Demon Slayer: Upper 0 seems to be a waste

Chapter 185 Day after day

"well done."

The palms fell on the head and the praises rang in the ears.

It's a rare break.

In fact, Kokushibo was never stingy with praise. He placed his large palm on the top of his head and stroked it gently, a little perfunctorily, but very carefully.

A long time ago, Kokushibo would not do such a move. Rinko still remembered that he was once hung upside down in the air by one of his legs, and then was easily chopped into two pieces by the other party.

Well, sometimes it’s three pieces.

At that time, Kokushibo could only scold him. Although he said scolding, he was not really angry. He was more helpless. Perhaps he found it incredible that Kokushibo could live to stand in front of him, or maybe he was troubled by the fact that he needed to teach a fool like him some skills.

Of course, these were all Rinko's own guesses. After all, he couldn't get much information from Kokushibo. If he didn't ask, but just made judgments based on the other person's face, the information that could be given by that face seemed to be the same at any time.

I'm in a bad mood and want to kill someone.

The kind that wants to kill you right here in front of me.

Rinko couldn't remember when it started. Maybe it was because Akaza and Douma always did this, or maybe it was because Kokushibo realized that he really was like a child, or maybe it was because Muzan reminded Kokushibo that treating him this way would make him happier?

There could be many reasons, and they are all worth exploring, but none of them affect Lingguang himself becoming the ultimate beneficiary.

Compared to Gyuutarou, Douma, or Akaza who sometimes deliberately used force, he still liked Kokushibo's touch more. Although it was not the same as Muzan who had always dealt with people and knew how to control the strength, at least Kokushibo never let his neck bear the force it shouldn't bear, and never let his spine make sounds that it shouldn't make.

-

In fact, ghosts do not need to rest, or it can be said that rest is not necessary. At least for ghosts of the level of Kokushibo and Rinkou, rest is no longer a necessary time, but Kokushibo will still give him a rest node, not because he fights hard enough or their time is hard enough.

But it’s because Kokushibo has his own plans for time.

Every time Lin Guang realized this, he felt it was ridiculous. Although Infinite City was a place without night or day, it seemed that there was a sun in the man's heart that would rise and set.

Kokushibo can always clearly realize how much time has passed, accurate to the hour.

Lin Guang felt that this was much more terrifying than what humans called seeing a ghost.

The chess piece fell on the chessboard. Rinkou temporarily calmed his thoughts because of the crisp sound, and lowered his eyes to the chessboard. He thought, considered, and pondered, rehearsing the possible developments in his mind, and finally placed the chess piece carefully. Kokushibo's thinking time was much shorter than his.

No matter how hard Lin Guang tried, he seemed to be destined to face the inevitable outcome - failure.

“Why do I always lose?”

While Rinkou put the chess pieces back into the box and prepared to start a new game, he asked Kokushibo.

Was he not focused enough? Too little time to practice? Or was he simply lacking in skills and talent? Lin Guang had already mentally rehearsed countless responses.

"Because...you don't want to win..."

Bullshit.

Lin Guang's brain gave the immediate evaluation, but the good news was that his mouth didn't even follow up. If he had said this, he would at least have been hit on the head.

But after calming down a little after the excitement, Lingguang still felt that the rebuttal without hesitation was very reasonable.

"No way. No one likes to lose, not even me."

He changed his words to be more tactful and polite to refute.

Kokushibo looked at him, just a brief glance.

"At least... I don't bother to lie."

Lin Guang had no doubt about this. Some people were indeed like this. Deception was a very useful means, but there were always people who had their own pride, their own beliefs, and persistence, and ultimately chose a path that went against deception.

Some people are like this, and some ghosts are like this too.

Lin Guang thought that he was not one of them.

But this is not the point. The point is why Kokushibo said he didn't want to win. Kokushibo would not lie, but Rinko didn't think he really wanted to lose. His distracted thinking made the game end unusually quickly.

"Not wanting to win... and wanting to lose are two different things."

The white piece was bounced up in the hand, then fell down due to inertia, landed in the palm, and then was bounced up again by the thumb, rotating continuously in the air over and over again.

Rinko didn't understand, Kokushibo saw it, and Rinko knew it himself, but the topic ended there. Rinko didn't ask any further questions, and Kokushibo didn't continue to talk. The broken chess game was left on the table.

----

Kokushibo would give Rinko some leisure time, during which time Kokushibo would usually go out or practice on his own, but these two days, he just sat quietly in the room and didn't go anywhere.

As for Rinko, he would not disturb her or be curious, but would simply choose to stay with Mingnu for a while.

Mingnu is always very quiet. There are trivial sounds in the Infinite City, which are the sounds of the Infinite City expanding and spreading. But the owner of the Infinite City, the creator of everything is the quietest existence here. She is like one of the ornaments here, an inconspicuous part of the mechanical operation, working silently but continuously.

Even when Rinkou sat next to her, she would just sit there quietly with her head down, holding the pipa, until the pipa in Rinkou's hand made a wrong note, then the machine would open its mouth and make a sound to correct his mistake.

Learning to play chess or playing the pipa here is actually meaningless.

Lin Guang could not master any new survival skills or learn any new fighting techniques from these two jobs. These two things could not even be considered as learning new knowledge. These were things he had learned before, and now he was just doing them, and he was not even doing them well enough.

He could not defeat Kokushibo, who taught him how to play chess, nor could he defeat Mingnv, who taught him how to play the biwa.

This is just a way to pass the time. When there are enough things to do, when he is constantly busy, when the body is continuously working, the brain will lose time to think. In such a busy environment, time seems to go faster and everything will become easier.

Lin Guang didn't know what he was anxious about. It seemed that there was nothing he needed to do in a hurry, and nothing that needed to produce a result in a hurry. He could only think that he wanted to know what Yu Hu was doing and what he would bring back in the end.

But it's not.

Rinko knew.

This is actually a way of escape, shameful, but effective.

It always works.