The Japan Branch was too deeply tied to the underworld. Everyone here followed yakuza culture, revering courage and the resolve to face death without flinching. The bearing of a great general should be like an ancient tree glazed with frost—still as a wooden chicken. This, too, was an aesthetic passed down since ancient times, belonging to the samurai.
Thus, Minamoto Chisaki's choice to wait at the dangerous end of the runway was a restrained, even self-destructive way of displaying the Eight Clans of the Serpent's magnanimity and control. It was, without doubt, a perfectly measured show of force. To hear thunder in silence—no one could find fault with it on the surface.
Unfortunately, his painstaking effort, so deeply rooted in Japanese aesthetics, was destined to fall on deaf ears. Lu Mingfei and his group had no firsthand understanding of the determination and aesthetic embodied by "still as a wooden chicken."
If they had known that Minamoto Chisaki was sitting at the end of the runway, wagering his life merely to demonstrate "magnanimity," they would probably have exchanged blank looks, all struck by the same thought:
Is there something seriously wrong with this guy? This is like stabbing yourself and then asking whether that makes you brave. Pure lunatic behavior!
Naturally, Minamoto Chisaki knew nothing of this. His gaze, sharp as a tempered blade, fixed tightly on the slowly lowering gangway.
The first to enter his sight were four figures. They all wore silk kimonos of the same material but different patterns, plain white socks and clacking wooden sandals on their feet, each carrying a conspicuous paper umbrella.
Three umbrellas had already been opened, blooming with inappropriate splendor against the desolate beach.
One depicted a white crane spreading its wings in flight and chrysanthemums standing proud against frost, elegant yet aloof.