“After I die, please bury me with my wife.”
“The location?”
“The location is blah blah blah…”
Having noted this crucial detail, Makoto sighed: “Besides that, do you have any other last words?”
Tsugikuni Yoriichi could no longer speak fluently at this moment.
He gasped heavily, finally managing to utter a broken, intermittent sentence.
“Poor…
poor…”
“Are you trying to say, ‘The path pursued by the poor ultimately leads to the same destination’?”
“…”
“Rest well.”
Fifteen minutes had passed.
Tsugikuni Yoriichi sat on the ground, his head already bowed.
There was no longer any sign of life in him.
He resembled a high monk who had achieved nirvana.
A gust of wind swept through the broken bamboo grove, stirring up faint rustling sounds.
Makoto waited for a long time afterward, never approaching Tsugikuni Yoriichi’s corpse.
He remotely threw an incendiary bomb, burning Tsugikuni Yoriichi’s body and the entire bamboo grove to ashes.
…
In a magnificent European-style hall, a large group of elegantly proper vampires were clinking glasses, chatting and laughing merrily.
“The old saying is true: one drop of essence for ten drops of blood.”
The Vampire Ancestor raised his glass to Makoto and laughed: “Look at this cup, its viscosity is comparable to the arsenic that poisoned the thirteen members of the Qi family.
Smell this wonderful aroma; it’s a delicacy!
I’ll let you drink it, kid!”
Makoto covered his nose, determined not to smell even a hint of the scent of wallflower.
He shook his head in terror.
Swearing not to drink that cup of white, viscous substance.
“Alas, a boar cannot appreciate fine grains.”
The Vampire Ancestor waved his hand: “If you can’t drink the white stuff, go to the kids’ table!”
Makoto felt as if he had received a great pardon and quickly sat down at the children’s table.
There were quite a few acquaintances at this table: Evangeline, Krul Tepes, Lilirica Rose, Krul…
But as soon as he sat down, he saw these short vampires giving him lewd smiles…
…
“No!!”
“Damn it, I had a nightmare.”
In the first ray of morning light, Makoto woke up in a crudely built wooden hut.
Recalling the scene from the dream, he couldn’t help but rub his forehead.
“What a ridiculously absurd nightmare!”
“It’s all that Kibutsuji Makoto’s fault; the memories he absorbed are affecting my sleep quality!”
“Time to get up, continue staking out today!”
After hastily eating breakfast, Makoto continued his day-to-day waiting.
He was waiting for the appearance of the so-called blue spider lily, so he couldn’t just enjoy himself in the main world all the time.
Whenever he left a world, time in that world would freeze.
In other words, if he wanted a world’s time to flow normally, he had to stay in that world diligently.
This kind of crossing trait could only be described as having both pros and cons.
Wearing the same Demon Slayer uniform as Kibutsuji Makoto, dressed as an Onmyoji, he walked out of the wooden hut and headed toward a mountain not far away.
When passing by local farmers, he would nod in greeting.
“Master Shengwen, you are up so early.”
Along the way, he would receive greetings like this.
Starting from the Kamakura period, the profession of Onmyoji, which once only served the upper class, gradually flowed into the common populace.
By the Warring States period, it had merged with Buddhism, Shintoism, etc., often performing divination, prayer, and auspicious date selection for ordinary people.
To distinguish themselves from the once noble Onmyoji, the common people referred to these traveling sorcerers as “Shengwen Masters.”
The surrounding residents only knew that more than ten days ago, this young Master Shengwen claimed to be Tsugikuni Yoriichi’s friend and had specifically brought back Yoriichi’s ashes for burial.
“Yoriichi and I shared a bond that risked our lives!”
That’s what Makoto said, righteously and frankly.
In the mountains.
An old grave, with a wooden plank on it carved with “Grave of Wife Shi and Child.”
And next to it, a new grave had been erected.
On the grave stood a brand new stone tablet, on which Makoto had carved with his finger the words: “Grave of My Friend Tsugikuni Yoriichi, Erected by Kibutsuji Makoto,” emphasizing loyalty and enduring friendship.
Makoto sat before the two graves, basking in the cold, desolate mountain wind, waiting boredly.
He was waiting for the sun to reach its most intense and fierce point of the day.
“I’ve been squatting here for over ten days and haven’t found it.
Sigh, blue spider lily, oh blue spider lily, hurry up and come out!
Don’t be so mischievous, stop playing hide-and-seek with me!”
Looking through the entire Demon Slayer plot, the so-called blue spider lily only had two detailed sources.
One was in the back mountain of the Kamado Tanjiro family’s home, four hundred years later.
The other…
But these two places were actually the same location.
This was precisely why Makoto deliberately induced Tsugikuni Yoriichi to state his dying wishes.
If he wanted to find the blue spider lily, he had to know where Tsugikuni Yoriichi’s wife was buried.
“If I wait here and still don’t find it, I’ll have to dispatch men to inquire everywhere.
A flower that only blooms at the fiercest time of the sun would still be a very conspicuous bluish-blue color.”
“As long as I know these two characteristics, and as long as I have enough manpower, I don’t believe I still can’t find it.”
With power and money,
Makoto would not lack manpower.
“Sigh…
Since things have come to this, I’ll read some Buddhist scriptures first.”
He was reading the Huayan School classic, ‘Chapter on the Samadhi of Universal Penetration through Buddha-Recitation by Great Strength Attained Bodhisattva.’ With the sound of turning the sutra pages, time flowed by little by little.
The mist in the distance suddenly dispersed!
A young man dressed in a purple python-patterned kimono and black *bakama* hurried over with swift movements, yet his feet made no sound.
He greatly resembled Tsugikuni Yoriichi.
The same facial contours, the same deep crimson high ponytail, but his eyes lacked the peacefulness of Tsugikuni Yoriichi.
He quietly approached Makoto.
Seeing the other person reading, he dared not disturb him, so he simply knelt quietly, lowered his head, afraid to expose the look in his eyes filled with unwillingness and ambition.
“I recall the past, through kalpas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, a Buddha appeared, named Immeasurable Light.
Twelve Tathagatas succeeded one kalpa, and the last Buddha was named Supreme Sun Moon Light…
In my original cause-ground, I entered the Unborn Nirvana with a mind focused on Buddha-recitation.
Now, in this realm, I gather those who recite the Buddha’s name…
Gathering all six sense organs, with pure thoughts succeeding one another, attaining Samadhi—this is the foremost.”
“Tsugikuni Iwahikatsu.”
After savoring these profound and esoteric Buddhist verses, Makoto suddenly called out the young swordsman’s name and asked with a smile, “Do you know about Great Strength Attained Bodhisattva among the Three Sages of the West?”
“Your subordinate is not versed in Buddhist scriptures and truly does not know.”
“When this Bodhisattva walks, all worlds in the ten directions tremble.
Hence the name Great Strength Attained.
This is how he subdues sentient beings through might.
Simply put, every time this Bodhisattva takes a step, the entire Three Thousand Great Thousand World experiences six types of tremors.”
“Six types of tremors?”
“Movement, surging, rising, shaking, roaring, and awakening.”
“Also known as…
Six Movements of Heaven and Earth.”