Chapter 68 Chapter 10 Haruyuki

"so cold!" "The cold wind is blowing." "The nose is almost frozen." "It might snow tonight!" "It's already spring!" Breathing white smoke from their mouths, bearers on their way to Liumachang talked loudly. The three lanterns swayed, flickered on and off.The dark clouds over Mt. Hiei have spread to the sky over Luo Nei from evening to now.The dark night sky seemed to mean that terrible things were about to happen in the middle of the night. However, on the other side of the vast racecourse, the ground was brightly lit.It may be because there are not a single star in the sky, which makes the lights on the ground look extraordinarily brilliant like clusters of fireflies.

Guangyue, who was sitting in the middle sedan chair, turned her head and said: "Mr. Musashi!" "That's Liutiaoliu Town. Recently, the town has been called Sanjin Town because of the increase in population." "Oh! So it's there." "From the wide open space of the racecourse, it is also a kind of fun to look down at the lights of hundreds of houses in the town." "It's incredible!" "The Fireworks Brothel used to be in Erjo. Because it was too close to Ouchi, folk songs and slang songs could be heard standing next to the imperial garden in the middle of the night. Therefore, Mr. Itakura Katsushige moved it here. Less than three In 2009, the whole street became a brothel, and the number is still increasing!"

"So three years ago, here was still..." "That's right! At night, black crows were everywhere, and everyone lamented the harm caused by the flames of war. But now, all the fashions come from this downtown area. To put it a bit exaggeratedly, it's even a cultural phenomenon. birth..." Originally, Guangyue wanted to continue talking, but she turned her ears sideways to listen to distant voices. "Have you heard the string music singing in Huajie?" "Ah! I heard it." "It was adapted from the shamisen from Ryukyu. Some of the music is based on the shamisen and evolved into the current ballad. But some of them are adapted songs to form the so-called Ronda tune. It can be seen that all The songs are all originated from Fireworks Alley. These songs became popular among ordinary people after the prospering of brothels. Therefore, from a cultural point of view, the city has a deep relationship with Fireworks Alley. Although Fireworks Alley is some distance from the city, But it cannot be said that Fireworks Lane is a dirty place."

At this time, the sedan chair suddenly turned sharply, interrupting the conversation between Musashi and Guangyue. The fireworks alley in Ertiao is called Liuxiang; the fireworks alley in Liutiao is also called Liuxiang.I don't know when, "Flower Street and Willow Alley" has replaced the term "Firework Alley".The willow trees on both sides of the street are decorated with countless lights, which gradually come into Musashi's eyes. Guangyue and Huiwu Shaoyou are quite familiar with the brothels here.So when they got out of the sedan chair, the people in Hayashi House and Jibei's store immediately came to greet them:

"Mr. Funabashi is here!" "Mr. Shuiluo is here too!" Funabashi refers to living in Horikawa Funabashi, which is the name of Shaoyu's hometown.And Shuiluo is Guangyue's pseudonym when she comes here to play. Only Musashi has neither a fixed residence nor a pseudonym. Speaking of names, "Hayashiya and Jihei" is just a pseudonym of the host.The store name of the geisha house is called fan house.When it comes to the fan house, it reminds people of Taifu Yoshino, the first generation of Liutiaoliu Town.And when you mention Kikyo House, you will think of Mrs. Shi Juntai.

These two are the first-class brothels.The place where Guangyue, Shaoyu, and Musashi were sitting was Shanya. Musashi refrained from looking around as much as possible, but he couldn't help looking at the coffered ceilings, bridge railings, courtyards, sculptures, etc., as he passed the passage.He secretly exclaimed in his heart: "It's really a gorgeous brothel!" Musashi focused on the painting on the sliding door, but didn't realize that Guangyue and Shaoyu had disappeared.He stood in the corridor, not knowing where to go: "Ah! Where did they go?" "here!"

Guangyue waved to him. There are Yuanzhou-style rockery and white stone paving in the courtyard. The landscaping master probably designed such a scene based on Chibi as a blueprint.There are two large rooms next to the courtyard, with lights shining through, as if you are in a painting of the Beiyuan School. "so cold!" Shaoyou hunched his back and sat in the spacious room. Guangyue also sat down, pointed to the cushion in the middle and said: "Mr. Musashi, please sit down!" "Ah! No! Then—" Musashi sat down and did not accept it.Because it was the upper seat in front of the mural, Musashi was not being polite, but sitting in the upper seat like a general in this luxurious house would make Musashi feel uncomfortable.But everyone still thought he was being polite.

"Because you are a guest, you should take the seat..." Shaoyu also said: "Mr. Guangyue and I often meet, and we are already old friends. We are just acquainted with you, so you should take that seat." Musashi declined, saying: "No! I am the youngest, and I am truly ashamed to be in the position." At this time, Shaoyou suddenly said jokingly: "When you go to the brothel, no one will mention your age." After finishing speaking, he shook his thin shoulders and laughed. The woman with tea and snacks has come to the room and is waiting for them to be seated.Finally, Guangyue smoothed things over and walked to the mural:

"Then, let me take this seat!" Musashi was relieved to sit next to Guangyue, but he felt that it was not worth it to spend important time on giving up his seat. In the corner of the next room, two maids sat affectionately by the fire. "what is this?" "Little bird." "what about this?" "rabbit." "what about this?" "A person wearing a bamboo hat." They were playing shadow games against the screen. You can make tea on the stove, and when the water boils, the steam from the spout will make the room much warmer.At some point, the number of people in the next room increased, and the smell of alcohol and the popularity made people forget the cold outside.

No, it should be said that the blood of the people in the room is mixed with the smell of alcohol, which makes the room feel particularly warm. "Me! My son and I often have disagreements, but we both believe that there is nothing better than wine in the world. Some people say that wine is not a good thing, like poisonous water. But I don't think it has anything to do with wine. Wine itself is good , People who drink are bad. We are used to blaming others for everything. This is a common problem of human beings. It is really unfair to alcohol." Among the three, the loudest one was Huiwu Shaoyou, the thinnest.

Musashi only drank one or two cups, then politely refused to drink any more.The old man Shaoyou began to publish his drinking theory. His drinking is not a "new theory".Mrs. Tang Qin, Mrs. Moju, Mrs. Little Bodhisattva, and even the waitresses serving wine and dishes would say: "Master Funabashi is starting again!" Not only that, they also pouted their mouths, laughing at him repeating the same old tune. However, Funabashi Shoyu didn't care at all, and continued: "If wine is not a good thing, then the gods must not like it. However, the gods like wine more than the devil. Today's wine is not a pure thing. It is said that in the era before Emperor Jimmu, pure girls must be used. You can make wine by biting rice with your teeth, so the wine at that time was a clean thing.” Someone said: "Oh! It's so dirty!" "What's so dirty?" "Isn't it dirty to make wine by biting rice with your teeth?" "Idiots! If you use your teeth to grind rice, it must be very dirty, and no one would dare to drink it. Therefore, you have to use virgin teeth to grind it so that it is as pure as a bud in early spring. Put the ground rice into an urn Brewing wine in the middle of the earth is like a flower spitting honey... I really want to be intoxicated in this wine fragrance!" Funabashi seemed to be drunk, he suddenly hugged the neck of the maid next to him, and put his face to her cheek. The maid exclaimed: "Ah, no!" The maids ran away. Funabashi smiled, turned his eyes to the right, took Mrs. Mojuta's hand on his lap, and said: "Haha! My wife, don't be angry—" It didn't matter, he insisted on sticking cheek to cheek, and wanted the two of them to share a glass of wine.After a while, he leaned on the maid as if no one else was there. Guangyue sometimes drank, sometimes joked with the maids and Shaoyou, and sometimes played games quietly.Only Musashi was always incompatible with this atmosphere.It wasn't that he was pretending to be serious, it might be that the maid was afraid of him and didn't dare to approach him. Guangyue didn't force it, but Shaoyu sometimes thought of Musashi, so he persuaded him to drink: "Mr. Musashi, have a drink!" Or, sometimes thinking that Musashi's wine is getting cold, I persuade: "Mr. Musashi, don't drink that glass of wine, change it to a hot one!" In this way, after repeated many times, the words became more and more rude. "Little Bodhisattva husband, respect this child. Child! Have a drink!" "I'm drinking." Musashi only spoke when answering questions. "The cup has been doing nothing! It's really shameless!" "I don't drink well." He deliberately sarcastic: "The bad thing is swordsmanship!" After hearing this, Musashi laughed it off: "Maybe!" "Drinking alcohol will hinder the practice; drinking alcohol will disturb the daily self-cultivation; drinking alcohol will make the will weak; drinking alcohol will make people useless. If you think so, then you will not be successful." "I don't think so, it's just something that's bothering me." "What are you worried about?" "I'm sleepy when I drink." "If you want to sleep, you can sleep here, and you can sleep there! This is no reason." "Teacher!" Shaoyou said to Master Moju: "The kid is worried that he will fall asleep if he drinks too much. But I still want to let him have a good drink, and if he wants to sleep, let him spend the night here!" Taifu pouted and smiled and replied: "understood." "Can he stay here overnight?" "no problem." "But who will serve him? Mr. Koetsu, who is more suitable? Mr. Musashi, which one do you like?" "This..." "Teacher Mo Ju is my wife. Mr. Guangyue will feel sorry for the little Bodhisattva Mrs. Tang. Mrs. Tang Qin... can't do it either, she doesn't serve her well." "Mr. Funabashi, how about Taifu Yoshino?" "It's her!" Shaoyou happily patted his knees and continued: "No guest is dissatisfied with Taifu Yoshino's service...but I haven't seen Taifu Yoshino yet! Tell her to come and show this child!" At this moment, Mrs. Mo Ju said: "She is different from us. Many guests name her and may not be able to come immediately." "No! No! As long as you say I'm here, she will definitely come over immediately, whoever calls her!" Shaoyou stretched his neck and called out to the maids playing by the fire in the next room: "Is Lingmi there?" "I am here." "Reiya, come here. You are Taifu Yoshino's maid, why didn't you bring Taifu here? Go tell Yoshino that it's rude to make Mr. Funabashi wait here. Go and bring Yoshino here Come—I'll reward you if you bring her here." Lingmi is only eleven or twelve years old, but she is already slim, with bright eyes, and she will definitely be Yoshino's second generation in the future. She seemed to understand what Shaoyou said.So Shaoyou asked: "Understood? No problem?" "understood." She blinked those round eyes, nodded, and walked out of the room into the corridor. After closing the paper door behind her, Ling Mi, who was standing in the corridor, suddenly clapped her hands and shouted: "Sister Cai, Sister Zhushui, and Sister Xizhizhu come out quickly!" The maids in the room asked in unison: "What's up?" The maids left the room, stood in the corridor, clapped their hands with Ling Mi and shouted: "what!" "Wow!" "so beautiful!" The people who were drinking in the room felt envious when they heard the cheers outside, and wanted to ask what happened.Finally, Shaoyu asked: "What happened? Open the door and see!" "Let me drive!" The maid opened the paper door. As soon as the door opened, everyone agreed: "Ah! It's snowing!" Guangyue saw the white smoke she exhaled, so she said: "It must be cold..." Musashi also looked outside: "Oh!" In spring, there is rare peony snow.The snow fell to the ground with a crackling sound.White snow fell in the darkness, like white and black striped cloth, and the four maids were looking at the snow outside. Taifu scolded: "Stand aside!" But no one paid attention. "great!" The maids completely forgot about the existence of the guests, as if they met a lover by accident, they stared at the snow scene with fascination. "Will it snow?" "Probably will!" "By tomorrow morning, I don't know what will happen?" "Dongshan will be completely white!" "Where's Toji?" "The white tower of Toji Temple must also be white." "Where is the Golden Pavilion?" "The same goes for the Golden Pavilion." "Where's the crow?" "So do crows." "Nonsense!" Someone hit someone with a sleeve, so that a maid fell from the corridor. Normally, if this happened, the one who fell would cry and make a fuss.But today it was unexpected. The maid who fell was covered in snow, but she was very happy.After standing up, I went further outside and sang loudly: She raised her head, waved her sleeves as if she was about to open her mouth to catch snow, and danced with her hands and feet. That maid is Lingmi. The people in the room were afraid that she would slip and get hurt, but seeing her alive and kicking, they could only smile and say: "OK OK!" "Come up! Come up!" Lingmi has already completely forgotten what Shaoyu told her to bring about Taifu Yoshino.Because her feet were already dirty and wet, the other maids had no choice but to carry her away as if they were holding a baby. Among the maids, some didn't want to spoil Mr. Funabashi's interest, so they cleverly searched for Mrs. Yoshino's situation, and then returned to the original place to report to Shaoyu in a low voice: "She said she already knew." Shaoyou had already forgotten about it, and asked in bewilderment: "Know?" "Yes. About Taifu Yoshino!" "Well! Will she come?" "She will come. She says she will come anyway, but..." "I will come, but...but what?" "Because a guest has just arrived, so I can't come right away, please forgive me." "People who don't know!" Shaoyou became in a bad mood and cursed: "If it's another Taifu who said that, I can still understand. I didn't expect Taifu Yoshino of Ogi House to flatly reject guests, and Yoshino has gradually become a person who wants to be bought with money!" "Ah! That's not the case. That guest is very stubborn. If the Taifu says he wants to leave, the more he will not let the Taifu leave." "Every customer who spends money has this mentality. Who is that uneasy and kind customer?" "It's Mr. Han Yan." "Mr. Han Yan?" Shaoyou smiled wryly and looked at Guangyue.Guangyue also asked with a wry smile: "Is Mr. Han Yan the only one?" "no." "Did the person who came with him come every time?" "yes." Shaoyou patted his knee and said: "Ah! It's very interesting! The snow is falling well and the wine is mellow. It will be even more perfect to see Taifu Yoshino again. Mr. Guangyue, please send someone! Hey! Someone bring the pen and inkstone case." The woman brought the pen and inkstone box in front of Guangyue, and covered it with paper. "What to write?" "Whether it's poetry... or articles... poetry is fine, because the other party is a singer today!" "It's so difficult... Do you want to write a song that brings Taifu Yoshino here?" "That's right, that's exactly it!" "If it's not a famous song, you can't express your ideas; if it's a famous song, you can't recite it immediately. Please write a song!" "Do you want to shirk... How troublesome! Write it like this!" Shaoyou wrote: After Guangyue saw it, she also started to chant: "I'll pick up the second half!" Shaoyou glanced at it and exclaimed happily: "Good! Good! How can the flowers of the high mountains be afraid of the cold clouds... Ah! Well written, the people on the clouds will be annoyed!" So Shaoyou folded the poem, handed it to Mrs. Mo Ju, and said solemnly: "The maids are not enough, so I have to ask my husband to go to Mr. Han Yan." Mr. Hanyan is the anonymous name of Karasuma Mitsuhiro, the son of former Dainagon.The people who often come with him are probably Mihisa Tokudaiji, Tadacho Hanayamain, Yorikuni Oyaki Gomon, Masakage Torii and others! Not long after, Mrs. Mo Ju came back, and she respectfully brought the letter box in front of Shaoyou and Guangyue: "This is Mr. Han Yan's reply." Shaoyu wrote the letter in a joking mood, but the reply was carefully packed in the letter box. Shaoyou took a look, smiled wryly and said: "How cautious!" Then looking at Guangyue: "They must not have thought that we would come here too, so they were shocked!" With the mood of a game, I opened the letter box and spread out the reply letter, but it was a blank sheet of paper with nothing written on it. "what?" Shaoyou thought there were other letter papers, so he checked whether the reply letter fell before his own, and searched the letter box again.But there was nothing but the blank sheet of paper. "Master Mo Ju!" "what!" "what is this!" "I don't know what's going on! He just said, send this reply! This is the reply letter that Mr. Han Yan gave me!" "He sees us as idiots... Or is it a famous song that he wrote, he can't answer right away, and this blank paper is a letter of surrender representing apology?" No matter what he encounters, he will justify himself, this is Shaoyou's nature.However, this time he lacked self-confidence, so he could only show the letter to Guangyue: "What is the meaning of this letter?" "It should be for us to read its meaning!" "I haven't written anything, how can I read it?" "Look at it, there is no reason why you can't understand it." "Then, Lord Guangyue, how do you read this?" "Snow...the entire surface of snow!" "Yeah! Snow White! That's how it is!" "We wrote in the letter that we hoped that he would move the Yoshino flowers here, so he didn't think we should appreciate the flowers when drinking. In short, the letter asked us to enjoy the snow, not to be too sentimental. Open the paper door, enjoy the snow and drink wine, too. A treat. I guess that's what the reply letter is about." "Oh! This kid actually did this." Shaoyou felt very annoyed. "We can't drink cold wine like this. If the other party really wants this, how can we keep silent? Think of a way, we must let Taifu Yoshino come over." The old man Shaoyou jumped up and licked his dry lips.He is several years older than Guangyue, but he is still so stubborn. He must have been a bad guy when he was young. Guangyue persuaded him to stay calm, but Shaoyou asked the maid to bring Taifu Yoshino no matter what.In the end, it turned out that it was not the real purpose of calling Taifu Yoshino, but to improve the drinking.Therefore, the maids were laughing and fighting, and the excitement in the seats just reflected the continuous heavy snow outside. At this time, Musashi quietly stood up. Since he picked the right time, no one noticed that he was no longer in the seat.