fictional spring

The first time I saw Wu Mi, it was on the day of his Yuanfu.

The boy who appeared in front of me was quiet and gloomy, with a pale face, bloodless lips, and a thin body like paper, but his red plum-colored eyes and crow-feather black hair were extraordinarily thick and colorful.

It is an extremely morbid and secret beauty.

At least that's how it seemed to me at the time.

I was still young at that time, and it was the third year that I officially became He Mao Zhai Yuan. Each term of He Mao Zhai Yuan would be selected from among the princes of the royal family, and the selection would be made through divination. You have to fast at Chuzhaiyuan in the palace for two years first, and then move to Ziyezhaiyuan for follow-up fasting in the third year of April. After a lot of preparations, it can become the real He Maozhaiyuan.

It is an extremely complicated and complicated ceremony.

But other than that, the fun brought by the new environment is far better than the dullness in the palace.

When I was fasting in the mansion outside the palace, Master Qingming would occasionally visit me, but I was too young at that time, and the memories I left were only scattered bits and pieces—after all, the results of divination came out in my third year. year old.

My mother, Nakamiya (Empress), shed tears every day over the result of such a fortune-telling. She was sad that I would be separated from me when I was still young, and worried about my long future in the shrine.

The person who persuaded my mother at that time was Abe Seimei, an onmyoji who had just entered the Onmyouryo.

I don't know what kind of idea it was, but my father actually made him my master, so with the convenience of this status, Master Seimei can also enter and leave the Kamo Shrine at will on weekdays.

I don't dislike such a decision, on the contrary, it is because of Master Seimei's existence that I find life outside the palace far more interesting than inside the palace.

"Why do you have such an idea?"

One day after learning about my thoughts, Lord Seimei sat across from me and asked, "Mu Yueji has a noble status, wouldn't it be better in the palace?"

Master Qingming was smiling when he said this, which added a bit of elegance to that already handsome face. I only found out later that the noble ladies in Beijing actually prefer Master Qingming's good looks. female appearance.

If you really want to talk about it, Wu Mi also belongs to this category, but... his too weak body hinders his actions and also hinders his chance to appear in front of everyone.

Most of the time, Wu Mi can only cover her face and cough in a low wind and sunless room, the slightly trembling arc of her body is pitiful.

He is the youngest son of the Ubayashiki family. He has rarely appeared in front of people since he was born, and he didn't even have a name for a long time. When he is mentioned, he will only be called the young son of the Ubayashiki family.

The name "Wu Mi" was given to him by me on the day he was in Yuanfu.

And the reason for all this is Master Seimei's visit one day.

Seimei-sama, who came to Kamo Shrine alone as usual, did not explain his purpose at the beginning, but used novel topics to tease my thoughts about going out secretly, and asked me if I would like to see the sweetfish in Kamogawa. The appearance of swimming in the river told me where the wisteria flowers bloomed more luxuriantly than in previous years.

Listening to these words, I always feel that there are some other meanings hidden in them.

So I asked him, "Do you have anything to tell me?"

After I asked, Seimei-sama, who was sitting with me in the Japanese room, had a smile on his lips.

"The three of Boya asked me to bring you something."

Hearing this, I was stunned for a moment. Since I moved into the Kamo Shrine, the chances of meeting Brother Boya have been greatly reduced, not only because of the many trivial matters, but also because... It is not easy to meet the He Mao Zhaiyuan .

Those who serve the gods, even the royal family, are subject to many restrictions. They cannot step out of the shrine on weekdays, nor can they meet outsiders at will, and what they cannot do...is to have a relationship with someone.

Although there are exceptions to the previous rules, the last point is an absolute taboo.

As serving the gods, conveying the will of the gods, and shouldering the important tasks of the annual New Year's festival and the He Mao Festival, He Mao Zhaiyuan must not violate the rules during his tenure.

After all, Brother Boya and I are not of the same mother, so naturally we have to follow complicated and complicated rules. The only person I can meet at will is Master Seimei.

"So what is it?"

After I asked, Seimei-sama took out a folded piece of white paper from his sleeve, and he could vaguely see ink stains on the back—it was written paper.

I tilted my head and was thinking about what Elder Boya would write to me, when Master Qingming continued: "This is what the three Boya asked me to bring you."

After I opened the paper, the words Kamogawa Ayu were printed in my eyes. Just as I was wondering about Brother Boya's intentions, Seimei-sama added: "The three Boya asked me to bring you Kamogawa Ayu .”

I was slightly taken aback for a moment, and then suddenly realized that I was so angry that I puffed up my cheeks and said, "What about Kamogawa Ayu?"

"The Kamogawa sweetfish is here."

He was looking at the paper in my hand.

I was stunned for a moment, and suddenly a thought flashed through my mind, "Have you eaten Kamogawa sweetfish?"

Master Qingming nodded: "I have eaten."

When he said this, Seimei-sama showed no shame on his face, on the contrary, he was more leisurely and contented than in the past, his beautiful eyes were full of smiles, as if he was reminiscing the smell of sweetfish.

Damn!

It's clearly the gift that Brother Boya entrusted him to bring me, so it's fine to eat the gift secretly, how can you still play tricks on me like this?

Just as I threw the "Kamogawa sweetfish" aside in a fit of anger, Master Seimei said, "You don't want it?"

Obviously I have gone too far, but I dared to speak again at this time. Just as I was about to drive him out, I suddenly felt a splash of water on the back of my hand.

Subconsciously looked to the side - lying on the wooden floor was a lively sweetfish.

I blinked my eyes, wondering where the sweetfish came from, but suddenly realized that the thing I just casually threw by my side was gone.

"Where's that piece of paper?"

Immediately, I became interested, propped myself up and pressed my palms on the low table, and my whole body turned towards Master Seimei, very curious: "Did the paper turn into sweetfish? What did you do?"

In fact, I think there is a big reason why Master Seimei was able to become my teacher - he is the disciple of Master Kamo Tadayuki.

Master He Mao Zhongxing used to be the most famous onmyoji in Heian capital, but since he asked his father for instructions on his travels a few years ago, he never came back.

Now taking over his position is Lord Seimei's elder brother Kamo Baoxian.

"Although I've been living in the Kamo Shrine, I've also heard from the witches." I stared at Seimei-sama, and said rather proudly, "Seimei-sama's onmyoji is actually better than Baoxian-sama."

So it must be some kind of yin and yang.

Hearing that Master Qingming laughed dumbly, "There is no such thing."

He paused, then replied, "I didn't do anything."

It's obviously a lie, because, "The paper has turned into sweetfish."

Seimei-sama smiled without saying a word.

I curled my lips and turned my face away from him.

"Are you angry?" he asked.

I ignored him.

The quiet atmosphere lasted for quite a while, Seimei-sama said, "Then I brought the Kamogawa sweetfish back, okay?"

"no!"

I stretched out my hand to pick up the sweetfish on the ground, held it in my hand, raised my chin and said to Lord Seimei, "Brother Boya gave it to me!"

Although I wanted to make myself more imposing, I was still so much shorter than Seimei-sama that when he also stood up, I could only look up at him.

Master Qingming still had a smile on his face. He patted my head, and after I slapped his hand away, he said to me: "I didn't lie to you, no matter what the three Boya asked me to bring you , or I said I did nothing."

"But the paper turned into sweetfish!"

When I repeated this sentence for the third time, Seimei-sama shook her head, "That's not the case."

He said: "Paper is paper, and sweetfish is sweetfish. I have never brought you paper. What I brought was Kamogawa sweetfish from the very beginning."

These remarks made me stunned for quite a while, staring blankly at his slightly moving lips, clearly able to hear every word clearly, but when combined, I always feel——

Not sure why.

"But……"

Seimei-sama interrupted me: "What did you see?"

I froze for a moment, and tilted my head, as if I understood something, but also as if I didn't understand anything.

He hesitated for a moment: "Kamogawa sweetfish?"

Seimei-sama nodded.

"But you clearly said that you also ate Kamogawa ayu."

When I questioned this, Master Qingming nodded and said: "I ate what the three Boya gave me."

I fell silent immediately.

Seimei-sama is clearly teasing me on purpose.

But I didn't lose my temper this time because...

"But the Kamogawa sweetfish I saw at the beginning is different from the current Kamogawa sweetfish."

When I questioned him like this, Master Seimei's expression finally changed. He opened the bat fan he had been holding in his hand to cover his chin, "So this is your confusion?"

I nodded, and in order to prevent him from blocking my mouth by saying that he should think for himself, I grabbed his sleeve and shook it gently, asking expectantly: "You will tell me Bar?"

Based on the experience I have known Lord Seimei for several years, whenever I make such a gesture, he will rarely refuse.

This time is no exception.

Master Qingming couldn't hold the bat fan firmly, so he simply closed it again, patted his palm with the closed bat fan and said, "Have you seen the moon?"

I blinked and nodded.

Who hasn't seen the moon?Hanging high in the sky, on a clear night, you can see clearly as long as you lift your face.

"So, the moon you see is the same no matter when?"

When Mr. Qingming asked, I shook my head: "Sometimes what I see is curved, and sometimes what I see is round..."

When I said this, I suddenly realized something.

They are all clearly "moons", but they look different at different times.

Lord Seimei probably also saw the change in my expression, so he said to me: "Because 'moon' is its 'name', so no matter when, no matter what form it becomes, it will always be 'moon'."

"Just like you are always the wicked Seimei-sama?"

I scowled and glared at him.

"This is only for you." Master Qingming replied: "If I am a 'bad-hearted Qingming' to you, then no matter what I do or say, I will be wicked."

By the time we talked here, I was actually not angry at all, not only that, but also very novel because of what Seimei-sama told me today.

So, "Is this what you're going to learn today?"

Master Qingming nodded, "What I told you today is 'name'."

He asked me, "What is a name?"

"'Seimei' is a name, 'Muyue' is a name, and 'Hemozhaiyuan' is also a name."

Master Qingming tilted his head slightly, and just when I began to wonder if I said something wrong, he suddenly said to me: "Then, in your opinion, what is a 'curse'?"

I froze for a moment, blinked my eyes and asked, "Curse?"

"I went to Takano a while ago." Seimei-sama had already sat down again, and I also threw the sweetfish in my hand aside again, his eyes fell on the fish whose bouncing range had been reduced a lot. On Ayu, "I talked to the monks in the temple over there for more than 20 days."

"More than 20 days?"

I thought about it, and realized that there was indeed such a period of time a few months ago. I haven't seen Master Qingming for a long time, and maybe no one has sent me news from Master Qingming for a long time.

Afterwards, when I saw Lord Seimei again, I also asked him why he hadn’t come to see me for so long, but he changed the topic again without an answer.

Master Qingming is such a person, he is extremely smooth in dealing with people, whether it is facing those high-ranking officials or noble ladies who have a crush on him, he can always communicate with him with a smooth tongue. They do a turnaround.

But what contradicts such a smooth code of conduct is that he rarely has what can be called "friends".

Brother Boya is one of them, Lord Baoxian is the second, and besides... even I, as his disciple, can't find him.

This actually indirectly shows that Master Qingming doesn't like to associate with others.

So what can keep him in the place where he can stay for more than 20 days?

Seimei-sama's answer is: "We talked about 'curse'."

Hearing this, I became more and more curious, "Then what conclusion did you draw?"

Seimei-sama's words are always very interesting, and the main reason is that he always says things that others have never said or thought about.

"During the conversation, I suddenly thought of an answer," Master Qingming said to me, "The so-called 'curse' may be 'name'."

So the topic went back to where it started.

I nodded with half understanding, blinked my eyes and felt that my already clear thoughts became confused again.

"Mantra" is "name", so why is it called "mantra"?

I'm afraid I'm thinking about it now, and it's hard to come up with an answer that satisfies me.

It was probably because I was overly depressed, Master Qingming comforted me: "It's already remarkable that you can understand to this extent, but it took several months for the three of Boya to figure it out."

It is clear that Brother Boya is not here, but Master Qingming still wants to tease him in front of me.

"When I meet Brother Boya, I will tell him that Master Qingming is calling him stupid behind his back."

Hearing this, Master Seimei laughed, "I never said such a thing. I'm afraid it's Mutsuki Hime's idea."

"No!"

"Really not?"

"of course not!"

After this meaningless conversation lasted for a few rounds, Lord Seimei stopped messing around with me any longer. He slightly suppressed the smile on his face and straightened his body.

"Actually, I'm here this time, and I have another thing to tell you."

Although Master Qingming was still smiling at this time, that smile was no longer a casual smile, but rather serious.

"Is it still related to Brother Boya?"

Seimei-sama shook his head: "It's the Ubayashiki family."

I tilted my head, trying to find information about them in my mind, but finally gave up, "Who is that?"

"It's just a small family to you."

Seimei-sama said such words.

Although he would always show a casual look in front of me, it was the first time I heard such... as if he deliberately underestimated it.

It made people feel that Lord Seimei seemed to have some opinion on them.

So I asked him, "What happened to the Ubuyashiki family?"

"I owe them a favor," Master Qingming said here, as if remembering something in the past, he paused before continuing: "So the owner of the obstetric house came to me a while ago, and he wanted you to help him My youngest son held the ceremony of pulling out the Yuanfu, but he was not qualified to meet you directly, so he asked me to come here, hoping that I could make a stopover."

In fact, this kind of thing has never happened before. In the days other than large-scale sacrificial ceremonies, what I need to be busy has always been some fragmentary and boring divination or divination.

Although I am still not as accurate as Master Seimei, my recent progress in divination has also been praised by Master Seimei.

It's just such a small matter, since Master Qingming has already spoken, it doesn't matter if I agree, but just as I was about to speak, Master Qingming pressed his lips with his tied index finger, signaling me to keep silent first.

I closed my opened mouth.

"Now that you know about this, my mission has been completed."

After Seimei-sama finished speaking, she casually called out to the priestess passing by the door, and asked her to grill the Kamogawa ayu that was lying on the ground without any movement for a long time.

Although it is within the Kamo Shrine, there is no need to fast throughout the year. Except for certain important festivals, eating during the rest of the time will not be so strictly controlled.

What's more...it's not the first time Master Seimei has done something like this.

In the past, on the way here, I picked up a bird that didn't quite hit the bullock cart and fainted. Sometimes Seimei-sama would release it, and sometimes he would hold it by its feet and hand it over to the shrine maidens after stepping into the shrine. .

I was stunned for a moment, not because of his random ordering of the maiden, but because I wondered why he didn't want me to confirm the date of the youngest son of the Miyashiki family, Genfu.

But before I asked the question, I thought of Master Seimei's actions again, and something seemed to be connected in my head.

"day……"

With just a few words, Seimei-sama understood what I meant.

But his explanation was: "I promised to help them convey this request, but whether you will agree to this matter is not in my task."

Hearing this, my eyes widened, and all that rose from the bottom of my heart was admiration for Mr. Seimei.

As expected of you.

So the implication is that it doesn't matter if I refuse directly.

but……

"Don't you want me to promise?"

Although it's my own guess, Master Seimei's behavior... Even if you don't think about it, you can see some clues.

Seimei-sama did not speak.

He didn't smile either.

Seimei-sama seldom doesn't smile, at least in front of me. The smile on his face is sometimes sly and sometimes gentle, but no matter what kind of smile it is, it can make people feel close.

But now he just looks at me quietly—it can even be said that in those eyes that are always smiling, there seems to be something deeper and darker slowly flowing.

I couldn't help being a little nervous, and I pursed my lips and asked him, "Why?"

Seimei-sama sighed, as if he had expected that I would ask such a question, but he sighed at my action.

"Because what the Patriarch of the Ubuyashiki wants is not just a ritual of pulling out the scorpion." Seimei-sama said slowly, "He also hopes that you can divulge a name for that child."

I was also taken aback when I heard this, and suddenly I didn't quite understand Master Qingming's meaning, "Why do you want me to find out the name? Doesn't he have a name?"

Isn't it a good name for the youngest son of the Ubayashiki family, the head of the Ubayashiki family?

But no matter how unpleasant the name is, you can't change it casually.In connection with the "name" and "curse" Master Seimei said to me today, I couldn't help but feel confused.

Originally, what I said was just casual, but what I didn't expect was—Master Qingming actually nodded and said to me: "That child really doesn't have a name."

Hearing this, I suddenly didn't know what to say, so I opened my mouth: "Why?"

It was at this time that I heard about Wu Mi's past for the first time from Master Qingming.

As the youngest son of the Ubuyashiki family, the child was weak from birth, and he had consulted many doctors when he was young, but even if the family members kept seeking medical treatment for him, his health did not improve.

"Just like the 'name' you learned today, the Ubuyashiki family had already prepared for the child to die early, so they didn't name him from the beginning."

Because that child may become a "non-existent person" at any time.

Rather than giving him a name early and adding grief after his death, it's better to keep it like this.

So that kind of life without a name lasted for 12 years. The age of Yuanfu, a boy in Heian Jingzhong, is usually around 13 years old. Now that this time has come, it seems inappropriate to go on without a name like this.

As if to make up for that child, the head of the Ubuyashiki family used up the favor owed by Seimei-sama, and wanted me, who is Kamosaiin, to find out the most suitable name for him.

I was silent for a while.

"so poor."