Girls' Wishing Tree

[B. The girl will become a bassist. Completion will reward bass proficiency and a random spell.]

[C. The girl will become a keyboard player, and completing the game will reward her with keyboard proficiency and random items.]

D. The girl can't play any of the instruments and can only stand in the middle of the stage and sing. Completion reward: Vocal proficiency.

Option C is the same as Zhenxun's position, and option D has no extra bonus, so they can be directly excluded.

If A and B...

After weighing the pros and cons, Ying chose B - now she wanted some spells more than skills.

Chapter 178 Harvest, Band and BangDream: 26. A six-string guitar is not necessarily a guitar

The early summer sun streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows on the floor where the cram school was located, casting dappled shadows on the registration form. As Sayu filled in her personal information, Sakura chatted with the salesperson.

"Hey, young man, you have a student here named Jing Qin Rencai, right? Or was she the one who introduced us here? Can you give us a discount on the tuition?"

The other person's eyes suddenly became strange, and he looked Takagi Sakura up and down several times.

Perhaps thanks to Takagi Sakura's nonchalant appearance, the staff member managed to utter this: "Jingqin withdrew from school last week, saying she wanted to focus on her music. Her family even called twice to inquire about this—"

At this point, the staff member's eyes became alert again: "You'd better not disturb her anymore, this is very wrong behavior."

Sakura and Sayu exchanged a glance, each seeing a hint of shock in the other's eyes. She tapped her fingers on the table awkwardly. "We're partners in her band, but I never thought she'd go to such lengths for music."

The salesperson didn't say anything else, but silently accepted the form that Sayu handed over, and Sakura also paid Sayu's tuition.

Before leaving the training center, Ying sent a message to Momoka: "Did you know that Renai dropped out of school? Pay attention to her mental state and contact me if you need help."

Taoxiang didn't reply immediately. I guess she went back to sleep after sending Yili back to his residence.

At this time, Kita had already added Ichiri's contact information. Ichiri, who was not good at saying no, insisted on replying to Kita's message even though he felt that Kita was a little strange after the other party said Sakura's name.

[KitaKita: I'm still a high school student. I'll come find you after school tomorrow. Are you a student too?]

[Goto Ichiri: Yes, I'm a high school student too. Let's meet up after school.]

[Kita Kita: I'm at Xiuhua, how about you?]

Yili felt very uncomfortable - the other person was actually from the same school as him, wasn't this too much of a coincidence?

If someone comes to my class and asks me to learn guitar...

Just thinking about this scene makes me feel like I'm going to fly.

So she could only reply: [Then I'll meet you at the entrance of Xiuhua after class.]

But Xiduo seemed to see through Yili's disguise at a glance and sent this message: [There are no other schools near Xiuhua. Are you also from Xiuhua? Then can I come to see you during break?]

Why is the guy that Sakura introduced to her so active? In front of the real Yangjiao JK, Yili felt like she was going to melt into liquid!

I crouched in a dark corner of the closet, clutching my phone, trying my best to simulate crawling. I played over and over in my mind the scenario of having all my disguises exposed in public. Finally, I mustered the courage to reply: [Don't come to class to find me! Bring your guitar, I'll meet you in the stairwell.]

Kita found this message a bit strange, but just regarded it as a quirk of a strong man.

Humph, with the guidance of the guitarist recommended by Sakura, I will definitely become a great guitarist!

Thinking of this, Kita happily took the six-string bass out of the case and wiped it carefully again.

The next day, Xiuhua High School.

During lunch break, Xiduo finally received a message from Yili. The place she arranged to meet was a very inconspicuous corner of the stairs, which was almost impossible for anyone to go there. You had to be careful not to bump the neck of the guitar when playing it.

Kita was a little nervous about meeting her first guitar teacher. She carried her guitar case and carefully squeezed through a pile of debris before she saw Goto Ichiri in the corner.

Yili had a lunch box next to him and was tuning his guitar according to the tuner on the headstock.

"Goto-san! I'm Kita!" Kita bowed to Ichiri and said, "Thank you so much for teaching me guitar!"

Ichiri's expression was also a little tense. He stood up awkwardly, daring only to look at Kita below the waist, but he caught a glimpse of a rather strange situation.

Judging from its length, what Kita was holding was a bass box.

The neck of a bass is longer than that of a guitar, so the case will be larger. It is not impossible to use a bass case to hold a guitar, but sometimes it is not possible to make it fit perfectly.

If it wasn't a bass, then the person was definitely holding a strange-shaped guitar. Strange-shaped guitars are generally used to show off one's personality and aren't particularly suitable for beginners. Yili found it odd, but she didn't ask.

"Um... can we start? I tuned the piano at home!" Kita opened the piano case.

"Eh?" Yili's bangs swayed as he turned his head, and his eyes fell on the six-string instrument in the guitar case.

This is undoubtedly a six-string bass. Compared with a four-string bass, this type of guitar has an additional treble string and a bass string, but due to the wider fingerboard and other reasons, the difficulty of playing will also increase.

Kita lowered his head following Ichiri's gaze: "Is there something wrong with this guitar?"

Yili took a half step back like a frightened rabbit, then mustered up the courage to move closer: "The standard tuning of a guitar is EADGBE, but this... I'm afraid it can't be tuned to this pitch?"

"Yeah!" Kita nodded. "I saw online that guitars with thicker strings can be tuned with drop tuning, so I tuned them all down two semitones!"

"Uh..." Ichiri glanced at Kita with a complicated expression, then shifted his gaze to the bass: "Um... I mean, is it possible that this is a bass?"

"That's impossible. Look, there's the word 'Guitar' here. And the bass has four strings." Kita turned the guitar over and showed the trademark to Yili.

The words "BassGuitar" were written on it. Yili moved his finger to the word "Bass": "That... bass is also called bass guitar, that is, bass guitar. This is what bass means."

The cicadas outside the window suddenly stopped chirping. Kita stared blankly at the "Bass" inscription on the back of the guitar, the lacquer surface seeming to reflect a dazzling light spot.

But Kita still had some hope: "It has six strings, right?"

"A six-string guitar isn't necessarily a guitar, just like a four-string guitar isn't necessarily a bass guitar. It could be a violin or a ukulele! Sakura's pipa also has four strings!" Ichiri suddenly bowed, "I'm sorry! I'm terrible at playing bass! There's no way I can teach you! I'm just too bad! I've let you down!"

Kita's face flushed. She took a look at Ichiri's guitar and indeed found that it had many differences from her own guitar, including the thickness of the strings, the length of the neck, the shape of the pickups, etc.

She began to regret not finding someone knowledgeable about the subject to go with her when she bought the piano.

"Well... I'm the one who should be sorry!" Kita bowed to Ichiri again, hurriedly put the bass back into the guitar case, and walked out of the school carrying the guitar case.

She decided to go directly to the shrine.

This guitar has already taken up an advance of her pocket money, and now she has no way to buy another guitar. In this case, it would be fine to play the bass. Maybe she can even "accidentally meet" Senior Liang in the identity of a bassist.

Kita stood in front of Sakura holding her bass, "Well... Goto-san can only teach me guitar. I thought this thing of mine was a guitar, but it's actually a bass. Now I want to learn bass, what should I do?"

Ying couldn't suppress the corners of her smile - not being able to tell the difference between guitar and bass can be considered a classic bass joke, but buying a six-string bass and learning to play it as a guitar, this joke is a bit hellish.

Sure enough, in the guitar case that Kita opened, Sakura saw the six-string bass in the photo.

"Just play the four-string first." Ying picked up the bass: "The four-string bass is tuned to EADG."

She didn't use a tuner, just listened by ear, and began adjusting the knobs on the headstock of the bass. "This is the thinnest one, usually tuned to B. You can leave it alone for now. Hold the guitar like I do, with your thumb on the pickup. Alternately pluck the strings with your right index and middle fingers. The contact position should be close to natural. Don't use your fingernails, but the pads of your fingertips... When the sound of your two fingers playing sounds the same, you can move on to the next step. If you find it boring, you can also ask Long Yiqi to do some left-hand exercises."

Kita picked up the guitar clumsily, his whole body seemed very stiff, and all that came out of the strings was a strange "bang bang" sound.

"Low-frequency sound waves are felt physically. You should press your body against the guitar to feel if it's in place. You can use a little more force. The only way to play bass is to not have enough force, not too much." Sakura continued to instruct Kita on his practice. "I'll talk to Rupa who works here. She should be able to help you with some beginner questions, or you can just ask me directly."

Sakura wants Kita to learn the bass quickly so that she can get rewards such as Shining Points sooner.

Chapter 179: Harvest, Band and BangDream: 27, Unexpected Visitors to the Shrine

The chirping of cicadas in the shrine formed a dense web of sound in the midsummer afternoon. When Nagasaki Suyo stepped onto the stone steps, a thin layer of sweat had already seeped into her palms.

She has checked the LINE chat history countless times - the messages sent to Xiangzi are always "unread", and in the Crychic group, no one has read the messages but replied.

The last message she sent to Xiangzi was: "Xiaoxiang, Ying, Deng, and Lixi have formed a new band. Can you come back? If you come to reunite the band, Ying and the others will definitely understand."

As for asking Mu at school, the answers he got were of no value. Most of the time, Mu remained silent.

Silence perfectly suits Mu's personality. At school, she gives the impression of being quiet. When classmates engage in friendly conversation, Mu responds, but only politely, looking like a puppet controlled by some kind of anthropomorphic program that responds precisely to external stimuli.

Therefore, having encountered countless rejections, Su Shi could only try his luck again at the shrine.

She knew Sakura didn't want to say anything about Crychic, but she always wanted to see if there would be an exception after a while. Some people's words sounded irreversible, but after a while, the situation would change.

Su Shi knew that Ying was not that kind of person, but she still wanted to give it a try. Yes, it sounded a bit awkward, but Su Shi really had no other choice.

The copper bells on the eaves of the shrine suddenly chirped without wind, startling two white wagtails, which fluttered past her head. She even felt her carefully styled long chestnut hair being lifted up and made a little wavy.

These two birds shouldn't be flying so low.

Suyo took a deep breath and walked into the shrine. Perhaps because of the hot weather, no one came to worship at this time, and Sayu was not in the shrine either.

The mottled shadows of the trees were cast on the courtyard of the shrine, and as a bassist, Su Shi also heard a familiar sound.

Only bass speakers could produce the kind of low frequencies that seemed to make the earth vibrate synchronously. Su Shi walked to the edge of the training room and heard the sound of bass coming from inside.

However, the sound coming out of the bass speaker is not harmonious, and you can tell that it is played by a novice in a somewhat clumsy way.

Just when she was wondering who was playing the bass, intermittent bass sounds leaked out from the soundproof door of the training room, mixed with Sakura's voice.

"Press here. The bass's low-frequency resonance needs to be felt physically, like the rhythm of a heartbeat. A qualified bassist is like giving music a certain vitality..."

Su Shi's heart ached. She stood on tiptoe, scrabbling over to the window, and peered through the glass at a red-haired girl, uncertain what to do with a six-string bass. Ying grasped the girl's wrist, adjusting her position. In the air-conditioned heat, they huddled close together, their warm hair mingling like a blossoming field of spring flowers. Su Shi's breath hitched—this angle reminded her of Ying's time at Crychic.

Sakura was supposed to play music with "us" of Crychic.

Su Shi felt a pang of sadness. Back then, Crychic had been so happy, so beautiful, and every day felt like a dream. When the beautiful "bubble" of Crychic burst, she too fell into a deep loneliness and confusion.

It was a similar scene when Sakura helped the relatively young members of Crychic correct the details in their performance.

Su Shi couldn't bear to watch it anymore.

She took a deep breath, walked to the door of the training room, bent two fingers and knocked lightly on the door twice, then quickly pushed the door open.

"Sorry to bother you." At this moment, Su Shi had a smile on her face that she had honed countless times in the Moon Forest.

This smile is flawless except that it is not sincere.

When Ying turned around, she had already put on a business-like smile: "It's been a while, Su Shi, come in and sit for a while?"

"I just happened to be passing by, so I came to take a look." Su Shi's eyes swept across the flashing lights on the mixing console and stopped at Kita's six-string bass: "Is Sakura's band going to change the bassist?"

It's definitely a lie that I happened to be passing by.

Today is a school day, even Sayu went to the cram school, and Suyo went home from Tsuki no Mori without passing by the shrine.

But as long as Su Shi doesn't mention Crychic, Ying won't give her a cold look.

"No, we're not changing the bassist. Hachiman Kairei plays really well, and she's Kita. She wants to learn bass and join Sayu's band, so I'm just giving her some pointers. Kita, let me introduce you. This is Nagasaki Suyo, a student of Tsuki no Mori's and also a bassist. We've worked together before."

When Su Shi heard the word "before", her brows frowned, but she quickly controlled herself.

The training room's glass faithfully reflected Su Shi's pale face. Crychic was an old wound that hadn't healed for her, and she couldn't get over accepting that the band was a thing of the past.

Sakura's attitude is already very clear. If she doesn't mention Crychic, they can still be friends.

Su Shi suddenly had an idea - if a direct approach didn't work, then he could try a "circumventing attack".

Thinking of this, Su Shi reached out to Kita: "Can you lend me your bass?"

Kita didn't refuse and handed his bass to Su Shi.

Su Shi closed his eyes, took two deep breaths, and gently pressed the first and sixth strings in a string-guarding posture, playing the six-string bass as if it were a four-string.

The sound of music filled the training room as she played. Her bass playing was weaker than Sakura's, who had intermediate playing skills and had one foot in the professional field, but for Kita, it was already very good.

The slightly distorted low-frequency roar instantly filled the eardrums, making Xiduo, who was sitting next to the bass speaker, feel tingling.

But to Sakura, it felt very different.

Su Shi played the bass part of Crychic's song "Spring Shadow".

Sakura looked at Su Shi with some vigilance, but Su Shi seemed to be immersed in his own performance and did not respond to Sakura.

As soon as the song ended, Kita started clapping.

"Kita, why don't you learn bass from me? Sakura is very busy. The work at the shrine seems to be easy, but there is actually a lot of work to do. Moreover, Sakura also has to do foreign language live broadcasts, and sometimes she has to face viewers with time differences."

Sakura had never expected that Suyo would offer to teach Kitabe, but she couldn't stop her - after all, Suyo hadn't done anything strange yet.

If Su Shi had completely let go of Crychic, she wouldn't mind helping her find a band. It wasn't difficult for a bassist to find a band. If Sakura took some time to help her pick one, she should be able to find one.

"Okay!" Kita nodded happily, "Sakura is a good person! Everyone in Sakura's shrine is a good person! Thank you, Suyo, for willingly teaching me the bass!"

Chapter 180 Harvest, Band and BangDream: 28, The Unseen Cat

The copper bell on the eaves of the shrine rang, and Ying's smartphone played the melody of a ringing phone on the mixing console. The caller shown on the screen was Guo Yu.

It was a rare occurrence for Guo Yu to call her. Most of the time, Ying would go to Guo Yu with questions. And when Guo Yu appeared in front of Ying, it was usually to watch a live broadcast.

"I've almost figured out Sayu's situation—slurp—" Guo Yu's slurping sound was particularly clear. "It's a psychic entity caused by post-traumatic stress, or what we call a mental projection."

This suggestion made Ying silent for a while. She was not quite sure what Guo Yu meant - her understanding of supernatural things was still very limited.

After a few seconds, Ying spoke up: "Can you give me a detailed introduction?"

"To put it simply, she couldn't get over Yuiko's death, so she imagined Yuiko was by her side."

"It's normal to be unable to accept the death of a close one. Time can heal most of the time—" Ying was interrupted by Guo Yu when she said this.