"Forget it, let's go. We've been chasing this demon all night, and we've actually ended up in the territory governed by Giyu and Kyojuro. Let's go to the nearby Fuji House to rest for a while. Today is the summer solstice, and the county should be holding a summer festival to worship Amaterasu in the afternoon. It's a good opportunity to relax."
Shinobu Kocho stretched lazily, revealing her petite but exquisite figure under the butterfly haori.
"Giyu and Kyojuro's territory... I was wondering why this place felt somewhat familiar."
And today's date...
Kiyomizu looked around and then chose a direction to walk.
Shinobu Kocho hurriedly followed.
The two walked quickly and soon passed through an open space, arriving near a small, somewhat dilapidated hut.
"That should be Tanjuro's house, right?"
Shinobu Kocho said, looking at the dilapidated hut.
Kiyomizu was muttering the route he had inquired from Tanjuro.
"It should be going east from here, and then you'll encounter a small stream. North of the stream, there's a hillside, on the south side of the mountain..."
"What are you muttering about?"
"The location of the flower."
"Flower?"
Shinobu Kocho asked curiously.
Kiyomizu also knew that Shinobu Kocho would definitely follow, so he explained, "Tanjuro told me that near his house, there's a hillside that occasionally blooms with a very beautiful flower. I want to pick some."
Shinobu Kocho tilted her head, looking at Kiyomizu's figure as he walked forward, and suddenly blushed slightly.
There are many people who like flowers, even many men.
Shinobu Kocho's older sister, Kanae Kocho, the former Flower Pillar of the Demon Slayer Corps, was a flower lover and cultivated many flowers in the Butterfly Estate.
Shinobu Kocho often took care of those flowers to remember her deceased sister.
But Kiyomizu was clearly not one of them.
In the year he had been in the Demon Slayer Corps, Kiyomizu had never grown flowers.
Which means...
"This flower, could it be for me...?"
Shinobu Kocho felt her heart beating faster, and she hurriedly followed Kiyomizu's departing figure.
Kiyomizu's speed was very fast, so fast that Shinobu Kocho almost lost him.
And when she found Kiyomizu, it was just as the golden sun had completely climbed out of the distant mountains.
The bright sunlight shone on the young man's angular face, and he was holding a slender blue petal in his mouth, looking at the sparsely blooming blue flowers.
The blue spider lily, he had finally found it.
Feeling the slight sweetness brought by the floral fragrance in his mouth, a smile appeared on Kiyomizu's face.
Previously, he had hired many herbalists and had them dig up any edible plants near this hillside, which made the ground uneven.
However, the blue spider lily, before it bloomed, was probably not considered an edible wild vegetable by those herbalists and was not dug up by them.
Because, according to normal saying, the entire spider lily plant is poisonous. Even if those herbalists saw the unbloomed leaves of the blue spider lily, they probably wouldn't pick them as food.
Only Tanjuro's mother, Mrs. Kie Kamado, knew what was edible because she had lived in this area for a long time.
(Previously, I saw some comments saying that the Kamado family had never come into contact with the blue spider lily. I'm putting the content from the setting collection written by Crocodile Sensei here to avoid further arguments. This paragraph is not included in the paid word count.)
The taste is not bad.
Kiyomizu carefully dug out a blue spider lily, including the roots and soil.
Shinobu Kocho walked to Kiyomizu's side, her expression somewhat strange.
"Um... Kiyomizu, have you ever given a girl flowers before?"
"Ah? How did you know?"
Kiyomizu recalled and realized that it was true.
No matter which world he was in, he didn't seem to have given a girl flowers before.
When he had time, should his main body find a mission to the Land of Rivers and buy a bouquet of flowers to bring back to Pakura?
Shinobu Kocho didn't know that Kiyomizu was thinking about other women at this moment, and she said:
"Of course, I've never heard of anyone giving a girl flowers with the exposed roots and soil."
When did I say I was giving you flowers?
Before Kiyomizu could react, Shinobu Kocho naturally took the blue spider lily from Kiyomizu's hand and took a deep breath of its light fragrance.
"Ara ara, it's a type I've never seen before. It must be a very rare flower, right?"
"It's very rare. Some people have been looking for this flower their whole lives and haven't been able to find it. I heard Tanjuro say that this flower has bloomed near his house before, so I came to try my luck this time, and I actually found it."
Shinobu Kocho held the blue flower, standing in the flower patch, and under the sunlight and the reflection of her butterfly haori, she looked like a colorful butterfly wandering among the flowers.
"It's good that the roots are left behind. I'll take care of this flower from now on. When my sister was here, she also liked to grow flowers, and I learned how to take care of various flowers from her."
"This flower's shape should be the same as the spider lily, it's a herbaceous plant of the same family. It should be cultivated with slightly acidic soil. Oh right, blue, spider lilies are poisonous, this flower..."
Kiyomizu waved his hand.
"It's okay, I asked Tanjuro, this flower is non-toxic, and the taste is okay."
Kiyomizu looked at Shinobu Kocho and thought for a while.
He didn't really know how to grow flowers anyway, and since Shinobu Kocho knew how to grow flowers, he would let her grow them.
However, he remembered that cultivating the blue spider lily was very troublesome.
In the original timeline, decades later in the 21st century, Aoba Hashibira, a descendant of Inosuke Hashibira, was on the newspaper for discovering this flower, but because Crystal accidentally forgot to change the power supply of the fluorescent lamp, all the flowers withered.
Fluorescent lamp...
Kiyomizu looked at the basket on his back and said to Shinobu Kocho:
"Let's pick all the flowers here, and we'll also bring back the soil to make it easier to grow."
Shinobu Kocho blinked and agreed.
Kiyomizu took off the basket, first took out the puppet armor inside, then took out some tools for repairing the puppet, and started digging.
Shinobu Kocho helplessly covered her forehead.
Giving a girl flowers, that's really not how you do it, right?
The two were busy until noon before going down the mountain. In between, Kiyomizu made an extra trip to the town at the foot of the mountain, bought a carriage and a pile of flower vases, brought them to the mountain, placed the flowers in the vases, and sent the things to the Fuji House in the town.
At this time, Tanjuro, who had just passed the final selection on Mount Fujikasane, had also arrived here.
In the original timeline, Tanjuro followed the former Water Pillar, Sakonji Urokodaki, to train.
Because all of the previous disciples except Giyu Tomioka had died in the selection, Sakonji Urokodaki, worried about Tanjuro, asked Tanjuro to split the boulder before letting him go.
Tanjuro took two years.
But it's different now.
