As usual Vạn Thư visited Suzunaan for publishing her latest book. Yet this time it was an entirely different book.
Kosuzu: Book of Thousand Birds? An encyclopedia in Hakoniwan birds?
Vạn Thư: It's a long story but I think you should read it first.
Akyuu became curious when Vạn Thư pulled out a stack of paper from her backpack and began to make paper cranes again
Akyuu: You seem to have a love for making paper cranes. You wanted to reach 1000 paper cranes to achieve eternal good luck?
Vạn Thư: What do you means collecting 1000 cranes means achieving good luck?
Akyuu: Huh!?
Both of them looked at each other with a confused face
Kosuzu: Wait this book is a collection of thousand legendary birds instead of normal birds in the wild!
Kosuzu looked at the book with an excited face, Vạn Thư began to explain
Vạn Thư: I was quite surprised that Gensokyo and Hakoniwa shared the belief of thousand paper cranes but the end goal was different. Hakoniwan belief had nothing to do with luck.
In the ancient time there was a powerful crane named Legendary Crane who built the Great Library of Hakoniwa which was the place I used to live for a long time.
That Legendary Crane was the king of 1000 bird races in Hakoniwa hence why I wrote that book to publish it since I had been researching about it long ago.
Based from the belief in my village if you could collect 1000 paper cranes you could summon the Legendary Crane.
Vạn Thư showed her excitement filled with sparkling eyes in a dreamy face
Vạn Thư: It said you could achieve ultimate enlightenment through the Crane teaching and I will become the wisest person in Hakoniwa!
Akyuu: But didn't you try to burn your scroll earlier?
Vạn Thư pouted as she answered
Vạn Thư: I want the knowledge part not the troublesome part!
She raised her voice as she complained
Vạn Thư: Being a librarian is annoying! You have to maintenance the library for years! On top of that those scrolls always get damaged by nature or I have to guard it from those greedy human! And not to mention it could corrupt people too! I lost count how many time I had to burn the scrolls because of it!
Her rants went on while Akyuu and Kosuzu just drink their tea in a bored face
Akyuu: Its look like she really hated her job wasn't it?…
Kosuzu: For once I thought she was a more dedicated librarian…
Mamizou: Well I could help you with that
Everyone was being surprised to see Mamizou standing in front of everyone with a smile
Akyuu: Never expected you of all people would come to help her
Mamizou: Her idea raised my interest. Still, I believed you had been trying to collect 1000 cranes back in Hakoniwa wasn't it?
Vạn Thư: Nothing happened no matter how much I collected. I wanted to try my luck again in Gensokyo.
While I couldn't cast my magic anymore I believed the Crane would automatically show up in a sacred location like Hakurei Shrine if I gathered all of the paper cranes in there since the legend said the Crane needed the faith from its believers and a lot of magical power
In the end the rally call from Mamizou reached to the Hakurei shrine
Reimu: Collecting 1000 paper cranes? No thanks.
Marisa: Well I'm gonna go an help her
Reimu: Time to setup a stall to sell ticket to the shrine for this event!
Marisa sweat dropped as Reimu showed her greedy personality again!
In the Hakurei Shrine everyone began to gather as they volunteered to help Vạn Thư collecting 1000 paper cranes. Meanwhile Nitori and other build up the stalls on Reimu idea to sell ticket and charms for the curious villagers
That night, the sky became bright as the villagers gathered in the shrine looked in awe. Everyone takes a deep breath and wait for a miracle as they all prayed and believed in the miracle of the Crane.
A majestic crane showed up in the sky horizon but it never opened its eye. Vạn Thư bowed down solemnly as she spoke.
Vạn Thư: I humbly welcomed the Legendary Crane, founder of the Great Library of Hakoniwa! Please grant me the ultimate knowledge from your great wisdom!
The crane tossed a piece of scroll down next to Vạn Thư. The Crane then flies away in a flash of bright light. It never showed up again.
Vạn Thư: GAAAHHHH!
Everyone shocked when she screamed in panic as she opened the scroll
Vạn Thư: WHY THE SCROLL IS COMPLETELY EMPTY!?
Everyone is shocked at the scroll as it had no word on top of it! Everyone looked at the scroll with the dumbfounded look.
On the next day however Kosuzu and Akyuu came to visit Vạn Thư in her room only to find her being depressed in the corner
Vạn Thư: I still failed… I still failed… I still failed… I still failed…
Kosuzu: Erm…I know how to read that scroll now…
Vạn Thư: Huh!?
Vạn Thư was being shocked for her word but then Kosuzu explained
Kosuzu: The scroll is being written in the language similar to Braille language, a language used for the blind people.
Vạn Thư began to rub the scroll with a closed eye as Kosuzu instructed her
Vạn Thư: I get it now. No wonder why the Crane never opened its eye even from the drawing of the ancient scroll. It was a blind crane!
Akyuu: A blind Crane?
Vạn Thư: Every record on Hakoniwa never mentioned about the exact appearance of the Legendary Crane so I had no idea it was a blind crane. Still, I think reaching enlightenment might have something to do with being blind.
Akyuu: (You are insane!)
Akyuu sweat dropped at her words
Kosuzu: Still, I think you are right about it since I had been writing down the content of the scroll since last night.
Everyone began to gather at Suzunaan as Kosuzu began to read it out loud
Kosuzu: Long ago in Hakoniwa, the Legendary Crane built the Great Library of Hakoniwa with its power to grant enlightenment to the humanity.
The Legendary Crane was also the king of 1000 mythical birds in Hakoniwa hence the belief of collecting 1000 paper cranes to summon it.
In order cast its magic upon the scrolls it used its gaze to enhance it and the cost of it was its own eye vision. Because its job was done it flies away and everyone began to believe that the crane will return if they collected 1000 paper cranes.
Yet the Great Library had been suffering a major magical drainage over centuries for constantly casting and creating scrolls through generations of librarians. War and other events caused the Library to suffer a major decline in its power.
This caused the legend to be forgotten as nobody could ever summon the cranes again over a thousand year due to the lack of strong epicenter of magical power. The lack of faiths for the Crane also hurt as the Crane could only descend if many people believed in its existence.
In Gensokyo however the magical power output was extremely powerful compared to Hakoniwa which was why the Legendary Crane returned instantly when we gathered the paper cranes at Hakurei Shrine.
Within this scroll it said the Crane realized the humanity couldn't reach enlightenment with the scrolls from the Library alone.
What they needed was life experience from themselves.
It was life experience that they could understand more than any books.
It was life experience that humanity could move on from the past.
It was life experience that they could adapt to every change in the history.
Life experience was the true enlightenment.
The Crane realized it had been enlightened by the human instead of giving enlightenment to the human.
This was why it never saw any need to guide the human as the human itself already understood what enlightenment truly was even if they never notice it.
Ironically the hermit librarians who inherited the Great Library now need its guidance more than the normal human.
Its last advice for Vạn Thư was to move on from her past and live a new life as a normal person, only then she could achieve the true enlightenment.
Everyone clapped their hand as Vạn Thư smiled in happiness for understanding the truth about everything.
To her she could understand how to find peace in Gensokyo, being a hermit forever wouldn't make her any more happy.
Since then she had been showing up to the public more often despite of her initial reluctant as she believed the Crane teaching told her to interact with other people more to understand about life. Eventually people knew about her real identity and she realized it wasn't that much annoying to meet strangers since they were mostly saying hi to her or bowed to show her some respect.
This made her slowly abandoned her past life as the hermit as she used to be afraid of a crowded place filled with strangers back in Hakoniwa for her lack of exposure to the normal people back then. (Even in her time working as a maid she mostly worked with the high ranking generals inside Sengi's circle and she didn't interact much with the normal people around the city)
At some weeks later Vạn Thư visited Suzunaan again with a new book with a very happy smile
Kosuzu: What would you write this time, Vạn Thư?
Vạn Thư: Enlightenment Through Experience
Both of them laughed and began to enter Suzunaan while the Sakura flower flied across the Suzunaan