Saiunkoku book 15 chapter 1 (2/3)

Right after that, Shouka went straight to look for Shou Taishi.

Shou Taishi was looking up at the shuttered Shrine of the Cave of Immortals from a lake near the Department of the Cave of the Immortals.

“You blasted bad-natured old man, if I ask you something now, will you answer me?”

Shou Taishi didn’t turn, but exaggeratedly bent his hip and put his hand to his ear.

“Eh, what was that? Recently I haven’t been hearing too well? …. It must be my age…. Cough, cough.”
“Please stop behaving like a senile old man when things are going badly for you. I’m going to assassinate you now.”

When he spoke with the voice of the demonic “Black Wolf,” Shou Taishi finally turned around. He was grinning.

“Hmph, Shouka, so you’ve finally stopped living like a doddering retired old man in the archives, and feel like working now?”
“Shut up. You should have been working hard for Ryuuki-sama!”
“Although you’re younger than me, you want to make me work?”

Even though he was being glared at, Shou Taishi still was smiling.

“Before, I said that you only would act for a king worthy of serving, but I’ve revised that.”
“Oh?”
“You are still only acting for that damned fool Senka.”
Although it had been Shou Taishi who had put to rights the national government after it had been falling to pieces after the power struggle among the princes, right when Ryuuki had taken office, he had let go of all actual power, and taken up the honorary position of one of the three court elders. After that, he had done something which could be called working for Ryuuki once, and that was making Shuurei an imperial consort and sending her to Ryuuki’s side. After that, whatever Ryuuki or Kouyuu and the others had done, he hadn’t said a word. He simply kept quiet and watched.

Shouka had thought that when Shou Taishi had done something for Ryuuki, that he had acknowledged him as king. However, if he thought about it for awhile, that was exactly how King Senka had been. He would only once act to save one of his sons from danger, and then not help them again. It as if he was acting on King Senka’s dying orders.

As if he had said “You should help him, just once.”

He couldn’t deny that he was relieved by Shou Taishi’s presence, even if it was only an honorary position. He had even thought somewhere in his mind that if something happened, that Shou Taishi would act again. However, really, he was a blasted old man.
–Shou Taishi was not that going to be that nice.

“….Perhaps, could it be the case that you were waiting for me to become the head of the Kou clan?”
That made Shou Taishi’s eyes flash amusedly.
“You’re way overconfident. I think that rather there were others waiting for that, more than me.”
“Wha?”
“–Anyway, you had something to ask me?”

Shouka made a face as though he had bitten down on an insect. He found relying on this old man irritating, but there was no one else he could go to.

“Currently, is it possible to go to the Hyou domains?”
Shou Taishi stared at Shouka in shock.
“….Could you be thinking of going there yourself?”
“I cannot go. Since I’ve become the head of the Kou clan, I can no longer act without telling people where I’m going. Really, it’s irritating how precisely this has happened. Right when I become the clan head, my daughter goes missing. –Even if I want to go and look for her, right now I can no longer move freely.”

No matter what path he chose, he was one step behind things. The delaying of the switch in clan heads, Shuurei’s disappearance– If that had been truly something calculated, that could be called an astounding display of strategy. Shou Taishi stroked white beard, as if he were reading Shouka’s thoughts.
“Doesn’t this seem like how “Hourin” would do things?”
“However, there’s one point which doesn’t fit.”
“Oh?”
“This way of doing it is far too decent. If it were the “Hourin” of our clan, he’d take far more nasty measures. Although it resembles his technique in how things are piled on top of each other without any gaps, it’s far too strange that it’s such an amazingly straightforward method.”
“Could it be because up to this point, they’ve only served leaders who laughed out loud and went ‘the scarlet color of the Kou clan is the the color of blood. Strike-!’? Perhaps now that he’s switched to a far more human, proper master, his personality has improved?”
“People may say that, but I really do not want to hear that from you, of all people!”

Shou Taishi burst into laughter. Shouka had hidden himself for over ten years in the archives, making a face like he had died along with his wife. Although he was simply acting as if he had given up on life, for some reason the young people had freely mistaken this for his being ‘an amazing, philosophical person, like an immortal,’ and he was, even though not yet forty, living like he was an old man in a mildewed retirement. He had wondered whether he would continue to give up on life like this, rusted, passing time like a mummy.
But, now, it had come out.
After twenty years, the original Shouka had emerged.
(….Or would it be more correct to say, ‘been dragged out’?)
The man who couldn’t even be moved by Kou Reishin had been forcibly dragged out onto the stage. That was something that even the previous king and Shou Taishi had been unable to do. Actually, Shou Taishi too took his hat off to the skill of ‘the opponent’ who had pulled it off.

“That icy reason which puts politics before your beloved daughter hasn’t changed. — I’m relieved.”
“It’s not that I’m not worried about her. I’d be killed by my dead wife. –Well?”
“Right now, all communications channels with the Hyou clan have been completely severed. The only magician who can force a way through from here is Uu Uu-dono. And that probably would only be once. It would be a one way ticket.”
“So you mean that anyone going would have to get back by themselves? As always, that clan is as troublesome as fording the river of hell. Well, I understand that someone can go once, but has something happened in the Hyou clan?”
“Wha? I wouldn’t know about that.”
“Indeed! Even if you knew, you wouldn’t tell me. I though I would try anyway. Useless old man.”
“Hmmm? What was it you said at the end there in under your breath?”
“You must be imagining things. Aren’t you having trouble hearing? You shouldn’t have been able to hear, right?”
“…..Really, you have gotten back way too much of your energy!”
“And one more thing. About Riou-kun, the head of the Ministry of the Cave of the Immortals, who disappeared with Shuurei. I had wondered about this before, about his mother. Could it be that Riou’s mother is—”
When Shouka brought up that name, Shou Taishi’s smile deepened.
“….You’ve got it. That’s right. There are very few people who know that she got married in the midst of that chaos. Come to think about it, he really resembles her, doesn’t he?”
“…Yes. I had thought that really, it was a wonder, that no-good ‘given up on being a human’ bastard father of his had produced such a fine son. The blood of his mother’s side came out thick in him. Thank goodness for that.”
‘Isn’t that you too?’ thought Shou Taishi in his heart. He would never acknowledge it, but actually they resembled each other well. That was why they had become lifelong nemeses. Generally, he would have never had thought that there would have been two humans whom the Red Immortal, with her bad taste, would have fallen in love with. Impossible.

“…With this, now I can understand “his” point of contact with the Hyou clan. So this is the reason that Ruka sent Riou-kun to the court…. Ruka’s skill hasn’t withered at all. Damn… If Riou-kun’s bloodline is made public, that would be rather bad… Maybe it’s a good thing that Riou-kun has returned to the Hyou clan at this time.”

Shou Taishi turned towards Shouka. He also had something he wanted to ask.
“I’ll ask something too. Why did you not stop Shuurei-dono from going to Sa Province last year? When your wife left this world, didn’t she tell you? That it would be better not to let Shuurei leave Kiyou.”

Shouka did not ask why he knew that. If what he had faintly felt about Shou Taishi over these years was the truth, then it would not be odd for him to know. Shouka closed his eyes.

“….Yes, she told me. Kiyou is sacred ground, so the power of the seal will not weaken.”

After his wife had left this world, Shouk had not let Shuurei leave Kiyou, even once, and that had been the real reason.

“So, then why did you let her go?”
“My wife also said this. But when Shuurei wishes to, let her go without any hesitation.”
“Shouka, I have not even spent ten years with you. I was…. happy. Probably, sometime I shall awaken once again, in a world without you, and walk in the shadow of eternal loneliness, for thousands of years. In my long, too-long life, I will sometimes cry, probably. But I don’t think that it would have been better not to meet you. I don’t think that it would have better not to know love, happiness with limits, or even sadness. I want Shuurei to live. Happily. I want her to be happy she was born. So, Shouka..”

To shut someone up is not to love them, so she wished for him to love their daughter, rushing across the free sky like a comet.

“…Do this for me. I won’t let you say you can’t.”

How could Shouka say he couldn’t? None other than Shouka himself had formerly shownthat loving someone by locking them in a safe place, tying them up, fearing losing them, was not happiness. Shouka, more than anyone else, knew that Shuurei was thinking about what kind of official she wanted to become, and when she had become an official, who she wanted to help. In these past few years, his daughter had often wept, but just as often she had smiled.

Since I’ve become an official, there have been many hard things, but…. I’m happy, father. Thank you.

Her smiles, her words, were lodged in Shouka’s chest. Along with all of the secrets.

“…That was my last promise to my wife. A promise I’ll risk my life for. I will keep it, definitely. Even if I must lie to myself.”

Shou Taishi smiled painedly. Shouka really was, down to the marrow of his bones, a man of the Kou clan. Shouka would love his daughter, and keep his promise to his wife, even if he had to ignore his own wishes.

A tenacious reason like ice, and depth of feeling enough to drown in.

Definitely, Shuurei’s destiny for some reason was always moving towards the worst because of the man who loved her. However, even though Shouka knew everything, he simple kept silent, and watched over how Shuurei used her life, and the path she wished to take.

Once the seal was broken, it would not return a second time.

“….However, if she has gone to the Hyou clan, she will gain some time. That place is even more sacred than Kiyou. Even when she went to Nine Colors Cove, her body became somewhat better. Shoukun’s body was originally one of the daughters of the Hyou clan, knowing only that pure atmosphere, so it wasn’t very compatible with “the outside.” Perhaps Shuurei-dono will do well in the Hyou domain. Only… she has been far too overworked. The king, too, has relied too much on Shuurei-dono. It wouldn’t be odd for a large man to collapse after doing the amount of work Shuurei has done this year. Even if she returns from the Hyou clan, that time may be her last.”

Once the seal was broken, the shell which had hidden her had fallen day by day. Kiyou expelled “things different from humans” such as spirits, without any discrimination. Soon, even Kiyou would no longer be sacred ground for her.

“But, as long as she doesn’t leave the Hyou clan’s lands, …… a normal life span for a human….”
“If my daughter feels she would be happy doing that, then I will accept it. It’ll be mortifying, but I’ll bow my head and go and bring bad tasting cakes to Ruka and Riou. Even if she returns, she’ll be shut up in the Inner Palace, and that life won’t be much different from that. But, my daughter will definitely return. Even alone.”

Even knowing that, having exhausted herself for both king and country, she would go to an eternal rest, scattering like the flowers of the cherry blossom.

Sometimes Shouka saw his daughter, and the previous Black Wolf’s way of living overlapping.

“In the Hyou clan, there may be a way of prolonging life. If Shuurei-dono wishes it, and Ruka allows it.”

But Shouka didn’t show a trace of relief in his face. Shou Taishi realized that he had already known about that method. He should have known. This was the man who had battled the Hyou clan for ten years, and married “Bara-hime.”

“….If she thinks ‘no matter what I have to do, I want to live,’ like Ruka?”
“Yes. Ruka had a reason. Shuurei-dono must also have some reasons to wish to live.”
“…I don’t think she’s mistaken. It’s not a matter of that method being correct or mistaken, I believe now. If you have a reason to live, then you don’t need excuses. Wishing to live is normal. So, I’ll leave it to my daughter.”

Shou Taishi felt he could hear Shouka adding a “but” to that.
Shouka could already see the road his daughter would choose.

“My daughter….disappeared after she had finished her work. I also must do my work.”
“Are you alright with Ryuuki-sama?”

Shouka looked carefully at Shou Taishi. Shou Taishi was asking someone’s opinion?

“Yes. I have chosen him. Although I don’t know what you are thinking, standing still like this, isn’t he some thousands of times better than King Senka?”

Shou Taishi made a peculiar face, and stayed silent. He only muttered something faintly.

“…That’s why..”

Notes:
The river of hell is the Sanzu river. See here for more info.

Commentary:
So Shouka probably knows about Shou Taishi’s true nature. We get a lot of character development about Shouka, but really, the mystery of Shou Taishi’s lack of action is still unresolved, although the mysteries of Shuurei’s health are further explained.