I'm a thankful fox in Tokyo

Chapter 183 You Smell Like His Incense

Over the past few decades, Higashino Yu has had many definitions of the beautiful moments in the world, including looking up at the clear stars and moon on a midsummer night, strolling in the fields in October and sniffing the aroma of wheat baked in the sun, sitting cross-legged at the edge of the house in the late winter afternoon and guessing with other children what would come at the end of the snow-covered path, and entering the campus in the early spring amidst the cherry blossom rain.

Now, there is one more early summer evening to tutor Miko.

It was already late dusk, the air was filled with the smell of ink and a hint of mothballs, the setting sun was about to set outside the window, the exterior of the Guardian Forest was coated with a layer of light, the warm light dragged an orange-red band on the beige wall, the Ukiyo-e style silk screen was full of ancient charm, the bright light in the study cast a delicate shadow on the girl's dreamy profile.

"Ah, bo, ci, it's just like the 50-character syllables in the island country, all of which are pronounced in Roman letters. You may find it a little awkward and funny when you first read it, but you'll get used to it."

This set of pinyin was really funny when I first started learning it in my previous life. The pronunciation was quite weird, and there were a lot of mispronunciations. It would take me a long time to laugh just learning one pinyin.

But when you become more mature, you will discover the greatness of the person who invented and promoted this system of pinyin.

In ancient times, learning Chinese characters and Chinese language was not as simple as it is today. There was no pinyin at that time, and the most commonly used method for learning to read and write Chinese characters was the fanqie method, which was the longest-used method of phonetic notation in ancient China. Two Chinese characters were used to indicate the pronunciation of one word.

Take the initial consonant of the previous word and add the final vowel of the next word to get the pronunciation of the word.

But the problem is that to learn the fanqie method well, one needs to master a large number of Chinese characters. In addition, the ancient Chinese characters were traditional characters, which had much more complicated strokes than simplified characters. The difficulty increased dramatically when these two problems were combined.

This was one of the reasons why there were so many illiterate people in ancient China. Of course, the situation in the Qing Dynasty where the illiteracy rate was as high as over 90 percent was the result of deliberate actions by the ruling class.

When there were more sensible people around, the emperor realized that it was too late.

Dong Yeyu wrote a complete set of pinyin in a notebook, marking the four tones, initials and finals, etc.

I started learning this set of pinyin in primary school. Relying on the solid foundation it laid, I was able to make great strides forward. It is no exaggeration to say that I can recite it by heart now.

"A" Although Yu Zi had a poor talent for cultivation, his talent for learning was not low. He could basically read it correctly just by following it once.

It took less than ten minutes to go from knowing nothing to having a basic grasp of it, and the rest just required more practice.

As I teach, I feel emotional and can only say that sometimes some geniuses really make people feel hopeless, but fortunately, I am not stupid either.

Dong Ye Yu looked at the girl trying to clumsily imitate his pronunciation, and he felt a sense of satisfaction and peace welling up from the bottom of his heart.

What kind of sense of accomplishment would it be to pull a slightly autistic girl with congenital disabilities out of the abyss of bullying, teach her carefully, and watch her gradually become outstanding?

After taking the college entrance examination in my previous life, I should have applied to a normal university.

Of course, it's just a thought. Being a teacher has never been a good profession, not in my previous life nor in this life.

Higashino Yu, who has long been baptized by reality, is now filled with the dazzling light of Akamon that represents the island nation's class transcendence and money.

What the monks on the high-spirited road say about becoming teachers in the past is just a look back with a hint of returning home in glory. Even if there is a slight intention, it will all be laughed at in the torrent of the world.

Reality cannot accommodate the ideals of most people.

Dong Yeyu understood this cold truth in his heart, but it was not a good thing for a cultivator to be obsessed with money. When he thought of this, he couldn't help but sigh in his heart that his heart of Taoism had been obsessed with money.

Although money is dirty, it can buy purity. I am not like the gods in ancient legends who have all the magic skills.

If you have no money, you can use magic to turn a gold bar into something, then eat and drink to your heart's content and exchange it for a lot of real money. After eating and drinking, find a place to wait for a while, listening to the miserable howls of the restaurant owner, shaking his head and calling it the game of the world.

You can print money anytime and anywhere, so of course you treat money as dirt.

Miko read the somewhat difficult pinyin and felt that she had almost learned it. She felt that Higashino Nissan was indeed an excellent company.

Not only is he good-looking, he is also highly educated, can speak Chinese, and knows many magic spells.

However, even such an excellent person as Higashino Nissan is not very good at cooking. Although he cleans his house carefully, the placement of various books and furniture is very random.

This won’t work. If you place items randomly, it may be difficult to find them.

I should help Dongye Nisan organize the things at home, otherwise it would be troublesome if I encountered some monsters who like to steal things and steal important things when Dongye Nisan is not paying attention.

The girl was lost in thought and was about to ask for the next step of the knowledge, but she found that Dong Yeyu, who was sitting next to her, was leaning on the desk, with his right hand supporting his face, as if observing her.

are you looking at me?
Miko blinked her eyes, but did not lower her head shyly. Instead, she met his gaze. Her delicate and cute little face showed childish curiosity and undisguised liking, but a faint blush still slowly climbed up her slender white neck.

After a moment, the girl realized that his eyes were empty and he was obviously not looking at her.

I don't know if he was in a daze or thinking about something else, but occasionally he would smile from the bottom of his heart.

At this moment, Yu Zi's mind flashed again to the image of the golden-haired woman he met that day, and Yuan Dai frowned slightly.

"Hmm? Have you finished learning?"

Dong Yeyu came back to his senses and asked softly.

The girl pursed her cherry-colored lips slightly, her expression instantly calmed down, and she lowered her butterfly-wing eyelashes. The light cast a mottled and interlaced shadow, "Hmm."

"Very good, Miko, now you have mastered the pronunciation of Chinese. Now let's learn Chinese characters."

"Lao Jun said: The Great Way is invisible, giving birth to heaven and earth."

As Dong Ye Yu spoke, he began to copy down an entire Taoist scripture in traditional Chinese characters in his notebook.

There are a total of 100,000 Chinese characters. Mastering 3,500 of them can meet 99% of your needs in life. The rest of the time, when you encounter unfamiliar characters, just look them up in the dictionary. There is no need to really learn all of them.

My original intention of teaching Yuko to learn Chinese characters was to let her learn to sit and forget through the Pure and Tranquil Classic. Yuko was very talented and did not show any difficulty in learning Chinese characters and ancient Chinese at the same time, so it was most appropriate to start teaching her from Taoist scriptures.

As for why traditional characters are used instead of simplified characters, this is actually based on Miko's situation.

Because China had experienced hundreds of years of disaster in modern times, in order to make it easier to learn Chinese characters, it began to promote pinyin and simplified characters.

Although simplified Chinese characters are less beautiful than traditional Chinese characters, we need to analyze each case individually. Given the alarming illiteracy rate at that time, promoting simplified Chinese characters was a necessary move.

Learn all the characters first, then talk about beauty or art.

However, considering that they are learning Taoist scriptures, in the field of Taoism, words also have power, and the Japanese language that Miko has learned since childhood also includes some traditional Chinese characters, so it is more appropriate to teach her ancient Chinese characters. With Miko's learning word by word, from pronunciation to meaning, Higashino Yu patiently and meticulously explained everything. As long as Miko didn't understand something, he would use Japanese language to explain from many angles to help her understand and remember.

If you want to learn to sit and forget with the help of the "Classic of Purity and Tranquility", it is not enough to just be able to read and write it. You must deeply understand the meaning of the "Classic of Purity and Tranquility" and appreciate the author's understanding of the Tao recorded in the text.

It would be ridiculous if one just mechanically eats vegetarian food, chants Buddhist scriptures, and meditates day after day, begging the gods to see and hear one, to bestow some power on one, or even to go down to the mortal world and take one to heaven.

For those who practice Taoism, all things belong to themselves. Worshiping gods is more of a way of respecting teachers and elders. When encountering difficult-to-deal-with monsters, they occasionally borrow the power of their ancestors.

But if you want to achieve enlightenment, you have to rely on yourself.

At the beginning, Miko kept thinking about the blonde woman that day, and the time when Higashino Yu was with her. Her thoughts switched back and forth between learning Chinese characters and guessing the relationship between the two, which was a bit annoying.

It must be the nightmare ghost causing trouble again. This kind of monster can not only make people have nightmares, but also make people feel depressed.

The girl pouted her lips slightly and decided in her heart that she would ask Chunyuan to drive away these annoying bad monsters later.

But as he studied more deeply, Yuzi miraculously discovered that his concentration was improving at a speed visible to the naked eye.

She learned very quickly and finished an entire Taoist scripture in less than half an hour.

After all, although the Taoist scriptures are precious, they contain profound meanings and there are not many words in the whole text. Even if you explain it word by word and cite other sources, it will not take too much time to finish the whole explanation.

Yuzi had an outstanding talent for learning. After studying it for the first time, he had already memorized the Taoist scripture and its interpretation.

As for her own understanding of Taoist scriptures, she needs to go further through study and life.

This is also the reason why some Taoist schools advocate involvement in the world. The Tao exists in all things in the mountains and fields, and also in the world of the city.

But even so, the effect of the Qingjing Jing has already begun to show.

"Tono Nissan, is this some kind of spell to drive away monsters?"

Miko murmured the Taoist scriptures she had already learned, feeling her mind strangely calm down. Her thoughts were free from the influence of many distracting thoughts, as pure as glass, and her efficiency increased a lot.

The nightmare ghost was driven away?

"Yes, it can help you get rid of the demons lurking in your heart, and it can also help you enter a special state of practice called sitting and forgetting, where you abandon your body, abandon your intelligence, leave your form and knowledge, and become one with the great unity. This is called sitting and forgetting."

Dong Ye Yu explained it carefully, but because Zuowang is an extremely abstract description, even after the explanation, it still seemed confusing.

Yuzi tried to understand what Higashino Yu meant, but she didn't know how to do it. Reciting the Pure and Tranquil Sutra silently in her heart only made her thinking clearer.

The girl pondered for a long time, then shook her head in confusion: "Dongye Nisan, I still don't understand."

Dong Ye Yu heaved a sigh of relief when he heard this and comforted him.

"Take your time. Some practitioners cannot achieve the state of meditation and forgetfulness in their entire lives. For ordinary people, this is a relatively advanced state. Even if I can enter the state of meditation and forgetfulness at any time, it is difficult to describe it clearly and in plain words that everyone can understand."

If someone could learn Chinese and Taoist scriptures in one night and then directly sit in meditation and forget about the world, that would be truly horrifying.

I taught Miko at her house until about six o'clock. After dinner, I read a book with Miko for a while and talked about some interesting things related to Taoxiang.

Dong Yeyu did not tell anyone about the danger. He basically only reported good news and not bad news to his relatives and friends whom he cared about.

Yu Zi couldn't help her in any way, and there was no point in saying so much, except to make her worry for nothing.

Before leaving, he taught her all the Taoist scriptures and did not say goodbye until the moon rose in the east sky.

Walking out of the Iori family's courtyard and arriving at the shrine's atrium, the shrine is open all night, so even though it was almost eight o'clock in the evening, there were still sporadic tourists and passers-by coming up to worship.

A shrine maiden in white clothes and a red thigh was leaning against a stone sculpture of a Komainu, smoking a pipe. She had no manners, but had a dignified air.

"You have the aura of a god on you. Which god have you offended?" she said in a lazy and sweet voice, but without a trace of vulgarity.

After meeting and communicating with Chunyuan several times and discovering that she was not the kind of god's messenger who put on airs, Dongye Yu was no longer so reserved.

When she asked me this, I didn't think much about it and just spoke in a tone as if I was talking to a friend.

"No, I went to Taoxiang to exorcise demons a few days ago. The local Hishizawa water god wanted to recruit me to be her messenger, but I refused."

"The God of Water of Hishizawa? Oh, it's the ancient God of Kunitsu. I haven't seen Him attend the Izumo Divine Council for many years. I heard that He is sleeping in His own fairyland. I didn't expect that He would be interested in recruiting a divine messenger."

Chun Yuan talked to himself, and the face wearing a fox mask looked at Dong Yeyu: "His status is not low. Becoming his divine envoy is also eligible to participate in the Izumo Divine Council. As a wild fox, this achievement is not low. Aren't you going?"

Dong Yeyu shook his head, "Forget it. The demon disaster in Taoxiang Town this time was caused by her neglect of divine affairs. If I were her divine messenger, I would probably be in a mess all day long. Would I still need to practice?"

"It is indeed a rational decision. You may be able to achieve enlightenment."

Chun Yuan praised and asked, "A few days ago, an evil god in Yinxi was killed by the thunderbolt sent down by the East Heaven Court. Did you know that?"

Dong Ye Yu then briefly recounted what had happened, but she did not ask about the origin of the divine thunder, so she was not in a position to explain it herself.

Otherwise it would give people a feeling of showing off, and saying such things in front of such a great Yangshen demon would somewhat lose your favorability.

Chun Yuan nodded thoughtfully, "I see, that mortal is quite bold, but he must have the support of someone with high cultivation level behind him."

A person with high cultivation? Dong Yeyu recalled the sudden white wind that blew at that time, "That's right, there was a blizzard that blew suddenly, but later when the divine thunder was about to fall, the blizzard stopped again."

"Snowstorm?" Chun Yuan pondered for a moment, as if he had thought of something, but didn't say it out loud.

Seeing this, Dong Yeyu did not ask about the origin of the snowstorm, but asked another curious question: "Is this considered crossing the line in Dongtian Court? What is the reaction of the Kunijin gods?"

Upon hearing this, Chun Yuan glanced at Dong Ye Yu and chuckled.

"When facing Takemiya Raijin, Okuninushi dared not say a word and could only yield his kingdom. How dare he have any opinions about the high and mighty Eastern Heaven Court now? However, it is estimated that there will be another quarrel in Takamagahara."

(End of this chapter)