Chapter 147: The Beautiful Garden of Flowers

Huo Jinshen's question floated lightly in the air, and the ending tone of the word "呢" was so faint that it was almost inaudible.

The air seemed to have grown a little colder.

Because everyone fell silent, except for Sawada Tsunayoshi who was still being beaten and occasionally let out a few muffled groans, for a moment, the area near the "box" was actually silent.

Miss Momozono Nanami, who had been standing in the distance and watching all morning, finally plucked up a little courage under the deception of peace and tentatively walked to the side of her own messenger.

Bawei looked like a stone statue with a heartbeat.

This thought flashed through her mind without any hesitation. The next moment, as her steps moved, her eyes were immediately drawn to the box placed aside.

That painting...

Miss Yumusuke reached out and hooked the edge, and finally pulled it closer from the feet of the blue-eyed man who was muttering. After confirming again and again what was painted inside, her pupils involuntarily contracted.

“—It’s them.”

"What did you say?"

"nothing!"

Because of Mizuki's instructions, Nanase knew that she had traveled through time and space, and she must not let Tomoe know.

But once this necessary condition had to be hidden, there would be no way to explain in detail why she knew the person in the painting.

So she subconsciously covered her mouth and remained as quiet as a chicken.

But the divine girl's gaze once again involuntarily fell on the oil painting inside the box lid.

The first person Nanase saw was Gatling.

She couldn't remember the man's face, but she remembered the short pink hair and the menacing tattoos.

No, correct me.

The tattoo is actually quite beautiful, but it’s his facial expression that’s menacing.

——After all, the first time she went there four hundred years ago, she was caught by this pink-haired, irritable young man, who used a dirty hemp rope and the same "oh oh oh oh" trick as a cowboy using to catch a rabbit, and then trapped her head in a big pit that had been dug in advance.

Then they were taken back to their home.

There is a girl in that room.

Nanase touched the girl in the painting - the girl who had knocked on her door in the middle of the night and stuffed a cell phone into her arms without saying a word looked like this.

"You have ten seconds."

A light and cool sound slowly rang in my ears.

Bawei, who had been a stone statue for a long time, still maintained that very stone statue posture, but his eyes glanced at her sideways.

In Nanase's eyes, at this moment, his entire body (demon) was filled with a familiar evil taste that made people want to cry.

The divine messenger intensified his anger and nonchalantly threatened his divine master, "Tell me everything you just remembered within ten seconds."

"otherwise……"

The fox demon's tone suddenly softened: "Otherwise, you'll just have to eat mushrooms until the end of the year."

He is serious!

At this critical moment, although the wailing in her heart had not yet subsided, Nanase's mind suddenly had an idea, and a familiar picture suddenly became clear!

At the last second before the ten-second deadline, she put her hands on her head and shouted:

"Do you remember the gym?!"

After she finished shouting, she felt a little sore in her throat, and thought it might be the aftereffect of the interrupted shout in the morning.

Then she heard Bawei say "Hmm?"

Very good, passed!

Miss Yuuki's mind raced furiously, quickly organizing her words as she spoke, "That time at the gym, I ran into someone I knew before, and he asked to buy my godhood—"

She gestured: "--That's the girl you said I couldn't possibly have anything to do with!"

"That's Suzuki Sonoko!"

Because she wanted to hide the fact that she had traveled through time and space from Bawei, she couldn't help feeling a little guilty and subconsciously started to talk a lot, trying to use a sufficiently complete cause and effect to prove that she was not lying.

She said, "I didn't mean to help her before." At this point, Nana was almost paused, and then immediately came up with an excuse:

"It was like, she lost her phone and I lent it to her to make a call, so she was very grateful to me."

Nanase said that I received a large sum of money as a thank you after helping out. "Bawei, do you remember that the money for repairing the steps in front of the shrine at the beginning of the month came from here?"

To prove this, she took out her cell phone and picked out the call records from that time.

"Look, this is it!"

But the baby was standing right next to him.

He didn't mean to peek - his height was about the same as when a person squats and raises his hand, so he could see it by raising his eyes.

So Reborn said, "This is not the Suzuki family's contact number."

"well?"

For a moment, Nanase almost suspected that she was going to make things worse, but the next second, Blue Eyes, who had also been a stone statue for a long time, spoke.

"No, not much different."

Yato, like an elementary school student, picked at the dirt with his fingers and said gloomily, "What my colleague said must be true."

This colleague refers to Nanami Momozono.

The number in Nanami's phone is connected to Urahara Shoten.

——When Ichigo Kurosaki was training day and night in the store, he would call this number to report every time he didn't come back at night.

It actually coincides with the chaotic time when we passed through the gate!

So confusing...

Yato was happy at first, thinking [I was here first after all]!

Then I couldn't help but fall into doubt: Could it be that Yuanzi really met someone that time, so she couldn't forget it and wanted to go there again?

He looked at the calligraphy works on the ground that no one cared about: Is it just for these people?

At this moment, the blue-eyed god, who had been filled with murderous intent, optimism, and desire for thousands of years, learned jealousy without any instruction.

And naturally, he inherited the bad attitude of the fox demon when facing the innocent teenagers of the Vongola family. When he looked up and saw Sawada Tsunayoshi, his eyes, which had turned light blue at some point, were shining brightly, making people feel a chill on the back of their neck for no reason.

It was so cold that even the air around it seemed to be frozen.

Yet some people are not afraid.

"Tell me more details."

The fox demon emphasized this nonchalantly.

Before Yato could reply, Reborn's young brows knitted slightly.

He did not pursue the question of "why this strange number that had never been recorded in the records could also be considered as belonging to the Suzuki family." After all, although they were full partners, it was just a cooperation.

The Vongola family itself has a lot of inside information that it has never shared with others, so it is normal for the Suzuki family to have some secrets.

At this time, the alliance between the two families had not yet collapsed, and some tacit understanding still existed.

If the fox demon was reckless enough to get to the bottom of the matter, he and the stupid Tsuna would not be able to continue listening -

"I'm talking about you."

The white-haired fox demon knocked on his master's head in a rebellious manner: "I said 'tell me everything you think', not listen to your made-up stories."

"I'll give you one more chance. Twenty seconds this time. Think carefully before you speak."

"After all, you said [it was them]."

The fox demon's gaze was filled with unconcealable malice. Perhaps it was a habit, but when he saw the trio, no matter whether they were reincarnations or photos or portraits, he just hated them.

"No matter what else, first explain to me why you know three people who lived four hundred years ago."

Nanami Momozono: ...

Nanami Momozono curled up into a ball in fear.

She looked back pitifully at Ruixi, who was enjoying the falling leaves, and the other party gave her a helpless smile.

"All right."

Ms. Yuuki pursed her lips and said, "Actually, I traveled through time once when I had nothing to do."

She gave up on herself. "I've met the three of them. The so-called 'favor I did her a favor' was to help her call back from four hundred years ago. She gave me the number."

"The last time we met at the gym, I was surprised because I saw she was back safely."

The white-haired fox demon snorted softly.

"Are you done?"

"It's over."

Nana turned her head to the side with a look of despair. Before she could figure out how to cry, she was met with a shocked face that was speechless and astonished.

Tsunayoshi Sawada: Oh my god, I saw a ready-made one!

It was precisely because of this ready-made witness who had traveled through time that the little baby touched his round chin, glanced at the copybooks spread out on the floor and the tablet discarded to the side, and said with certainty:

"Then the person in the painting should be Miss Suzuki Sonoko herself."

Sawada Tsunayoshi: ...

Sawada Tsunayoshi: "Reborn, you accepted it very quickly."

"Maybe it's because I had guessed it long ago," the little baby said calmly, "I had a premonition when I saw the watch."

"well?"

"What?" Reborn glanced at him. "Japanese architectural style is heavily influenced by China, and many ancient buildings also had plaques hanging on them."

"The postal note was only fully implemented after the modern Japanese postal reforms, as a byproduct to facilitate postal delivery."

"According to the custom of castle nobles, if the first generation built a mansion, they should have a flag embroidered with the family crest on the top of the tallest building."

"And the local people born in the Warring States Period, such as Amemori Asari Ugetsu, would probably be more accustomed to hanging plaques on the main gates of mansions."

"But look."

The baby used his cane to point at the plaque again. "This is the only plaque that's been hanging in the Vongola ancestral house since its inception."

"What a modern custom."

——In fact, by comparing the handwriting on the doorplate, you can also tell that the owner is Suzuki Sonoko, but the handwriting in such places is generally very formal, with straight horizontal and vertical strokes that don’t reveal much personal characteristics. It requires an expert to identify it.

As for the stupid...

The big devil sighed tiredly: He hasn't even learned Italian fluently, how can he tell whether the font is cursive or not, and who wrote it?

This was the first time that Reborn already disliked Sawada Tsunayoshi in his heart, but he still did not turn it into a (perhaps a bit violent) educational behavior.

Because this stupid rabbit has already collapsed.

——Reborn had no idea what broke him.

"You two are no longer related by blood," he said, choosing his words carefully, trying to find out what exactly was causing his foolish apprentice's breakdown. "She wasn't your wife in your previous life, nor was she your great-great-great-grandmother."

Sawada Tsunayoshi squatted on the ground with his hands on his head.

Reborn: "Now that I think about it, the one who captivated the first three generations wasn't some pretty village girl from a refugee background. Suzuki Sonoko was at least the daughter of a wealthy family, so she did have some basic qualities."

Sawada Tsunayoshi covered his ears in a dying struggle.

Reborn opened his mouth.

Reborn lost his patience.

So he gave up the comforting attempt that seemed to reveal someone's secrets and pointed the gun directly at Sawada Tsunayoshi's head.

Sawada Tsunayoshi remained unmoved.

As the old saying goes, people are afraid of being famous, pigs are afraid of being fat, and dead pigs are not afraid of boiling water.

Compared to the previous life's troublemaker who still gave people some room for imagination, this one is the living Suzuki Sonoko!

The only thing you can feel from looking at a face is [wealth];

Judging from the body shape, the most likely conclusion is [rich];

He exudes the aura of being rich all the time when speaking and doing things;

Even if the wind blew eight feet away, you could still smell the scent of [wealth]—

——Hey, that Suzuki Sonoko!

Because of this indescribable feeling of "wealth" and its presence is too strong, in fact, Sawada Tsunayoshi has not been able to form any specific evaluation system in his mind for Suzuki Sonoko's appearance and personality.

It's like system incompatibility; you can't force a laptop to read an unopened videotape.

In Sawada Tsunayoshi's laptop, the earlier note on Suzuki Sonoko's document was "A wealthy landlord who is ready to force Min Nan to marry him at any time."

After several renamings, the emphasis was always placed on her so-called "previous life" that brought disaster to the country and the people.

But what is this now?

A [rich landlord who brings disaster to the country and the people]?

After being infected with this attribute, the legendary glorious image of the first generation of wise and brave people will be down-to-earth and reach the earth's crust!

——Anyway, Reborn won’t really kill him, so just let him collapse quietly for a while!

“Tsk.”

A familiar smacking sound suddenly rang out from mid-air: "Are you done yet?"

"A brief moment of weakness is a valid proof that one may become stronger in the future, but if one continues to be weak, it only proves that weakness is one's nature."

The baby turned the muzzle of the gun and pointed it at the extremely dangerous fox demon two meters away.

"If you continue to act foolishly, I may have to trouble this gentleman to 'wake' you up."

Sawada Tsunayoshi finally looked up at him.

But it was just a glance, and then he stubbornly buried it back.

In contrast, the fox demon who always gets angry at the Vongola was surprisingly indifferent when facing the gun pointed directly at him.

It's like...

The baby's dark pupils fell on the other's slightly trembling eyelashes: it was as if he had suddenly lost all sensory abilities just now and could no longer receive any information from the outside world.

——Just suppressing the suppressed trembling in the body had already exhausted all the strength in that body.

=====

Bawei smelled the long-lost sweet scent of honey in the air.

He once collected many kinds of honey, which he packed in various magical and beautiful containers, placed in an exquisitely carved cabinet, and placed in an exquisite and magnificent mansion.

Because the mountain chosen to build the mansion was half a cliff, he also specially transplanted a forest of flowers and trees halfway up the mountain so that the bees living at the foot of the mountain could provide a long-term supply of honey.

He didn't like eating this kind of thing - maybe he had thought about it when he was just a simple beast - but for the fox demon Bawei, honey was mostly smelled rather than eaten.

This has nothing to do with liking someone, it's just because of attachment.

The smell of honey was like "her" fingertips, still resting on the tip of his nose.

But this "attachment" did not last long.

After all, "she" disappeared soon.

After all the emotions related to "like" were stained black, attachment turned into sensitivity.

Hundreds of years ago, when King Eluo was planning to capture his beloved brown-haired goddess, he told him that he had a mysophobia about brown hair.

Another obsession with cleanliness that has persisted for hundreds of years is related to honey.

Even snacks mixed with such things sounded disgusting and greasy to him. When he sensed a hint of it from afar, he felt as upset as if a clear sky had suddenly turned cloudy with rain.

Whose fault is this?

The big monster who once sat under the porch, holding up his hands to catch the rain, now had a dull expression, his brows filled with annoyance at the damp weather. He knocked his unlit pipe against the wooden railings again and again, then said with a smile amidst the rhythmic tapping: "This is all your fault..."

The anger and resentment in my heart could not be relieved, and even laughing made people feel cold.

But at this moment, it seems that a little bit of reality has finally been constructed from the vanity.

Bawei thought, I don’t blame her.

What did she do wrong?

——She did not hide herself and not show up, nor was she picked up by other monsters after disappearing without permission, nor did she willingly become someone else's "flower" just because she was picked up.

It was a real accident that he met her once.

The painstaking search that had troubled him for more than four hundred years was simply because she had never been born.

Since it wasn't her fault, she should be forgiven.

There had never been a moment when the heavy darkness that almost filled his heart suddenly and violently disappeared for a moment, revealing the lively heart underneath.

——The heart that was once so urgent and filled with the impulsive love that made him do the following: [holding a bunch of water lilies, standing in front of the door like a human man, nervously taking deep breaths], suddenly beat again in his chest for a moment.

But this newfound enthusiasm did not last.

But in just a second, the darkness came back again.

Tomoe still remembered the scene when he excitedly arrived at the Suzuki mansion, which was deserted and under renovation. He also remembered how he felt when he almost jumped into the Bone-Eating Well, only to see darkness after a flash of light.

She must have been born at that time, right?

But he still couldn't see her.

Time and time again, just like the fate he had feared hundreds of years ago, she always disappeared from his life.

——Are these also worth forgiving?

"Wait a moment!"

As if she had sensed the abnormal fluctuations in his demonic aura, Miss Yumusuke's cry seemed to be transmitted to his ears through a thick curtain.

Baweimu was stunned and tilted his head towards the source of the sound.

There were dark shadows in the corners of his eyes, probably because his eyeballs were congested with blood. After three seconds, his brain slowly processed the images collected by his eyes.

Nanase grabbed his sleeve, her eyes gleaming with anxiety.

"You've seen her!"

Her mouth movements became faster and faster. "I wasn't completely lying before. The brown-haired girl who passed by you in the gym was really the Suzuki Sonoko in the painting!"

Like a gentle breeze with a light rain blowing past his ears, Bawei heard his childish god excitedly repeating, "Wake up, Bawei, you have actually seen her!"

What did she say?

"What did you say?"

The fox demon lowered its head and turned sideways so slowly that it seemed like a stuck movie scene. Its sharp nails lightly stopped between the girl's eyebrows.

"What did you just say?" He licked his canine teeth, which had unintentionally appeared ferociously.

"I said you met her, do you remember?"

As if she was worried that he hadn't regained his sight yet, she waved her hand vigorously in front of his eyes. "Just last time, in the gym!"

"That girl who came up and said she wanted to offer a price for my godhood!"

"You said she couldn't possibly know me, and that she was also a god—remember?"

Remember……

But that's not right.

It's like someone who has been lost for a long time, finally reaching the eve of clearing the fog. Although the scenery in the distance is vaguely visible, it is precisely because of this haziness that their shadows can be associated with various landscapes.

Instead of immediately associating that "moment of passing by" with "her", what kept appearing in his mind was actually "the smell".

A smell that is both strange and familiar.

And the source of the taste...

The fox demon's golden eyes flashed with a cold light, staring straight at the man in sportswear with blue eyes.

The smell on his body is very mixed, and there are some parts that even demons find unpleasant. Compared with the God of War, he is more like a disaster.

Besides that, there was also a miasma that had contaminated him from the outside.

Places like mass graves or thousand-year-old houses are filled with a sticky and damp miasma.

But beneath this dampness—or rather, the source of this miasma, the being that had infected him with this aura—his body was entangled with a smell that Bawei found very familiar.

If this smell were a little fresher and without that wilted feeling, it might have been one of the many background smells in Bawei's life for a long time.

For example, a former subordinate.

For example, the snake demon bones in the stronghold were made into a throne.

For example—for example, mixed with the influence of the evil Luo Wang ghost aura...

"That golden-brown hair."

If the smell of this blue-eyed wild god came from the "garden" in his mouth.

If the girl named "Yuanzi" who met him once in the gymnasium did have brown hair,

"Then they should be the same person."

The new goddess of Takama-ga-hara that King Eroku wants to bite to death.

Bawei thought, this is all a damn coincidence.

Hundreds of years ago, when he had opened a rift between this shore and the other shore in order to help the evil and the good, and was blown away by a sudden vortex of spiritual power—

——He was actually only one meter away from her.

When he turned his back in anger and told the evil king to chase her, he was only ten meters away from her.

He was a hundred meters away from her when he started fighting with the witch priestesses while laughing loudly.

When he saw the evil King Luo who had returned alone, but was angry and didn't know what to do - the distance between him and her became four hundred and fifty years.

She had clearly been to him, but he just didn't notice.

Bawei thought this was a good idea, he could completely forgive her.

In other words, no matter how dark his heart was, he subconsciously wanted to forgive her, and was even willing to find all kinds of excuses for it.

But it's not just for her, either.

It's also because she's there now, alive.

——Can be touched and understood.

This impulse to contact was not entirely due to love. Bawei had figured it out a long time ago. He might have loved the illusion of brief warmth when he was weak, but too much time had passed. He simply could not directly project this emotion that had been pent up for various reasons onto a specific person.

Until this moment, he was still used to calling her "she" instead of the name spelled "Suzuki Sonoko".

But this does not mean that he will give up on Suzuki Sonoko.

Even if it's just for his four hundred years—

The hard work he put in, the suffering he endured, and the self that was worn away day by day during this long time

——He must get a worthwhile return for these things, right?

But when it comes to how to do it specifically, it's surprisingly confusing.

Bawei didn't even quite understand what happened when she appeared the second time.

Maybe King Eluo would know it very well.

But for him back then, no matter whether he loved her or not, whether the object was a human or a goddess, why should he spend time to understand the evil King Luo's trivial matters?

The grand gesture of helping in the end is nothing more than an emotional outburst.

For the entire year before that, he did not have enough patience to listen to the little monsters sent by King Eluo day after day, and what kind of news they brought back. He did not care what kind of new madness King Eluo went through after waking up every day.

The only reason why he was familiar with her aura and could match her with the real Suzuki Sonoko was because King Eluo had made the combed hair into an ornament and loosely wrapped it around his left arm.

——Even if he was lazy, there were still 10 to 20 days a month when he could see this evil friend who made him want to have a heart attack at any time.

"What happened to her..."

"Why did he go from being a human with a pleasant smell to becoming a god?"

And after returning to the past, he knew nothing about why he was chosen by Takama-ga-hara and became the bait to lure King Ero into setting up a trap.

And those who may know...

The fox demon looked at the blue-eyed wild god who was silent in the shadows: he seemed even more depressed than he was just now, depressed and restless.

Not only did he turn a deaf ear to his own problems, but from time to time he would bite his lower lip without saying a word, and scratch the skin between his fingers with his nails as if his hands were itching.

"Wait a minute, what does God mean?"

Reborn raised his hand with a gentlemanly air. "Before we officially begin our discussion, could you please explain to us, who are barely considered Suzuki's allies, if there's anything about this that you might not understand?"

Yato's expression was unclear, his face hidden in the shadows, completely unmoved.

And Tomoe, the fox demon, was lazily combing his long white hair and just glanced at them casually. After seeing Sawada Tsunayoshi, this indifference quickly turned into disgust - so he said nothing and turned his head back.

On the other side, Nanase, who had remained as quiet as a chicken, tugged at Tomoe's sleeve.

"You said that."

She whispered, "Didn't you tell Wu about her being a god when we met at the gym?"

Yes.

Bawei belatedly remembered the setting: the girl he met once in the gym was "her".

What impressed him most during that trip to the gym was finding the reincarnation of the troublesome trio, and he ended up being so furious that his hair stood on end - he really still wasn't used to associating his feelings and memories of "her" with a real person.

So he can answer those questions himself.

She would become a god because of Ebisu's love.

The Great God of Fortune used his accumulated blessings to wash over the human body again and again, and eventually transformed into a new god.

It was the product of Ebisu's recognized and successful "love" that he had secretly longed for.

So a new problem arises.

——"Why is she related to Ebisu?"

In the shadows, Yato rolled his eyes in growing sadness.

No matter who Sonoko was trying so hard to find, in terms of first come first served, even according to Sonoko's timeline, Ebisu was the first to arrive.

When he met Sonoko, that guy was almost being worshipped as a new god.

Why am I suddenly feeling even sadder?

Sawada Tsunayoshi was even sadder than him.

What's more awesome than Suzuki Sonoko traveling five hundred years ago a few months ago and now she's messing around with his ancestors?

——It’s [She not only killed the first generation of Vongola three times, but also provoked a fox demon who had been infatuated with her for four hundred years]!

This operation is too cool...

Because he did not get drawn into the emotional whirlpool, he was able to rationally watch Reborn calmly cleaning his gun. He thought to himself that his silly apprentice had suffered so many losses, how could he still be so naive?

Is this considered sexy?

The big devil's smile was particularly meaningful: "Do you know what's even more coincidental?"

He held up the tablet in front of Sawada-kun and retrieved a third document from the document library.

The third one has a picture of a rose and a love poem.

"The cooperation between the Suzuki Zaibatsu and the Vongola family originated eleven years ago."

"In the first year of confirming the cooperation, both parties had the intention of forming a marriage."

"Suzuki Sonoko was six and a half at the time."

"And her Italian was taught by XANXUS."

"Xanxus taught her the pronunciations one by one, and he held her hand while she wrote the letters one by one."

"Don't look so shocked," the baby said with a tut. "Suzuki Sonoko managed to kill three of the originals in just a few months. It's just that she's developed XANXUS's patience. Is there anything strange about that?"

"And this love poem," Reborn smiled as if reminiscing, "was written by the Ninth Generation."

"He was quite a playboy when he was young, and wrote a lot of similar things when he was looking forward to love. However, he never married in his life, and even in his old age, he never encountered anything that could be called love."

"It's kind of a waste, isn't it?"

"So he taught his son the poem, the habit of drawing roses in the corners of his letters, and even the perfume he imagined he would sprinkle on the letters."

"That's XANXUS."

After saying this, the smile on his face grew wider. Then, he pointed at the last love poem manuscript that appeared on the screen and commented with a sigh:

"The iron hook and silver painting are so powerful that they can be seen through the paper. The last letter of each line looks like it is about to fly away."

"This is the calligraphy copybook XANXUS wrote for Suzuki Sonoko."

The word "copybook" can be said to be very sensitive nowadays.

Tsunayoshi Sawada held his pounding heart and subconsciously glanced at the scattered rice paper on the ground.

Those are the calligraphy copies that Suzuki Sonoko wrote for the first generation Giotto.

"All of this—"

Reborn tapped the screen in his hand. "The content, the writing style, the line breaks, and even the rose drawn on the paper—all were taught to her by XANXUS."

Do you know what the coolest thing is?

Sawada Tsunayoshi shook his head blankly.

"It's Suzuki Sonoko."

Reborn almost sighed as he said, "She used the love poems that the descendants of the Vongola taught her to write to seduce the ancestors of the Vongola."

The author has something to say: The relevant episodes about the gymnasium are in 107-109.

I had written about the miasma smell on Sonoko when I wrote about the Makura family. When the elders were in a meeting, they said that they had discovered that the mass graves nearby had been purified, and the black crystals that King Ye used to make her corrupt were made of those things.

The earliest plot about XANXUS teaching how to write appears around Chapter 11, and specifically in Chapter 63.

There shouldn't be any today. See you tomorrow morning.