Volume 6: Edo Castle Imperial Court Test Chapter 350: Mamiya Jiulang's Past

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"How is it? Are you feeling a little better?"

"Well, I feel better... Ayi, thank you..."

There are 2 rooms in the cabin of this sailboat.

One of the two rooms is larger and the other is smaller.

The smaller room was for the only two women in their group, A-Ming and Lin.

As for Ogata and the others, they all squeezed into another slightly larger room.

Although there were a few more people, Ogata and the others could still stay in the slightly larger room if they squeezed in.

Because of seasickness, Ating and Lin spent most of the day sleeping in the room.

It is now the fifth day at sea.

Perhaps it was because their bodies had become somewhat accustomed to the rough seas, A-Ming and Lin were feeling much better now, and were no longer in such severe pain that they could not even stand up as they did at the beginning.

But their health only improved slightly.

They still have to spend most of the day in bed.

At this moment, Ogata was kneeling behind Atachi's head, letting Atachi's head rest on his legs and massaging Atachi's head.

When he was still on modern Earth, Ogata once learned some massage techniques that were effective in relieving dizziness and headaches.

And this massage technique just came in handy right now.

Under Ogata's massage, Atachi's expression, which had been tense due to discomfort, relaxed a little.

Just as Ogata was concentrating on massaging Atachi, Lin's murmur suddenly came from beside him:

"I actually get seasick... It's so embarrassing... Ugh... So disgusting..."

Lin, who had been stubborn and refused to admit that she was seasick, now finally admitted that she felt dizzy and wanted to vomit because of seasickness.

Although Lin and Ating are both prone to seasickness, Lin's physical condition is much better than Ating's.

Without help from others, Ating couldn't even stand up straight, but Lin was able to stand up by her own strength.

Maybe it’s because Lin’s body is much stronger than Ating’s.

As soon as Lin finished her murmur, Mamiya, who was kneeling above her head, comforted her in a helpless tone:

"My Lord, some people are more susceptible to seasickness than others. Just like some people like spicy food more than others. It's innate."

Just like Ogata was kneeling at the head of the bed, letting Atachi rest his head on his legs and massaging Atachi's head, Mamiya was also kneeling at the head of the bed, massaging Lin's head.

The only difference was that Lin didn't rest her head on Mamiya's legs.

When Ogata used this head massage on Atachi for the first time, Mamiya became very interested in Ogata's massage method that could effectively relieve dizziness and headaches.

Mamiya asked Ogata very directly to teach him this massage method.

This was not a request that would be embarrassing, so Ogata readily agreed to Mamiya's request.

Ogata remembered it clearly - the first time he used this massage method to relieve Atachi's dizziness was on the first night at sea.

It was on that night that Mamiya asked Ogata to teach him this massage method.

Then, after Ogata taught Mamiya this massage method that night, the next morning, Mamiya was able to massage Lin with a technique that was much more skillful than Ogata's...

"By the way... I heard that Katsurokuro also felt dizzy last night..."

At this time, Lin opened her eyes slightly and looked at Mamiya behind her head.

"Is he all right?"

"Shimada is fine," Ogata answered for Mamiya. "He just feels a little dizzy. He is sleeping in his room now."

Last night, Shimada, who had never been on a sailboat like this before, also suffered from seasickness.

However, Shimada's symptoms were much milder. He just felt a little dizzy. He did not vomit like Ating and Lin, and he even had difficulty staying awake.

…

After Ogata's massage, Atachi felt much better and fell asleep again.

In order not to disturb Atachi's rest, after Atachi fell asleep, Obe tiptoed out of the room and went up to the deck. Rumamiya continued to massage Lin alone in the room.

As soon as he arrived on the deck, Ogata saw Genichi squatting at the end of the bed, drinking "Oolong Tea" leisurely, and Makimura and Asai sitting side by side at the head of the bed.

Seeing Ogata coming out of the cabin, Makimura immediately turned his head and asked Ogata:

"Brother Ogata, how are the lord and Miss A-machi doing?"

"They are both asleep." Ogata said as he walked towards the bow where Makimura and Asai were, and then sat cross-legged next to them.

The three people sitting side by side at the bow looked at the sea in front of them.

Under the bright sky, waves come one after another, the splashing waves sparkle with thousands of silver lights, and the boundless sea ripples with countless bright waves like mercury.

"...So free." Mucun said suddenly.

As soon as Makimura finished speaking, Ogata and Asai on the side both nodded in agreement.

The sailboat they were on was not a big ship, and there was not enough space for Ogata and his friends to find someone to compete with or practice swordsmanship. Ogata couldn't even gain experience.

At the same time, because of the limited space, there is not much they can do.

The most common way for them to pass the time these days is to get together and chat, or go to Yuanyi to have a few drinks together.

Yuanyi had almost no luggage, just a lot of wine.

After boarding the ship, Yuan Yi spent nearly half of the day at the stern.

It is so pleasant to drink wine and enjoy the sea breeze.

"Do you want to go swimming?" asked Mucun.

"No, there's no place to take a bath here, and I don't want to get dirty sea water all over me." Asai shook his head.

"And the waves here are very high, so it's not a good place for swimming," Ogata added.

"That's right." Makimura nodded.

"By the way, where's Mamiya?" Asai turned his head and looked back, looking for Mamiya. "Why can't I see Mamiya?"

"He is giving Miss Kinoshita a massage in the room right now," Ogata said.

After saying that, Ogata paused.

Then, with a complicated look on his face, he said faintly:

"Mamiya is a really good learner... If you randomly invite someone to watch my and Mamiya's massage techniques, they will definitely think that I am the apprentice and Mamiya is the master..."

"Mamiya has a strong learning ability and a high level of comprehension." Asai retracted his gaze from looking for Mamiya's figure. "No matter what he learns, he can master it quickly. This is why he has so many skills."

“…Speaking of which——I’ve always been very curious.”

Ogata, whose eyes were still fixed on the sea in front of him, suddenly asked Asai.

"Asai, I can understand why you use honorifics to Ms. Kinoshita and Mr. Genichi, but why do you also use honorifics to Mamiya? Is it because he is the elder of your Huluya?"

"It's not because Mamiya is an elder in our Hulu House that I use honorifics to him."

Perhaps because he was really free now, Asai, who was usually taciturn, used very rare and detailed words to explain to Ogata why he used honorifics to address Mamiya.

"I only respect those who are better at swordsmanship than me."

"In terms of swordsmanship, in the entire Gourd House, only the Lord, Genichi, and Mamiya can easily defeat me."

"I admire Mamiya's superb swordsmanship and the many skills he has, so I respect him very much. That's why I will speak honorifics to him. It's that simple."

After hearing the words "how many skills he has" from Asai, Ogata smiled knowingly.

"What did Mamiya do in the past?" Ogata asked casually, "It seems like he has been to many places... Was he also a wandering ronin in the past?"

Ogata finished his question.

Makimura and Asai fell into a long silence.

The somewhat long silence between the two made Ogata frown slightly involuntarily.

Just when Ogata was about to ask why the two of them suddenly fell silent, Makimura suddenly said in a deep voice:

"……have no idea."

“…Huh?” Ogata tilted his head.

Asai continued what Makimura had said:

"Except for the Lord who may know what Mamiya did before, none of us know where Mamiya was and what he did before he joined the Gourd House."

"We have also asked this question to Mamiya himself, but he always evades the question and evades it, never giving us a direct answer."

"When I asked the lord, he was also very secretive about Mamiya's past."

"Don't even mention Mamiya's past." As soon as Asai finished speaking, Makimura shrugged, "We don't even know where Mamiya was from, what sword style he used, or how strong he is."

"Mamiya doesn't have any accent when he speaks. You can't even tell where he's from based on his accent. He never says where he's from."

"Not only does Mamiya not talk about his past, he also never reveals what style of swordsmanship he uses."

"We only know that Mamiya is very skilled in the use of the sword technique."

"Since I joined Calabash House, I have never seen Mamiya go all out...ah, no, or rather, I have never seen an enemy successfully force Mamiya to use his full strength."

"None of us have ever seen Mamiya fight with all his strength."

Ogata had been listening quietly to the two people's long conversation.

After hearing what Makimura said, Ogata suddenly realized that he himself had never seen Mamiya fighting the enemy with all his strength.

In every battle of Mamiya that Ogata has witnessed, Mamiya has always looked calm and composed.

Even when he fought with the elite troops of the shogunate army on Chou Island in that narrow corridor, after the battle, Mamiya was still in a state of ease, with almost no wounds on his body.

"...I guess that before Mamiya followed the lord and joined the Calabash House, the job he did must not be a very glorious job... Mamiya's previous job may have been related to murder." Asai said this suddenly.

"Is it related to murder?" Ogata cast a puzzled look at Asai, "Why do you say that?"

"Asai, are you going to tell Brother Ogata the old story of 'the old monk being paralyzed by fear'?" There was a hint of helplessness in Makimura's rhetorical question.

"This story is not a secret. Everyone in our Hulu House knows it." Asai said, "It's okay to tell Ittosai."

"Did anything happen to Mamiya in the past that made you suspect that his previous work was related to murder?" Ogata asked Asai.

"This happened a long time ago." Asai whispered, "Once, Mamiya and I went out of town for some business and passed by a temple."

"There is a rather old monk living in that temple."

"It was night time, and Mamiya and I planned to stay overnight in this temple."

"I was the one who went to negotiate with the old monk to see if we could borrow a corner of the temple for us to rest for the night."

"The old monk was very easy to talk to. After I asked for the place to stay, he readily agreed."

"But... when I led Mamiya, who was waiting outside the temple, into the temple, the old monk saw Mamiya... the old monk's expression at that time was really hard to describe with words."

"All the color in his face was gone, and he was so scared that he just collapsed on the ground... In short, he looked like he had seen a ghost."

"The old monk collapsed on the ground, using his hands and feet to back away from the palace, while shouting something like 'I have never seen a person with such a heavy sin of killing.'"

"No matter what, I won't let Mamiya stay in the temple."

"We had no choice but to leave that temple."

"Before leaving the temple, the old monk advised Mamiya to study Buddhism and do more good deeds for the rest of his life, in order to wash away the accumulated sins of killing and the resentment of the dead."

"It was also from that time that I began to suspect that what Mamiya had done before might not be a very glorious job..."

"If the work that Mamiya did in the past was really related to murder... then the number of people he killed in the past must have been quite a lot..."

"The sins of killing on his body are so heavy that they could frighten a monk to the ground... How many people must he have killed..."

As soon as Asai finished speaking, Makimura beside him chuckled a few times:

"That monk might be talking nonsense."

"These monks like to talk nonsense."

"When I was in Kyoto, I met a monk who said that I had a noble appearance and would definitely become a great man like Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the future."

As soon as Makimura finished speaking, Asai shook his head:

"You were not there at the time, and you did not see the monk's appearance or expression at the time."

"If you were there at the time and saw with your own eyes how terrifying the look of fear on the monk's face was, you wouldn't think that the monk was talking nonsense," Asai said seriously.

"Master Genichi, don't you know what Mamiya did in the past?" Ogata asked.

"Hmm, I don't know."

As Ogata finished speaking, Genichi's voice came from the stern of the ship.

Ogata, Makimura, and Asai all turned their heads and looked at Genichirō, who had been sitting at the stern of the boat drinking "oolong tea".

"Master Genichi." Makimura said, "It turns out that you have been listening to our conversation just now."

"I may be old, but my hearing is still good. And this ship is not so large that the sound from the bow cannot reach the stern."

After raising the wine glass in his hand and taking another sip of "Oolong Tea", Yuan Yi said slowly:

"I've never been very interested in other people's pasts, so I never asked Mamiya what he did before joining Huluya."

"Only Xiaolin knows about Mamiya's past."

"but--"

At this point, Genichi's eyes flashed with some meaningful light.

"Although I don't know Mamiya's past , I can roughly guess what Mamiya's previous occupation might be based on the swordsmanship he used."

"Is there any problem with the swordsmanship used by Mamiya?" Asai, who usually has little expression, now has a flash of curiosity in his eyes.

"You youngsters don't have enough experience, so you can't tell the difference between the swordsmanship used by Mamiya and the general swordsmanship."

"The swordsmanship used by Mamiya takes the three words 'fast', 'accurate', and 'ruthless' to the extreme."

"And when Mamiya swings his sword to kill someone, he always subconsciously cuts at certain specific parts of the human body."

"There is a certain kind of person in the world who is the best at using this type of swordsmanship..."

"What kind of person?" Mucun asked urgently.

"Well... I won't tell you." Genichi shrugged. "Whether Mamiya was that kind of person in the past, I'm just guessing. I'm not sure myself."

"Besides, since Mamiya never told you what he did in the past, and Xiaolin is also very secretive about Mamiya's past, it means that Mamiya does not want his companions to know his past."

"So we should respect Mamiya's choice and stop asking about Mamiya's past."

After saying that, Genichi took another sip of the "oolong tea" in the cup.

"...Master Genichi is right." Asai sighed softly, "Since Mamiya doesn't want to talk about his past, we won't ask any more questions. Let's end this topic here... Let's talk about something more interesting."

Ogata and Makimura both nodded in agreement.

The three of them turned their gaze to the sea ahead again.

Looking at the sea, after a long silence——