Girls' Wishing Tree

Her fingertips brushed across the pipa strings, bringing out an ethereal human voice.

"I am watching everything about you, the past, the future, your joys, your sorrows, everything..."

Sakura's singing voice gently tickled the audience's eardrums, as if she wanted to crush the emotions contained in the lyrics and stuff them into the audience's ears bit by bit.

Backstage, Yushina's eyes widened - she was very confident in her singing, but after hearing Sakura's voice, she froze.

The vocals perfectly match the lyrics and the emotions are expressed just right, reaching the highest level in both artistry and commerciality.

Actually, Ying had gotten away with it. Her singing skills were barely up to par, but the Dryad's voice was exceptional. Soft but not sticky, gentle but not sparse, like a little girl next door whispering her own story in her ear.

"If Sakura becomes the lead singer, the girl band will be in great shape..." Yuhina finally managed to say this.

"Yushina, this doesn't sound like something you would say," Lisa said from the side.

"Of course, it's more fun with an opponent." Yushina was only momentarily distracted before immediately returning to her usual self. "Let's change the song later and sing 'Fire Bird'."

On the stage, Sakura tilted her head slightly, making way for the guitar neck: "To protect, to believe in reaching a place without suspicion, to protect the tenderness swallowed up by loneliness..."

The sound of the pipa and the human voice merged together, and almost everyone present felt Sakura's true feelings.

As expected, Sakura received the longest round of applause since the opening. But she didn't know why, but Yushina's gaze on her suddenly became a little strange.

CHU^2, who was at the end of the audience, clenched his fists. "It's really impossible to convince a creative musician like that. She definitely doesn't want to play RAS music, but her own material—"

Pareo whispered, "Master CHU^2, are we still going to watch the show?"

"See the ENDING." CHU^2 crushed the can of drink in his hand. "Even if we lose, we can't lose the battle!"

Chapter 108 Spring, Sakura and Crychic: 10. Can I call you Mom?

Sakura took Sayu out of the LiveHouse and happened to meet Popipa and other girl band members who were talking and laughing.

"Your pipa performance today was amazing, and the song was so beautiful!" Hinayana grabbed Sakura's hand and said, "It's so amazing! I want to learn pipa too!"

"Haha, with Hina's talent, maybe she can catch up with me after a few months of study." Sakura responded casually.

"Hina, let's play the guitar. We at PasPale don't compose our own music, so it's very troublesome to change instruments." Maruyama Aya said.

"I was just joking—" Hibiki was halfway through his sentence when he realized CHU^2 was blocking everyone's way.

"I have to admit, today's live performance really moved me." CHU^2 lowered her head and wiped away her tears with a movement she thought was subtle but everyone saw clearly. "Just wait, I'm going to beat you all—to pieces!"

Before I could hear any answer, CHU^2 ran away.

The system also gave the settlement of two tasks in a timely manner. The first one was to change the song and perform successfully on Popipa's Live, which gave 500 shining points and a chance to draw a random skill.

The second one is to let CHU^2 give up Duohui. This task gives 1200 shining points, and Sakura's points reach 8530 points.

After this interruption, no one said much and everyone went back to their own places at the intersection near the station.

"Ying, today's performance was really amazing." Sayu's eyes seemed to be twinkling with little stars: "If possible, I also want to play in a band in the future!"

"Practice more, your current skills are still a little lacking. I told you that Zhenxun's progress is about the same as yours, you can practice with her. If you need to practice rhythm combination, I can also play the bass as a guest." Sakura raised her head and looked at the sky. Due to the light pollution in Tokyo, few stars could be seen.

"When the money runs out, I'm ready to trade my body for someone else to take me in." Sayu followed behind Sakura and whispered to her about her own things.

Sakura didn't interrupt Sayu, but simply kept walking at the same pace. She knew that Sayu's words were a good start.

"My father's family is actually quite wealthy, and it was my mother who pursued my father. But there was no real love between the two of them. From the beginning to the end, my father always despised my mother's efforts. Naturally, cracks appeared in their relationship. In order to win back my father's feelings, my mother decided to give birth to another child for her. When feelings cannot be saved, raising children naturally becomes a burden. I... have never felt the warmth of my mother..." At this point, Sayu suddenly burst into tears.

Ying stopped, patted her back gently, and said to her through the dialogue box: "Your misfortune ends here. Everything will be fine in your future life. I asked Ying to take you in because I saw your future."

Sayu looked at Sakura, who was smiling silently in front of her, and cried even harder, even throwing herself into her arms.

Sayu, lying in Sakura's arms, continued crying, "I have a very good friend, a very good, very good friend, but she suffered misfortune because of me. My mother didn't understand at all and kept saying terrible things to her. I couldn't stand it anymore, so I ran away from home—"

Passersby had already slowed down their pace to look at Sayu and Sakura. Sakura patted Sayu's back gently a few times and persuaded her in a low voice, "Let's go back and talk slowly. Don't let people laugh at you. You don't want to be recognized by posting it online, do you?"

Hearing that they might be found, Sayu calmed down a bit and lowered her voice: "Ying, can I call you mom? Just this once, please——"

"Okay." Facing Sayu like this, Sakura did not refuse.

"...Mom." Sayu lay on Sakura's chest, her voice was shy, but she still called out.

"Okay, let's go home." Sakura didn't say "go back to the shrine", but used the word "go home".

Sayu didn't talk to Sakura the whole way, but just hid in the corner of the carriage. The passengers in the carriage seemed to be accustomed to this situation. As long as Sayu didn't make any noise, they didn't look at her strangely.

Sakura herself doesn't care if being called "Mom" can help Sayu adjust to the right state of mind.

Sayu didn't go into the shrine, but bowed to Sakura in front of the steps of the shrine: "Thank you, I won't sleep upstairs today, I'll sleep in the store."

Sakura glanced back at Sayu and noticed that her cheeks were still flushed and she was even actively avoiding Sakura's gaze. She mentally complained about how much Sayu lacked maternal love and walked up the steps of the shrine alone.

The system's voice rang out: "Ying, there's still one skill left to be extracted. Do you want to extract it now?"

"Let's draw." Ying no longer had much hope for this highly random skill draw, relying solely on the idea that "more skills are better than less." She wouldn't be able to use her points to draw again until she became a seasoned tree demon.

[If you draw twice, you will be in the mountain. The mood is increasing. *Dream$ takes...]

[Obtain the simple Dryad spell: Root Digging.]

[The host can use tree roots to dig underground space and maintain the stability of the underground space.]

"Basement... what's the use? Do I have to dig a mausoleum under the shrine?" Sakura laughed at the skill she drew.

She walked past the torii gate and saw that the lights in the training room were still on, so she walked towards the training room. Besides herself and Sayu, the only other person in the training room was Rakuna.

Sure enough, it was Lenae in the training room, but today she was not playing the guitar. Instead, she was sitting on the tatami and petting the cat.

Lenai narrowed her eyes and gently patted the back of a fat orange cat. The orange cat curled up into a ball, making its already chubby body look even rounder.

"Are you playing with the cat?" Sakura took two steps closer to Lenai.

Lenai held out a hand to stop Sakura from getting any closer: "The cat is frightened."

"What's wrong?" Ying then noticed that the fat orange cat being petted by Lenai looked frightened, with the hair on its tail and back standing up abnormally, and its eyes couldn't focus on one place for a long time.

"Almost, I was hit by a car." Lenai replied.

Ying remembered Guo Yu saying that Lenai had some cat demon elements in her. Now it seemed that this frightened cat was willing to accept Lenai's comfort, but even getting close to her would cause the cat to react with stress.

Sakura, somewhat curious, gathered her demonic power into her eyes and discovered that there was indeed a faint demonic aura surrounding Lenai, especially in her eyes. The demonic aura around her heterochromatic pupils seemed even stronger.

"Le Nai, control your demonic energy, otherwise it might be a little dangerous."

"What...yoke?" Le Nai blinked twice, seemingly not understanding what Sakura said at all.

Chapter 109 Spring, Sakura and Crychic:11, Temporary Band

Sakura didn't stay in the training room for long because she was worried about scaring the cat that Lenai was petting.

She returned to her bedroom, lay on the bed, closed her eyes, and let her consciousness return to the cherry blossoms. Only here could she meet Miyazono Kaoru.

When Xun was really asleep or fully awake, he could not be found in the consciousness space of the cherry tree. However, Xun was only fully awake for two and a half hours a day now, and including the time he slept, he could still be found here more than half of the time.

Sure enough, Xun was playing the violin alone in the space between the cherry trees. Her music was filled with sadness and melancholy.

Sakura took out her violin and stood quietly within Kaoru's sight.

Xun saw Ying while playing the piano, but she did not stop playing. She put down the piano only after the song was over.

"Sakura, you're here. Have you been busy these past few days?"

During this period, Sakura spent most of her time preparing for the live performance, and her time learning piano from Miyazono Kaoru in the cherry blossom tree's consciousness space had indeed decreased a lot. She suddenly realized that Kaoru needed her company.

As the shrine develops better and better, Sakura has more and more friends, and accordingly, she gradually resumes her human life trajectory, instead of standing like a tree in the shrine like before.

As she learned to play more and more musical instruments, the time she spent playing the violin also decreased accordingly.

"These past two days... I've been preparing for a live performance. Two friends from bands invited me to perform as supporting acts, so I put a little more thought into it." Sakura glanced at Xun guiltily, catching the lingering sadness between her brows.

Xun didn't know about the system, didn't know Sakura had interfered with her fate, and didn't know that her awakening time during both performances was Sakura's control. In her eyes, she just felt that her illness was slowly improving after the surgery, and her awake time was gradually increasing. However, in the past six months, there has been no progress in her recovery.

The two and a half hours of wakefulness each day wasn't enough time to go to school, practice with other musicians, or even engage in normal social activities. If Ying hadn't been able to appear so often and practice piano in this space, she would probably have had serious mental problems.

"The Sakura Festival isn't too long away. The God told me that performing at the festival might be beneficial to your recovery."

"Ying, I saw the program you posted online. With you now, it should be easy for you to put together a wonderful festival, right?"

What Xun said was absolutely correct. With the shrine's current influence, holding a wonderful festival wouldn't be difficult at all. As long as Sakura asked for it, many bands would respond, including bands with large loyal fan bases like SICKHACK and Roselia.

"I'd like to invite you to the festival, too. Music that moves the heart should be good for healing, right? I don't understand medical matters, but I believe music can bring about miracles."

After saying that, Ying lowered her voice in her throat and asked the system: "Can you issue a task related to Xun? I want to help her increase her awakening time."

A dialog box appeared in front of Ying: [There is currently a related quest in progress. As long as the host's violin playing skills reach advanced levels, Xun's awakening time can be extended.]

This is equivalent to saying nothing - if you want to directly purchase violin playing skills, you need 24000 points. If you practice without taking shortcuts, it will take several years to do a lot of training every day.

"I mean the tasks that are relatively easy to complete! Erlin8moldlingjiusanliujiu." Ying continued to talk to the system.

[Sakura Festival, if it makes Xun happy, you can let her stay awake for another half an hour.]

"Why only half an hour? Wasn't it an hour last time?"

[The same approach will help her in diminishing returns.]

After thinking about it, Xun gave Sakura a formal reply: "Sakura asked me to participate in the festival, so I will definitely come, and I will prepare the music well."

"Let's... play together." Sakura said to Xun, "Let's form a makeshift band. I'll find a drummer and a bassist, and the two of us will play the high notes. I'll use the pipa to blend in with your piano, and I'll figure out the arrangement."

Ying wanted to adapt a duet song from her past life to create the feeling of a "dialogue" between the violin and the pipa. This was a clever approach, but it still required some effort to organize the score.

“Without rehearsal and vocals, will the audience… accept it?”

"I'll figure out the rehearsal. I can play the violin, too. I just need to record the violin and use the recording to combine it with the other three instruments. As for Xun, she just needs to listen to the recording a few times and then play along. Shouldn't that be okay?"

Having said that, Xun no longer had any reason to refuse.

"Then...I'll trouble you, Sakura."

"I'll give you the score at least a month in advance."

Sakura practiced the violin with Xun for several hours before she finally regained consciousness. She still preferred sleeping in her human form. While sleeping in a tree wasn't uncomfortable, it couldn't compare to a warm bed.

"Sakura, you're back." Sakura had just returned to her human form when she heard Lenai's voice beside her.

"Lena, why didn't you go home to sleep?" Sakura asked uncomfortably as she felt Lenai hugging her arm.

"Well, it's too late, and grandma asked me to sleep here." Lenai rubbed Sakura's arm: "So I slept in Sakura's bed. Sakura, where did you go just now?"

"You knew I wasn't here?" Sakura felt a little uneasy - Sayu had been sleeping in the same room with her for a while, and her consciousness had returned to the cherry tree. Sayu had never noticed and just thought she was sleeping deeply.

"I can see it." Lenai pointed out the window: "You crawled into the tree."

"Ahem - it's God who asked me to chat with you." Ying made up an excuse to try to get away with it.

Lenai didn't say anything else, just hugged Sakura's arms and closed her eyes that seemed to see through many things. Sakura returned to her body, and Lenai, feeling much more at ease, quickly fell asleep holding her.

This time, it was Sakura who couldn't sleep.

In her two lives, she has never slept in the same bed with a young girl.

She knew very well that she could not do anything to Lenai, who was still a junior high school student, and she had no thoughts in this regard, but with someone else by her pillow, she felt uneasy.

Sakura didn't quite understand why Lenai trusted her so much.

Ever since the Space incident, her trust in herself seemed to have no reason at all, and she was just following her intuition.

Cats will turn over and expose their bellies when facing people they trust, and Lenai's posture is similar - she is holding Sakura's arm, and Sakura's palm is resting on her soft little belly.

Chapter 110 Spring, Sakura and Crychic:12, Beauty Live

"Good morning, meow, meow!" Meow Meng walked into the shrine, holding a selfie stick. "Today, I'm taking everyone to visit the music shrine maiden, Takagi Sakura! Everyone wants to know why Sakura's guitar interview didn't continue, right? Actually, Sakura is preparing for the Sakura Festival! Meow Meng, I've been invited to the shrine today as a temporary band drummer!"

Miao Meng put on a business-like smile on her face, put her arm around Ying's shoulders, stretched out the selfie stick, and pointed the camera at herself and Ying: "I'm here to join the temporary band!"

"Meow Meng, are you... broadcasting live or filming a video?"

"It's a live broadcast." Miao Meng turned her head and looked at Ying pitifully: "Miao Meng doesn't have a band now, so she needs to keep the popularity up!"

"...You guy, it's just a very ordinary festival performance. I asked my friends to form a temporary band. Besides you, there is a violinist and a bassist. I didn't invite them over today." Sakura was originally planning to talk about Xun, but it was not appropriate to say it during the live broadcast.

"I want to interview! When will Ying resume interviewing guitarists? Everyone is looking forward to hearing the new songs written by Ying in the interview!" Miao Meng squeezed Ying and said.

"Hello everyone in the live studio. My series isn't just about interviewing guitarists, but all kinds of musicians. I just know a lot of guitarists, so I'm starting with guitar. Next time, I'll be inviting someone other than a guitarist. Not so fast, though; I still need some time to prepare."

Miao Meng quickly raised her hand: "Then Ying, can you interview me? I'm a musician too!"

"I'd like to invite you to be a guest if there's a chance." Ying said something meaningless.

The guest was not told whether it would be a supporting guest or an interview guest, and the opportunity was not told when it would be.

Of course Miao Meng could understand Ying's subtext, but in front of the camera, he still acted very happy, staring with wide eyes as he thanked Ying.

She performed like this for a few minutes before pretending to be reluctant to leave and turning off the live broadcast.