Yashiro the Blind

The girl was stunned. She had spent most of her life in seclusion for over a decade, and knew very few people, especially those she was close to—no more than a handful. She counted them one by one, but couldn't think of anyone who was particularly skilled in music and could have stepped in to save her at this crucial moment in her battle with Shen Wu.

It's not impossible that it's Kashin Koji—Yashiro always felt that this old woman, whose age was a mystery... was incredibly powerful and unfathomable, so it wouldn't be surprising if she knew something. However, based on her understanding of her master, he probably wouldn't be interested in such trivial matters, let alone travel all the way from Nara to Suruga.

You have to understand that during those five years of learning her craft, Guoxin was waited on hand and foot every day. She was bossed around like a spinning top, and all she did was train her reaction skills through practice. Her laziness and shamelessness were unparalleled, if not unprecedented. Even sloths in Latin America would probably have to bow down in admiration.

But apart from Guoxin, they couldn't think of any other candidates for the time being.

She was deep in thought when Longzi crossed his arms, glanced at the pipa on the ground, and then at the letter on the pipa: "If you have no clue, why not just read the letter? Oh..." He realized his mistake as soon as he finished speaking, "I forgot you can't see it."

"Lord Ryuko...aren't you tired of this burden yet?" Yashiro twitched the corner of his mouth, somewhat speechless.

"Package? What package?" Longzi asked, puzzled. "Besides, my luggage isn't here either."

Ok……

The girl was silent for a moment, then sighed, tangled up this nonsensical topic in her mind, and then forcefully threw it into the void.

On the other hand, Longzi acted quickly, tearing open the letter in a few moments. He unfolded the letter, glanced at it, and was about to read it aloud to Ba Xun when he suddenly paused, stunned by what he saw.

"What's wrong? What's written on it? Let me see it too."

Before Yashiro could speak, Chiyo, who was equally curious, sidled up and asked first—it seemed that she had no intention of avoiding suspicion at all, whether she felt it was unnecessary or simply did not have this concept in mind.

If it's the former, that's fine, but if it's the latter... well, her future looks bleak. If Yashiro didn't know what was going to happen to this older sister, given her carefree nature, it would be a disservice to the professionalism of the ninja Tobogami lineage if she didn't die young.

Chiyo was like this, and so was Toyogoro. These historically renowned figures were now showing signs of becoming more and more unreliable than the other. The girl couldn't help but seriously wonder if her butterfly wings had inadvertently worked their magic, knocking the heads off these two future historical figures.

What if they die prematurely because of this? Wouldn't that be a repeat of my decision not to kill Bo Ren?

Wait, her thoughts seem to have wandered too far... Perhaps she slept for too long, or perhaps her injuries haven't healed yet. Although Yashiro has woken up, she still feels a bit dizzy, and all sorts of random thoughts are running wild and she can't control them at all. She rubbed her temples and tried to focus her attention a little.

Just then, I heard Longzi let out a soft "Eh." Could it be that the letter really contained something extraordinary?

If so, what should we do? Should we silence them...?

Who will silence whom?

The untamed thoughts once again turned into a wild horse, about to gallop away, but were pulled back by the dragon prince's next words: "Return the object to its rightful owner... return the pearl to its rightful place."

"Hey?"

"There are only these two sentences, eight Chinese characters in total."

"Then what did you mean by 'huh' just now?"

"I think it's a bit wasteful to write only eight characters on such a big piece of paper. And I do know what 'returning the item to its rightful owner' means, but what does this last phrase mean?" Longzi blinked and asked seriously, "Do you know?"

"We..." Chiyome leaned closer, glanced at the paper, and, confirming that Ryuko wasn't lying, stammered when she heard her question. "Such simple words, I definitely understand..."

"Then explain it to me."

"But do you understand it? Not completely, just a little bit, not much, but it's still understanding..."

"Then explain it to me."

"So you didn't hear what we just said..."

"I heard you. You say you know a little bit, then explain a little bit."

"We...you..."

One was a straightforward person who couldn't understand the hidden meaning, while the other was putting on a brave face and stubbornly refusing to admit defeat. The scene was deadlocked and extremely awkward. Yashiro, who was standing next to her, almost wanted to dig a hole and disappear for Chiyome.

Unable to bear listening any longer, she shook her head and changed the subject: "The story of returning the pearl to its rightful owner is a classic tale from the Eastern Han Dynasty... and so on... In short, it means returning something to its rightful owner."

After a brief explanation of the origin of the idiom, Ryuko nodded in realization: "Yashiro, you know more."

"Gu..."

Chiyo was both embarrassed and angry, almost grinding her teeth to powder. However, this wasn't the first or second time she had lost her composure here. As the saying goes, practice makes perfect, and she quickly adjusted her mindset, letting her curiosity take over once again.

Longzi stroked his chin and said, "In other words, the person who wrote this letter simply wrote 'return the item to its rightful owner' twice?"

"Yes."

"He's a strange person."

"...I must remind you, with just this one sentence, you have offended at least 98% of literary figures."

"It's alright, they can't beat me anyway." Longzi waved his hand dismissively.

Yashiro thought for a moment and said, "Indeed."

And so the matter was dropped.

After a lot of bickering and some basic knowledge about idioms and allusions, the topic that had been far away was finally brought back. Only then did Longzi realize that the really important thing was not the few words written on the letter, but the content of those words.

“Returning it to its rightful owner, returning it to its rightful owner…” Longzi muttered. “When I went downstairs just now, the person who put down this pipa had already left. I couldn’t see what he looked like, but the waiter who was watering the door said that he was a boy of about eleven or twelve years old. He said he was going to give the pipa and the letter to a blind girl named Yashiro… that’s you.”

"It's me." The girl nodded.

"So, do you have any clue who sent this thing over?" Longzi asked.

"This……"

Yashiro frowned. No matter how hard she racked her brains, she still couldn't figure out who might have written the letter.

Logically speaking, the person who sent this pipa is very likely the same one who helped break the Divine Art of Nothingness. Since the other party offered assistance, they are probably a friend rather than an enemy. However, if they are a friend, why didn't they come in person but instead had someone deliver it? Even someone as quick-witted as Long Zi wouldn't think that the eleven or twelve-year-old boy mentioned by the shopkeeper was the one who wrote the letter.

"Um..."

After much deliberation, unable to reach a conclusion, Yashiro simply took out the biwa (a type of lute), awkwardly held it in her bosom, and tried plucking it once...

"hiss!"

Before the strings were even touched and no sound was uttered, the girl herself gasped. It was her first time touching a pipa, and caught off guard, she felt her fingertips being sharply pinched by the strings, which hurt terribly. She shook them a couple of times and instinctively put them in her mouth. Then, remembering that there were two other people present, she quickly pulled her hands out and hid them behind her back.

Chiyome curled the corners of her lips into a smile, but before she could utter a sound, Yashiro, as if she could see it, glared at her fiercely with her white eyes: "You dare to laugh—"

"Hahahaha!"

Before he could finish speaking, Long Zi burst into laughter.

"..."

"..."

"Go ahead and laugh..."

"Hahahaha!" Chiyome immediately burst into laughter as well.

"Ugh……"

Yashiro sighed softly, finally understanding Chiyo's feelings of being humiliated... Leaving the two gloating bastards aside, she fumbled around for a moment and picked up the plectrum next to the biwa.

Incidentally, in her previous life, she had seen videos of people playing the pipa, which were usually played with artificial fingernails. However, this modern pipa style and the technique of replacing the plectrum with finger plectrum probably became popular from the Ming Dynasty onwards. As for the pipa in Japan, it mainly follows the old style of the Tang Dynasty. Although there are some finger plectrum techniques, it is mainly played with a plectrum, a wooden tool shaped like a rice spoon.

"Wanting to express the feelings of Mingfei across ten thousand miles, the purple plectrum and red plucked instrument play softly in the night. Gazing at the distant Han palace across the desert sands, I hear a sound as the moon sets over the Tianshan Mountains." Here, the "red plucked instrument" refers to the red plectrum used when playing the pipa.

The reason the girl was rambling on and on in her mind was not to show off her knowledge, but to show that she was not completely ignorant about the pipa and that she was just confused when she first started playing.

As for why he only kept it to himself and didn't say it aloud...

Hmph, you can't talk about ice with a summer insect!

Hearing the two men's "arrogant" laughter, Yashiro thought viciously.

However, she quickly composed herself, adjusted her pipa, paused for a moment, and then tried gently stroking the plectrum...

Zheng!

Then a sound rang out.

Like the first cry of a fledgling at the beginning of time, though not particularly loud, it made the Dragon Prince and Chiyome stop laughing at the same time, look at each other for a moment, and then look at Yashiro.

"It sounds awful!"

Chiyome had to consider the consequences of mockery, but Ryuko was always straightforward, saying whatever was on his mind.

Yashiro pouted, somewhat unconvinced: "Whether it sounds bad or not, I've never seriously studied this stuff..."

As for why she doesn't learn a musical instrument, firstly, she has no opportunity to do so. From her parents and siblings to Kashin and Kato Danzo, none of them have any artistic talent. Secondly, her hearing is exceptionally acute, which has both advantages and disadvantages. While it makes her life less difficult, it also makes her much less tolerant of harsh and stimulating sounds than the average person.

Including the sound she had accidentally "plucked" just now, don't be fooled by her normal expression, it was all an act. If there weren't two people watching, the girl would probably have already thrown down the pipa, covered her ears, and rolled around on the ground. If you think that's an exaggeration, you can use an analogy: when children are learning to ride a bicycle, they don't take falling a dozen or twenty times seriously and learn it easily.

But if it were a middle-aged person in their forties or fifties, or a very fat person weighing two or three hundred pounds, learning to ride a bike, let alone falling more than ten times, even just once could result in serious injury and a lot of trouble.

She's now in her forties or fifties... well, weighing two or three hundred pounds... let's just say middle-aged, forties or fifties. Because the price to pay is too high, she's never been able to muster the desire to seriously learn a musical instrument. Right now, holding the plectrum, she's frowning, utterly unable to bring herself to play a second note.

Finally, Chiyo sighed upon seeing this and volunteered to take over the biwa. She turned the pegs and plucked the strings in one smooth motion. With just a few simple movements, she naturally displayed a majestic and unyielding spirit, as imposing as a mountain and as deep as a pool, which was quite different from the impression she usually gave people.

Seeing this, Ryuko stopped laughing and obediently sat down next to the girl, his eyes filled with expectation. Yashiro tilted her head, and after a few breaths, the sound of the biwa started again.

They were clearly using the same pipa and the same plectrum, yet the sound she produced with that single strum was shrill, sharp, and incredibly piercing, while Chiyo's casual pluck seemed like a spontaneous, off-key performance. But as soon as the four strings moved, the sound was sometimes like flowing water, sometimes like towering mountains, like a thousand armies charging into battle. Then, after a sudden change of key, it scattered into countless petals, which were blown away by the wind and vanished without a trace.

The impromptu playing lasted less than a minute. The plectrum had stopped, but the lingering sound seemed to still echo in my ears. Until Chiyo let out a long sigh: "What a fine biwa..." Her voice held surprise, astonishment, and a hint of regret.

Yashiro swayed, snapping out of her brief daze, and couldn't help but exclaim, "It sounds so beautiful! It even makes me want to learn to play the biwa..."

"Want to learn? I can teach you, but first you have to beg me properly, respectfully, and show all the proper etiquette..."

"Forget it."

It was as if the girl could see Chiyo's smug expression. She shook her head, unwilling to let her continue her arrogance. Although the melody she had just heard was indeed beautiful, completely immersing her in it, the girl did not let it distract her from other things.

The tone of this pipa... she had heard it once not long ago.

Chiyome then realized what was happening: "Wait... if I remember correctly, when you fought with Hachiko last time, the guy who caused trouble was playing this very biwa!"

"Correct."

Yashiro responded. This was the very same biwa that Kanna had played when she impersonated Tenfu Goro. And considering the phrase "returning the object to its rightful owner, returning the pearl to its rightful place," could this biwa have originally belonged to her father, Tenfu Goro?

But if that's the case, how did the pipa end up in Kanna's hands? And after Kanna's death, who sent the pipa to her, and what was their purpose? What was the relationship between that person and her father?

One question after another flooded her mind, but Yashiro didn't dwell on them. In any case, her father and Kanna were both dead. Whatever had happened back then was ultimately just a thing of the past. Just like that night five years ago, all the bloodshed and killing... it was all in the past.

In comparison…

"Lord Dragon Prince."

"kindness?"

"I'm hungry..." she asked softly, "Is there anything to eat?"

……

Chapter Seventy-Three: A Bolt from the Blue

"Cough, cough... Well, Takechiyo, did you deliver the things?"

Inside a small house in a temple in Suruga, behind a screen, an elderly monk dressed in plain white robes coughed several times, covering his mouth, and then pounded his chest, looking as if he couldn't breathe.

After a moment, the long, snow-white eyebrows slowly relaxed. Taiyuan Xuezhai turned his head and glanced at the silhouette kneeling opposite him through the screen—it was a spirited young man, eleven or twelve years old, not yet of marriageable age, with bangs on his forehead. Although the screen covered him, he still bowed his head respectfully, not daring to look directly at the old monk.

"Reporting to the master, it has been sent over."

"That's good...cough cough." Taiyuan Xuezhai nodded, muttered softly, and coughed a few more times.

Takechiyo hesitated for a moment, as if she wanted to speak but then stopped herself, but finally couldn't help asking, "Master... how is your condition?"

Several stoves were set up inside the house, and the roaring flames mixed with the fragrance of herbs, giving the small house a temperature completely different from the outside world. It was warm and cozy, like a winter's day, which made people feel a little chilly.

Takechiyo cautiously glanced at the tall, withered figure behind the screen. The former Suruga Hoshino, who had once shouldered the responsibility of the Imagawa clan's hegemony, now seemed to have lost his former majesty and had become a sickly, ordinary old man again.

"Look over there."

Xuezhai didn't answer the question directly, but instead pointed out the window. Zhuchiyo looked over and saw only an endless expanse of blue sky. Not understanding what the Zen master meant, he didn't speak rashly, but quietly waited for him to speak.

"What a beautiful day... Takechiyo, don't you think so?"

"really."

The boy looked out the window; the cherry trees were in full bloom, their petals swaying in the breeze and shimmering softly in the bright early spring sunshine.

"Spring comes, then summer, autumn ends, and then winter comes. Old trees wither, flowers fall and turn to mud, and from this new life is born... This is the power of nature. We are also part of nature, born, old, sick, and dead... That's life. Ha, ha... cough cough cough."

The old monk spoke softly, seemingly sighing over something; his words sounded obscure and incomprehensible to young Takechiyo. Hearing the final, violent cough, he lowered his eyes sadly and asked again, "Master, are you...are you alright?"

“I don’t know, but in any case, there’s still some time… a little time.” Taiyuan Xuezhai muttered, then waved his hand. “Go on, go back to your studies… come back tomorrow morning, I want to test your progress these past few days, to see if you’ve been slacking off.”

"Yes."

The boy responded, but didn't stand up. He slowly crawled out of the hut on his knees, closing the door behind him. The room fell silent again, save for the sound of the flames burning and the old monk's heavy breathing, creating a peculiar contrast.

"Is that Matsudaira Kiyoyasu's grandson?"

Suddenly, another voice rang out from the corner of the room. This voice came out of nowhere, but Taiyuan Xuezhai was not alarmed at all. He simply raised his eyes and looked at the figure dressed in black, with only his eyes showing.