Chapter 106 Chapter 16 Night Watch Boy

There is a poor village about one mile away from Xingde Village in Xiazong Country.No, it's too sparsely populated to be called a village.Because this is a wilderness with reeds and weeds growing everywhere, the people in the village call it "the original of the code". At this time, a traveler came from the direction of Hitachi Road.Ever since Soma's shogun persecuted and looted Bando arbitrarily, the roads and bushes in this area have never changed, and the color of depression has remained unchanged. "strangeness?" The man stopped and stood at the intersection of the deserted roads.

The autumn sun is slanting on the field, and it is about to set in the west.The stagnant water on the field reflected the setting sun, glowing red.It was getting darker around the feet, and the colors of the vegetation were constantly changing. Musashi began to look for the lights of the house. I slept in the wild last night, and slept on a mountain rock the night before. After encountering heavy rain in the mountains around Tochigi Prefecture four or five days ago, my body was a little sluggish.Musashi never had a cold, but he subconsciously felt that if he slept in the open again tonight, it would be bad.Even a dilapidated thatched hut would do, but Musashi longed for lights and warm meals.

"It seems to smell like tide water... It seems that you can find a stream after walking four or five miles... By the way, let's go along the tidal wind!" He is walking on wild roads. However, his intuition is not sure whether it is correct.If I didn't see the sea, and didn't find the lights of my house, I would have to sleep in the autumn grass again tonight. After the red sun goes down, you should be able to see a big round moon tonight!The ground was full of insects chirping, and the ears were numb.And the moths on the road seemed to be woken up by the sound of Musashi's footsteps in this silent evening, and they kept flapping at Musashi's trousers and the back of his sword.

Musashi thought that if he was an elegant person, he would be able to appreciate this evening trip, but he asked himself: "Are you happy?" And he can only ask and answer for himself: "No." In his heart— Miss the crowd. craving for food. Tired of being alone. The body is exhausted from practicing. Originally, he did not satisfy these needs.Because he walked all this way with bitter introspection.He came to Edo from Kiso's Nakasendo to seek his ambition.But within a few days of arriving in Edo, I decided to rush to Mutsu again. In other words, it has been about a year and a half since he made up his mind.Finally came to Edo, but decided to leave after only staying for a few days.

Why did Musashi leave Edo?In a hurry to get to Mutsu?That's because he was going after Ishimota Geiki, a family member of the Sendai family whom he had met at the inn in Suwa.The purpose is to return the large sum of money in the backpack that he didn't know about to Ge Ji.Accepting this kind of material favor is a great mental burden for Musashi. "If you can work at Sendai's house..." Musashi also has his pride. Even when you are exhausted from cultivation, hungry, sleeping in the wild, when you have nowhere to go—— "I……" When he thought of this, a smile appeared on his face.Because even if Yi Dagong recruited him with a salary of more than 600,000 shi, he could not satisfy his great ambition.

"what?" Suddenly there was a clear sound of water at his feet.Musashi stood on the head of an earthen bridge. He stopped and stared at the small river under the bridge. There was a splashing sound in the water.The clouds in the sky only reflected the red light of the setting sun, and the water beach of the small waterfall in the river was already very dark. Standing on the earthen bridge, Musashi stared at the water. "It's an otter!" He immediately saw that it was a local kid.Although he was a child, his face was similar to that of an otter.The child looked at the people on the bridge with strange eyes from below.

Musashi spoke to him.He wanted to talk to the child as soon as he saw him, for no particular reason. "Little brother, what are you doing?" The child only replied to him: "loach." After speaking, he took the small net and stretched it into the river, shaking it in the rustle. "You're catching loach!" Although this kind of dialogue is meaningless, it is very intimate in the wilderness. "Can you catch a lot?" "It's already autumn, and I can't catch many." "Can you share some with me?" "Giving you the loach?"

"Give it to me in this handkerchief, and I'll pay you." "Although you want it very much, today's loach is for my father, not for you." The child climbed up from the water beach of the river with the sieve net in his arms, and disappeared like a squirrel in the autumn field. "You run so fast!" Musashi stayed where he was, with a wry smile on his face. He remembered that he and his friend Matahachi had such a childhood. "The first time I saw Jotaro, he happened to be about the same age as this kid!" After breaking up with Jotaro, where is he now?

It has been nearly three years since Musashi lost contact with Atong and the others.Jotaro was fourteen years old at that time, and fifteen years old last year. "Ah! He is also sixteen years old." Jotaro doesn't dislike himself for being so poor, he still calls himself Master, and loves and respects Master wholeheartedly.But ask yourself, what did you give him?Just sandwich him between himself and Atong, let him taste the hard work of the journey! Musashi stood still in the field. What happened to Jotaro, what happened to Atong, and all kinds of memories in the past made Musashi temporarily forget his exhaustion and walked for a while.But now he finds that he doesn't know how to go anymore.

The round autumn moon hangs high in the sky, and the sound of insects is everywhere. Atong must like to play the flute on such a moonlit night... Now, the sound of insects sounds like Atong and Jotaro whispering. "There are people there." When Musashi saw the lights, he couldn't help but quicken his pace and walked towards the lights. When I got closer, I saw that it was a single-family house, some of the pillars were tilted, and there was a towering Hagi tree behind the house.And what looked like big dewdrops turned out to be morning glory crawling on the wall. As he approached, he heard heavy breathing.It turned out to be from an unsaddled horse tied outside the door.The people in the house seemed to have noticed someone from the movement of the horse, and asked loudly from the brightly lit house:

"who is it?" It turned out that he didn't want to give the loach to his own children just now.Musashi felt that it was fate, so he smiled. "Can I stay overnight? I'll leave at dawn." The child immediately changed his attitude when he heard it, looked at Musashi's face carefully, then nodded and said, "Yes." The house is dilapidated and dilapidated. If it rains, I don't know what will happen to this house.Because it was so dilapidated that even the moonlight slanted in from the roof and walls. There is nowhere to hang the clothes that have been taken off.Although the bed is covered with mats, the wind will still blow in from under the bed. "Uncle, just now you said you want loach, do you like loach?" the child asked timidly. "..." Musashi forgot to answer and just looked at him. "What are you looking at?" "how old are you?" "what?" The child looked puzzled. "Are you asking my age?" "Ok." "Twelve years old." "..." Musashi stared at him stunned.I thought to myself that among the natives, there are still young children with a radiant face. The child's face was dirty, like a lotus root that hadn't been washed.Hair is disheveled like weeds and stinks like bird droppings.But he is quite thick, and his sharp eyes are exposed in the dirt all over his face, which is admirable. "There is still some millet rice at home. The loach has been served to my father. If you want to eat, I will go get it." "That's too much trouble for you." "You have to drink soup too!" "Yes, and soup." "please wait." The child snapped open the wooden door and went into the next room. Then came the sound of chopping firewood and fanning the fire, and the house was instantly filled with smoke, rushing to the ceiling and walls, and countless insects were smoked and fled outside the house. "Okay, it's cooked." Children naturally place food on wooden beds.There are salted loach, black noodle sauce and small rice. "tasty." Musashi ate happily.Children also feel very happy. "Is it tasty?" "I want to thank you, is the owner already asleep?" "No, I haven't slept yet." "Where?" "it's here." The child pointed to his nose and said: "There is no one else." Musashi asked him how he made a living. He said that he used to farm some fields, but since his father fell ill, he stopped farming and relied on himself as a groom to make money. "Ah! The lamp oil is gone, uncle, you should rest too!" Although the lights had been turned off, the moonlight illuminated the room brightly, and there was no inconvenience.Musashi was covered with a thin straw mat and a wooden pillow, leaning against the wall to sleep. When I was about to fall asleep, the wind and cold in my body may not have disappeared, and my whole body was breaking out in cold sweat. Musashi seemed to hear the sound of rain in his dream. The chirping of night insects makes people sleep more deeply.If that sound hadn't been for the sharpening of a knife, Musashi might have felt that it was dawn. "what?" He got up suddenly. Swish, swipe—even the pillars of the hut vibrated slightly. From the room next door across the wooden door, came the sound of sharpening a knife. Musashi immediately grasped the broadsword under the pillow.The child's voice came from the next room. "Uncle, are you still asleep?" Why would he know he woke up in the next room? Musashi was amazed by the child's keenness, so he didn't answer his question, but instead asked: "How do you sharpen your knife in the middle of the night?" After hearing this, the child smiled and said: "So uncle couldn't sleep because of this matter? I think you may be a strong outsider!" Musashi was silent. He was struck by his childish airs and grown-up utterances. Swipe...the kid started sharpening the knife again.Musashi couldn't help being puzzled by the boy's aggressive tone and the strength with which he sharpened the knife. Musashi peeped through the wooden door to the small bedroom next door.The room inside is connected to the kitchen, about three pings in size, covered with straw mats. The bright moonlight shines in through the window.Under the moonlight, the child prepared a bucket and held a one-foot-five-six-inch Ono knife in his hand, sharpening it intently. "What are you going to chop?" Musashi's voice came through the crack of the door, and the child turned around following the sound, sharpening his knife desperately without saying a word. Finally, the knife had been sharpened to glisten by him, and he wiped off the remaining water stains on the knife. "Uncle!" The child looks at the blade. "Uncle, can you cut a person in half with this knife?" "Well, it depends on each person's sword technique!" "When it comes to knife skills, I have two skills!" "Who are you going to kill?" "My father." "what?" Musashi was startled, and immediately pushed open the wooden door. "Little brother, are you kidding me!" "Who's kidding?" "Kill your father? ... If you are serious, then you are not human. Although you live in a house in the wilderness and grow up like a wild mouse or a wolf, you should also know that your parents are kind... ...Even animals have the instinct to feed back, but you sharpen your knife to kill your father." "You're right, but if I don't chop him up, I won't move him at all." "Where are you taking it?" "The cemetery on the hill." "what?" Musashi glanced at the corner of the wall following the child's eyes.From just now, he felt that the corner of the wall was a bit strange, but he never expected that it would be a corpse.Upon closer inspection, the corpse was resting on a wooden sleeper, covered with dirty peasant clothes, and there was a bowl of rice and water next to it.There is also a wooden tray containing the loach that was just distributed to Musashi.It seems that loach must have been the dead man's favorite food during his lifetime.Once his father died, what did the boy think of his father's favorite thing? ——Although the Mid-Autumn Festival has passed, I am still desperately catching loach in the small river. I asked him without knowing it. "Can you share some loach with me?" Musashi was very ashamed of his careless words.At the same time, he saw that the child couldn't carry his father's body to the cemetery, so he thought of cutting the body into two parts so that he could move it for burial.This kind of fortitude made Musashi speechless, and he looked at the boy's face quietly. "When did your father die?" "This morning." "Is the cemetery far from here?" "On the hill half a mile away." "You can ask someone to send it to the temple!" "I have no money!" "Let me help you pay!" The child just shook his head. "Father hated accepting other people's things the most during his lifetime, and he didn't even like temples. So I can't accept your money." Every word and every sentence reveals the backbone of this young man. Looking closely at his father's body, one can guess that he is not an ordinary farmer, but a descendant with a long history. According to the child's wishes, Musashi only contributed to help transport the corpse to the cemetery on the mountain. It is very simple to move this corpse, just put him on horseback and transport it to the mountain.When encountering a steep mountain road, Musashi carried the corpse on his back. Although it is called a cemetery, it is nothing more than a round stone set under a large chestnut tree. After burying the corpse, the child held flowers and joined hands to worship. "My grandfather, grandmother and mother are all buried here." What kind of fate is this! Musashi also prayed for blessings together. "This tombstone is still quite new. It seems that your family has only settled in this area since your grandfather's generation!" "I heard so." "And before that?" "I heard that he was a samurai of the Mogami family. However, when he fled after a defeat, all the family trees were burned." "Looking at your illustrious family background, at least your grandfather's name should be engraved on the tombstone, but there is no family crest and year name." "Before he died, my grandfather told me not to engrave any words on the tombstone. Although both the Gamo family and the Date family had recruited my grandfather at that time, my grandfather was unwilling to serve the two masters at the same time. Later, my grandfather told me before he died that if he engraved himself on the tombstone The name of the previous owner will be ashamed, and you have become a farmer, so there is no need to engrave the family crest." "Do you know your grandfather's name?" "I heard that the name is Misawa Iori, but my father said that we are ordinary people, and we can only be called Sanemon." "What about you?" "Sannosuke." "Is there any relatives?" "I have a sister, but it's far away." "Is that all?" "Ok!" "How do you plan to live now?" "Still be a groom!" Immediately after finishing speaking, he continued: "Uncle, you are a chivalrous man. You travel around all year round, can you please take me with you? You ride my horse wherever you go." "..." Musashi had been staring at the gradually brightening wilderness since just now.He thought to himself, why are people so poor when they live in such a fertile land? The river water of Otane River mixed with the tide water of the Shimoso coast made the Bando Plain several times vicissitudes.Thousands of years later, Mt. Fuji's volcanic ash covered the place.After centuries of weathering, weeds and vines grew, and the forces of nature triumphed over man. When human beings can freely use natural resources such as water and soil, culture will emerge.On the Bando Plain, however, human beings still succumb to the power of nature, and their intelligent eyes can only gaze at the magnificence of this world. The sun is rising high, and in the field, little wild animals are running around, and birds are jumping on the branches.In the uncultivated world, birds and beasts can enjoy everything in nature more than humans, and can enjoy it more. Children are children after all. As soon as his father was buried, he had already forgotten about his father on the way home.No, it was impossible to forget, but the sun rising from the dew in the wilderness moved him to forget his sorrow. "Uncle, is it okay? From today on, no matter where you go, you will take me with you. You can ride my horse at any time." They came down from the cemetery on the mountain and were on their way home. Sannosuke treated Musashi as a guest and let him ride on the horse, while he himself was the groom holding the reins. "Ok……" Although Musashi nodded, he did not answer clearly. In the bottom of his heart, he did have some expectations for this child. However, thinking of oneself as a vagabond, one must first consider oneself.In the end, whether he can make the boy happy or not, he must weigh his future responsibilities. Before this, there was already an example of Jotaro.Although Jotaro is a good-quality kid, but because he wandered around the world and was entangled in trivial matters, now Jotaro is not by his side, and even does not know where he is going. If anything happens to him... Musashi often blamed himself for this.However, if you always worry about these results, you may not be able to take a step forward in life.Because people can't predict their own next moment, let alone a son of man, a young boy who is growing up, who can guarantee his future?If you uphold such a weak will and hesitate, it is even worse. If you just think about it according to his natural temperament and guide him to develop in a good direction... Musashi thought it was doable.So he told himself it was okay. "Okay? Uncle, don't you like me?" Sannosuke kept asking. Musashi replied: "Sannosuke, will you be a groom or a samurai in your life?" "Of course I want to be a warrior!" "As my disciple, can you suffer any hardship with me?" Sannosuke dropped the rein suddenly.Just wondering what he was going to do, he was already kneeling on the dewy grass, bowing to Musashi from under the horse's face. "Please make me a samurai. My father had always hoped for this before he died. But, until today, we have not met anyone we can trust." Musashi dismounted. Looking around, he picked up a dead wood and asked Sannosuke to hold it, and he also took a branch of a moderate size. "I can't agree to accept you as my apprentice yet. Now you are fighting with me with that stick. I will decide whether you can become a warrior after seeing your technique." "If I can beat Uncle, you promise to help me become a warrior?" "Can you hit me?" Musashi smiled slightly, holding a branch and posing. Sannosuke stood up holding the branch, and suddenly rushed towards Musashi.Musashi was not sloppy, Sannosuke staggered a few times, was hit on the shoulder, head, and hand. You are about to cry! Although Musashi thought so, Sannosuke didn't let go at all.In the end the branch broke, and he simply slammed into Musashi's waist. "You stupid." Musashi cursed loudly on purpose, and grabbed his belt, throwing him to the ground. "I'm not afraid." Sannosuke jumped up and rushed over again.Musashi grabbed his collar again and lifted him high in midair. "How? Surrender!" Sannosuke was dizzy and scratched in mid-air with his hands and feet. "No surrender." "If I throw you on that rock, you will surely die. Don't you surrender like this?" "Never surrender." "What a stubborn boy. Haven't you already lost? Just admit defeat!" "...But, as long as I am alive, I will definitely beat you, uncle. As long as I am alive, I will never surrender." "Why can you beat me?" "If I practice hard." "Even if you practiced hard for ten years, I also practiced hard for ten years!" "But uncle, you are older than me, so you must die before me!" "Ok." "If you're dead, I'll beat you when you're in your coffin. So, as long as I live, I win." "Ah! You boy." Musashi threw Sannosuke to the ground vigorously, but he didn't hit the stone. Musashi looked at Sannosuke who stood up straight up, clapped his hands happily and laughed.