Takadaya, next to the Ichimokubashi in Aioi Town, is a rice-packing shop founded and expanded by the owner Shichihei with his own cooking skills. The so-called "baofan shop", also known as "Yubu" or "cook out", is also called a convenience store.It is the business of delivering bento to Edo Castle public servants, outer city gate guards, samurai mansions of the three hundred feudal lords, and the mansions of each group.One cannot live without food, and a noble warrior would be hungry, so this is big business. But it is by no means an easy business.Takadaya also went through untold hardships to get to today's scale.The reason is that although the customers are three hundred princes, most of them are very poor, and they can save as much as they can in their daily life, and live extremely frugally.If you want to beat many competitors and grab customers, sometimes you have to send delicious lunches even if you sacrifice your profits.

Another reason is that those who do this business have their own regular customers. .Especially for novices, it is difficult to get involved. Shichibei was originally from Edo, and he was abandoned before he could remember his parents' faces. He grew up in the filthy bottom of the world. He was already a habitual thief at the age of twelve or thirteen.If he is allowed to go on like this, he will definitely be a complete waste in the future. In the spring when he was thirteen, he stole from a tempura stall full of flower-viewers in Asakusa, a flower-viewing resort, but was caught by the boss, and his life changed ever since.At first glance, the owner of the tempura stand is just an old man with a blushing face, but his pace of chasing Shichibei - oh my! ——Like a scud, Shichihei was startled secretly, but the boss had already grabbed him by the back of the neck and lifted him up.

Afterwards, I found out that this old man is good at catching petty thieves, and he can be said to be very experienced.He would not send the little thief to the office. He always left the child to help work at the stall. He would let him do as much work as the other party stole, and finally let him go after a lesson.To petty thieves, he was an old toilet maggot. The old man treated Shichibei in the same way.He ordered Qibingwei to wash things behind the stall, and had to bow and thank the guests.When Shichibei wanted to escape, he caught up with him like a gust of wind and caught him every time.Qibingwei escaped eight times within two hours, and was caught every time. In the end, he was completely out of breath, but the old man acted nonchalantly.

When it was time to close the stall, the old man didn’t know what was going on in his mind. He looked at Qibingwei who was exhausted after a hard day’s work, and said, “I’ll give you food, and you come with me.” Qibingwei wanted to escape, but But I was too hungry to run, and I had no other ideas, so I had to drag my feet to follow him. The old man pulled the stall and walked non-stop, and came to the main store Matsuzaka Town.There were very few people in that area at that time, and when the old man gestured with his chin to the corner of a dilapidated courtyard, Shichihei thought that compared to this kind of living, the narrow corridor of the Inari Shrine near the Guanyin Bodhisattva Temple where he lived was more comfortable.

That residence was of course the old man's house, and when he opened the latticed paper door, he found that, unexpectedly, the house was very clean.The old man gave Qibei some cold rice and plums.Shichibei asked him if he had any tempura, and he tapped Shichibei on the head and said, "That's for sale, you bastard." The old man ate tea-soaked rice, Shichihei ate three bowls, and the third bowl couldn't wait to make tea, so he simply poured boiled water on it and ate it as rice.The old man only ate a bowl of rice, and then directly used the rice bowl to drink tea while staring at Shichibei who was devouring it.

When Shichibei finally put down his job and raised his head, and hiccupped hard, the old man said with a smile: "Among the heads of little devils I have caught, you have escaped the most times. Up to now, no one has let me Eight trips in two hours." The old man looked cheerful as he said this. Qibingwei remained silent.The old man was also silent for a while.Afterwards, he asked: "Do you still want to eat tomorrow?" Of course Qibingwei thought, and replied: "Of course." The old man said: "Then you will come to help tomorrow." ——As long as you are willing to work, you will have food.That's how it is in the world.

Every time Shichibei talked about the past, he always refused to name the old man who caught him and brought him back to life, and just called him "old man".Later, he also admitted that the name Qibingwei was actually chosen by the old man for him, and he had no name at all before that. "I was the seventh of the little devil's heads captured by the old man, so I was named Qibingwei." Shichibei worked in the old man's stall until he was sixteen years old, and learned a little cooking from him.I thought it would go on like this forever, but one day the old man suddenly said:

"I've helped you find a place to work." The old man took Shichibei to a lunch shop near Agatsuma Bridge.After meeting with the shop owner, the old man said: "Starting today, you will work here." The stall old man was about to leave with a look of unloading his burden.Qibingwei hurriedly chased after him, but was hit on the head again. "Although I starched you, I couldn't cut you into a piece of clothing, so I handed you over to that boss. You should be grateful." After the old man finished speaking, he walked away quickly, and never came to see Qibingwei once, and Qibingwei was too busy to see the old man.

In that lunch shop, his name is no longer Qibei, but "Worth Seven" or "Dog Seven".Headed by the chef and the owner, the rice-packing shop has an unbreakable relationship between the top and bottom. The handyman who is responsible for washing vegetables, transporting goods, and cleaning the kitchen in the shop is at most such a small role. Even if Qibingwei wanted to escape, he was outnumbered and suffered more every time than when he escaped from the old man's stall.But no matter how much they are yelled at and scolded, as long as they don't run away and work obediently, they will still give them food and bedding.

"In retrospect, it was really a rough training process." Qibingwei recalled with a smile, "However, thanks to them, I learned the real cooking skills." Shichibei worked there for fifteen years.For him, it was just one year after another, fifteen years had passed without him knowing it, but these fifteen years had completely changed the little thief who was hungry and stealing things into another person completely. Shichibei didn't leave the rice cooker voluntarily.After the boss passed away, the successor had never been able to get along with Shichibei, so he decided to leave before he was driven away.

He quickly found a job, this time also a meal shop.The boss is eight years older than Shichibei.For him, although he lost his former boss who was as loving as his father, the boss this time makes him feel like he has an extra brother. In fact, this owner is also one of the chefs trained by the former owner of the rice-packing shop. The former boss seemed to beg him secretly: "In case I leave one day, you have to take care of Shichibei for me." ——The boss expects you to be able to open your own shop in the future. It doesn’t have to be a meal shop, a small stall or a small canteen are fine. He hopes you can be independent. Why?Shichibei felt strange.The new boss smiled back and said: "Because you are skilled enough to run a shop." A small thief stumbled all the way in front of a tempura shop in Asakusa and managed to find his way. It took Shichibei another 12 years to own his own shop, and he also chose to open a rice shop.Since the elder brother-like boss gave up his regular customers to Shichibei, the start was smooth. In this way, "Takadaya" opened. During the busy first half of his life, Qibei was in his forties and hadn't asked for a wife yet.Later, the landlord of our office in Aioi Town acted as a matchmaker, and finally found a divorced woman, Axian, who was thirty-five years old and had a child with her ex-husband, who was already working outside.Not long after Qibingwei married Ah Xian, the child was spotted by the shop owner and married into the owner's house, and soon had a child.That is to say, Shichihei was promoted to be a grandfather not long after begging his wife. It is difficult for Ah Xian to get pregnant again at this age, and Shichibei does not expect to have children now.Although Ah Xian has a strong personality, he has a big heart, and he gets along very well with Qibingwei.Shichibei worried that if Mr. A forced a child, it would be unimaginable to lose his wife in case of dystocia.Shichibei, a man who seemed to have been completely tailored into a new suit and completely reborn, was terribly afraid of living a lonely life again. The couple devoted their enthusiasm to the business, painstakingly managed the shop and trained young chefs. "I used to be taken care of by others to change my life. Now it's my turn to repay the favor." Shichibei always said that. He often adopted orphans without relatives or parents whose naughty children couldn't resist, and took them up to take care of them.Among them, some children escaped, and some children lived here.Over the years, the number of children living in Anju has gradually increased.It's just that not all of these children are good at cooking, so Shichibei sometimes has to choose a time to find a new job for the children. Among the many children was a young but strong-willed boy named Taiichiro.He wasn't a bad kid on the streets, but an orphan who lost his parents in a fire. Not only did Taiichiro settle down in Takadaya, but he also learned to cook and became the chef of Takadaya. When Taiichiro was twenty-three years old, he married Tae, who was two years younger than him.Duohui is currently a daughter in Takadaya, and her mother's family is in Shitani Sakamoto Town. The family is poor and has many children. She has to support herself by herself, and she is in the same situation as Taiichiro. Takadaya's business was booming, and it gradually became rich. It built a staff dormitory in Oshigami Village, and the new life of the young couple also started in the dormitory.Each of the cooks here lived under the protection of the Shichibei couple before leaving the nest. Taiichiro and Duohui immediately gave birth to a boy after they got married.Since he is Taiichiro's child, he is the grandson of Shichibei, and he is the eldest grandson. He loves him very much. However, fate is unpredictable.The child contracted smallpox at the age of two, could not grow up safely, and died in the blink of an eye.At that time, Duohui was pregnant with her second child, and she gave birth safely two months after she buried her eldest son.Duohui had lost her lovely eldest son, and was so sad that she was bedridden. After giving birth, she finally regained her vitality. Shichibei also relaxed her heart. Unexpectedly... Children before the age of seven are children of God.The child did not even live to be of smallpox age, and died in infancy.I don't even know what disease I'm suffering from, it's just diarrhea. In just one night, I saw the child's crying weakened and died. Shichibei is a man who started his life from scratch.As long as it is a problem that can be solved by working hard, he has solved it all the way.However, no matter how hard you try, you can't do anything about life and death.In such a state, he couldn't help but curse the cruelty of the god who controls the fate of his young son. Just as he held his head feeling helpless and angry, and day after day passed, he found that the young couple Taiichiro and Duohui had become very strange.It turned out that due to the loss of two children one after another, there seemed to be a rift in the relationship between the husband and wife.Taiichiro started drinking and drinking outside, and even got drunk and fought with others, hurting the chef's hand, which he regarded as the guy who eats.As for Duohui, she lives in the dormitory of Oshigami Village every day, lying in the bedding all day without eating or drinking. It won't work like this.In short, I have to cheer myself up first, otherwise the young couple and even the entire Takada House will collapse.Shichihei urged himself like this, he reprimanded Taiichiro, and encouraged Duohui to work harder than before in business. Ah Xian understood Qibingwei's mood, and tried his best to help her husband.Qibingwei deeply understands the precious existence of his wife under such adversity. In this way, when Takadaya finally returned to normal, Taiichiro and Duohui unexpectedly got a baby girl named "Ring". Ah Ling was a healthy child who never had diarrhea when she was a baby, and even the peak period of smallpox infection that her elder brother couldn't overcome was safe, and she grew up to five or six years old day by day.The almost broken bond between Taiichiro and Tae was not only reconnected because of Ah Ling's healthy and clear learning voice, but also stronger than before. Every time Shichibei saw Ah Ling's little red face and bright eyes following behind and calling "Grandpa, Grandpa", he always felt that the hard work so far was not in vain. bring happiness to all. "A Ling is a special child." Shichibei often hugged her and said against her face, "A special blessed child." As for the blessing, no one from Takadaya specifically asked.Even if you don't ask, everyone is tacit. Nothing will happen to A Ling. Ah Ling is definitely fine. It's just that this is a wish-like intention after all, not a guarantee.In the spring when Ah Ling was twelve years old, when the petals of the cherry blossoms fell like the first snow and dyed the yard pink and white, she fell ill due to a high fever. The doctor who diagnosed the disease said: There is a fear of life. "I will do my best, and I can only pray in the future. Maybe you think it is too cruel for me to say that, but please be prepared for the unexpected." Qibei looked up to the sky for the third time and cursed the sky. Taro and Tae Hui also beat their chests and sighed.Ah Ling at the side moved her little feet quietly and silently, preparing to cross to the other side.

---

Notes: