Oyasu, a sixty-year-old spinster and the stingiest woman in the village, died under mysterious circumstances on the night of the village shrine festival.

Her frail, emaciated body was found in agony before the hearth of her solitary tea house on the outskirts of the village, clawing at the air as if in torment. A frayed silk cord, which she usually used as a makeshift belt, was tightly wrapped three times around her wrinkled neck, knotted firmly at her throat. The area around the knot bore marks of desperate scratching, so intense that it drew blood. Yet, there were no signs of theft or forced entry.

A lacquered lunchbox of rice, given to her by a local monk, remained untouched and sat by her pillow on the thin, futon-like bedding. A search revealed her savings passbook hidden in the ash disposal hole of the hearth. Her only daughter, who was meant to inherit her estate, and the daughter’s husband, an electrician, were currently living in Tokyo. They were on their way back to the village after receiving the urgent news. Oyasu's body was sent to a university for an autopsy. The rarity of such a strange incident garnered extensive coverage in the newspapers.

Oyasu's tea house stood in a picturesque spot by the seaside, along a side road next to a railway overpass where the tracks crossed the highway. Beneath its old reed screens, there were a few cheap candies, bottles of ramune soda, a blackened earthen teapot filled with strong tea, and a set of seven or eight slightly dirty teacups, arranged on a lacquered tray with peeling. Despite its modest offerings, the tea house enjoyed a steady breeze from the sea in summer and good sunlight in winter, attracting regular business from traveling peddlers.

The old woman, the protagonist of this story, had opened the tea house after selling off her farmland. This decision followed a bout of severe fever in her thirties, which left her with a frail back and limited mobility. She had divorced her husband, leaving behind her infant daughter.

Her daughter grew up to be exceptionally beautiful and intelligent. At the age of nineteen, she married the village’s most industrious electrician. The couple now reportedly worked for a company in Tokyo, earning a steady salary.

"They want me to move to Tokyo to see my grandchild," Oyasu had once said, her pale cheeks twitching as she smiled with apparent pride. "But I’ve decided not to burden the young ones. I can still manage my affairs well enough here... Recently, they’ve given up trying and have said they'll bring their child to visit me instead."

When a customer remarked, "Still, living alone must be lonely," Oyasu responded with her signature line, "Yes, there have been two times when burglars broke into my home. They assumed I had a lot of money saved up. I told them, 'I send all my earnings to my daughter in Tokyo. But if you truly believe I have money, feel free to kill me and search at your leisure.' In the end, the burglar just had some tea and left."

No one in the village doubted the rumor that Oyasu possessed two bankbooks, each containing a thousand yen. Such was her notoriety for being stingy that she was said to save every possible penny, often at the expense of proper meals. Among the various tales about her, even the local schoolchildren knew the story of "Oyasu’s Ippuku Sanbai (one meal, three days’ worth)."

"Ippuku Sanbai? Is that about food?" the policeman asked, looking up from his notebook as he listened to the villagers’ accounts.

"Yes, well... It’s such an unbelievable story that you might not think it’s true, but everyone here is convinced that her death was caused by her peculiar eating habit of ‘Ippuku Sanbai,’" replied the villager hesitantly.

"Hmm. Well, let’s hear it. It might be useful," said the policeman.

"Alright then. You see, the old lady rarely left her tea house except for her monthly trips to deposit money at the post office near the train station. She lived completely alone, yet she always attended village gatherings, especially those with feasts. Before such events, she would deliberately skip meals the night before, ensuring she was as hungry as possible. Then, on the day of the feast, she would close her shop early, hobble out with her cane, and head to the celebration. She would start by drinking a small cup of sake, which would turn her pale face bright red. After that, she’d focus solely on eating rice, sometimes sipping soy sauce in between. She might nibble on pickles, but she could easily finish six to eight bowls of rice without any trouble. Once she was full, she’d smoke two or three cigarettes, rest for a while, and then return to eat another two or three bowls of rice. Afterward, she would pack as much food as she could—dishes like side dishes and stewed fish—into a lacquered lunchbox, which she’d take home. That day, she wouldn’t do anything except sleep until late the next afternoon. When she finally got up, she’d eat the food from the lunchbox as her evening meal. Since most feasts around here are held in pleasant weather, the food in her lunchbox would sometimes last until the evening of the day after that. So, essentially, one feast could stretch to provide ten meals for her."

"Hmm, but it’s surprising she never got food poisoning," the policeman remarked.

"Exactly! It’s amazing how much food her small, frail body could hold," replied the villager, shaking his head in disbelief.

"But if she closed her shop for two or three days, wouldn’t she lose money in the end?"

"Well, that’s just it. Her daughter and son-in-law found her behavior so embarrassing that they fled to Tokyo. According to Oyasu, she couldn’t eat her fill if she cooked the food herself.

"That day, the day she died, happened to be the village festival. There was a feast at the temple, and she performed her ‘Ippuku Sanbai’ routine there. But later that night, when the food started coming back up, she must have thought it would be a waste to throw it up. So she likely tied a string around her throat to keep it down. Everyone says she probably suffocated and died in madness."

"Ahahaha! That’s absurd! No matter how stingy she was… Ahaha!" The policeman laughed as he put away his notebook and pencil, then left.

However, the results of Oyasu’s autopsy aligned exactly with this bizarre story.