Hisho no Tori #3
Juuni Kokuki — 十二国記
(The Twelve Kingdoms)
丕緒の鳥
(Hisho’s birds)
Translated by o6asan
First edition released on 2009.Jul.15
Second edition released on 2013.Apr.28 : Current
chapter1 chapter2 chapter3 chapter4
3
It is very necessary to make Tōshaku(陶鵲). Now, he has no time to think about something unnecessary.
He gave up complaining and seated himself at his table. Hisho(丕緒) had his room in one of the buildings of Rajin-fu(羅人府). There were two tables and two couches in the room which was not so wide. It was a place where it had settled down with Soken(祖賢) before. One of the tables and one of the couches already became a storage. The table that Hisho(丕緒) had been using was indeed settled, but, dust lay thick at everywhere because he did not come here for a long time. He cleaned up the dust on the table for the meantime, expanded paper reluctantly, ground an ink-cake, and took a writing brush. –And, his movement stopped. There was nothing inside of Hisho(丕緒).
It is only at the blank even if he tried to imagine something.
Hisho(丕緒) always said that his creative power was exhausted. But, actually he thought it’s only to lose his drive. The passion that he wants to try this or to do that, was certainly run out. He never imagined nothing came to mind.
It’s because he chucked up his job too long. — He wondered, though he tried to recall how he worked out thoughts before, it didn’t come out even vaguely.
When he had thought what was the next, he had felt short on ideas. But even at that moment, in his brain he had had a lot of idea fragments. Just if something was chosen from among them, he couldn’t get very enthusiastic about it. Or, somehow, if choosing something attractive, he couldn’t continue with it. — This is to find it difficult. That is not to find noting in his brain. — This time, his first experience that he has a complete blank like cottons in his own brain.
He was absolutely shocked by it. And he felt pressed. A moderate number of Tōshaku(陶鵲) will be needed if becoming Taisha(大射). Only to get the number required, workmen works by round-the-clock will be taken for half a month. They need complete Tōshaku(陶鵲) to be finished trying and erring, test-shooting, adjustments, before they secure the number required. If he really wants from complete beginning, he needs to start immediately. He needs something but has nothing.
– ‘Got it,’ he understood. ‘I, already dead.’
When? he didn’t know. At Shōran(蕭蘭) disappearing? — at Ruler Yo(予) giving him a word? Or long time ago? Since Soken(祖賢) having gone, thinking people as Tōshaku(陶鵲), Hisho(丕緒) was obsessed by making Tōshaku(陶鵲) continuously, but it was possibly not the passion that he wanted to make Tōshaku(陶鵲) from his start.
Certainly, Hisho(丕緒) had not felt pleasure by making Tōshaku(陶鵲) during that period.
– You should have made it more beautiful.
Shōran(蕭蘭) smiled wryly and said so whenever he gave her instructions. Each time, Hisho repeated. He thinks it is wrong to be pleased by seeing Tōshaku(陶鵲) broken.
”It is cruel that Tōshaku(陶鵲) are shot and falling down.”
To face reality, Hisho(丕緒) showed her the valley seen from the window. The gorge placed between huge peaks, though pear trees growing luxuriantly blot out it, there lay the lower world which is neglected by Ruler and trampled down by power in the bottom.
”The crude administration of an incapable Ruler ruins the country. People are made a fool by the politics that doesn’t think about, and everyone .. starvation .. has become poor. Ruler can save them by one finger or push them down into further poverty. Ruler can take their lives. Ruler has to know about it.”
Shōran(蕭蘭) sighed amazedly and unbelievably.
”I wonder if Ruler could understand. If someone can understand it by seeing Tōshaku(陶鵲) broken, I think the person has already done it from before.”
”I guess you are probably right.”
There’s some truth in what Shōran(蕭蘭) says. But if so, what can he do?
”Is the only thing we can just to make Tōshaku(陶鵲) for the Ruler we cannot respect? Even if we can please the Ruler and her aides on each scene, what will it do for people?”
”But, that’s our job.”
Shōran(蕭蘭) said naturally so and the appearance of her who kept calmly working irritated him. He was more angry because she looked happy and seemed to be satisfied.
”Yes, both of us are officials but insignificant ones. We don’t take part in important affairs of state, our intention cannot be reflected in national administration because of our position. But, we are still officials. People’s livings fall on our shoulders. I at least want to do something for people through my duty. — Only that’s our obligation.”
Shōran(蕭蘭) chuckled without raising her face.
”For people — huh.”
”Then, do you think what Ra-shi(羅氏) and Rajin(羅人) should be?”
”should be?”
Shōran(蕭蘭) said and laughed amazedly.
”You don’t think all human beings are the same, do you? We all do our assignment. So, if the difficult Ra-shi(羅氏) picks the difficult instruction with me .. I would make it neatly. Right?”
”Nothing changes when you look away from reality.”
”Though my eye catches them even if I look away. — I think Ruler isn’t different from me. If we show her things that she doesn’t want to see, she would only deny them.”
”– Like you shut your eyes from the lower world which you hide under the pear trees?”
As he had a sting in his talk, Shōran(蕭蘭) shrugged her shoulders.
”What else can I do by looking at the ruined lower world? It’s better to see beautiful things than that, isn’t it? It is foolish to count an unpleasant thing purposely and to have unpleasant time.”
”So? You shut yourself up in your works and look at your desk with your head down for all day. Only in such a shut place, you might feel happy.”
”Of course,” Shōran(蕭蘭) laughed loudly.
”It doesn’t exist there only, but it do exist only there. I love workmanship. Go well or go wrong — I love both of them.”
After her words, she took her file in her hand. She began to polish a piece of silver facon.
”That is very happy to confine my attention to the facon and not to think about anything else……”
Shōran(蕭蘭) giggled after talking to herself.
”To your surprise, people might be also the same as me? A woman you are pitying might be spending every day not to think about Ruler but to be pleased that today’s dish is good or fine weather and laundry dries well.”
After saying so, she suddenly sat up straight and put on a serious look because of Hisho(丕緒)’s unpleasant reaction.
”Yes. I’ll obey Ra-shi(羅氏)’s instructions. With pleasure.”
Hisho(丕緒) thinks Shōran(蕭蘭) didn’t have will to face the reality. She was not very interested in the people and the country. She tried to look for a little pleasure in her own backyard than misery there. Though she cried herself hoarse when Soken(祖賢) was executed, she might only feel sad because her intimate person died. Indeed, comparing with Hisho(丕緒) carrying it for a long time, she recovered in a shorter time. She said it was sorry but it ended.
As Shōran(蕭蘭) was such an attitude, most craftsmen in Rajin-fu(羅人府) had same behavior. Without taking interest about that, they made it up by serious mood because they were ordered by Hisho(丕緒) who is Ra-shi(羅氏). Nobody understood Hisho(丕緒) and he was isolated. Sekichō-shi(射鳥氏) who are Soken(祖賢)’s successors left it to Hisho(丕緒) and thought it’s enough, without a lot of interest in what Hisho(丕緒) made up. They had their interest in Hisho(丕緒)’s results only. People on the clouds being pleased with it or not? And, Hisho(丕緒) satisfied most successive Sekichō-shis(射鳥氏).
Most of them were pleased with Hisho(丕緒)’s Tōshaku(陶鵲). Sometimes they said “There is no cheerfulness”, but they more often praised it as solemn and beautiful. It’s not always their real intention. They might have had an illusion that they needed to praise it because famous Ra-shi(羅氏) in Ra-shi(羅氏) had made it. However, there was nothing to knock down Hisho(丕緒) than somebody saying radiantly that it was splendid. He charged his products with significance, but nobody felt it. After the ceremony, the archer who was a soldier visited Hisho(丕緒) and said that it moved his heart because it was really painful and sad. This was very ironic for him. A person whose position is low felt it. — A person whose position is high didn’t. Hisho(丕緒)’s intention never reached the person who had to get.
Hisho(丕緒) was absorbed in making Tōshaku(陶鵲). Two female rulers showed up and they disappeared. Often times, they didn’t have a ruler in the throne and held no Taisha(大射) though, Hisho(丕緒) did not stop devising. But — At last, the day when Hisho’s intension reached a Ruler came.
It was the Ruler Yo(予)’s enthronement ceremony.
The Tōshaku(陶鵲) with long graceful wings and tail were pushed away and took flight from the throwing machine rather than were tossed up, and it fluttered sliding into the air. It seemed to see birds that flew down from a sky height. When the archer shot it, it made a weak sound, dispersed a five-colored spray, and was broken into two wings and the tail. It fluttered down like struggling. While fluttered down, its sound remained weakly like the scream. The wings falling down slammed painfully to the ground, and was broken to pieces while making the pathetic clear sound. It became fragments of red crystal at the same time as breaking and scattered. When the shooting-arrow ceremony ended, the garden of the presence was vermilioned by the fragments of shining crystal.
Shōten-den(承天殿), where the Ruler and the high officials sat in a row, and the garden in front of it were filled with silence. Hisho(丕緒) heard their quiet, heavy silence and realized his intension to reach their mind at last. After the ceremony he was called by the Ruler, he took her words directly even through the bamboo blind.
But her first words were “It is frightening”.
”Why did you show me horribly ominous things? I’d not like to see such the cruel.”
Hisho(丕緒) lost words. Yes, that’s very cruel, so he wanted her to see it. Certainly cruel if the people would be killed. He wanted her to confirm what she has on her both hands by the ceremony.
”Shujō(主上) can feel hurt very much.”
Saiho(宰輔) also said so. But, he wanted her to feel the pain, of course. And, he wanted her to imagine people’s pain from it. The deeper scars, the more difficult to forget. He wanted the cruel to remain etched into her memory with the deep pain.
If people shut their eyes to the cruel, it cannot vanish. He/she wouldn’t be able to become conscious of cruelty.
It cut the Ruler deep, but didn’t reach to her mind. — Hisho(丕緒) was at a loss. What else should he do? Hisho(丕緒) lost the desire to make Tōshaku(陶鵲) rapidly after this. At the Kōshi(郊祀) after ascending the throne, they didn’t hold Taisha(大射) itself. Though Sekichō-shi(射鳥氏) did not know the reason either, Hisho(丕緒) thinks the Ruler maybe told them she did not want to see it. Still, he didn’t give up making Tōshaku(陶鵲). At the time — yet.
Hisho(丕緒) came frequently to the town since then. He looked at people’s livings closely and sometimes visited even the battlefield and the execution ground. He could obtain any thoughts by witnessing misery, couldn’t he? He might look for something that inspired himself who tended to wilt.
Shōran(蕭蘭) received them with a wry smile, whenever he took some that he picked up to Rajin-fu(羅人府). Tōshaku(陶鵲) which had no recipient. — Hisho(丕緒) repeated to make them and to throw them out for years he had, without understanding, what he had to make. And one day, when Hisho(丕緒) returned, he hadn’t seen Shōran(蕭蘭) there.
The day, clouds heavily hanged. The previous night, at the lower world people had frost even ears of rice had not ripened. While he heard the anxious voice – “What’s going on?” – of the people who looked up at heavens, he finished a brief trip, came back to Gyōten(堯天) and returned up to Jichō(治朝). At that time, what original idea he picked up and where he found out it, he currently can’t recall any more. Some idea occurred to him surely, he was trying very very hard to come back to Tōkan-fu(冬官府) — and he suddenly noticed all of works filled by the strange silence.
The invisible huge thing seemed to press hard on all around here. He felt something, mood of disquiet, and arrived at Rajin-fu(羅人府), and had not seen Shōran(蕭蘭). Shōran(蕭蘭)’s room looked same as always. Her desk where the things were piled up and the tools were thrown out, it seemed as if she left her seat for a little while. Nevertheless, as soon as he entered her room, Hisho(丕緒) felt the empty frozen there. There was nothing to lack but the room was completely empty. Seikō(青江) ran into the room when he was vacantly looking for something.
”Mr. Hisho(丕緒) — I’ve seen you.”
Seikō(青江)’s face was as white as a sheet.
”Where is Soran(蕭蘭)?”
”My master is absence. I have not seen her in the morning. I haven’t seen her anywhere though I looked for her here and there. I can’t understand what happened. — But,”
Seikō(青江) trembled discernibly.
”Not only my master. Craftsmen have disappeared from works here and there. Women — only.”
Hisho(丕緒) became frozen.
”…… Only women?”
”Yes. They say soldiers took away the master of the comb craftsmen before the dawn. Only the women also have been similarly carried off from the construction section. — Mr. Hisho(丕緒), what’s this?”
Hisho(丕緒) caught the trembling of Seikō(青江). His knees began to shake. — He was unable to stay on his feet.
”…… So, I told her that she should have run away!”
He didn’t know what Ruler Yo(予) had been thinking about when she ordered it. About three months ago, Ruler who was staying in the inside of the palace showed up abruptly in the court, ordered all female officials to get out of the palace and to leave Kei(慶国). Nobody seriously received this at first, though it alluded to the worst penalty when people didn’t observe orders.
Because, recently, most laws which were given from the throne were such a kind. The law was promulgated ostentatiously, but it lacked clearness of purpose and concreteness. Although an official notice only was put out, the government authorities didn’t show zeal for operation, therefore most ended because of mere information. Also at this time, the reality was lacked as all female officials were banished from not only the palace but also the country. Nearly half of the government officials in the court was a woman. Nobody knew how long it took for an enormous number of women leaving the palace, and the biggest point was that national administration didn’t consist if all were banished.
Though they caught it so lightly at the beginning, some female officials really began to disappear on the clouds after a while. Most of them collected their own belongings and got away from the palace, but some of them who obviously didn’t seem to run away disappeared.
You’d better run away, Hisho(丕緒) told Shōran(蕭蘭).
”Apparently, Her majesty is serious though it is very unbelievable for me. This is not a token notice like the usual one.”
No way, Shōran(蕭蘭) laughed while sitting at her desk as usual.
”I’ve never heard such a ridiculous notice.”
”But, higher-class female officials have actually disappeared.”
When Hisho(丕緒) appealed, Shōran(蕭蘭) inclined her head.
”I wonder if she fought against a female official. If she did so, I am not worried. Because Ruler doesn’t know me. I don’t think Ruler imagines that there are lower officials in Jichō(治朝) and that some of them are women. She cannot punish me because she doesn’t know I exist, can she?”
Though she laughed after saying so, he thought that her recognition was too optimistic. The fact was that she disappeared just for the day. He didn’t learn even how and where she was dead or alive as well as other female craftsmen. All was decided on the clouds, and under the clouds nobody was able to explain what had happened. No one that disappeared, however, came back again. Now, Ruler Yo(予) passed away, and New Ruler ascends the throne, but he has no communication of any kind with the disappeared. Only it is an undeniable fact.
– Therefore, I told you not to look away from the reality.
Hisho(丕緒) has thought so ever since. Because Shōran(蕭蘭) did not try to see the cruel at all. Her recognition to Ruler was optimistic, and her precaution against the power was insufficient. Didn’t she think that the misery reached herself if looking away? Did she forget that Soken(祖賢) wasn’t guilty but killed?
He was both exasperating and sad. After Shōran(蕭蘭) had disappeared, Hisho(丕緒)’s feelings that would make Tōshaku(陶鵲) were completely lost.
Hisho(丕緒) was too helpless. Both Soken(祖賢) and Shōran(蕭蘭) were lost. He even could know neither what happened nor who was to blame. In spite of their innocence, he could neither guard nor protect them. Inside the palace. — though he is one of Ruler’s neighborhood.
It was wrong, and he wanted to shout for stopping it. Hisho(丕緒) had, however, no method of sending the shout to Ruler. In fact, he didn’t have even a method to send it to Saiho(宰輔) or aides. His cry could not reach to Ruler if he shouted very toward the clouds. Hisho(丕緒) was almost nonexistent from the beginning for people on the clouds. There were none who tried to listen, and they did not feel even the necessity. The only method of Hisho(丕緒)’s telling a Ruler something was the shooting-arrow ceremony. That’s why Hisho(丕緒) tried his wish to be reached through the shooting-arrow ceremony, but it didn’t be reached. –No, more worse. It was not accepted though it was reached.
He hoped she would have understood the cruel of the power by the shooting-arrow ceremony that Ruler Yo(予) herself said “It is frightening”.
However, Ruler Yo(予) refused to understand. She did not notice her own cruelty because she looked away from the cruel.
– This country is hopeless.
He got tired of the search for the voice that had to be raised and of raising the voice. Anyway, Ruler showed little interest in Hisho(丕緒). Although he stayed in Ra-shi(羅氏) because eating to live is necessary for a person, he lost a will to make Tōshaku(陶鵲) and hated even to think of them. He wanted to think neither the government nor the country. Even if he thought something, he had no way to send it on the clouds, and they had no will to listen him at all.
All the things seemed meaningless for him. He felt troublesome even raising a finger, stayed in his residence and spent all his time. He did nothing. He thought nothing. Probably the empty days he spent his life doing nothing during made Hisho(丕緒) a cave.
I am a mere shell. — Hisho(丕緒) thought so, gave up and put down his writing brush.
He thought of nothing, then they had no choice except remaking the past one. Could they make it in time if which was made? He had to consult with Seikō(青江).
He got out from the room while thinking. A lonely night breeze reporting autumn blew through the corridor enclosing the courtyard.
The Tōshaku(陶鵲) that was dedicated to Ruler Yo(予) would be safe. The producer was Shōran(蕭蘭), but it was Seikō(青江) who actually bundled craftsman and created them. Seikō(青江) probably remembered details. He thought, however, he met with a refusal again if he remade them. Even if he did not meet with a refusal, Hisho(丕緒) himself did not want to make them again. He did not want to dare to make Tōshaku(陶鵲) that only shouted cruel. Then, it might be correct to make the Ruler Ri(悧)’s Tōshaku(陶鵲), but he didn’t feel to do.
He did not want they had been broken splendidly like that. He wanted to leave any thoughts with Tōshaku(陶鵲) no longer, but he also did not feel much like making Tōshaku(陶鵲) that was broken and opened up and that made audience into applause. It is also painful that the Ruler Yo(予)’s Tōshaku(陶鵲) which were shot and broken. He wanted them without broken if possible though no broken is no meaning.
“…… I couldn’t do such a thing though.”
Hisho(丕緒) smiled to talk to himself. There’s no meaning unless Tōshaku(陶鵲) would be shot down. Though, actually, he could do nothing but destruction, he also did not feel good that they would play music after being broken. Both profound Gagaku(雅楽) and lonely folksongs do not fit them. In the first place he wants no music. He wants more silent and mere tone. Just the sound makes stopping cheer and applause and listening avidly to. The tone deeply sinking one’s ears opened.
He came in the next room while thinking, he said so to Seikō(青江) sat at the desk by the weak light, Seikō(青江) looked back inclining his head still on his chair.
”For instance — Snow sound?”
Hisho(丕緒) smiled wryly while sitting on boxes piled up beside Seikō(青江).
”Snow has no sound, doesn’t it?”
”No”, Seikō(青江) blushed.
”Well, splash or whish?”
That’s not — splash, Hisho(丕緒) thinks. He thinks it differs from all the water sound that runs over, flows, murmur, and ripples. But it also differs from all the wind sound. Both water and wind are too talky.
”more silent …… yes — you’re right, it might be snow’s sound.”
It talking nothing, people can’t help but listen to –.
”Snow has no sound, but my feeling fits it if it exists. Why do you know?”
Seikō(青江) smiled embarrassedly when Hisho(丕緒) said so.
”Because my master said something similar. …… Ah, you’ve said the same thing, I think.”
Hisho(丕緒) asked it back in surprise.
”Shōran(蕭蘭) did?”
”Yes. She said she preferred snow’s sound such as sound of silence. She told me she did so if doing.”
Hisho(丕緒) was at a loss for words.
– Well, he did not give her a chance for doing what she wanted to do.
In fact, Hisho(丕緒) never once asked what Tōshaku(陶鵲) she wanted to make. And she never said what she wanted to make. While Hisho(丕緒) was obstinately making cruel Tōshaku(陶鵲), she said he should have made it more beautiful though, she never told concrete plans and never gave him a look at her desire.
She also wished. Shōran(蕭蘭) hoped for it, too. He thought.
”…… Anything else?”
”Yes?”
”Did she say anything else? About how to breask?”
When Hisho(丕緒) asked it again, Seikō(青江) looked at the ground and turned things over in his mind.
”She told me Ruler Yo(予)’s bird was cruel. She said it’s painful. But if they are broken colorfully, it is too much cheerful, which is not interesting. That is what she said.”
Saying so, Seikō(青江) looked up suddenly recalling something.
”Now, I recollect she said birds were good. It’s very painful for them to be shot down, so it’s good for them to be birds again from pieces.”
”Birds again ……”
Seikō(青江) nodded his head longingly.
”She said always they were birds. She wished they were flying. They keeping to fly, the ceremony would not finish but she wanted people felt sorry when they were just shot down. When people feeling sorry, birds are born again from the ruins.”
”And, they are flying away …… ?”
As Hisho(丕緒) murmured unconsciously, Seikō(青江) smiled with satisfaction.
”Yes — She said so. She wished real magpies(鵲) were born from Tōshaku(陶鵲) broken. And flying away.”
”That’s not bad.”
Tōshaku(陶鵲) are thrown up. Shot and broken to pieces, real magpies(鵲) are born from them, and they will fly away in front of people sitting in a row, leaving Ruler, the power of the throne, all officials’ authority and speculation, and everything –.
”She said she didn’t like that the birds being born with considerable effort fell and remained in the yard. Disappearing is fitter for her feeling.”
”Fitter …… she said?”
Hisho(丕緒) nodded. He thought that Shōran(蕭蘭) had same feelings though she had said nothing. No, only Hisho(丕緒) did not show a will to hear it. Only his hope was stubbornly chased, and he reached at last the same place when his hope was lost –.
Hisho(丕緒) looked back on the west side window. On the time he could see only the darkness there but in daytime he could have seen the scenery of the valley. The rock surface would be covered with thin clouds, and pear tree woods would interrupt the view where the town should be seen.
”Shōran(蕭蘭) had often seen that scenery, hadn’t she?”
Seikō(青江) traced direction of Hisho(丕緒)’s eyes, and he threw up his eyes with a confused look.
”…… Of the valley? Well, yes.”
”What did she see really?”
At this late date he wonders. Why was she looking at the valley and what did she think?
”She said she did not want to see the lower place. I thought that is true because she said so. But my deeply thinking, if she did not want to look there, I don’t think she should have seen the valley in the first place. Sitting on the stone on the end of the courtyard, she had often seen the valley, but that direction we can see only the lower place, wrong?”
Hearing an unexpected, Seikō(青江) also put his head on one side.
”It seems to be true, come to think of it.”
Hisho(丕緒) recalled the bird he had seen someday. At that time he felt the bird was seeing the devastation only. Just like that bird, wasn’t she seeing the devastation while saying ‘I don’t want to see’?
”Am I thinking too much?”
When Hisho(丕緒) smiles wryly, Seikō(青江) asks it back.
”What?”
”Nothing. …… She said she did not want to see the lower world although she was able to see nothing but the lower world. And, she planted pears patiently. How patient she was, she hid the misery of the lower place by her behavior at last, though.”
”Did she hide …… didn’t she?”
”Am I wrong?”
I don’t know. Seikō(青江) put his head on one side.
”Certainly my master often said she didn’t want to see the lower world. Nevertheless she always saw there. — Yes, I think she must have seen the lower place. Because at the end of her gaze was Gyōten(堯天).”
”Precisely, pear woods. Especially, she worn a smile and gazed when the flowers bloomed.”
”But, she still saw the same place in the middle of winter. Winter coming, pears’ leaves fall. At that time, we can see nothing but the scenery of the lower world.”
”It’s true what you say. ……”
Seikō(青江) stood up and approached the window. The autumn-like breeze with the sign of loneliness was blowing in.
”I suppose she did not want to see the lower world because she was well aware of the misery of it. So, she said that. Actually, she said she did not want to hear painful news, but she always knew about it before I told her.”
”Did she?”
”Yes. — I think she couldn’t help straining her ears in the sound that she did not want to hear. Similar to them, she wanted not to see because she knew it but she couldn’t help seeing. Though she planted pear trees, she did not plan to hide there, I guess ……”
Trying to find a word, Seikō(青江) looked through the lower world in the dark.
”When the flower bloomed, she was highly pleased. She said what a beautiful scenery it was, which does not mean that the flowers erased the lower world, I think. My master might surely have superimposed the flowers on the lower world. I think she saw the beautiful Gyōten(堯天) that might be realized someday when she enjoyed the flowers.”
Maybe so, Hisho(丕緒) thought.
”I, thought Shōran(蕭蘭) was always turning her back on the reality…..”
Seikō(青江) smiled turning around.
”Certainly right. Actually, she did not face the reality squarely. Turning her back on it, she had been looking at her own hands only. But I don’t think she refused the reality.”
Hisho(丕緒) nodded. …… He understood in some way. The method of blockage like Hisho(丕緒) might be said to refuse the reality. Like stayed in one’s residence and spent all one’s time. Although Shōran(蕭蘭) stayed inside and turned her back on the world as same as Hisho(丕緒) did, she never stopped making Tōshaku(陶鵲) and finding out her pleasure at her moving hands. At this late date, he thought that might have been Shōran(蕭蘭)’s method for facing the world.
She always saw the lower world. Saying not to want to see the devastation, she was eager for the day when the lower world would be filled with the flowers –.
”We will make the Tōshaku(陶鵲) Shōran(蕭蘭) might have wanted.”
When Hisho said so, Seikō(青江) nodded painfully — However, surely gladly.
”As much as possible, you will recall what Shōran(蕭蘭) would want to make.”
