Chapter 35 second quarter

The next night, I went out of the house with my dad.I only wore a jacket over the sweater and a scarf, but Dad was wearing a thick coat.There are two sweaters under the down jacket, and two long johns under the trousers.Just looking at his back, he looks like a sumo wrestler. We came to the Hosokawa house in 2-chome.This is where the men in charge of the patrol are assembled tonight. "Yeah, you've worked hard. Oh? You still have your son." Uncle Hosokawa, who looks like a civet cat, came out to greet us with a smile.There was a kotatsu in the middle of his narrow living room, and the pharmacy owner and the rice store owner were sitting there drinking, and the two of them would also be patrolling tonight.

"Oh, Mr. Kobayashi, come here. How about a drink first?" The pharmacy owner invited Dad. The father, who couldn't walk when he saw alcohol, immediately put on a face. "Oh, thank you very much." While speaking, he got into the kotatsu and asked for wine to be refilled. Is it really okay to patrol at night?I started to worry. According to them, it was Uncle Hosokawa who suggested patrolling at night.This incident surprised my mother.Because Uncle Hosokawa has always disliked interacting with his neighbors.Everyone doesn't know what he does, anyway, the reputation is not very good.

Night patrols start at eleven o'clock.When patrolling, they shouted "be careful of the candle", and then knocked on the wood twice.Just like that, walk around the street. "I don't know if it will appear? The arsonist." The pharmacy owner said with his hands in his trouser pockets. "I don't want him to show up when we are patrolling." The owner of the rice shop replied. "But if we can catch him, we'll do a great job," said Pa. The pharmacy owner and rice store owner shook their heads hastily after hearing this. "Impossible! How could we catch it..."

"I'll leave it all to you Xiaolin and his son. Hehehe." I listened from the sidelines, thinking, there's no point in patrolling like this.At this time, I put my hand into my trouser pocket and remembered a troublesome thing.The zero-mark test paper handed out yesterday is still in my pocket.If my mother finds out about this thing, she might beat me to death.So at the end of the first round of patrolling, I crumpled up the test paper and threw it into the trash can at Uncle Hosokawa's house.This can be regarded as evidence of destruction. The night patrol was supposed to be every two hours, but after two o'clock in the morning, I was really sleepy.I'm still a child, so I don't mind being sleepy, but even my father and the others started to feel drowsy, which surprised me.Well, it's only natural that he went back to the house and started drinking after the patrol ended.

I seem to have fallen asleep just like that, and I don’t have any memory of what happened afterwards. I only vaguely remember that my father’s snoring was very loud, and I smelled a strange smell.Where did I smell that smell recently, I thought so, and fell asleep again.I woke up again because there was a lot of movement around me. "Long Tai, get up quickly! It's on fire!" Dad was yelling from the side. I immediately jumped up. "Huh? Where? Is there a fire?" "here!" "Ah?" I came back to my senses, and there was indeed a burnt smell around me.I looked at the window, the red flames were dancing wildly.Upon closer inspection, even the walls were burned. "Wow!"

At this time, the other adults finally woke up.The owner of the pharmacy is still saying something about "it's so hot".We pushed away those confused adults and fled out in a hurry.After leaving the room, we ran barefoot to the entrance.I turned the lock and turned the handle. "Ok?" "What's wrong?" "The door won't open. It won't move at all." "What? Get out of the way." I made room for my dad to try to push the door, but it still couldn't be opened at all. "Damn, what's going on!" Sweat began to seep from Dad's temples.It wasn't because he was overdressed, but the air around him was really starting to heat up.

"What's the matter? Why don't you open the door?" Uncle Hosokawa rushed over with a grim expression.The owner of the pharmacy and the rice store followed behind him, looking like they were about to cry. "The door lock has been turned, but the door just won't open!" "Ah?" the pharmacy owner called. "How is it possible?" This time it was the owner of the rice shop. "Okay, then let's knock on the door together." Uncle Hosokawa said. So we huddled together and slammed into the door with a run-up.The door flew open. But there seemed to be something blocked outside, and the door was not fully opened.There is no way, we can only escape from the gap opened by the collision.When I came out, I saw five cement blocks piled up outside the door.Because we bumped into it just now, the position of the cement block is a bit crooked, and it is estimated that it has been close to the door before.So if it's just a slight push, the door won't move at all.

"It's too much! Who did this!" I stared fiercely at the cement block.And Dad took my arm. "Stupid! Why are you still dawdling, stay away quickly." As things became like this, people nearby came out one after another.The fire intensified and surrounded Hosokawa's house.Walls and pillars began to burn violently, billowing with smoke. It was the first time I saw a real fire. Although I felt sorry for Uncle Hosokawa, I was really excited.I even thought it would be fun to burn them all. What is Uncle Hosokawa doing at the moment?He just stood on the side of the road stupidly, looking blankly at his burning house.He must have been hit too hard, and his mind went blank.Thinking about it this way, I feel that he is really pitiful.

After a while, the fire truck arrived, and the firefighters put out the fire handsomely.The water sprayed out of the pipe is really powerful!The firefighters with strong physique seemed to have some difficulty holding the water hose.Although the fire was eventually extinguished, there was not much left of the house.The firefighters also seemed to have abandoned Uncle Hosokawa's house halfway, and instead prevented the fire from spreading to the surroundings. "Finally there was a big fire." An old lady who lived nearby next to me said to herself.