Girls' Wishing Tree

Sakura guessed that the solidification of obsession was one of them, but it could not be confirmed through a simple description.

"I'll be visiting you again in the second half of the year. You can teach me Japanese, and then arrange for me to study abroad here for a few years next year. By the way, I'll be living with you, and you'll have to cover my expenses. During this time, I'll be strengthening my knowledge and practice of vows with Master, and try to help you solve your problems. I'll also bring you some training manuals. I'll handle Sayu's situation when I get here. Even a ghost shouldn't be a threat to you for now."

These are the exact words Guo Yu said to Ying.

Takagi Sakura picked up her phone and saw a message from her friend: "Sayu, you're at the shrine. I'm going out for a bit. I'll be at LiveHouseRing and should be back before dark."

The message she saw was from Su Shi, inviting her to rehearse at LiveHouseRing and reminding her to bring her violin.

Sakura changed into her regular outfit—a long coat over her shirt and pleated skirt, just long enough for passersby to see a bit of the hem. As for her signature long hair, she styled it into twin ponytails and added sunglasses.

As a result, few people would associate the shrine's music maiden with her.

The branch is a medium-sized LiveHouse that is very popular among young girls. Since it has not been open for long, most of the equipment is relatively new.

Sakura went up to the second floor with her violin case on her back and saw Nagasaki Suyo in a very conspicuous place.

What surprised her was that the person sitting next to Sushi was not Meow Meng, but a girl with long hair and twintails. She had some impression of this girl - this JK was the one who came to the shrine to pray for her mother's resurrection after her mother passed away, and when she was rejected, she said that her words were ventriloquism.

"Let me introduce you. This is my classmate Shoko Toyokawa, and this is the shrine maiden Sakura Takagi." Su Shi took the initiative to talk to Sakura and introduced her to the girls next to her.

Ying sat down at the seat, "Hello, Sushi, didn't you call me here for the Sakura Festival?"

"It's about the Sakura Festival, but the time I gave Meow Meng was half an hour later than the time I gave Ying." Su Shi looked at Ying with a hint of apology: "Ying, Xiangzi asked me to invite you. She wants to... invite you to join her band."

Sakura's eyes lit up with curiosity - she didn't know why Shoko Toyokawa, whom she had only met once, wanted to invite her to join the band, and what kind of band she was forming.

"Hello, I'm Shoko Toyokawa, a student of Tsuki no Mori. I want to form a band, a band that can perform on stage. We already have a keyboardist, a guitarist, a bassist, and I've already found someone for the drummer, so the only ones missing are a lead singer and a violinist. I've seen a video of you playing the violin, so I'd like to invite you to be the violinist." Shoko Toyokawa told Sakura very frankly about the band's formation and the purpose of her visit.

Sakura looked at the girl named Toyokawa Shoko who was sitting opposite her.

She is indeed very special. Her well-maintained light blue hair is tied into two ponytails with black ribbons. Her sincerity gives people a "soft and sticky" feeling, as if making people feel that not agreeing to her request would be a very guilty thing.

Sakura and Xiangzi looked at each other for a few seconds and decided to use a "delaying tactic" first.

"The band still hasn't found a lead singer, right? I also have to prepare for the Sakura Festival performance with Su Shi. After the Sakura Festival, if you have found a suitable lead singer, I will seriously consider your invitation."

This is neither an agreement nor a refusal, yet it is polite at the same time.

Su Shi noticed that the atmosphere between the two was a little awkward, so he quickly stepped out to smooth things over: "Let me order some drinks for everyone. What would Xiangzi like to drink? Where's Ying?"

"American coffee." Xiangzi glanced at Su Shi and gave the name of a drink.

Ying frowned. American coffee wasn't very popular among young girls. It was bitter like Chinese medicine, and had a strange astringent taste.

Office workers who work overtime will like this taste and believe that it can bring them a moment of peace in their busy lives, but young girls still prefer lighter or sweeter flavors.

Generally speaking, people who choose this flavor actively want to use the bitterness of coffee to dilute the bitterness of life.

But if you say that a "young lady's school" like Tsukinomori is bitter, isn't that just "making up sorrow for the sake of writing new words"?

Sakura was a little confused and threw out a relatively normal drink: "I want a mixed juice."

"Then I'll have a cup of Earl Grey tea. I'll go to the bar to order a drink." Su Shi stood up, took his wallet and left.

Xiangzi's eyes fell on Ying again: "Ying, when the rest of the band is gathered, I will invite you again. Can we exchange contact information?"

Sakura's cell phone was pushed in front of Xiangzi.

Now Sakura actually didn't completely reject this invitation in her heart.

She was actually a little confused about what role she should play in the band, and what band she should be in. And the tree demon... should also have the right to be confused.

After adding her contact information, Ying took back her phone. "I'll just call you Xiangzi. Is that okay? Do you want two sugar cubes in your coffee later?"

"No thanks, that's all." Xiangzi glanced at the sugar cubes on the tray on the table, then quickly looked away. When he looked up again, his polite and warm smile had returned. "Then I'll call you Ying."

Chapter 128 Spring, Sakura and Crychic:30, Stage and Rehearsal Room

LiveHouseRing, training room.

Since the shrine had a training room, she rarely trained outside of the Ring.

This place had a commercial design, the sound insulation between the training rooms was quite good, and the equipment was more complete. However, Ying didn't need such complicated equipment right now.

She was holding the violin and playing it as a "warm-up". In the training room, Nagasaki Suyo stood beside her in a daze, while Toyokawa Shoko nodded repeatedly.

Sakura's violin is the "puzzle piece" she wants.

A large part of the comfortable feeling brought by playing Morfonica comes from the violin, which is like a "second singer". The violin is an instrument that is difficult to master quickly. It is not like a keyboard where you can make a note by pressing a key, nor is it like a guitar with frets to indicate the pitch. If you don't have a good sense of pitch, it will be difficult to even play the standard note on the violin.

Finding a girl who plays violin and plays in a band is not an easy task, even in this era of big girl bands.

After finishing her song, Sakura sighed softly, "If Xun were to perform, she would probably do better than me. But if it's just a rehearsal, there shouldn't be any problems. Sushi, did you tell Meow Meng the training room number?"

"Ah...yes. She'll be coming straight to the training room in a bit, but she said she wants to film a video and post it online later..."

"If Su Shi thinks it's okay, then there's nothing to worry about. She's the host, so she'll definitely need some attention." Ying smiled at Su Shi, "Don't be so reserved. Look at Xiangzi, he's more relaxed than you when he watches us train. Even if there aren't many people under the stage, there will still be hundreds of people."

Reminded by Ying, Su Shi glanced at Xiangzi, then at Ying, and was about to respond when she heard Xiangzi speak.

"Then, Su Shi and Ying, I'll go back first and not delay your rehearsal." After Xiangzi said this, he bowed in the direction of the two of them and left the training room.

Su Shi hurriedly explained to Ying: "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to ask Xiangzi to come, but Xiangzi said he wanted to find a violinist, so I mentioned you..."

"It's okay." Ying waved her hand. "I don't have a band anyway. It's normal for friends to introduce each other. By the way, Su Shi, are you nervous because Xiangzi is here?"

"Uh...right." Su Shi's face flushed a little: "She is the first classmate who really wants to play with me, and she is really a young lady..."

Sakura didn't directly respond to Su Shi's words - in Tokyo, students really care about family background unexpectedly. On this point, she couldn't empathize. She glanced at the ESP bass bag leaning against the wall and talked about the topic of the makeshift band: "During the last practice, your playing was already very coordinated with Miao Meng. You just need to pay attention to the live atmosphere. There are some differences between places like training rooms and recording studios and performing live in front of an audience. In practice, you should pay more attention to solving musical problems, but in live performances, you must spend more energy on stage performance."

There was some confusion in Su Shi's eyes: "If it's on stage... is there any difference?"

"Lend me your bass." Ying opened Su Shi's bass bag, deliberately adjusted the strap to be longer, hung the bass on her shoulder, and let the body of the guitar fall to her hips.

Ying deliberately spaced her feet a little apart, standing in a horse stance, and played a solo for about half a minute. "If we were in a recording or training room, no one would play the piano like this, because after playing for a long time, the waist would be very tired. It's not as comfortable as hanging it on the waist, and it doesn't feel as good as sitting down."

Su Shi's eyes lit up - Sakura's actions reminded her of many scenes from classic rock performances.

She didn't see many large-scale live music performances, but she did watch a lot of videos. In those classic videos, guitarists or bassists often stretched out their straps when playing solos, or made all kinds of strange playing postures, or even used the straps to swing the guitar around their bodies.

Doing so cannot be explained by performance, and may even cause the sound to appear "dirty" or result in some minor mistakes.

Seeing that Sushi had almost thought it through, Ying summarized it in a concluding sentence: "During performances, there's a stage presence, which is a kind of theatrical stage effect. I hope you can relax a little when the time comes. In a formal performance, a few minor flaws are actually not a big deal. For example, the popular band Roselia exploded the mic during a live performance, but Yukina held the mic and asked the audience to sing along with her, which actually turned out to be very effective."

Su Shi took the bass handed to her by Ying, stood in the training room, and mechanically put the bass on her back. Because she did not adjust the length of the strap, she looked a little funny - her bass was hanging on her hips, one hand was touching the long neck, and the other hand was hanging very low, and she was slightly hunched.

Generally speaking, this posture is more easily seen in the monkey mountain of the zoo.

"Is...that so?" Su Shi tried hard to reproduce the handsome performances of his predecessors in his mind, but it was more like a monkey hanging on a tree branch with one hand and scratching itself with the other hand.

"Um... what I mean is, when you're performing, you can interact with the audience based on the actual situation. Don't be too reserved. Especially if something goes wrong, you should find a way to remedy it. Don't just stand there..."

Ying patiently told Su Shi, who had no stage experience, the things to pay attention to when going on stage. Su Shi listened very carefully, and the whole person was like a hanger with a bass, and did not notice that Miao Meng had pushed open a crack in the door and walked into the training room.

Sakura noticed Meow Dream entering the training room and winked at her.

Su Shi realized it later and only then did she feel someone coming in. She turned around and saw Miao Meng. Perhaps because she gave Miao Meng a little time, she seemed a little guilty: "Ah... Miao Meng is here, let's start rehearsing!"

"Meow Meng, you can shoot the video about the Sakura Festival now, but I hope you can wait until after the festival to post it." Ying reminded him and picked up her violin: "I didn't bring my pipa today, so I'll try to use the violin instead of the pipa part."

"Okay." Miao Meng sat down in front of the drum set, took out the drumsticks from her bag, slightly adjusted the cymbals and TomDrum settings, and looked up at Ying: "What should we do about our costumes on the day of the Sakura Festival? Do you want me to contact a clothing brand to sponsor us?"

"My idea is that we can wear shrine maiden costumes or casual clothes. We are a temporary band, so I don't think any clothing manufacturers will be interested in us, right?"

"That's totally wrong!" Miao Meng stood up. "Ying, you don't know how popular you are! Whenever you appear in my videos, the click-through rate is more than doubled!"

"This time, besides us, there are also Su Shi and Xun. Let's talk about it later." Ying rejected Miao Meng's suggestion.

Miao Meng pursed her lips, but didn't say much and immediately immersed herself in rehearsal.

Chapter 129 Spring, Sakura and Crychic: 31. I want to add ten bands!

"Please, our second plan has reduced 130 seats and built a soundproof wall. The sound reaching the streets and residential areas can be controlled to a great extent." Ying submitted the plan to the person in charge of approval and explained it to the other party respectfully.

"Hello, we're aware of your reputation, and Sakura Shrine is a shared memory of ours. However, getting a Live House approved isn't easy. We've conducted research in the surrounding area for you, and some residents are uneasy about the idea of ​​an open-air performance venue at the shrine. We even received feedback that the shrine, a shared memory among the residents, shouldn't be altered." The staff member bowed to Sakura. "So, while I'd love to see the girls perform at the shrine, you might need to come up with another plan, rather than just minor repairs."

Looking at the uncle in front of her, Ying had no intention of making things difficult for him - in a normally functioning institution, there was really no need to make things difficult for the window staff.

If the business can be done, they don't want to argue with me again and again.

Sakura sighed. "Then can you tell me how to get construction approval and a license for a live house performance? As you know, the shrine is different now. In addition to the normal festival ceremonies, it also hosts some girl bands. It would be very inconvenient if there was no performance venue."

"If we could build an enclosed building, it would be easier to get approval. For example, a music festival stage is easy to get approved temporarily, but it's more difficult to keep it long-term—"

Sakura interrupted, "What about underground? Is it possible to put the LiveHouse underground like Starry in Shimokitazawa?"

"The construction standards for the underground project may be a bit high, and the price will be very shocking--" The staff member glanced at Ying and decided to remind the young girl.

"Thank you. I will consider the cost comprehensively before making a decision." Ying did not leave the materials, but walked out of the hall directly.

It now seemed that the best way to set up a LiveHouse in the shrine was to set it up underground. As for using fake documents to fool people into starting construction, it was too easy to verify, so she didn't need to do such a thing.

She has verified that tree roots can be used for digging underground, but the efficiency is slightly low.

Once enough space is excavated, she can make a construction document herself to prove the safety of the underground space, and then ask the construction party to carry out the decoration.

Sakura strolled on the streets of Tokyo. At this time, office workers were at work, students were in class, and even street singers didn't want to go out to perform at this time, so the streets were a little quieter.

With Sayu watching over the shrine, she felt relieved - now Sayu was already very familiar with the general business of the shrine. Whether it was praying or worshipping, she didn't have to worry about anything with Sayu around, and she didn't feel any psychological burden in letting Sayu do the work.

Anyway, Sayu is preparing to become a divine servant girl, so there should be no problem in serving this "god" herself.

Sakura blew her bangs gently when she heard the bell for the end of get out of class, and found herself just walking to the entrance of Yugaoka.

In Tokyo, most girls do not go home directly after class, but instead focus on after-school club activities.

Generally speaking, they are sports, art and skills clubs, but there are also some strange student clubs.

"Returning Home Department", "Serving Department" and so on.

Students were walking out of the school in groups of three or four, and Ying happened to see a familiar face.

Shiina Riki walked out of the campus with her handbag in both hands in a somewhat "sneaky" manner, with an apologetic look on her face and quick steps.

This immediately made four words flash through Takagi Sakura's mind - a guilty conscience.

Could it be that Li Xi had made some mistake and was planning to get away with it by leaving first?

Sakura, who was somewhat curious, followed with a bit of mischief and found that Lixi turned a few alleys and walked into a cafe.

Ying found a bathroom, put on a wig she carried with her to cover her iconic cherry blossom hair, put on sunglasses, adjusted her voice slightly, and then walked into the coffee shop. She found a position where she could observe Lixi and found that Lixi was holding a mobile phone and seemed to be sending a message, and his expression looked a little anxious.

Not long after the coffee was brought to Ying, Lixi saw the person she was waiting for.

The person was holding a bass box, with her not-so-long hair slightly curled up at the ends. She sat straight in front of Li Xi. If she wasn't wearing a school uniform, she would even look like someone who came for business negotiations.

Coincidentally, Sakura also knew that person - she was Hachiman Kailing.

Why would these two people who worked together in the rhythm group at a training institution get together right after class and act like this?

Sakura's ears perked up.

As a dryad, her hearing was much better than the average person's. At this hour, the cafe wasn't crowded, so she could hear clearly even through several tables. Because her makeup took some time, Sakura didn't catch the beginning of the conversation, but after listening to the middle, she had a rough idea of ​​what was going on.

"...Hailing, listen to me. I really didn't want to join this band on my own. It was just my sister who brought it up after dinner. My family all thought I'd give it a try after learning drums for so long, and I couldn't refuse. And they already had a bassist. I'll play in that band for a while, and then I'll join you in forming a band!"

"I can't stop you from forming a band." Hailing's voice sounded a little awkward. "I want to find a band too. It's not like I can't find a bassist. I want to join five... no, ten bands. Then you can come back and ask me to form a band. I'll have to think about it!"

"Anyway, I'm sorry, but he's a talented piano player who's won many awards. He came to me very seriously, so I recommended him to me. After the cherry blossom season, we'll start training as a band." Li Xi's voice gradually faded. "If you want to join the band, go ahead. We can... make a deal to get together and form a band once we've honed our skills. Then..."

"When the time comes, let's go to the martial arts hall together." Hailing picked up the drink on the table and drank it all, then walked out of the cafe with a handsome step.

However, from Ying's perspective, she could see that Hai Ling's tears had gathered in the corners of her eyes.

If she didn't leave, Hailing would cry in front of Lixi. Lixi didn't follow her, but stared at Hailing's back, biting his upper lip lightly.

In Ying's eyes, she saw Lixi also drank the coffee in one gulp, and then walked to the front desk to pay the bill.

But Hailing is making orange juice, and you are making velvet latte.

Girl... aren't you panicking?

Sakura held her sunglasses with her hand and took a sip of coffee.

Chapter 130 Spring, Sakura and Crychic:32, Light's Thoughts

There are still 7 days until the Sakura Festival.

Many cherry blossoms have already bloomed on the branches, but they haven't reached full bloom yet. The shrine is also becoming increasingly bustling with activity, with not only young girls but also other people coming to pray. Sakura has to buy thousands of extra ema to meet the demand.

Every time she sees tourists marveling at the cherry tree, Sakura has an indescribable feeling - this tree is her true self, and she always feels weird seeing her true self being watched and used as a backdrop for various photos.

Guo Yu heard that there was a tree demon in China who even worked as a tour guide in scenic spots, introducing itself to a large number of tourists as a "thousand-year-old tree". If she had the chance, she would really like to communicate with it and see how the other party could adjust his mentality to be so optimistic.

"It is said that taking photos under the cherry blossom tree will bring good luck. Come here quickly! Sister Miko, can you take a photo for us? Please take the photo vertically and include the cherry blossom tree--" Sakura was still standing there in a daze when a card camera was stuffed into her hands.

Looking at the three girls with eyes full of expectation, Ying pressed the shutter twice helplessly.