Chapter 4 family

Hiyoshi's mother walked into the warehouse while thinking gloomily, "What should I do in the future?" Every time Hiji's mother went to the warehouse, her mood would get worse.Every time I come here, I come to pick up pickles, food, firewood, etc., but the food for living is often interrupted.There are only two children in the family, ten-year-old sister and seven-year-old Hiyoshi, both of whom are not old enough to work, and her husband, Yaemon, is a disabled person who has to sit by the stove even in summer.There was nothing to do but stare at the fire under the kettle.On the walls of the warehouse hung black spears, woven helmets, and battered old armor.

"It's better to burn these things as firewood, and it will make you feel better." She looked up at these things and thought. It was the combat uniform my husband used to wear when he was fighting, and now it is piled up in the corner of the warehouse covered with soot, just as useless as a disabled husband.Every time she saw these things, she would be filled with resentment and fear of war.She hoped that her husband would not train Hiyoshi to be a samurai.When she married Kinoshita Yaemon's family, she felt that if she married a man, she should marry a samurai.Although my mother's family in the imperial equipment store is small, it is also the family of samurai.Kinoshita Yaemon is an infantry soldier and a subordinate of the Oda family.The armor that is now buried in the soot of the warehouse was made when the two married and did not buy the furniture they wanted.The hope of the two for the future was gambled-getting Qianshi's salary.

This armor is a commemorative item between the couple.But the dream of that youth is not worth mentioning in the face of the current reality, or there is the pain of being cursed in his heart.The husband was injured on the battlefield without doing any meritorious service, and became a disabled person who could not stand up.The lowly infantrymen have been living in poverty for half a year since they were unable to serve the Lord, and they still have to be ordinary people.Now the husband can't even do common people's work.A woman with two children, picking mulberry, farming, treading wheat, struggling against years of poverty.However, after thinking about it, even she didn't know whether her body and perseverance could hold on, her weak heart was as cold as this dark warehouse.She took a little millet and dried radish and put them in the basket for dinner, and went out from here.Not yet 30 years old, because of the auspicious birthday, the root of the disease has fallen, and his face is always the color of a green peach.

"Mother!" It was Hiji's voice, and he seemed to be looking for himself around the house.She smiled slightly. Yes, I still have a glimmer of hope.That is Hiji.May he grow up to be an adult sooner, and hope that he will grow up to be a good son who can buy alcohol for his disabled father every day.Thinking of this, her mood suddenly improved a lot. "Riji, here it is, Mom is here." She replied loudly.Hiyoshi ran towards the sound and climbed onto the shoulders of his mother who was holding the bamboo basket. "Mom, today I saw someone my mother knew, by the river..."

"Who is it?" "It's a samurai. He said that as long as there is Kato from Tishu Mountain, my mother will know. Also, he said please take care, and he touched my head and talked to me." "Ah, it's correct." "He was with a great company of warriors returning from battle, and he was on a fine horse. Who is he?" "Didn't I just say that it's Tansho who lives in Yabuyama, Guangming Temple?" "Who is Danzheng?" "The one who is engaged to my sister in the Imperial Armory." "What is an engagement?"

"Oh, you're such a pest!" "I don't understand." "It will become a couple, my sister's future husband." "So it's like this, it's my aunt's son-in-law." Riji finally understood, and he grinned.The mother looked at his small white teeth and concave bucket, hoping that her child would be as lively and innocent as other children. "Mother, there is such a big knife in the warehouse." "Yes, what are you going to do?" "Give it to me, father won't need it anyway." "War game again?"

"is that OK." "no." "why?" "Children of ordinary people, what should I do if I get used to playing with knives?" "I want to be a samurai." Hiji stomped his little feet disobediently, and then closed his mouth tightly and said nothing.His mother stared at him, tears welling up in her eyes. "Idiot!" Mother reprimanded suddenly, she hastily wiped away her tears, took him with one hand and kept walking towards the door. "You also do something for my sister, fetch water or something." "Don't, don't!" Hiji struggled and shouted, trying hard to break free from his mother's hand, kicking his heels hard on the ground.But his mother held on to him.

"Don't, don't, mother is an idiot, I hate it the most!" At this moment, the sound of coughing like an old man floated out from the bamboo window together with the smoke from the stove.Hearing his father's voice, Hiji shrank his head and fell silent.His father, Yaemon, was only about forty years old, but he lived like a disabled person for many years, making his voice sound as hoarse as someone in his fifties. "If you cause me any more trouble, I'll find something for you to do." With that said, my mother let go of her hand.Hiji rubbed his eyes with his hands and cried silently.The mother looked at this coquettish and annoying child, and she also wanted to cry along with her.

"Naiga, Naiga, why are you yelling at Hiyoshi again? It's outrageous, why are you arguing with the child, why are you crying?" Yaemon's irritable voice unique to a patient came from the window. "Tell me about this naughty child too. Tell me now, now." After being reprimanded by Yaemon, the child's mother told her husband through the window what Hiyoshi did inappropriately.After finishing speaking, Yaemon giggled. "What did I say? It turned out that he just wanted to take my old knife from the warehouse." "That's the thing." "You want to play a war game?"

"That's not okay." "He's a boy, or my Yaemon's son, what's wrong? Take it out for him, take it out for him." "..." Naijia was speechless, her face was still facing the window, showing a bored expression, biting her lip, with tears in her eyes. Riji seemed to have won, with haughty eyes, as if to say "Look, how is it?" But it was only for a moment, and when he saw the tears on his mother's blue face, his arrogance immediately subsided. "Mother, don't cry, I don't want a knife, I'll fetch water for my sister." He said and walked towards the door immediately.The room was large, with the tread of the room with the fire on one side and the kitchen on the other.A girl just ten years old, standing with a cat on her waist, was using a bamboo pipe to blow the air to light a fire.

"Sister, is there any water?" Riji ran over and asked.Ah You opened his eyes wide in surprise, as if he was afraid of what he would do to him, and he was on tenterhooks. "Okay, okay." Ayou looked back, and Hiji was picking up the lid of the water tank and looking at it. "Oh, isn't this all full? How about I grind the sauce for you?" "I don't need you to help me, you are in the way here..." "You even said that I was in the way, and I wanted to do something. Let me do something, and I'll help you take out the pickles." "Just now, mother went to get it." "Then what am I doing?" "You, just be honest, and mother will be happy." "Am I being honest? How did you do it? Haven't you lit the fire yet? Let me do it, get out of the way, out of the way!" "No need for you!" "I told you to get out of the way." "Oh, if you do that, the fire will go out." "Lie, it was obviously you who destroyed it." "You lie, you lie, you..." "It's so noisy!" Riji messed up the missing firewood, got up and left, and slapped Ah You across the face. Ah You cried loudly and went inside to file a complaint.The room where Yaemon was staying was very close, and soon Hiyoshi heard the voice of his father making his legs go numb. "Okay, after beating my sister, men also beat women. Hiji, come here, come here." Under the shadow of the wall, Hiji swallowed his saliva and glared at Ayou who complained.The mother who came in later, still with a bored expression, stopped at the door of the room. The father is terrible, the most terrible thing in the world is the father. Hiyoshi looked up at Yaemon's face in fear and asked, "What's the matter?" Yaemon sat in front of the stove with his arms resting on the hemp box, and on the wall behind him stood a crutch for daily life.His body has reached the point where he cannot do without a cane even to go to the bathroom.Most of the time, he can only sit by the hemp box next to him, which is a kind of utensil for putting sackcloth.Yaemon, who is physically disabled, spins hemp when he is healthy in order to support his family. "Hiji!" "yes." "Don't always trouble your mother." "yes." "It's not good to be disrespectful to your sister. You are a man, how can you be more serious with a woman? It's not proper." "I didn't do anything... I didn't do anything!" "Shut up!" "I'm not deaf. I know what you did there, even if I'm sitting." Riji's heart trembled, and he believed in his father's words. In fact, Yaemon loves Hiyoshi very much.I was injured and disabled on the battlefield, and my hands and feet could no longer return to their previous state.He felt that through this child, his blood could be passed on.But Yaemon looked at Hiyoshi and felt complicated again.No matter how you look at it, this naughty boy with a peculiar appearance and a runny nose will not become a child who is more promising than his parents, or can help his parents to avenge their shame. The more he thinks about it, the more he thinks it is impossible.Ke Riji is the only male in the family.Yaemon imposed this unlikely expectation on Hiyoshi. "Do you want the knife in the warehouse? Hiji." "No." Hiji shook his head. "Don't you want it?" "I want to want to, but..." "Why not tell the truth?" "Because my mother said no." "That's because women don't like knives. Well, you wait." Yaemon sat back and rubbed his back, grabbed the crutches on the wall, and walked in with his limp. This house is different from the homes of poor people, with many rooms.It may also be because the relatives of Hiyoshi's mother also live together.Almost all of Yaemon's relatives are gone.Mother's relatives are still there, and there are several houses. "What did he do?" Instead of being scolded, Riji felt something was wrong. Soon Yaemon returned with a short waist sword.Unlike the knives that rusted in the corner of the warehouse, this one was in the bag. "Riji, this is yours. If you want it, you can come and get it anytime." "Huh? Mine?" "However, the current you are still far away. Don't carry this knife now, it will only make people laugh. Be the person who won't be laughed at if you carry this knife, you know? Hurry up Be that kind of person." "..." "This sword was made by your grandfather." Yaemon squinted and said intermittently. "Your grandfather used to be an ordinary citizen. He started from scratch. When he wanted to make a difference, he hired a swordsmith to make it. At that time, the Kinoshita family had a family tree, but it was burned in a fire. Your grandfather was also before the incident. Was attacked by the lord and died in battle." "..." "I used to see people like this when I was young, and I'm used to it in this troubled world." Yaemon whispered. At some point, a light was lit in the room next door, which was very bright because of the fire. Hiyoshi listened to his father while looking at the red flames.Yaemon continued talking regardless of whether Hiyoshi understood or not.Because these words can neither be said to his wife, nor to Ayou who is a girl. "...If the family tree of the Kinoshita family is still there, you may be able to understand it more easily. If the family tree is not burned... But we have a living family tree, this is it." Yaemon touched the blue blood vessels on his wrist, this family tree It is the blood that runs through the body. Hiji nodded.Then he grabbed his wrist and clearly saw that he also had blue blood vessels.There is no more authentic and living family tree than this. "Before your grandfather, although I don't know what kind of ancestors there were, but there are some great people among our ancestors for sure. There may be warriors, and there may be scholars. The blood of these people has been passed down, and you have inherited it from me. This blood." "...Yes!" Hiji nodded again. "However, I don't do much, and I'm even a useless person like now. So, Hiji, you must do something." Riji opened his eyes and asked, "A person who can do something? What kind of person is a person who can do something?" "That's not a rule... At least, if you become a samurai who concentrates on spearmanship, you can dignifiedly carry the relic of your grandfather—this short knife, even if I die, I will have no regrets." "..." Hiji seemed to be confused, and kept silent without speaking, with an unconfident expression on his face, avoiding his father's eyes. "I'm just a seven-year-old child, so it's still too reluctant." Seeing Hiyoshi's actions, Yaemon thought, "Maybe it's not a matter of blood, but it really depends on the situation?" He sighed in his heart. From just now, Hiji's mother prepared meals and stood in a corner waiting for her husband to finish speaking.Her thinking was the opposite of Yaemon's.She resented her husband for encouraging her children to become warriors and men of action.At the same time, she thought to herself: "It's impossible to say something impossible to such a child. Hiji, your father had regrets in his life, that's why he said something like that. Don't let you become like that. You are a dull person. Just live stupidly, work hard like ordinary people, and just farm.” She was full of prayers for the future of her children. "Okay, let's have dinner. Hiji and Ayou, come over." She centered on the children's father, and placed the bowls and chopsticks by the stove. "Have a meal." As in the past, Yaemon would look lonely every time he saw the bland barnyard porridge pot.This is the self-blame of being a father who wants to meet the needs of his wife and children but cannot, and it is a pain that others cannot understand. However, Riji and Ayou would drink a bowl of barnyard porridge very fragrantly, and their faces would turn red.They don't feel poor.Maybe it's because they don't know what a richer life is like. "I got some sauce from the owner of the porcelain shop in Xinchuan, and I also stocked some dried vegetables and chestnuts in the warehouse, so that Ayou and Hiji can eat more." The child's mother said this while worrying about her physically disabled husband. I want him not to worry about his family.She herself didn't move her chopsticks until her two children were full and her husband had finished eating. They went to bed shortly after supper.Most of the others are the same.Nakamura was pitch black at night.But in the dark night, on the road in the field, people's footsteps made frequent sounds.Such cases are also frequent when neighboring countries are at war.It is also because wild samurai, soldiers and horses, defeated people, and secret envoys, etc. all like to be active at night. "Woo, woo woo... woo woo." Riji was often haunted by nightmares.Perhaps it was the sound of footsteps heard in the dark night, perhaps it was the turmoil in the world, and Riji was terrified in his sleep.Sometimes at night he kicked Ayou who was sleeping next to him away, and Ayou was so frightened that he cried. Sometimes he yelled "Hachiman, Hachiman, Hachiman" and suddenly jumped up from the bed, woke up, calmed down, and was also dumbfounded. I don't know why I continue to be excited. "It's a convulsion, put some inflammation medicine on the back of his neck to treat it." Yaemon said. Riji's mother said: "I don't know how much medicine to put. Riji is a child, so you shouldn't show him a knife or tell him about your ancestors." It wasn't long before the family changed dramatically. In the following year—January 2, the twelfth year of Tianwen, Yaemon died of illness. It was the first time Hiyoshi met Shibai.Seeing his father's remains, he didn't cry, he was still running around and playing around during the funeral.After the one-year death anniversary, in September of the second year, when Riji was nine years old, in the fall, people gathered together again in this house, smashing rice cakes, drinking, and singing until late at night. "Hiyoshi, tonight's son-in-law is going to be your new father. He is a friend of your father Yaemon, and he is also a friend of Oda's family. You must be filial to this father. said one of the relatives. Hiji ate rice cakes and peeped inside.Unlike usual, my mother was wearing beautiful makeup and bowed her head side by side with an unknown uncle.After seeing it, Hiyoshi became very happy, and shouted "Hachiman, Hachiman, Sahua!" Hiji was noisier than anyone else that night.

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