Yashiro the Blind

Yashiro woke up.

A fine layer of sweat also appeared on her forehead. The window was open, and the night breeze pushed the clear moonlight from the sky in, falling on her. The cool moonlight naturally had a softness that was completely different from that of the daytime.

Few people know that sunlight and moonlight also have "weight".

Yashiro remained lying in bed, staring blankly with lifeless eyes. After a while, she let out a soft breath, reached out, groped around, and grabbed her cane. Her right hand was trembling uncontrollably, and it didn't stop for a long time.

"what……"

After a long while, she finally let out a dry groan. Perhaps because she hadn't slept well, her head was dizzy, just like when she was drunk... But this time, Yashiro was certain that she hadn't touched a drop of alcohol today.

After all, Wan Guizhai had reminded her once that "it's best not to drink alcohol when your injuries have healed," and seeing that the girl didn't take it seriously, he went to tell Longzi again. So, Longzi kept a close eye on her the whole way, and she never had a chance to touch a wine cup.

"Really... We have important business to attend to and are in a hurry to get on our way. Do you think I, Hachisuke, am the kind of person who doesn't understand the bigger picture and makes mistakes because of my drinking?" she once asked righteously in the bandit camp.

“Yashiro, you are certainly not that kind of person,” Ryuko replied.

"That……"

"So throw away that flask of wine you're holding."

"Oh, so this is wine. I thought it was water... You know I can't see it, huff huff huff."

Although there were some minor incidents like this, she ultimately didn't touch a drop of alcohol on the way from Suruga to Jingu, achieving a temporary reconciliation with her liver. To Yashiro's surprise, she thought that with her drinking habits, she might feel a little uncomfortable if she suddenly stopped drinking for a while, but after all these days, she didn't feel uncomfortable at all.

Could it be... that she drank too little and wasn't addicted enough?

After realizing this cruel truth, Yashiro was momentarily unsure whether to be happy or sad. It turned out that drinking not only saved her money, but also saved her on medicine…

That being said, I would still drink if there was alcohol, especially since I had just had a bizarre nightmare. Although I can't remember the details of the dream, the lingering feeling and the cold sweat on my body are enough to show that it was definitely not a dream that one should have in spring.

It felt like a stone was pressing on her chest, a kind of inexplicable unease. An ancient saying goes, "A small grievance in the chest can be soothed by wine," so drinking is the proper way to deal with this. Longzi has been called away by her mother and isn't around, so no one can stop her now.

As Yashiro thought this, her sleepiness vanished. She stood up unsteadily, wiped the sticky sweat from her face and body, and decided to go outside to see if she could get a few drinks, even just to soothe her throat.

Tuk, Tuk, Tuk...

The sound of her cane hitting the ground was especially loud in the quiet night. She listened intently as she walked, trying to catch any voices. Suddenly, in the stillness, a familiar voice drifted over: "...So...so I told you, I will not get married!"

That seemed to be the voice of the dragon prince, carrying a hint of irritability and grievance.

What's going on? Yashiro was slightly taken aback, her curiosity piqued, and she couldn't help but take a few steps closer to the direction from which the voice came. The voice suddenly became clearer: "I've said it eight hundred times, I'll never get married in this life, and didn't Grandpa agree to it? You all agreed back then, why are you going back on your word now!"

"That was then, you were still young then, everyone was just teasing you to make you happy, why did you take it so seriously... Besides, you're already seventeen this year, other girls have already had two children by seventeen, if you don't start worrying about marriage now, are you going to wait until you're twenty or thirty and have completely become an unwanted young woman before you're happy?"

Another female voice, somewhat resembling Long Zi but clearly more mature, rambled on, "Let me tell you, this marriage is different from the past. I pulled a lot of strings and finally got them to agree. You don't know what kind of person the man is, that's why they're so reluctant..."

"Hmph, I won't marry anyone! Mother, let me tell you the truth, I'm going to become the best archer in the world, surpassing even the Great Peace Sutra of Suzuya. Men are just a hindrance! If you insist on forcing me to marry, I'll... I'll shave my head and become a monk in a temple!" the dragon prince said fiercely.

The mature female voice paused for a moment, then stomped her foot forcefully: "Oh dear, you child... child's father, look at what your daughter is saying! Don't just sit there like a silent gourd all day, come and teach her a lesson!"

After a moment of silence, another male voice, which sounded very serious, rang out: "Dragon Prince, you are wrong about what you said, and very wrong at that."

The other party's words carried an inherent authority, which even made the originally righteous and indignant Dragon Prince slightly restrain himself.

But after a while, Longzi still spoke up, somewhat indignantly: "Where did I say something wrong!"

"The term 'monk' was originally a respectful title for eminent monks. Although it has gradually become a general term, it is usually only used to refer to men who have renounced worldly life to practice Buddhism. Therefore, even if you were ordained as a monk, you could not become a monk; you could only become a bhikkhuni, which is commonly known as a nun." The dragon prince's father paused. "Well, do you know where you went wrong?"

"Understood." The dragon prince readily agreed.

"Then change your mind and say it again."

"Okay," she replied, gathering her emotions slightly before saying, "Mother, if you insist on forcing me to marry, I'll... I'll shave my head and become a nun in a temple! What do you think, Father? Is that right now?"

"That was right this time." The man smiled with satisfaction, then turned to his wife and said proudly, "See, I criticized her. Our daughter admitted her mistake and corrected it, which is quite good. It shows that we have done a good job in raising her."

"You, you...you two...you're really infuriating! Fine, fine, I'm not going to get involved in this anymore. You two can continue to spoil her rotten!"

His response was a series of hurried footsteps. As if she didn't want to stay there any longer, Longzi's mother stomped her foot and left the room in annoyance.

The father and daughter were left staring at each other in bewilderment.

After a long pause, the man asked, puzzled, "Daughter, did I say something wrong?"

“Father, I don’t think you said anything wrong.” The dragon prince was also puzzled.

"Then why did your mother suddenly get so angry?"

"do not know."

"Ah, it really is true what they say, a woman's heart is like a needle at the bottom of the sea..." the man sighed.

The dragon prince nodded repeatedly, feeling a deep sense of sympathy.

……

Chapter Seventy-Seven: An Unexpected Disaster

Nothing happened that night, and Yashiro ultimately failed to get a cup of light wine from anyone. Although he seemed to have found the location of the kitchen and warehouse along the way, he thought that he was a guest, not a thief, and he should try not to do anything that would embarrass Ryuko, so he had to give up.

She staggered back to her room, but the lingering effects of the nightmare she couldn't remember made it impossible to fall asleep. After a while, she drifted off into a daze and decided to rewatch a classic slice-of-life anime to pass the time. To an outsider, she might just look like a girl meditating with her eyes closed, a subtle and enigmatic smile on her face.

Although she was actually just having a silly laugh to herself.

The next day, early in the morning, Ryuko came running over triumphantly. According to her, she seemed to have finally solved a big problem and could now stay at home in peace. At first glance, there might not seem to be anything wrong with what she said, but for Yashiro, who had overheard the conversation between the family of three the night before, it just sounded a bit strange... Oh well, as long as Lady Ryuko is happy.

With one worry gone and knowing that her grandfather was most likely still alive and well somewhere, Ryuko was in a very good mood. After having breakfast with Yashiro, she started dragging her around, ostensibly to show the girl around Kashima Shrine and to show her some hospitality... Anyway, that's what she said.

In reality, Ryuko is not a very good tour guide. Whenever she is about to enthusiastically introduce to Yashiro how ancient a certain building in her family is and what famous stories it has, she always gets stuck after a few words and stammers for a long time without being able to say anything coherent. In the end, she has to go and ask her mother to borrow Akari to explain it to her.

"Ah Zhao is amazing, he knows everything!"

"You flatter me, Miss."

A-Zhao smiled modestly, hesitated for a moment, and then asked cautiously, "By the way, Miss Longzi, did anything happen between you and Madam yesterday... um, like an argument or something?"

"No."

Longzi answered without hesitation, her tone completely undisguised. Perhaps in her mind, last night's conversation didn't really count as an "argument." In a sense, she, like her father, had no idea why her mother was angry and left.

"I see... I see, then I understand." A-Zhao muttered to herself, nodding to herself, seemingly understanding something. Then she smiled and said, "Come, Miss Yashiro, come over here... watch your step. This is the famous sacred tree of the shrine, said to have a lifespan of a thousand years... unfortunately, without permission, you cannot get close enough to touch it."

She felt quite apologetic about this.

Yashiro smiled and said, "It's alright. Just standing here, I can already feel how tall it is."

As she spoke, the girl looked up, as if she could pierce through the darkness before her and see the towering tree that was over forty meters tall.

At the same time, the records of Kashima Shrine that she had read in her previous life also surfaced in her mind. Thanks to a time when she was bored and surfing the internet to search for information, Yashiro was not completely clueless about this place. With the help of A-Shō's explanation, she was able to form a general impression in her mind by comparing the two.

Of course, compared to the later Kashima Shrine, the shrine today appears much simpler, with many buildings or attractions yet to be constructed. For example, the Great Torii Gate was first built in the mid-20th century, then destroyed by an earthquake, and rebuilt a hundred years later.

The gate tower was donated to Kashima Shrine by Tokugawa Yorifusa, the first lord of the Mito Domain, about eighty years ago, long after Tokugawa Ieyasu had established the shogunate and unified Japan, to pray for the recovery of the third shogun, Iemitsu. The shrine was donated by Tokugawa Hidetada, the son of the old tortoise, when he was shogun. The inner shrine, which enshrines the god of the cauldron, was originally a shrine donated by Tokugawa Ieyasu after the Battle of Sekigahara. Later, his son also donated a room, and the original shrine was moved to become the inner shrine...

Wait a minute, and after a thorough examination, Yashiro was shocked to discover that most of the buildings in the Kashima Shrine in later generations were donated by the Tokugawa family one after another. As for before that, the Hojo family and the earlier Kanto rulers probably also contributed money and effort to help build the shrine, but unfortunately, either the era was too long or it was destroyed in the war long ago.

During the chaotic Warring States period, local lords were so busy that they had to stretch every penny to two. The huge expenses for military supplies and building cities were enough to give them a huge headache. They had no time to spare to show their piety to the eight million gods.

Even at Izumo Taisha, Japan's oldest shrine, which enshrines Ōkuninushi, the "greatest spirit in the country," the shrine maiden Okuni still has to lead a dance troupe to earn money every now and then, and then bring the money back to repair the shrine. Of course, Okuni is not the only shrine maiden who does this, but she is the most famous one.

Just like the Buddhist temple next door, the rich monks monopolize production and indulge in debauchery all day long, while the poor monks have to go hungry and beg for alms every day.

This perfectly illustrates the old saying:

The shrine maiden's household also had no surplus food.

Realizing her thoughts had wandered too far, Yashiro shook her head and returned to reality. After the sacred tree, A-Zhao led the two of them around the shrine, introducing several attractions that would be of general interest to worshippers. Among them, she emphasized the large forest behind the shrine and the sacred mountain of Kashima hidden in the forest.

Legend has it that a thousand years ago, Master Guomo secluded himself in the depths of Mount Ling for three years, and with divine guidance, created the first Kashima sword, which has been passed down through generations to this day. For this reason, every successor of the Kashima school since then has followed in the footsteps of their master, undergoing a thousand days of arduous training in the depths of Mount Ling.

More than thirty years ago, Tsukahara Bokuden comprehended the legendary One-Sword during his thousand-day training, and with it founded his own Kashima Shinto-ryu school, taking in many disciples and having countless students. However, very few disciples were qualified to enter Mount Rin and train for a thousand days.

Azhao pointed to the distant, misty Ling Mountain, her tone filled with longing. When Baxun looked up, she could feel a gentle breeze brushing her face, lifting her bangs and ruffling a few strands of hair that were near her ear. The breeze gently tickled her earlobe, bringing a strange, ticklish sensation.

Suddenly, the girl seemed to hear a distant voice again:

"See...enlightenment..."

The voice was ethereal, its origin unknown, indistinct, like a fleeting bubble, vanishing in an instant. Yashiro paused, then turned to the two beside her and asked, "Did you two just say something?"

"No," Longzi said, somewhat puzzled.

Azhao also shook his head.

"Did you hear anything?"

The answer remains negative.

"Then maybe I misheard...it might just be the wind."

Yashiro muttered to herself, then listened intently again, but the faint sound had vanished.

……

"See the move...understand..."

That night, late at night, the girl woke up from her dream again.

As always, I can't remember the contents of my dream, but I have a splitting headache and am drenched in sweat.

These days, water heaters are still a pipe dream. If you want to take a bath, you just have to go to a stream or river in the wild, take off your clothes and become a fish. But if you think the river water is too cold and want a hot bath, you have to work hard to chop wood and start a fire. After the water boils, you have to take a big wooden bucket, add some cold water, and put yourself in it like you're cooking soup—and of course, you can't drink the soup after it's cooked.

That's why most people just wipe themselves down with a damp cloth, especially when they're traveling or staying with others; they can't afford to go to great lengths to take a bath. Yashiro took a towel, wiped herself down briefly, and took a couple of breaths before her rapid heartbeat slowly returned to normal.

Her hands were still trembling. Although her mind was blank, it felt as if she had just experienced a life-or-death struggle—or even more than one. Her heart was agitated. Sitting by the window, the cool night breeze helped her calm down a little. It was at this moment that, with the sound of the wind, the girl heard that ethereal voice again.

She hesitated for a moment, then took her cane and went outside.

The sound wasn't always clear; most of the time it was intermittent, sometimes near, sometimes far. Yashiro would stop every now and then to listen for a long time before continuing forward. Gradually, she left the corridor and came to the courtyard, where she felt the atmosphere around her suddenly open up, and a refreshing fragrance of trees wafted towards her.

Before she knew it, she had arrived at the sacred tree with a thousand-year history. The girl stopped and, just like during the day, looked up to feel another night breeze blowing through the tree canopy, causing countless green leaves to sway and make a rustling sound as pleasant as ocean waves.

The sound she heard in the room was indeed the rustling of leaves in the wind. Because the tree was so tall—forty meters, equivalent to the height of a dozen or so stories—it took on a mysterious quality even from the most ordinary sound of leaves.

She stood there for a moment, shook her head and chuckled softly. Just as she was about to turn around and go back to her room, suddenly, alarm bells rang in her mind! In her consciousness, a sharp longsword seemed to pierce through the air without warning, and it was already inches away when she realized it!

At the last moment, Yashiro didn't even have time to draw his sword. He could only raise his cane to protect his vital chest, tense his body, and press his right hand on the end of the cane, waiting to catch the sword and immediately launch a counterattack... The next second, the "sword" suddenly disappeared.

Only something incredibly light floated down onto the cane.

It was a leaf.

She reached out and picked up the leaf, casually crumpled it, and the poor leaf instantly crumbled into dust, which was blown away by the wind and scattered to the winds, its whereabouts unknown.

"What on earth is this..."

Yashiro frowned, somewhat doubting whether she was still dreaming. Blind people, having lived in darkness for so long, are prone to confusing reality with fantasy. It had taken her a long time to completely distinguish between the two, but now she was uncertain again.

"...See the move...understand the move..."

The wind rose again, and faintly, it seemed as if the cold, clear sound echoing from the horizon could be heard once more. More leaves were swept up by the night wind and fell down with a rustling sound. In front, behind, left, right, north, south, east, and west, in an instant, in the girl's perception, the flying leaves suddenly transformed into swords, and an ordinary scene became a terrifying killing formation!

There was no time to consider whether she was still dreaming. Even if she were, she didn't have the courage to experience the agony of being stabbed three times and pierced six times, or pierced by a thousand swords. With a thought, she drew her sword. Because her left arm was still injured and she couldn't exert much force, she switched to holding the sword in her right hand and a staff in her left, swinging and spinning it forward to deflect countless approaching blades…

Beneath the cedar trees, green leaves fluttered wildly!

The moonlight, as bright as silver, illuminated the courtyard. Night had fallen, and all was silent except for the girl's longsword, which drew an arc in the air, slicing through a few leaves that had unfortunately fallen in its path. Before she could fully unleash her power, the swordswoman suddenly paused, "Something's not right..."

The idea came to mind.

But for a moment, Yashiro couldn't quite put his finger on what was wrong or why. He just had a vague intuition that something was off about the sword strike he had just unleashed...

With a flick of her wrist, the sword light took a different turn, and a leaf seized the opportunity to fly in through the gap. Just as it was about to graze her neck, the girl raised her cane with her left hand, causing the leaf to collide head-on with the cane—clang! At that moment, Yashiro seemed to truly hear a resounding clang like metal clashing.

But her cane was made of wood, so it was just an illusion. With a shake of the cane, the green leaf stuck to it drifted away and was carried by the wind, rushing towards her once again.

"wrong……"

With a turn of her sword, her slender figure, clad in a pale apricot-yellow sleeve, danced gracefully beneath the tree. With each stroke of her sword, she swung it amidst the swirling fallen leaves, the cool moonlight falling upon her like a cloak.

At some point, the swordsmanship wielded by the girl was no longer the familiar family-inherited Tenma style, nor was it any style of technique that she had previously encountered, imitated, or learned. Yet, every sword strike she made—whether it was a slash, a leap, a thrust, or a cut—the simplest of moves, still revealed the shadows of various styles.

The shadows on the ground swirled and danced.

She swung her sword one last time, from top to bottom, making it as sharp as a knife. With that single strike, it seemed to sever the flowing night wind; the wind stopped, the sound ceased, and countless leaves fell down, landing on the ground, on the sword, or on her body.

Yashiro was covered in sweat and panting heavily. She sheathed her sword back in her cane, leaned against it, and took a few breaths. As she regulated her breathing, she was also puzzled... what school or style of swordsmanship had she just used unintentionally?

Every move and every stance was so unfamiliar, as if she had never seen or heard of it before. Yet, this swordsmanship seemed to be imprinted deep within her body. Her movements were smooth and effortless, as if she had practiced it thousands or tens of thousands of times before. But she searched through her memories and could not find any trace of it.

The rustling wind started again, and the sudden approaching footsteps snapped Yashiro back to her senses. She turned her head and listened, but she couldn't recall the rhythm of the heartbeat or breathing, or the weight of the footsteps. The other person was a stranger... a strange man.

"you--"

The other person then spoke, and it was indeed a middle-aged man. His voice sounded somewhat similar to Longzi's father's, and his age was also similar, around thirty years old. However, compared to Longzi's father's serious and steady demeanor, this voice had a more restless quality.

"Kid, what were you doing just now?" The words were so rude that Yashiro felt like he was being interrogated.