. You two seem bright and motivated. Why not come to my company and assist me in my administrative department?”

Mei and Rikio felt enraptured, as if a gift had fallen out of sky, but was still a bit hesitant. At this point, a truck full of pears stopped at the commercial bus station, and Mr. Mizuno waved at the two to come with him to take a look. He said, “Look! Those are all my pears, from my agricultural center.” As he said it, he waved at the driver who—recognizing Mizuno Ken—smiled and nodded, and from the cabin he reached in and grabbed out a two handfuls of juicy pears for the two girls. “Have a taste. They juicy and sweet.”

The gullible and innocent pair munched on the fruits as they followed Mr. Mizuno to doom, hand-in-hand, skipping and smiling, into the garden of evil.

The innocuous-looking garden, covered by pear trees, a green sea bearing fruit for the sustenance of life, under the sunset glow, seemed golden, hiding its heinous deeds underground. Its luscious pears, heavy, ripe and eager to fall to the ground, bent the tender and delicate twigs as if to the point of breaking.

Mei and Rikio worked for Mr. Mizuno for a few days and started to notice that something was strange about him.

“I don’t know what is it with this guy.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t quite put my finger on it. Everything about this place just seemed eerie and strange. Sometimes it sent chills down my spine just coming to this place.”

“Mr. Mizuno does seem a bit lascivious and leery. I assume all Japanese men are a little bit like that. But think about it. They are just men.”

“Oh my god. You are not saying you actually like this creepy middle-aged guy, are you?’

“Of course not.”

“We must be careful. Remember the proverb, a woman’s beauty will provoke a criminal’s heart sooner than money.”

“I know. Of course I know.”

“Do you? Do you know what he did to me the other day? He tried to grope my pussy.”

“He did the same to me.”

“What! And you!”

“I don’t mind him touching me that much though.”

“We must leave this place. He is not a good person. Call the police. Come on. We must—”

“Don’t. I really need this job. I haven’t had a job for over half a year now. I know how to deal with men. Maybe he just wants to have sex with me. Maybe I will get him to give me some money. My family needs money desperately right now.”

“Listen. I have a very bad foreboding about this guy.”

“I think he is a generous person. Perhaps just too solitary. The isolation of this place does that to people. Japan is a safe place. There are very little crimes.”

For an entire night Rikio tried to convince her friend Mei that something was wrong with the place and urged her to leave, to no avail.

“For my family I’m willing to sacrifice everything, including my dignity. What is the worst he is going to do? Kill me? Haha!”

Mr. Mizuno became aware that they were now suspicious of him and became more cautious. He tried his best to hide his true self. It was easier said than done. It was so hard for him to not stare at those two beautiful young women working in his garden—their soft, puny, white forearms stretching upward to reach his pears, bending over revealing their upturned buttocks. He imagined to himself the depraved acts that he was about to commit to them, and yet he had to control himself, to maintain the facade of benevolence and generosity over the deep, subterranean caverns of his murderous, perverted sexual desire.

The night of Mid-Autumn festival—Tsukimi’s moon, round, brilliant and pale, reminded Mei’s and Rikio’s relatives in China. Time’s deformed hands had written strange disfigurement into Mr. Mizuno’s face. He seemed more and more peculiar by the day. Like a frightened bird Rikio’s heart pounded, a sense of foreboding overcame her, and yet, Mei little suspected the false-worshipper. So guiltless she still securely gave good cheer and reverent welcome to her princely employer, whose inward devil outward harm expressed.

“Mr. Mizuno is hiding something. He is lying to us. He is—”

“We are paid double the usual wage, right?”

“I’m scared. He has ulterior motives.”

“He’s definitely a pervert. He reached his hands under my shirt and fondled my breasts again this morning.”

“We must leave, Mei! It’s too dangerous. We must call the police.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure I confront him and extort some money from me for sexually harassing both of us.”

“Please, Mei. Let us leave!”

Later that night, with deft expertise and experienced ease, Mr. Mizuno kidnapped Rikio and Mei into his vaulty underground “palace”. Mei had forever lost her chance to a happy life. Rikio were vindicated of her suspicions all along, but everything was too late.

“I should have listened to you!”

“It’s too late! It’s too late!” Rikio cried to Mei from inside the cage.

Almost choking with his unresisted lust, Mr. Mizuno kept Rikio inside a steel cage with spindles on all sides, while he tied Mei to the bed, and, over the course of five days, raped both of them continually, repeatedly, taking breaks only when he needed to rest. Every time they tried to put on their clothes, Mr. Mizuno would make them take their clothes off again. Finally, he decided that they didn’t need clothes anymore, and had them kept perpetually naked in the secret chamber. And when Mei and Rikio disobeyed his commands, they received the most brutal beatings of their lives.

Every time Mei disobeyed Mr. Mizuno, he used a butcher’s knife to make a mark on her back, to remind her that she was now his slave. Her lily-white back, crisscrossed with bloody red cuts—a silent war of lilies and roses—testified to humanity her tales of sorrow and misfortune.

Mr. Mizuno’s methods of torture were varied and creative. He had Rikio hang by her wrists from the ceiling and let Mei flog her, watching her feet dangle and dance in midair. Then he would alternate. Suspend Mei in mid-air and let Rikio flog her. He smeared honey on his penis and made Rikio and Mei lick the honey off his penis, and when their oral sex abilities were not to this satisfaction, he whipped both of them with his leather belt.

One night, Mr. Mizuno sat in the alcove of the secret chamber, under the dim lamplight; meticulously, at full attention, using a knife he chiseled on the “spirit tablets” for the two new victims. The stone tablets, motionless and silent, squarish and thick, rested on the circular wooden table; irregular wave patterns were carved on them. Beneath the pattern, in a calligraphy-style imitating Morizawa, he wrote the following words: “Getting on the Death Table. Eager and Willing to leave the living behind.”

On the left side of the spirit tablets were another line of calligraphy, “Sukhavati are little sluts’ paradise.”

The next morning, when Mei was using the bathroom, she saw the tablets, and asked Mr. Mizuno: “Whose spirit tablets are those for?”

He replied: ”Every woman I have played with is my little concubine. Once they leave I will erect spirit tablets for them. After reincarnation they will all still be my little sluts.” After saying this, he embraced Mei, toyed her nipples, and carried her to his king-sized bed again.

Mr. Mizuno lived as an emperor as his “little sluts” alternated in pleasing him. He also enjoyed watching Mei and Rikio having lesbian sex to entertain him. As he penetrated Rikio, lifting her legs so her pussy was directly facing Mei’s face, he asked Mei, “My little slut, does this make you horny.” Mei replied: “Yes, my lord. You are so ferocious. Your little sluts are so enjoying it,” as tears leaked out of her eyes sockets like blood.

During the day, as he sat on his throne, Rikio knelt between his legs and sucked him off, while Mei put on a masturbation show for him, fingering herself, caressing her breasts, all the while singing and smiling, telling Mr. Mizuno how much she wanted to have sex with him, how much she enjoyed being a sex slave. “My lord, I need your penis in my pussy so bad. I ache for you. I would do anything for you. I love being your obedient little slut. I am your slave,” tearfully repeating the lewd sentences she was made to practice.

Life in the underground palace, besieged with horror and deformity, a perpetual dreadful midnight, waiting for a morning that will never come, filled with the foul stench of death—an air unknown on earth—this life had taken a significant tow on Mei. She was only 22 years old and yet her once pristine and sweet-looking face showed significant decrepitude. Her once black hair had become completely white. Her eyes, once bright, seemed deeply burrowed into her deathly pale face. She had become emaciated to the bones. She thought it over, and realized that perhaps Mr. Mizuno was going to replace her and Rikio with a new woman soon. He was more than likely to commit more bloodthirsty deeds to her, so why not put on a last fight.

Rikio had completely lost her mind. She had been locked inside the dog cage in the bathroom for the last several weeks, and was defecating and urinating on herself. Mr. Mizuno enjoyed watching her defiling herself in this way.

Around 8 P.M. the metal gate to the underground palace had been opened. Mr. Mizuno, holding a large brown bag, walked in. He said to Mei: “Come here. I brought some dinner and drinks. Let’s enjoy ourselves.” Mei thought that, after Mr. Mizuno got drunk, she would hit him over with a wooden stick which she had prepared and hidden, and then, she would be able to escape this airless dungeon of macabre. “No strong links of iron can be retentive to the strength of spirit,” she encouraged herself.

After about half an hour, Mr. Mizuno became drunk and rested on bed. Mei held the stick in her hand and swung it with all the strength in her body at the genital area of Mr. Mizuno, but with poor aiming, instead, she hit him over his stomach. Mr. Mizuno became furious. He kicked Mei over to the ground. Using nylon ropes he tied her hands and feet together and defiled her for the very last time. He stared at this woman for a brief moment, and then started the process of “gelding” (宫刑きゅうけい).

First he used a sharpened branch of the pear tree to stab randomly over Mei’s breasts, thighs, and vaginal area. Then he poured toilet water, mixed with urine and feces, down her mouth. Afterward, sticking a small towel into her oral cavity, he used needle and thread to sew her mouth shut. Then he used a knife to carve up her body, slicing off her breasts and vagina. Making a long horizontal incision in her lower abdomen, he removed her uterus by hand.

Seeing that she was still breathing, he started to disembowel her, using a butcher’s knife slicing open her body from the chest vertically all the way down to her vagina opening, exposing all her innards to the air, and then carved out her kidney, liver, and heart. Lastly, he cut off her head, dismembered her legs and separately buried them in the direct-southern area outside the underground palace, third row, from north counting 42nd, 43rd, and 44th column of trees. After he had Mei buried, he took out the “spirit tablet” and buried it along the corpse. Then standing up, he bowed three times.

Similarly for Rikio. Seeing that she was mentally incapacitated, there was no point in keeping her. He took her out of the cage, suspended her from the ceiling, and using a butcher knife, sliced open her body from the front, and with a bucket underneath, let all the blood in her body drip out of her. Then he sliced off the skin around her breasts and vagina. Without any more blood, it became easier for Mr. Mizuno to now carve out her kidney, liver and heart.

Police: “Was Yu Ryin (Rikio) dead or alive at this point?”

Mizuno Ken: “She was alive until her blood that was let out of her body filled the bucket. Mei stopped breathing some time after I carved out her heart.”

“You—basically—vivisected Wang Xue Mei?”

“I vivisected all my victims. It was fun when they were still alive. I felt a happiness that words cannot describe as I did that.”

Rikio was buried in the direct-north region outside of the underground palace, fifth row, from south counting the 89th and 90th column of trees. Again he buried the spirit tablet next to her and bowed three times.

The hallowed full moon, floating above the dark-blue sky, in deep, mysterious repose, as if an eye—that fly from their sights, in darkness daunts them with more dreadful sights—dripped to the ground its sorrowful tears. Suddenly, a cold, gentle wind blew across. Clouds covered the clear night sky. Showers of rain, in tiny drips, fell—left indelible imprints on the muddy soil.

A few minutes later, the pear garden was all quiet again.

_________________________________________________________

District Attorney:

Mei and Rikio were employees of Mr. Mizuno. Xiaocui was Mr. Mizuno’s neighbor. Xiaoliang and Yan-Li were acquaintances with Mr. Mizuno. If Zhang Yami did not escape successfully in 2003, it was likely that Ken Mizuno would still not have been caught.

Given the defendant’s pathological perversion, it was highly probably that he would have repeatedly committed similar crimes and would not have stopped voluntarily if he had not been caught.

Defendant’s wife, Mrs. Mizuno Natsuko, was fully aware of Mr. Mizuno Ken’s crimes. However, she was not the only one.

In 2003, as Mr. Mizuno was raping and beating Wang Yaya in his underground chamber, he did not have the intention to kill her, but was in stead planning to sell her. Mr. Mizuno once brought Wang Yaya out of the underground chamber, and handed her over to middle-aged bachelor Mr. Fukai and demanded a lump sum payment of 10,000 dollars. After seeing Yaya’s bruises all over her body, and hearing about her story, however, Mr. Fukai refused to buy her. In the face of Yaya’s repeated plead for help, Mr. Fukai refused to help her or to call the police, and instead gave her back to Mr. Mizuno.

Testimony from Mr. Yukio Fukai:

“She [Yaya] was crying herself into a bloody mess. She was kowtowing to me on the floor, banging her head on the floor like a crazed person, but 10,000 dollars is a lot money. The police will confiscate all my money if they find out. Besides, Mr. Mizuno is a scary person. If I call the police, he might kill me. I was scared of Mr. Mizuno. Everybody said he had connections with the Chinese mafia. Even yakuza were scared of those crazy Chinese. I told her I was going to send her back to Mr. Mizuno and she crawled to me and hugged around my leg like a small child, crying hysterically. Mr. Mizuno almost chopped off her wrists to let her go of me.”

_____________________________________________________

Once again, alone, Mizuno Ken sat on the golden throne in his underground palace, showing some signs of weariness, and yet still so full of pride. Slowly, he counted over again and again every female’s panties, bras, and severed body parts that were hanging on the wall, and spoke to himself as in a soliloquy: “You have accompanied me for the last five years. My underground palace—strict, secretive, forbidden to the outside wall—my accomplishment, my recipe for success. Let’s summarize.” He picked up a pen and small pocketbook, recollecting every young, beautiful female’s wonderful encounter with him. He summarized this formula in his note book:

Finding prey ——– Seducing and capturing ——– Enjoyment in my underground palace ——– dismembering and disemboweling ——– Pear garden burial ——– Finding new prey

Police: “How did you obtain Lin Yumi, Lin Yami, and Liu Nana?”

Mizuno Ken: “I did import and export with China, so I went to China on business trips very frequently. It was in Chongqing. Mrs. Wang sold me those three Chinese girls.”

Chongqing—mega-city of southwestern China, with the most-recently estimated population of 15 million, located within Sichuan province. If Shanghai is known as the harlot of the east, then Sichuan is the birthplace of Chinese harlots. It is estimated that a fifth of Chinese prostitutes came from Sichuan, where the local women are known to have petite figure, soft skin, and a docile and demure demeanor that melts the heart of men from all over the world.

“Bright Spot Teahouse—100 RMB [12 dollars] for 45 minutes. Only things you cannot imagine. Nothing those Chinese girls won’t do. Heaven-on-earth. The avant-garde of international standard.”

Undeniably the fearsome spectacle of Chongqing would dazzle and amaze any foreigner who stepped into this forbidden and secretive sexual paradise of the Far East. The general population of its local men are revolting to look upon: gaunt, sallow, hideous, and short, living in abject poverty, and feeding on the bare minimum for survival; and yet, the local women—slim, seductive, sensual, mysterious, and shamelessly lustful. Like a vast cornfield that swayed this way or that by the winds of the ruthless tyrants that ruled over them, the local women are like a swirling harvest which are waiting for the scythe of any western or westernized conqueror to cut down and ruthlessly conquer; and as soon as they are cut down, a younger generation spring up again as dense as ever: a sea of faces, twisted, contorted, exuding through every pore of its skin weakness, oppression, misery, slavery, and sexual ecstasy derived through orgasmic pain and torture.

In 1995, Mr. Mizuno, along with a group of international businessmen from Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, traveled to Chonqing, China, where he became acquainted with local businesswoman and owner of Bright Spot Teahouse, Mrs. Wang Jiki, who, together with her other two sister, were colloquially known as “the three-sisters of Chongqing” by underground crime syndicate.

“I ordered four Chinese girls. They came in to my room, bowed to me, and then stripped themselves with the efficiency of soldiers. Without any facial expression, two girls knelt down in front of me to lick my feet, another one slid herself under my body and slithered her tongue around my asshole—I was sitting on top of her face. The fourth one buried her face in between my crotch and licked my penis and testicles. The one in front of me. I noticed her back was crisscrossed with welts. I remembered what the man in front said, only things you cannot imagine, nothing they won’t do, so I said to the one in front of me how much if I want some extra service—”

“How did you communicate with those Chinese prostitutes?”

“I speak fluent Chinese …”

From 1993 to 2011, the three–sisters of Chongqing operated the largest known sex-trafficking network in south-west China, with over 300,000 Chinese women being coerced into sexual exploitation and sexual slavery. It is reported that many of the Chinese prostitutes who acted as witnesses were beaten to death in prison to cover up the true extent of the crimes involved.

“I witnessed a woman being beaten to near-death, and I was exhilarated. A woman in her fifties and a guy in his twenties—walked in, holding a set of ropes and a long wooden stick. The guy tied the girl’s hands above her head, and pulled her upward until only the tip of her toes touched the floor. The guy asked me what I wanted, and I said, I wanted to see her broken in half … She was completely naked from head to toe, and her skin was so soft, so tender, especially so when the stick landed on her flesh. She yelped and cried for mercy and instantly it made me hard. … The Chinese prostitutes—in front of me—who were licking my feet were also crying. I pulled the girl from under my ass up and let her sit next to me to watch. She played with my penis while I played with her nipples.”

Mr. Mizuni initially paid for a lump sum to smuggle ten Chinese women into Japan to be sold to him as sex slaves, but, once the snake-heads from Hong Kong arrived in Japan, Mr. Mizuno was told that one had died en route, five were robbed by triads to work in local Chinese-owned brothels in Tokyo, while another was kidnapped by a rival gang.

“So I only ended up with three. Even though I paid for ten. You can’t really trust those shady Chinese businessmen.”

“How did you kill Liu Nana?”

“I beat and raped her everyday. One day, she cursed at me, saying that you have done things beyond the evil of this world, you, your family, your children, and your grandchildren will all be cursed. I became furious and kicked her to the ground. Using the nylon rope I tied her hands behind her back and her feet to the bed-post, Then I sewed her mouth and vagina shut. She was in such great pain that her body started to convulse. She hit her head against the wall and blood was gushing out of the cuts on her head. After I made the stitches, I was very satisfied. I felt happy and calm. The next day she was losing her mind and smeared feces on her face, like she was taking a shower. Because she couldn’t eat, plus being insane, in two days time she was half-dead. Just lying on the ground, not moving much anymore. I still did not get enough of her, so I used the girding knife to slice off her breasts and vagina. While I sliced her, her whole body convulsed, like she was getting hit by electricity. Not exactly sure when she stopped breathing. I dragged her body out and buried her under the pear trees.”

Liu Yumi and Liu Yami were sold as brides to Mr. Masaki and Mr. Kokura.