Chapter 10 Sudden Change What kind of dress Sakura took the cloth to make, only the three maids knew. When Harun.o.bu saw her, she was still wearing the old kimono. When she started to work by herself, her arms and legs were exposed. Maybe they had collected enough money; when n.o.bus.h.i.+ge went to the Inner Compound to visit Sakura, he wanted to mention the rebuilding process of Kai. Sakura was concerned if ancient j.a.pan gave women more freedom, so she must have asked Harun.o.bu to give her a position like financial officer of the family. She had the ability to make Kai as rich as Suruga.   “Hey, why do you allow n.o.bus.h.i.+ge to enter the Inner Compound every day? Don’t you know what it means to avoid gossip?” When she was doing leg presses against the well, Harun.o.bu’s voice came, as low as a ghost. “My Lord, would you please not appear like a ghost each time? If I am drawing water from the well and I happen to spill water on you, is that good?” “I don’t care about water. I ask you to obey my orders. Without my permission, you can’t let any men come into the Inner Compound.” “Weren’t you talking about n.o.bus.h.i.+ge? Why do you change it to any men?” “You call him n.o.bus.h.i.+ge?” Harun.o.bu became angry and took hold of her wrist.   Sakura tried her best to escape from him. She retreated two steps and cleaned her hands on her skirt. “Why are you so cruel to me? You are not like your brother, who is lovely. You only know how to scheme against other people, how to control other people, and you yell at me? Do you think you are charming? Though you are the master, even the wh.o.r.es in the whale houses would choose your brother instead of you. Only idiots would select you.” “Hey, don’t leave me.” When Harun.o.bu saw her walk away, he rushed to catch her.   Sakura felt uneasy because she was wearing the kimono and geta, which didn’t allow her to walk fast. She dared not to use martial arts right now. So she chose to hide herself away. But this time, the master got hold of her sleeve, and he had caught her so forcibly that the whole sleeve was ripped away by him. It was fortunate that she’d put underwear on. Otherwise, her breast would be exposed, too.   “Harun.o.bu, you are a hoodlum!”   The troublemaker was stunned by this situation, and watched her run away into the room. When he found his senses again and looked around, he found all the maids were staring at him, as if he was a strange monster. The old maids found his expression was harsh; they asked the young ones to lower their heads.   He took out his hand to wipe off the sweat on his forehead, sending away the maids. He gave Ye a hinting look. He followed the maid to Sakura’s door, but finally he gave up on annoying her and left.     Then, for six days after the event, he didn’t enter the Inner Compound. Even when he had some time, he stayed outside. Sakura knew why he acted like this. But during this time, she also lost her spirit. She asked the maids to take care of the business of the Inner Compound, and stayed at home all day long. Only when the sun set did she come out to walk for a while.   Thinking of the things that happened that day, she couldn’t be easy on him. But when she found all the maids were forced to keep silent on the issue, after a long time, the Inner Compound became so lonely. However, n.o.body could stop the servants from talking about her secretly. She could guess what they thought of her, in such a conservative era.   When Hua went out to send some wine, Sakura used this opportunity to run out. She said she would like to send the wine herself. But when she arrived at the door of Harun.o.bu’s reception hall, she found four servants were waiting outside. They wanted to report to him when they saw her, but she stopped them.   “No need. I can wait here. Is the master discussing some important issue with the family officers?” “Yes, Chief of the Inner Compound.” “Would you let me know what they are talking about?” A servant gave the other three companions a glance, hinting that they couldn’t say no to this Chief of the Inner Compound. They would have opportunities to rely on her. Sakura understood that all of them heard the gossip about the incident wherein Harun.o.bu had torn off her sleeve, based on their shared looks back and forth. So this news was spread from the Inner Compound to the whole family finally. “Chief, you’d better come in later. We heard that Suwa had some movement. Our master was planning to take some action against Suwa Yoris.h.i.+ge,” a servant answered. Suwa? Her hand, which was holding the bottle, faltered. Yiu’s image appeared in her mind. Since she had hid her in the mountains, she’d only received a short letter from her, mentioning that she was well in the temple, only that she missed her father occasionally. Sakura burnt the letter, and didn’t reply to her. Now there was some strange movement of Suwa, she didn’t know what the key issue was, but seeing the door closed tightly by Harun.o.bu and the four servants guarding outside, she wondered if the situation was not good. Was the event she was worried about going to happen? When the discussing voices inside became lower, she stood up to knock, with the bottle of wine in hand. Many family officers were sitting there. She didn’t find Itagaki n.o.bukata. Two generals were sitting to the right and left of Harun.o.bu. One was old and the other was young. They must have had a quarrel with each other and were forced to stop by Harun.o.bu, thus both of them were still staring at each other emotionally, with red faces.