Synopsis: Saiunkoku Monogatari "Seiran ni Yureru Tsukikusa"
彩雲国物語「青嵐に揺れる月草」
Saiunkoku Monogatari
“Seiran ni Yureru Tsukikusa” (Dayflower Trembling in Summer Storm)
Note: Seiran (青嵐) is a storm in early summer, in which the character ‘blue(青)’ is used. Tsukikusa(月草) is a dayflower. Its flower is blue, but it's blue is lighter than indigo (藍). The color is called ‘hanada(縹), which is the color of Hyou family.
This book is the begging of the new arc, and there are so many elements embedded in the story. It is rather confusing, and there are more questions than answers at this point. I will explain the major story line first and some of the focal points of the story after that. It was taking too much time, so I decided just to post it. It may be... rather incomplete and I felt I was all over the place. So if you have any questions, please ask in the replay. And if you have read the books and know the answers to the questions, please feel free to answer them, too. I will try my best, but at the moment, I don’t have much time…
I am sure I made plenty of grammatical mistakes, typos, etc.. Please bear with my English…
Here we go.
Synopsis
Although Shuurei saved many lives, she was demoted and without appointment after the incident in the Sa Province. In order to save lives, she had to act quickly, and ignored the procedures that she had to follow. After being one of the ‘appointment-less’ officials for a while and was almost fired, she got an assignment at the Internal Investigation Office (Gyoshi-dai). She works with her new colleague, Riku Seiga, who she considers as her archrival. Unfortunately he is trying to ruin her instead of helping her as a colleague.
Her first big job is to protect Juusan-hime from assassins. Juusan-hime is a Ran princess who was sent to the palace by the head of Ran family (the triplets) to become Ryuuki’s wife. Shuurei and Juusan-hime were moved to the Imperial Villa in the Palace, and Shuurei was ordered to 'protect Juusan-hime or die.’ Juusan-hime, however, is a very unusual princess. She was raised by the family who are specialized in martial arts, and is very skilled in many martial arts, especially horseback riding. She is fully capable of protecting herself, and Shuurei. She is of the same age as Shuurei, and resembles her, too (with bigger breasts).
One of the other jobs Shuurei was assigned to was to review the conditions of the prisons. While reviewing the reports from the prisons, she found many stating “seeing ghost of those who were supposed to have died in prison.” She started to investigate the report with Shin Suou (aka. Tantan, Shuurei’s colleague). Shuurei suspected those are death-row convicts who were supposed to be executed but died suddenly right before execution. Shuurei’s in-depth investigation also revealed that there are too many of such sudden death of death-row inmates reported in some prisons during certain periods of time. In addition, as she suspected, those are the ones who attempted to assassinate Juusan-hime.
Shuurei got quite popular among prisoners, and one particulary, a prisoner named Shun, a former death-row inmate who was wrongly convicted.
Although he was assigned to work with Shuurei to protect Juusan-hime from assassins, Seiga’s true intention was to use Shuurei as a bait to get information for the case he was investigating. He took her to a remote place, and there, Shun, who was released from the prison earlier, showed up, and told her to have Ran Shuuei protect the villa at the night of the full moon in order to save Juusan-hime’s life. And after he left, Shuuei appeared to 'save' her from Seiga. Seiga was aware of the same conspiracy as Shuurei, and used her to find out who was involved in the case. They both found out that the Ran family is somewhat involved in it.
Shuurei gradually untangle the conspiracy. Death-row inmates suffered sudden death right before execution where and when Shun was imprisoned for false charges. He was the one who recruited these inmates to work as assassins instead of being executed. But for whom? For what purpose? On the full moon night, Shuurei, Seiga and the Co. found out that Vice Minister of Justice was behind the scheme. He tried to kill Juusan-hime because he has a daughter whom he intended to make Ryuuki’s wife. But it was also apparent that he was merely a pawn. Shun, the head assassin, was working for someone, who is after much bigger things.
Through this incident, Shuuei was away from the palace, and working for the interest of the Ran family. He decided to resign his post and returned the ‘flower.’ Ryuuki accepted his resignation, but with Yuushun’s encouragement, decided to go to the Ran Province to get Shuuei back.
The Ran Family
The Ran triplets (the joint heads of the Ran family, Shuuei’s older brothers) sent their half-sister Juusan-hime to Kiyou to become Ryuuki’s wife. Ran family has an unusual tradition to have their illegitimate children raised by families of various profession. Juusan-hime was raised by the family specialized with martial arts and war strategies. While she was traveling to Kiyou alone, she fought off the assassins with a little help from Ensei, who was also heading to Kiyou.
Juusan-hime’s mission was actually “to enter the emperor’s harem or to become Shi Seiran’s wife” (but Shuuei refused the second option).
Sending Juusan-hime was to test Shuuei’s loyalty to the family, as well as to test Ryuuki. If he is an worthwhile emperor, he will find a way to get him out of the situation and even get Shuuei back. The Ran family does not support Ryuuki as the emperor, yet. The Ran triplets used to serve as bureaucrats to Emperor Senka, but they resigned and returned to the Ran province to become the head of the family. They took all the Ran bureaucrats to Ran with them. However, the true reason of their withdrawal was Seien's exile. They gave up on Senka because he exiled Seien. Also, Hyou family was behind Seien’s exile. At this point, why and how Hyou family was involved in Seien’s exile, and the intention of the Ran family concerning Seien/Seiran is not known
Shun and Juusan-hime
The Ran family was involved in the case through Shun. He was the eldest son and the successor of the Shiba family, one of the four powerful families under the Ran clan. He was also Juusan-hime's betrothed, and Shuuei's close friend. But something happed five years ago, and he is no longer Shiba Jin (his true name). In order to preserve his life, Juusan-hime made a deal with the Ran triplets. She was to obey any one order, and that was to become Ryuuki’s wife. Juusan-hime talked to Ryuuki. She knows that Ryuuki loves someone else, but she also loves someone else, so she do not expect his love, and because of that, she can be a good friend and a supporter for him.
The incident that happened five years ago also put Shun in someone's dept, so he is now working for that person. (It seems that person seems to be Hyou Ruka, the elder sister of Hyou Riou, who is obsessed with her brother, and intends to destroy anything related to Bara-hime because her beloved brother is obsessed with her even long after her death.)
Hyou Family
Shusui is a fairly big player in this episode. A previous book revealed that Shusui is a member of the Hyou family, and Shouka took her when he took Shoukun. Her whereabout was discovered by Hyou family, and she was controlled and used to kill Juusan-hime and Shuurei. It seems that Hyou family is behind the whole assassination scheme, but their true intention and how Shuu is related to them is not revealed in this book. (Since they are trying to kill Shuuei, it is assumed that the one behind this is Hyou Ruka, the older sister of Hyou Riou. Hyou Riou was tring to get Shuurei because he is the daughter of Bara-hime, definitely not killing her.)
Shusui’s consciousness came to surface upon hearing Shuurei’s voice, and she ran from the scene. Shun was taking her with him when Shouka found her and confront Shun. Shouka decided to let her go with him because they did not know how to undo her conditioning and keeping her in the palace with the people she knows will only torture her mind.
It was indeed the father of Hyou Riou who was captured and imprisoned Bara-hime. Riou was in love with her, but he just came to see her where she was chained. He chose to keep her chained so she could not escape from him. Shouka, on the other hand, fell in love with her, and freed her.
Hhyou family was started by Sougen (the first emperor of Saiunkoku)’s sister.
Yuushun
Ryuuki does not have many people on his side except Kouyuu and Shuuei. First he did not do any work as an Emperor, and then when he started to govern, he took advice only from his two advisors. Other high-ranking bureaucrats (and aristocrats) are rather angry at what he has been doing. Yuushun has already realized it, and he is making it overly obvious that he is on his side, and has been trying to win over shoushos (directors) for Ryuuki. Kan Hishou (Minister of Construction) was the first one he won over.
Shuuei & Kouyuu
They received the ‘flower’ and pledged loyalty, but as a member of the Ran family and the Kou family, respectively, the family must come before the emperor, or even the country. The family heads are making it clear, and the Ran triplets send Juusan-hime (Shuuei could not refuse to send her to the emperor’s harem although as Ryuuki’s closest advisor and supporter, should have protect Ryuuki from such scheme by the Ran family).
On the other hand, Kou Kurou suggested Kouyuu to marry Shuurei and become the head of the family (although it is for the future), but Kouyuu decided he was ‘happy as things are,’ and had no intention of marrying Shuurei at this point, thus he has not ‘betrayed' Ryuuki. Reishin kept him from Ryuuki’s side, but with Shuurei’s advice, Ryuuki went over to see Kouyuu and spent some time together drinking.
Shuuei, however, has been having trouble dealing with his loyalty to Ran family and to Ryuuki since the last book, and with Ryuuki’s understanding, staying away from the place. He decided to resign from his post and return to Ran province. He returned his sword with the ‘flower’ to Ryuuki. Ryuuki accepted his resignation, but with Yuushun’s encouragement, he decided to go to Ran province to get him back.
Saiunkoku Monogatari
“Seiran ni Yureru Tsukikusa” (Dayflower Trembling in Summer Storm)
Note: Seiran (青嵐) is a storm in early summer, in which the character ‘blue(青)’ is used. Tsukikusa(月草) is a dayflower. Its flower is blue, but it's blue is lighter than indigo (藍). The color is called ‘hanada(縹), which is the color of Hyou family.
This book is the begging of the new arc, and there are so many elements embedded in the story. It is rather confusing, and there are more questions than answers at this point. I will explain the major story line first and some of the focal points of the story after that. It was taking too much time, so I decided just to post it. It may be... rather incomplete and I felt I was all over the place. So if you have any questions, please ask in the replay. And if you have read the books and know the answers to the questions, please feel free to answer them, too. I will try my best, but at the moment, I don’t have much time…
I am sure I made plenty of grammatical mistakes, typos, etc.. Please bear with my English…
Here we go.
Synopsis
Although Shuurei saved many lives, she was demoted and without appointment after the incident in the Sa Province. In order to save lives, she had to act quickly, and ignored the procedures that she had to follow. After being one of the ‘appointment-less’ officials for a while and was almost fired, she got an assignment at the Internal Investigation Office (Gyoshi-dai). She works with her new colleague, Riku Seiga, who she considers as her archrival. Unfortunately he is trying to ruin her instead of helping her as a colleague.
Her first big job is to protect Juusan-hime from assassins. Juusan-hime is a Ran princess who was sent to the palace by the head of Ran family (the triplets) to become Ryuuki’s wife. Shuurei and Juusan-hime were moved to the Imperial Villa in the Palace, and Shuurei was ordered to 'protect Juusan-hime or die.’ Juusan-hime, however, is a very unusual princess. She was raised by the family who are specialized in martial arts, and is very skilled in many martial arts, especially horseback riding. She is fully capable of protecting herself, and Shuurei. She is of the same age as Shuurei, and resembles her, too (with bigger breasts).
One of the other jobs Shuurei was assigned to was to review the conditions of the prisons. While reviewing the reports from the prisons, she found many stating “seeing ghost of those who were supposed to have died in prison.” She started to investigate the report with Shin Suou (aka. Tantan, Shuurei’s colleague). Shuurei suspected those are death-row convicts who were supposed to be executed but died suddenly right before execution. Shuurei’s in-depth investigation also revealed that there are too many of such sudden death of death-row inmates reported in some prisons during certain periods of time. In addition, as she suspected, those are the ones who attempted to assassinate Juusan-hime.
Shuurei got quite popular among prisoners, and one particulary, a prisoner named Shun, a former death-row inmate who was wrongly convicted.
Although he was assigned to work with Shuurei to protect Juusan-hime from assassins, Seiga’s true intention was to use Shuurei as a bait to get information for the case he was investigating. He took her to a remote place, and there, Shun, who was released from the prison earlier, showed up, and told her to have Ran Shuuei protect the villa at the night of the full moon in order to save Juusan-hime’s life. And after he left, Shuuei appeared to 'save' her from Seiga. Seiga was aware of the same conspiracy as Shuurei, and used her to find out who was involved in the case. They both found out that the Ran family is somewhat involved in it.
Shuurei gradually untangle the conspiracy. Death-row inmates suffered sudden death right before execution where and when Shun was imprisoned for false charges. He was the one who recruited these inmates to work as assassins instead of being executed. But for whom? For what purpose? On the full moon night, Shuurei, Seiga and the Co. found out that Vice Minister of Justice was behind the scheme. He tried to kill Juusan-hime because he has a daughter whom he intended to make Ryuuki’s wife. But it was also apparent that he was merely a pawn. Shun, the head assassin, was working for someone, who is after much bigger things.
Through this incident, Shuuei was away from the palace, and working for the interest of the Ran family. He decided to resign his post and returned the ‘flower.’ Ryuuki accepted his resignation, but with Yuushun’s encouragement, decided to go to the Ran Province to get Shuuei back.
The Ran Family
The Ran triplets (the joint heads of the Ran family, Shuuei’s older brothers) sent their half-sister Juusan-hime to Kiyou to become Ryuuki’s wife. Ran family has an unusual tradition to have their illegitimate children raised by families of various profession. Juusan-hime was raised by the family specialized with martial arts and war strategies. While she was traveling to Kiyou alone, she fought off the assassins with a little help from Ensei, who was also heading to Kiyou.
Juusan-hime’s mission was actually “to enter the emperor’s harem or to become Shi Seiran’s wife” (but Shuuei refused the second option).
Sending Juusan-hime was to test Shuuei’s loyalty to the family, as well as to test Ryuuki. If he is an worthwhile emperor, he will find a way to get him out of the situation and even get Shuuei back. The Ran family does not support Ryuuki as the emperor, yet. The Ran triplets used to serve as bureaucrats to Emperor Senka, but they resigned and returned to the Ran province to become the head of the family. They took all the Ran bureaucrats to Ran with them. However, the true reason of their withdrawal was Seien's exile. They gave up on Senka because he exiled Seien. Also, Hyou family was behind Seien’s exile. At this point, why and how Hyou family was involved in Seien’s exile, and the intention of the Ran family concerning Seien/Seiran is not known
Shun and Juusan-hime
The Ran family was involved in the case through Shun. He was the eldest son and the successor of the Shiba family, one of the four powerful families under the Ran clan. He was also Juusan-hime's betrothed, and Shuuei's close friend. But something happed five years ago, and he is no longer Shiba Jin (his true name). In order to preserve his life, Juusan-hime made a deal with the Ran triplets. She was to obey any one order, and that was to become Ryuuki’s wife. Juusan-hime talked to Ryuuki. She knows that Ryuuki loves someone else, but she also loves someone else, so she do not expect his love, and because of that, she can be a good friend and a supporter for him.
The incident that happened five years ago also put Shun in someone's dept, so he is now working for that person. (It seems that person seems to be Hyou Ruka, the elder sister of Hyou Riou, who is obsessed with her brother, and intends to destroy anything related to Bara-hime because her beloved brother is obsessed with her even long after her death.)
Hyou Family
Shusui is a fairly big player in this episode. A previous book revealed that Shusui is a member of the Hyou family, and Shouka took her when he took Shoukun. Her whereabout was discovered by Hyou family, and she was controlled and used to kill Juusan-hime and Shuurei. It seems that Hyou family is behind the whole assassination scheme, but their true intention and how Shuu is related to them is not revealed in this book. (Since they are trying to kill Shuuei, it is assumed that the one behind this is Hyou Ruka, the older sister of Hyou Riou. Hyou Riou was tring to get Shuurei because he is the daughter of Bara-hime, definitely not killing her.)
Shusui’s consciousness came to surface upon hearing Shuurei’s voice, and she ran from the scene. Shun was taking her with him when Shouka found her and confront Shun. Shouka decided to let her go with him because they did not know how to undo her conditioning and keeping her in the palace with the people she knows will only torture her mind.
It was indeed the father of Hyou Riou who was captured and imprisoned Bara-hime. Riou was in love with her, but he just came to see her where she was chained. He chose to keep her chained so she could not escape from him. Shouka, on the other hand, fell in love with her, and freed her.
Hhyou family was started by Sougen (the first emperor of Saiunkoku)’s sister.
Yuushun
Ryuuki does not have many people on his side except Kouyuu and Shuuei. First he did not do any work as an Emperor, and then when he started to govern, he took advice only from his two advisors. Other high-ranking bureaucrats (and aristocrats) are rather angry at what he has been doing. Yuushun has already realized it, and he is making it overly obvious that he is on his side, and has been trying to win over shoushos (directors) for Ryuuki. Kan Hishou (Minister of Construction) was the first one he won over.
Shuuei & Kouyuu
They received the ‘flower’ and pledged loyalty, but as a member of the Ran family and the Kou family, respectively, the family must come before the emperor, or even the country. The family heads are making it clear, and the Ran triplets send Juusan-hime (Shuuei could not refuse to send her to the emperor’s harem although as Ryuuki’s closest advisor and supporter, should have protect Ryuuki from such scheme by the Ran family).
On the other hand, Kou Kurou suggested Kouyuu to marry Shuurei and become the head of the family (although it is for the future), but Kouyuu decided he was ‘happy as things are,’ and had no intention of marrying Shuurei at this point, thus he has not ‘betrayed' Ryuuki. Reishin kept him from Ryuuki’s side, but with Shuurei’s advice, Ryuuki went over to see Kouyuu and spent some time together drinking.
Shuuei, however, has been having trouble dealing with his loyalty to Ran family and to Ryuuki since the last book, and with Ryuuki’s understanding, staying away from the place. He decided to resign from his post and return to Ran province. He returned his sword with the ‘flower’ to Ryuuki. Ryuuki accepted his resignation, but with Yuushun’s encouragement, he decided to go to Ran province to get him back.