Chapter 138 Chapter 15 Paint Buckets

Iori, who was hiding behind the stone Buddha, heard the conversation between the two.It was strange, but I had no idea what they were talking about. As soon as the two left on pack horses, Iori also followed behind. "..." The two people in front looked back once or twice, but seeing the young Iori's short stature, they didn't care. After a while, it got dark and I couldn't see my fingers.They descended to Musashino. "Father! Can you see the shadow of the lights on Fan Street?" The young man points into the distance.The road has become flat, and there is an Iruma River in the plain in front of me, like a silver belt in the darkness.

The two of them were not wary of Iori.Even though Iori was a child, he was careful not to make the two of them suspicious. (Those two must be thieves.) Iori can be sure of this. How terrible are the thieves—in his birthplace, Codex Village, he is robbed by bandits every year, and they rob everything like locusts crossing the border.So Iori is quite aware of the rampage of thieves.And in his young heart, he thought that thieves would kill casually, so Iori was worried that he would die if they found out.In the face of such a terrible person, why do you still follow behind?For he intended to follow the two pack horses to see where they went.He did it for a reason.

It must be these two people who broke into the treasury of Sanfeng Shrine and stole the property. Iori thought so in his heart. Just now behind the stone Buddha, he couldn't understand what they were talking about, but after careful deliberation, he suddenly understood.The young man had always believed in his intuition, and he firmly believed that these two thieves were the ones who stole the treasure of Sanfeng Shrine. Finally, Iori and the two pack horses had come to the downtown area of ​​Fan Street.The old man waved to the young man in front of him. "Chengtai! Chengtai! Let's eat something here! The horse is going to eat grass, and I want to sit down and smoke a cigarette too!"

he said from the saddle. The two came to a dimly lit restaurant, tied up their pack horses, and walked into the shop.The young man with bangs was sitting at the door eating, and he kept paying attention to the pack horses.After eating, he immediately went outside to feed the horses. Iori took advantage of the spare time to eat elsewhere.Seeing that the two rode away again, he didn't care about the food in his mouth before he could swallow it, he dropped his chopsticks and chased after them. They walk on dark paths.Musashino is a large grassland, and people sitting in the saddle chatted all the way.

"Chengtai." "yes." "Did you send the letter to Kiso?" "sent." "Then Kiso's people will wait for us under the tree in Shouzuka!" "yes." "What time?" "I wrote in the letter that it was midnight. If we go now, the time is just right." The old man called the young man Cheng Tai, and the young man called the old man Daddy. This pair of thieves could be father and son. Iori guessed so, feeling scared in his heart.He knew that he couldn't capture the opponent with his own strength, he just wanted to follow the two of them, find out where they lived, and then report to the officials, and Musashi would naturally be released without charge——Iori was very sure.

Maybe things won't go as smoothly as Iori thought, but from the child's intuition, he thinks that the two of them are the phantom thieves who stole the property of Sanfeng Shrine. Thinking that no one was around, the two talked loudly without fear.Their actions are getting weirder and weirder.The town by the river is like a silent lake, sleeping.The houses on both sides of the street have lost their lights.A man riding two pack horses climbed up the hill of the first tomb and saw a stone marker on the side of the mountain trail. Yizhi hid in the woods on the edge of the cliff.There is a huge pine tree on the hill, and a horse is tied to the pine tree.Three ronin in traveling clothes sat under a pine tree with their knees crossed and waited.At this moment, one of them stood up suddenly.

"Oh! It's Mr. Dazang!" They greeted the two pack horses coming up the mountain with an unusually intimate attitude.They seem to have not seen each other for a long time, and they complained about their separation, and they were also happy that they arrived safely. Before dawn, they had to do one thing quickly.Following Dazang's instructions, they pried open a rock under the pine tree, and one of them started digging with a round shovel. They unearthed many buried treasures of gold and silver.It seems they buried here every time they stole treasure.That's a lot of money.

The young man with the bangs—the one called Jota—took all the paint buckets from the pack horses, opened the lids, and dumped the contents on the ground. What poured out of the lacquer bucket was not lacquer, but sand gold and ingots lost from Sanfeng Shrine, plus tens of thousands of taels of jewelry dug out of the ground. They packed the treasure in several sacks and tied them to the horses, and kicked paint buckets and unused things into the holes, and then covered them with soil. "It's fine like this. It's not yet dawn, let me smoke a cigarette and rest!" After Dazang finished speaking, he sat on the root of the pine tree.The other four also patted the soil off the tree roots and sat down.

Four years have passed since Daizo, a herbalist in Kiso, left his hometown in Narai.In name, he went to various temples to pay homage, but in fact he did some illegal activities secretly.His footprints are all over Kanto.As long as there are shrines and Buddhist pavilions, there are almost all donations from Narai Daizo. No one knows where his money comes from. Not only that, he even bought a house and a pawn shop near Edo Castle last year, and even became a member of the "group of five" in the village in order to win the trust of the villagers. This Dazang had previously lured Motota Yahachi to the sea in Shibaura, and paid him to snipe the new general Hidetada.Now, taking advantage of the Sanfeng Shrine's festival, they stole the treasures in the warehouse, together with the gold and silver treasures stored under the pine roots of the first mound for many years, packed them in several sacks and tied them to three horses.

The world situation is treacherous and changeable, and the most difficult thing to understand is the human heart, which cannot be distinguished from the outside.But if you are skeptical of everyone, there is no end to it.Maybe you even have to doubt yourself! It would be fine if he was a smart person, but he was not very smart, so he would be deceived by Dazang's clever words.Willing to take big risks for money. Perhaps Yuhachi is already in Edo Castle now, according to Dazang's instructions, dug up the guns buried under the locust tree, and waited for an opportunity to shoot and kill General Hidetada.

However, Youba didn't know that it was also his own death day. In any case, Dazang is a weirdo.People like Matachi are the most popular with him.And now Zhu Shi is also by his side, becoming his personal maid.What is even more surprising is that Jotaro, whom Musashi spent several years educating and caring for, is eighteen years old, has bangs, and even calls Dazo Daddy.How did things get to this point? If Atong knew that Jotaro had become a thief and called him Daddy Dazo, he would be several times more sad than Musashi.Let's not talk about this for now. Speaking of which, the five people gathered in a circle and discussed for a quarter of an hour, and finally decided that Narai's Daizo would hide in Kiso for the time being, and it would be safer not to return to Edo. But the pawn shop by the sea still had some financial affairs to deal with, and papers that had to be burned to obliterate the evidence.What's more, Zhu Shi is still staying there, and someone must be sent to meet him. "It's better to send Jotaro, he's the most suitable." Everyone agreed with one voice. In the end, the three horses carrying the sack, Dazo, and the three men from Kiso rushed to Koshu Road before dawn.Jotaro walked towards Edo Road alone. In the sky over the hills, the morning star is shining brightly.After all the figures left, Iori ran out. "Hmm! Which side should I go with now?" He didn't know what to do.Looking at both sides, it is pitch black, just like being in the world inside a paint bucket.