Chapter 599: Connection

"Nanako is of the Emperor's bloodline."

"There are many people like her in Kyoto. According to that sword saint, I'm afraid there are no less than a thousand. On weekdays, except for being monitored by Shinto, they are no different from ordinary people."

"Even they themselves don't know this."

"Shinto raises them like pigs, just waiting for a certain time to start slaughtering... That time is the day when the girls in these families grow to sixteen years old."

Li Miao raised an eyebrow.

It matches.

Emperor's bloodline, shrine maiden.

The story Kurama Heihachi told before about meeting the shrine maiden named Tachi actually had a trick—if Tachi was of royal blood, she should have lived in the Imperial Palace, and it wouldn't have been her turn for him to look for her in Kyoto according to her letter.

And the reason he couldn't find Tachi's family was because Tachi's origin was actually the same as Nanako's... They were all Emperor's bloodlines raised by Shinto among the people. At the same time they were sent to the shrine to become shrine maidens, the traces of their families' existence would be erased by Shinto.

Because of this, Kurama Heihachi couldn't find Tachi's family until he saw the Emperor's appearance from afar and realized the truth.

Lu Wushuang continued.

"After these women reach sixteen, Shinto will send them to the shrine to visualize the divine painting of Amaterasu Omikami and brainwash them into shrine maidens who guard the shrine."

"And their families—"

Lu Wushuang pointed to the priest corpses on the ground.

"Will also become tools of Shinto after being brainwashed."

"This practice has been going on for I don't know how long. It's not that there haven't been Emperor's descendants who noticed this and tried to resist. But because Shinto's power is too vast, these resistances have never succeeded."

"Until the appearance of one person, there was a turning point."

Lu Wushuang said word by word.

"Master Zhang Sanfeng."

"After he came to Dongying, he first conquered Kyoto before going to the Ise Grand Shrine. I had been thinking before, if the Emperor is a member of Shinto, why didn't Master Zhang Sanfeng directly behead the current Emperor?"

"After all, Master Zhang Sanfeng's 'Subduing Demons' in the Jiazi year... he never showed mercy when facing evil people."

"Now I understand."

"The so-called Emperor, and Emperor's descendants like Nanako, were never members of Shinto. On the contrary, Shinto has been raising them, treating them as pigs to be slaughtered."

"Master Zhang Sanfeng knew this the moment he saw the Emperor, so he left them two means to resist Shinto's control."

Lu Wushuang clenched her left fist and waved it, while her right hand gestured a sword move.

Li Miao looked at the sword move she gestured and smiled.

He had seen it.

Just a few days ago, at Hachimangu.

The sword move Lu Wushuang gestured was exactly the sword move Kurama Heihachi got from Tachi to awaken the Shinto shrine maidens. And the boxing technique Lu Wushuang gestured with her left hand, although it only had the appearance, one could tell at a glance—it was authentic Taiji Quan.

Thus, the origin of this sword move was also clear.

Lu Wushuang looked at Li Miao and suddenly mentioned a topic that seemed completely unrelated.

"Lord, when did Dongying's tribute to the Great Shu begin, and when did it end?"

Li Miao raised an eyebrow, pondered for a few breaths, and then answered affirmatively.

"Thirty years after the founding of the country, it began in the third year of Jianwen, which was the year before the Emperor Chengzu started the Jingnan campaign and inherited the throne. As for the end... it should have been in the seventh or eighth year of Jiajing."

"Wait... hiss!"

Li Miao's fingers, which were twisting, suddenly paused. ===== CHAPTER 600 =====