“From May of that year until the beginning of the next, I lived in the mountains...” A picturesque, quiet place, ideal for creativity. The modest one-story European-style building, spacious enough for a bachelor, belonged to a famous artist in Japan. Everything would have been peaceful and calm if not for the painting “The Murder of the Commander” found in the attic, if not for the ringing of a Buddhist bell at night, if not for the strange crypt that emerged from under a stone mound in the middle of the thickets, if not for a meeting with the esthete Mensiki, who for fabulous money asked to paint a portrait, first of himself, and then, perhaps, of his daughter, if not for his attempts to understand himself. “It turns out that the beginning of everything that is happening around me was the fact that I brought this picture to light? And thus opened the circle? This picture turned the life of the main character upside down and influenced everyone who saw it. She created another reality in our world. How is all this possible?