The infinite sword system has been mastered, and you say this is the dragon clan?

Chapter 168 Haha, does it look familiar?
"So, our family is rich?"

After returning home, Xia Mi was almost blinded by the long string of zeros on the bank deposit slip that Emiya casually showed her. Her eyes almost turned into currency symbols. She moved closer like a cat smelling fish, her nose almost touching the thin piece of paper.

"Pay attention to your wording. What do you mean by 'our family'?"

Emiya raised his hand and used the Undying Grip to move the other person's head away, controlling the force just right - it could prevent the girl from getting closer, but it wouldn't really push her away. Xia Mi covered her forehead and took two steps back, her high ponytail drawing a beautiful arc in the air.

"Learn to keep a good distance, Assistant Xia Mi. My home is not your home."

Xia Mi puffed up her cheeks and pouted to look cute, "After all, I am also an acquaintance tenant who has paid for board and lodging. We all live under the same roof, so if we round it up, we are a family, right?"

"Okay, let me think about it and recall what you insisted on saying before you moved into my house? ...Oh, you value dignity, don't eat food given out of pity, and never beg for food and drink for free, right? Why, now, Xia Mi, you decide to change your words and slap yourself in the face?"

Xia Mi's originally complacent expression froze for a moment. She stammered and defended herself, "Well... this is a different time!... As the saying goes, a real man can bend and stretch!"

"Are you a real man?" Emiya interrupted her mercilessly.

"The same is true in reverse. I can stretch and bend!" Xia Mi retorted with her neck stiff.

"Is that how you use proverbs?"

Emiya knocked on Xia Mi's head again, and the latter immediately bared her teeth and made a fierce look in protest. Her high ponytail swayed left and right with her movements, like reeds swaying on the river bank, stirring the moonlight on the water.

"Stop talking nonsense, it's time to prepare dinner. Come and help!"

"Come on, come on, rich man Emiya, would you like to give me some money for my chores?"

Emiya waved his hand, "Reward!"

----

Chef Emiya cut the Kobe Wagyu beef that had been rested for half an hour into thin slices. With a slight shake of his wrist, the beef drew a graceful arc in the air and landed precisely on the Binchotan charcoal fire.

He then took the small bowl of tempura ingredients from Xia Mi, added ice water and stirred gently. The shrimp tails were slightly raised in the batter, like a crescent moon.

Xia Mi opened her fair and clean little hands, and took the mackerel fried by Emiya, the radish stewed with mirin and soy sauce, and the vinegar rice and wrapped them with nori to make sushi. The oily smell of the mackerel exuded an enticing aroma in the hot air in the kitchen.

Meanwhile, Emiya brought a clay teapot and started preparing the diced chicken and enoki mushrooms, the main ingredients for the matsutake dobin mushi...

When men and women work together to cook, it is fast and in a short time they can prepare a table of dishes.

"It's time to eat!"

Xia Mi and Emiya used both hands to shuttle back and forth between the kitchen and the dining table. The porcelain plates made crisp sounds when they hit the wooden table, and the steaming hot air became hazy under the warm yellow light.

Eri sat quietly and obediently at the dining table, her deep rose-red eyes following the busy figures of the two people, as if she was looking at the distant and unreachable world of fireworks.

"Eri, are you feeling uncomfortable?"

Emiya noticed the girl's slightly curled fingers, which seemed to be her habitual movement when she was uneasy. Eri shook her head and opened the notebook she carried with her. The beautiful handwriting flowed on the page:
"It feels very warm, like home, not a family home, but a home that only exists outside."

Eri held up her notebook. Although the sentences were worded in a simple way, they were surprisingly easy to understand. She then turned another page. "I want to help, but I can't understand."

Isn't that inevitable? With the precious treatment that Eri receives in the family, she is like a princess imprisoned in a golden cage.

It seems that if this young lady walked into the kitchen in the first second and her face was covered with smoke or oil droplets in the second, the entire chef team would kneel down and commit seppuku to apologize in the third second.

What Emiya thought was right.

But in fact, even if there were no such accidents, the people from the Snake Eight Families would never dare to let Eri come into contact with these things. It was not because the kitchen was dangerous, but because Eri herself was more dangerous. Once any factor caused her abilities to get out of control, it would lead to an even more unmanageable situation.

Eri is also self-aware. Ever since the shadow appeared that day and had a brief conversation with her, she has become more and more aware of the fact that she is a "monster".

Although the shadow disappeared again from that day on, and never came to see her again, the wonderful days of running away from home passed peacefully day by day.

But there seemed to be a seed of uneasiness in her heart.

It seemed as if there was always a dark, snake-like voice beside her ear, like reality or fantasy, following her everywhere, reminding her that she was not a harmless girl, but that sooner or later she would lose control and turn into an irredeemable monster that was hated by the whole world... That day would come, sooner or later.

And how long can she enjoy this warmth in peace?
"We'll talk about whether I can help you later. Your kindness is enough. Don't just stand there. Eat it while it's hot."

He picked up a piece of fried shrimp tempura at the right time. The golden crispy skin shone attractively under the light. Eri felt the heat rising from the bowl, and in a trance, she felt that those dark thoughts were also dispelled a little by this warmth. At least at this moment, she could still pretend to be an ordinary girl and enjoy the ordinary and precious dinner time.

----

Late at night, Emiya spread out sheets of paper, writing detailed words in his own notebook.

This is the information exchanged with Nono.

Although she was subject to personal restrictions when she used her appearance to impersonate Eri, she was able to obtain a lot of information, including that Eri herself would lose control from time to time and needed a large number of medical personnel to monitor her health and mental state.

"'Out of control'... is it because she was treated as a vessel for a 'god'?"

Emiya then copied down the contents, which roughly meant that Nono had asked Melyusina to search continuously recently and finally got some results -

It is said that several screen wall paintings hidden by Genji Heavy Industries were found. It seems that they were moved there recently. The images on them are obscure and difficult to understand. The pictures are incredible and the symbolic meaning is very rich.

Since this information still needs to be conveyed indirectly by Melyusina, it is still difficult for the little female dragon to understand human art with her knowledge alone... It is estimated that in Melyusina's eyes, those lines are completely meaningless patterns.

Nuonuo confidently promised on the note that this thing was definitely an important part of this family's inheritance. If she could find the right time to act freely, she would be able to use profiling to read out all the hidden information in it personally.

Shirou was speechless for a while, then he flipped through the note again, his eyes automatically skipping over Nono's obviously self-boasting exaggerations, and simply selectively copied down the valuable information.

Finally, Emiya thought about what he had seen and heard today, and wrote down the names of the "Eight Family Heads" including Minamoto no Chisho, and wrote in small letters next to them "Someone is suspected of joining the Oni Clan."

----

The morning light of the next day poured into the Emiya residence through the paper windows, coating the empty courtyard with a soft golden edge. Xia Mi was still buried in the piles of ancient books, thinking hard about her historical subjects, and occasionally "asking" Emiya for some historical knowledge.

The yellowed pages of the book turned under her fingertips, raising tiny dust particles that danced in the beam of light.

After yesterday's family dinner, Eri's mentality seemed to have changed. She became active from being a quiet stay-at-home girl all day. She approached quietly, her red hair shining warmly in the morning light.

Xia Mi looked up and saw this scene, with a strange look in her eyes.

This girl has similar red hair and face, and is also very friendly towards Emiya...

Does this scene look familiar?

"This time, the subject of our research is Minamoto no Raikou, the most famous demon-slayer general in the Heian period."

Xia Mi displayed all the results of her research in the library on the table and pushed a pile of ancient books to the center of the table. The shadow cast by the pile of books almost drowned her. She felt a sense of despair as if she was faced with a huge amount of true and false historical materials when writing an academic paper in the history department.

"The worldly achievements of Minamoto no Raikou were not outstanding. At most, he and his brother Minamoto no Yorinobu laid the foundation for the prosperity of the future Seiwa Minamoto clan. However, in the legends, Minamoto no Raikou was much more active than other members of the Minamoto clan."

She casually opened a copy of "Otogi Soushi". The yellowed pages were stained with ink, and she seemed to still smell the smoke of gunpowder from a thousand years ago.

"According to legend, Minamoto no Raikou had three widely-celebrated acts of beheading demons in his life: beheading Shuten-doji and stopping the demons from causing further chaos, beheading the invading Tsuchigumo on Mt. Katsuragi, and defeating the Ushio-ogi at Senso-ji Temple."

"There is basically no controversy about the first two things, but there are many different opinions on the third thing." Xia Mi opened another ancient book.

"It is said that before Minamoto no Raikou's father Minamoto no Mitsunaka and his wife gave birth to Minamoto no Raikou, they had another child. However, this child was possessed by the Kitano Tenjin and was eventually born in the year, month and hour of the ox. When he was born, his mother was pregnant for three years and three months. He was born with a horned demon face, and caused a series of strange phenomena."

Eri's pupils dilated slightly, as if she was attracted by this strange story.

"Minamoto no Manaka regarded it as an ominous curse and ordered people to abandon the baby. There are several versions of how the baby grew up. Some say it was secretly raised by a court lady, while others say it was adopted by a monk at Sensoji Temple. In any case, the abandoned baby grew up to become a terrifying cow-oki, known as 'Ugly Gozen'."

"Ushigozen fought fiercely with Minamoto no Raikou and his four heavenly kings who came to attack him on the orders of Minamoto no Mitsunaka. In the end, Ushigozen fell into the Sumida River and transformed into a giant bull over ten feet long, causing countless casualties to the attacking army. The whereabouts of the Ushigozen are unknown."

"Looking at the whole situation, Ushigozen's identity is very strange. Some people think that he is the eldest son of the Minamoto family, but some people point out that 'Gozen' was originally the name for noble women in the Heian period, so Ushigozen should be the eldest daughter of the Minamoto family. There are also opinions that Ushigozen, the child of Minamoto no Mitsuru, is completely fictional..."

Xia Mi sighed and slammed the ancient book in her hand. What made her most desperate now was not the lack of information and the inability to find it, but the various textual researches on the legends, which conflicted with each other and were not complete enough, making her suffer from decision-making difficulties.

Emiya suggested, "Why don't you choose to integrate them all?"

"what?"

"For example, Minamoto no Raikou is a woman, and she is two sides of the same coin with 'Ugly Gozen'."

(End of this chapter)