The cherry blossoms in Tokyo are flying like snow every year, but none of them has ever fallen into Nishino Hiro's palm.
As a "defector", she wore a Japanese mask forged by herself until she met Rei Morikawa, the boy who could pronounce her real name in Chinese, and accurately pierced this disguise. The old chess records he rubbed on his fingertips contained his grandfather's past memories of China and Japan. The kimono he handed her had her name embroidered on it. When he taught her how to move, he said: "The cruelest rule of Go is that black and white can never blend."
When the stage of the Cherry Blossom Festival required her to put on a maid costume and play the role of "Ice Mountain Proud Lady", when the letter home from her mother contained a torn copy of the "Preface to Orchid Pavilion", and when Go Queen Wakamiya Runa said contemptuously, "What Honinbo do the Chinese learn?", Nishino finally understood:
Loneliness is not the fate of strangers, but the passage out of the cocoon.
Can a soul divided by culture find the third color between black and white in the hustle and bustle of Tokyo and the agarwood of ancient books?
Note: The beginning of a story many years ago is waiting for me to continue.
Purpose: Cultural identity does not have to be either/or. Loneliness is the way to break out of the cocoon and be reborn.