Before Ogata and his companions received the order to go to support Yangmei House—
Takigawa was walking on a certain street in Edo with a gloomy face.
Takigawa's face has not been looking good since he learned the result of the written test last night.
As confident as Takigawa was in himself before the results of the written examination were announced, he became as indignant after the results were announced.
Both Takigawa himself and his friends and mentors, after reading Takigawa's article on his understanding of "knowing it is impossible but doing it anyway", they all praised it and believed that Takigawa would definitely win the first place in the literary test, or at least be among the top ten.
But the truth surprised everyone, including Takigawa.
Not only did he fail to win the first place in the written test, his name was not even in the top 10. However, he still passed the written test, and his name was on the list of those who passed the written test.
Last night, when he learned that he was not even in the top 10, Takigawa's first reaction was: How is that possible.
In order to verify the facts, Takigawa personally went to the place where the results of the written examination were announced.
After seeing the list with his own eyes, Takigawa had to accept this cruel fact.
When he saw with his own eyes that his name was not even on the top 10, Takigawa really felt like he had fallen from a hundred-foot-high building to the ground.
It would be fine if it wasn't even in the top 10.
In addition to failing to make it into the top 10, there was something else that Takigawa found even more unacceptable.
That is, the top scorer in the literary test was the ronin Majima Goro, whom he had looked down upon before.
When Takigawa thought about how he, a dignified hatamoto who studied under a famous teacher, actually lost to a ronin, and that the ronin had once made him lose face in public, he felt a ball of anger building up in his chest. Only by beating his chest hard could he make himself feel a little better.
Last night, Takigawa and his friends were full of confidence and had set up a banquet before the results of the literary examination were announced as a celebration party.
When he found out that he was not even in the top 10, Takigawa was no longer in the mood to attend the banquet.
Takigawa's friends all knew that the current atmosphere was not suitable for holding a banquet, so last night's banquet ended hastily after the results of the literary examination were announced.
"Takigawa." Takigawa, who was walking forward with a gloomy face, suddenly felt a big hand patting his shoulder, "Let's not go home until we are drunk tonight, and have fun together until dawn!"
"Yeah." Takigawa nodded gently, and the gloom on his face dissipated a little. "Tonight's banquet is your treat, Uesaka. Since it's you who's treating, I won't be polite. I'm going to drink a lot tonight."
"Hahahaha, not bad, this kind of momentum is what we need."
The person who patted Takigawa on the shoulder was one of Takigawa's best friends - Uesaka.
This morning, Uesaka suddenly visited Takigawa 's home and invited Takigawa to a banquet and drink all night long after a long absence.
Takigawa and Uesaka are old friends. After so many years of friendship, Takigawa could tell at a glance what his good friend was planning when he suddenly invited him to drink all night - to cheer up Takigawa who was in a bad mood.
After the written test results were announced last night, Uesaka was the first one to come forward to comfort Takigawa.
The location of Uesaka's banquet was not ordinary - it was Yangmei House in Yoshiwara.
The Bayberry House in Yoshiwara was a teahouse with a certain reputation throughout the Edo period. Many dignitaries would specially go to the Bayberry House to hold banquets.
Takigawa was deeply moved by the fact that Uesaka specially held a banquet at a famous teahouse like Bayberry-ya in order to make him feel better.
Anyway, he happened to have some time tonight, and he didn't want to ruin Uesaka's good intention, so he readily agreed to Uesaka's invitation .
In order to make tonight's banquet more lively, Uesaka also invited several friends who have a particularly good relationship with Takigawa.
After all, this banquet was set up to help Takigawa cheer up, so the guests invited were naturally Takigawa's good friends.
Including Takigawa himself, there are a total of 8 people attending the banquet tonight.
"Takigawa, let's walk a little faster." Uesaka, who was walking side by side with Takigawa, said, "The others should have arrived at the Bayberry House."
"Yeah." Takigawa nodded, "You're right, don't keep others waiting for too long."
The two of them quickened their pace a little, and soon they climbed up the Nihon Embankment, stepped onto the Fifty-room Street leading to Yoshiwara, and saw the magnificent gate of Yoshiwara.
Looking at the gate of Yoshiwara, Takigawa frowned involuntarily.
He would never forget that Majima Goro worked in Yoshiwara.
As soon as I saw the gate of Yoshiwara, I thought of Goro Majima.
Whenever I think of Majima Goro, I recall that I actually lost to him in the literary test.
The feeling of frustration that has been lingering in Takigawa's heart and tormenting him until now will become even stronger.
Uesaka actually doesn't know much about the feud between Takigawa and Majima Goro.
Because Takigawa felt it was very embarrassing that he had lost face because of Majima Goro in the room that specialized in teaching prostitutes to read and write, he had never told anyone else in detail about the feud between him and Majima Goro.
Takigawa never told Uesaka, his best friend, in detail what kind of grudge he had with the top winner of the literary exam.
Seeing that Takigawa's expression suddenly turned ugly, Uesaka asked in confusion:
"Takigawa, what's wrong?"
"…Nothing. Let's go and get into Yoshiwara quickly."
…
…
Yangmei House is not a prostitute house, but a tea house.
But this is no ordinary tea house either.
It is a very special kind of tea house - the Yinshou Tea House.
The yujo houses in Edo were roughly divided into three levels: Omise, Nakamise, and Komise.
There is actually another level below Komise, which is "Kirimise".
For example: the prostitute houses located on the banks of the Rashomon River are actually "Kirimize".
It’s just that many people would not count Kirimise as one of the brothels. When talking about brothels, they only mention the three levels of “Da Miise”, “Zhong Miise”, and “Xiao Miise”, and do not include Kirimise.
The main reason for this is that many people believe that "Kirimize" cannot be considered a yujo house.
Even in the smallest yukata, there will be some support staff to help take care of the daily lives of the yukata.
However, this is not the case with Chejianshi.
Most of the Kiyomizu are run by some prostitutes themselves.
The prostitutes on the banks of the Rashomon River are a typical example.
No one helped them to attract customers, so they could only stand on the street to attract customers by themselves.
No one helps them prepare their meals, so they have to find ways to prepare their three meals a day by themselves.
The so-called Kirimise Yujoya run by the prostitutes on the banks of the Rashomon River was just a house where she lived alone, and there were no other prostitutes except her.
To give an example in modern terms, large, medium and small companies are all companies with employees in various positions, while Qie Jianshi is just a self-employed individual without even any employees.
Therefore, many people exclude Kirimiyo when talking about the yujoya.
As the highest level of yujo-ya, the total number of Omise-yoshi in Yoshiwara has long been in the single digits.
Because Ōmise is the highest-class prostitute house in Yoshiwara, tourists cannot meet and have fun with the prostitutes of Ōmise casually.
One must go through a rather complicated process before being able to meet the courtesans of the great world.
If you want to find the courtesans of Omiyo, you must first go to the Yote Teahouse.
After having some fun in the Yushou Teahouse, the people at the Yushou Teahouse will help introduce you to the prostitutes at the Omi-se-class prostitute house.
So, to put it simply, the Yushou Teahouse is an intermediary shop between prostitutes and customers.
Of course - helping to introduce the prostitutes to Omiyo is just one of the jobs of the teahouse.
In order to make money, it is impossible for the teahouse to only receive customers who want to play with the courtesans of Omiyo.
The Yushou Teahouse usually also treats guests who do not intend to seek pleasure from prostitutes.
Therefore, on weekdays, many people who do not look for prostitutes but just want to have a banquet with friends will also come to patronize the popular teahouses like Yangmei House.
The closer to Naka-no-machi, the avenue that neatly divides Yoshiwara into two halves, the more upscale the teahouses and prostitute houses are.
A teahouse that can serve as a tourist attraction is not just an ordinary small teahouse.
Bayberry House is located on the roadside of Nakano-machi, quite close to the Shirobei Club.
As he followed Ueyu and the others to the Bayberry House, Ogata asked Ueyu:
"So these shops in Yoshiwara can still borrow people from the club?"
Guasheng nodded:
"We, the Shirobei Association, the residents of Yoshiwara, and the various shops share honor and disgrace."
"So when some stores are short-staffed, as long as our club is not short of staff, we will transfer some people to support them."
"Of course—we won't help with everything."
"We won't help with things like assisting brothels in soliciting customers."
"The only thing we can do to help is to assist them in maintaining law and order."
As soon as Uesugi finished speaking, Keimon shrugged and interrupted:
"I actually think that this kind of behavior of supporting certain stores when they ask for help is fine if we do it occasionally."
"If you do it too often, it might spoil some people."
"It may make some people too dependent on us and stop spending money to recruit more people. Once they are short of staff, they will borrow people from us."
"You worry too much." Guasheng changed his tone to annoyed, "No one would be so ignorant as to borrow people from our club so frequently."
"As far as I can remember, the last time a store asked our club for help was half a month ago."
Because it was quite close to Shirobei Club, it didn't take Ogata and his friends much time to reach the gate of Yangmei House.
The area of ​​Yangmei-ya is definitely worthy of the evaluation just made by Uesugi and his friends that it is "one of the largest teahouses in Yoshiwara."
Just by standing in front of the door, Ogata could feel the noise and heat coming towards him through the open door.
As soon as Ogata and his group arrived at the gate of Yangmei House, a middle-aged man who was probably over 40 years old and had been standing at the gate came towards them quickly.
This middle-aged man was probably one of the staff members of Yangmei-ya, responsible for waiting in front of the store and welcoming the support staff from Shirobei Club.
The middle-aged man first said a bunch of official phrases like "Welcome to you" and then led the way, leading Ogata and others into Yangmei's house.
…
…
"What an amazing teahouse." Looking at the spacious corridor beneath his feet, Ogata couldn't help but click his tongue.
The corridor under Ogata's feet was so spacious that even two people walking side by side would not feel crowded.
On both sides of this corridor are rooms, all of which are full.
There were constant sounds of laughter, eating and drinking coming from the rooms on both sides.
This was the first time that Ogata had entered such a high-end teahouse, so he couldn't help but look around with curiosity.
There were two types of teahouses during the Edo period.
One is the "small restaurant type", which provides simple tea and snacks.
The other type is the "big hotel type". The tea and snacks provided by this type of teahouse are often much higher quality than those of the "small restaurant type" teahouse. It also has a large number of independent compartments for guests to hold banquets.
Yangmei House is obviously the latter.
All the "tea houses with hand gestures" are such "big hotel-type" tea houses.
"It seems that there are really a lot of people coming to this Yangmei House tonight." Ueyoshi, who was standing next to Ogata, sighed softly, "No wonder they asked for help from our Shirobei Club."
As soon as Ogata and others entered the Yangmei House, they were dispersed and scattered to various places in the Yangmei House, each responsible for an area in the Yangmei House.
They had taken off the special haori for the Shirobei Club and put on the ordinary haori provided by the staff of Yangmei House.
This is also an unspoken rule when the club's officials go to support other shops in Yoshiwara:
In order to avoid causing unnecessary speculation and fear among the guests in the store, the officials of the club would take off their special haori that represented their identity.
After all, the officers of the Shirobei Society are considered the police of Yoshiwara.
Seeing a group of people in police uniforms walking around in the store, customers would definitely wonder if something had happened.
The areas that Ogata and Ueo were in charge of were close to each other, so the two of them naturally stood side by side, chatting while passing the time which was peaceful and boring because there were no troublemakers in sight.
"Okay, Mashima-kun, let's continue the topic we were forced to interrupt just now."
Ueno, who is 25 centimeters shorter than Ogata, raised his head and looked at Ogata beside him with curiosity.
"Are you a descendant of some prominent samurai family?"
"Of course not." Ogata said without hesitation in a bad tone, "I am not the descendant of a prominent samurai family. I am just a low-ranking samurai from Izumo."
"I didn't learn from any particularly great scholars."
"I was surprised to get first place in the exam. Maybe it was because I was in a particularly good state on the day of the exam, so I got first place."
After seeing Ogata deny that he was a descendant of a prominent samurai family, a happy smile appeared on Uesugi's face.
"So, Mashima-kun, you don't come from a prominent family... Then Mashima-kun, you are really amazing." Ueyu said with deep emotion, "Without a prominent family, you can still have such superb swordsmanship and knowledge."
"I don't have any superior knowledge or anything like that." Ogata waved his hands and looked helplessly at Uekus beside him. "I just said that I was able to win the first place in the essay test because I was just lucky... huh?"
I don't know if it was Ogata's illusion, but as he was looking at Uekusa at this moment, he felt that Uekusa seemed very happy after learning that his family background was not prominent...
"Ms. Uesugi." Unable to suppress his curiosity, Ogata asked, "Why are you smiling so happily?"
"Eh?" Guasheng raised his hand and touched his face, "Am I smiling?"
"Yeah. Looks very happy."
"I am indeed very happy now." Guasheng put down his hand that was touching his face.
"Did you remember anything happy?"
"No, I was just happy to learn that you, Mashima-kun, came from a very ordinary background."
"Huh?" Ogata raised his eyebrows upon hearing Uesugi's strange and nonsensical words. "What do you mean? Why do you feel so happy after learning that I don't come from a prominent family?"
"For some reason, I don't like those samurai with distinguished backgrounds." Uechi said in a half-serious and half-joking tone, "So if I knew that you, Mashima-kun, had a distinguished background, I wouldn't know how I would face you."
"You don't like samurai of distinguished origin?" Ogata raised an eyebrow. "Why is that?"
"Ms. Guasheng? Why are you here?"
A female voice with a hint of surprise suddenly sounded from the side of the two of them and interrupted the conversation between Ogata and Uesugi.
Ogata looked towards the person who had interrupted his conversation with Uesugi.
The person who spoke was a woman with many wrinkles on her face.
There are many wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, mouth, cheeks, etc., making her face look very old.
Although there were many wrinkles on her face, Ogata could still see that the woman had regular facial features and she must have been a beauty when she was young.
"Ms. Hua Feng!" Looking at the woman who suddenly appeared in front of him, Guasheng's face showed surprise and joy.
The woman, whom Guasheng called "Hua Feng", walked towards Guasheng quickly.
After Hua Feng came to Ogata and Uekusa, he first looked at Ogata with curiosity for a while.
"Ms. Guasheng, who is this?"
As soon as Hua Feng finished speaking, Gua Sheng immediately introduced Hua Feng:
"Ms. Hana Kaede, this is Majima Goro-kun who just started working at our Shirobei Club a while ago. You should have heard of this name, right?"
After introducing Ogata to Hanako, Uesugi turned his head and began to introduce Hanako to Ogata.
"Mashima-kun, this is Miss Hana Kaede. She's my friend."
"Ah!" Hua Feng raised her little hand and covered her red lips that were slightly opened in surprise. "Of course I have heard of it. I can hear this name everywhere in Yoshiwara recently."
After saying that, Hua Feng bowed to Ogata so deeply that Ogata could clearly see the flesh on the back of her neck.
"Mashima-sama, I have long heard of your great name."
Ogata has always felt helpless about the fact that he had become a celebrity in Yoshiwara without realizing it.
Ogata smiled wryly and greeted Hua Feng, who was being respectful in front of him.
After introducing Ogata to Huafeng, Uesugi started chatting with Huafeng enthusiastically.
"Ms. Hua Feng, why are you here?"
"I'm here to do something. What about you, Miss Ueyoshi? Aren't you going to patrol Yoshiwara?"
"Something went wrong tonight."
…
Ogata didn't know Hanako, so he couldn't interrupt the conversation between Uesugi and Hanako.
Guasheng and Huafeng talked about some daily trivial matters.
For example - what have you done recently, how are you doing recently, how is so and so...
As they were chatting animatedly, Guasheng seemed to have remembered something and asked Huafeng:
"By the way, Ms. Hua Feng, have you heard about how Ms. Ling Yin is doing recently? I haven't heard from Ms. Ling Yin for a long time."
As soon as Guasheng finished speaking, the smile on Hua Feng's face froze.
The frozen smile on Hua Feng's face slowly turned into a helpless bitter smile after a while.
"...I haven't heard much about Miss Suzune recently."
"But I heard a while ago that Miss Lingyin was not doing well..."
"After successfully redeeming herself, Miss Suzune opened a private school in Kamakura that specializes in teaching people to read and write."
"But someone leaked the news that Miss Suzune was a prostitute, causing Miss Suzune to be ostracized by the people around her..."
This time it was Guasheng's turn to have the smile froze on his face.
An indescribable strange atmosphere slowly emerged between Guasheng and Huafeng.
Looking at the two people whose expressions had become quite strange, Ogata slowly frowned.
After Uekushi and Huafeng chatted about some trivial things, Huafeng waved to Uekushi and Ogata, saying that he had "other things to do", and then left.
Looking at Hua Feng's receding figure, Ogata asked Uesugi in a low voice:
"Ms. Ueyoshi, was that a prostitute? The name Huafeng... sounds a bit like a prostitute's flower name."
The name Hua Feng, both in its shape and pronunciation, sounds very much like the flower name of a prostitute.
But Hana Kaede's face, which had many wrinkles, didn't look like a prostitute's face no matter how you looked at it, so Ogata couldn't help but ask Uekusa this.
As soon as Ogata finished speaking, Uesugi nodded slightly.
"Yes. Yes, Huafeng is indeed the name of a flower."
"But Hua Feng is not a prostitute."
"She is a 'former prostitute'. She is now a prostitute in a prostitute house."
"Because she has been called 'Hua Feng' for many years, she is used to it."
"So after she stopped being a prostitute, Ms. Huafeng didn't change back to her real name and asked us to continue calling her by her flower name. So we still call her by her old flower name."
After all, Ogata has been working in Yoshiwara for a while, so he has a basic understanding of all kinds of knowledge about Yoshiwara.
A shou is a person who is responsible for supervising the prostitutes. This job is usually done by older prostitutes.
Daily tasks include: getting up early to wake up the girls, preparing meals for them, and helping them with various chores.
Because the dispatchers are basically older prostitutes, they are occasionally responsible for giving some guidance to the new prostitutes.
"Ms. Hua Feng is my good friend, even though there is a big age gap between us. When I first came to the Shirobei Club, Ms. Hua Feng helped me a lot."
"He seems like a very gentle person," Ogata said.
When Hua Feng was chatting with Gua Sheng just now, he spoke softly, with a warm smile on his face and in his eyes, which gave Ogata the feeling that "this person seems to have a very gentle personality."
"Yes. Miss Huafeng is very kind and gentle. When she was still a prostitute, she was loved and respected by the people around her."
"After she successfully saved enough money to redeem herself from being a prostitute and became a prostitute, Hua Feng became even more popular with everyone."
"After all, there are very few people like her who are not only experienced but also willing to kindly guide the younger generation."
Ever since Hua Feng left… no, ever since Hua Feng told him about Miss Ling Yin’s recent situation, Gua Sheng’s face has been filled with a deep sense of loss.
Looking at Guase who looked lost, Ogata pursed his lips.
Even a fool could see that it was the incident with Miss Lingyin that made Guasheng look so disappointed.
But Ogata didn't know Miss Suzune, so he wasn't quite sure what the relationship was between Miss Suzune and Uesugi.
So Ogata didn't know how to cheer up Ueoka who looked disappointed.
Just as Ogata was still thinking about how to wipe away the disappointment on Ueyu's face, Ueyu suddenly said:
"...Mashima-kun, are you wondering who Miss Suzune is?" Uesugi raised his head and smiled faintly.
"Of course I would be confused. After all, I don't know her."
"Ms. Suzune is a prostitute in the prostitute house that Ms. Kaede belongs to."
Guasheng said slowly.
"I have always had a good relationship with Hua Feng and her."
"About half a year ago, she finally saved enough money to redeem herself."
"After redeeming herself, she did not choose to stay in Yoshiwara like Miss Hua Feng did. Instead, she chose to leave the place that had trapped her for more than ten years."
"Ms. Suzune is one of my friends anyway. After she left Yoshiwara, I have been asking about her recent situation, but unfortunately I have not been able to find out."
"Until... just now..."
After saying that, Guasheng fell silent.
Ogata also fell silent, not knowing what to say.
As early as three months ago in Kyoto, Obe had witnessed the misery of the prostitutes at Shimabara's place.
After arriving at the Shirobei Club and becoming a member of the group responsible for protecting Edo Yoshiwara, Ogata gained a deeper understanding of the situation of the prostitutes, who had "no one to talk to about their misery after all the glory."
Yu-nyeo have three great enemies: disease, money, and age.
Because of their work, prostitutes are extremely susceptible to various diseases.
However, these diseases cannot be cured by the medical technology of this era.
If the prostitutes in Yoshiwara wanted to be free, they had to save up enough money to redeem themselves, or meet a rich man who was willing to redeem them before they got sick or grew old and lost their looks. Whether it was saving up enough money to redeem themselves or meeting a rich man who was willing to redeem them, it was extremely difficult.
After all, not everyone has the ability to have customers calling on them every night.
For a long time, no customers ordered anything and she didn't earn a penny - this is the norm for most prostitutes.
If you fail to redeem yourself before you get sick and old, you will face two possible outcomes: being treated like garbage and driven to a chaotic place like the banks of the Rashomon River to fend for yourself, or your boss will be kind enough to keep you in a brothel and make you do all kinds of odd jobs and hard work.
Therefore, prostitutes like Hua Feng who can successfully save enough money to redeem themselves and at the same time successfully find a relatively stable job after stopping being prostitutes are considered one in a hundred.
…
…
After being silent for a long time, Guasheng suddenly said in a slightly serious tone:
"Mashima-kun, you just asked me why I have a bad impression of samurai with prominent family backgrounds, right?"
“The reason is actually very simple.”
"Because I think these warriors with distinguished family backgrounds are useless."
"They have no worries about food and clothing since childhood and can receive the best education."
"Because of their prominent family background, they were destined to hold important positions in the shogunate and the feudal domain in the future since they were born."
"They have the best food, clothing, and education, and they occupy important positions in the shogunate and the feudal government, but they always just sit there doing nothing - over time, I became disappointed with these high-ranking samurai who have prominent family backgrounds and are destined to become high-ranking officials since birth."
"I won't talk about distant things, I'll just talk about the near ones."
"There are many problems in Yoshiwara that need to be corrected, but they just don't try to manage and correct them."
"But I don't blame Lord Shirobei."
The helplessness on Guasheng's face became even more intense.
"Although Lord Shirobei holds some administrative power over Yoshiwara, he does not have the qualifications and authority to make drastic reforms to this official entertainment area."
"The ones who can carry out drastic reforms in Yoshiwara are the high-ranking officials of the shogunate."
"But these senior officials have never taken a serious look at or managed the chaos in Yoshiwara."
The melon's little head drooped lower and lower.
"If they don't care about Yoshiwara because of other more important things, then that's fine."
"But I haven't seen this country become stronger and stronger... Three years ago, there was a great famine, and so many people starved to death..."
"After coming to the Shirobei Club, I have always felt sorry for the prostitutes. I have also become friends with many of them."
"In order to reduce the pain of the girls as much as possible, I have been doing my best to do everything I can for them."
"That's why I work so hard at the Shirobei Club."
"At first, I really thought that by doing this, I could alleviate the suffering of the prostitutes."
"Later, I realized that what I was doing was like sharpening a dull knife with my fingernails.
—How can you sharpen a knife with your fingernails?
"My efforts...seem to have no effect at all..."
"This feeling is really annoying... I've been doing something in vain..."
At this point, Guasheng's head had dropped so low that his chin was almost touching her collarbone.
There was confusion in his eyes.
Ogata had been listening quietly to Uesugi's long and emotional speech.
After Uesugi had finished speaking, Ogata remained silent and did not speak immediately.
Ogata and Ueoha remained silent, letting the atmosphere of "silence" linger around them.
After a long while, someone finally broke the atmosphere.
"I'm sorry, I seemed to have said a lot of strange things just now, Mashima-kun, just pretend you didn't hear what I said just now."
The person who broke this atmosphere was Gua Sheng.
As Ueyu said this, he raised his head and smiled brightly as usual.
Ogata turned his head and glanced at Uesugi beside him.
Then——
"There's nothing wrong with using your fingernails to sharpen a dull knife."
Under Uesugi's surprised gaze, he continued to tell the story.
"It is better to sharpen a dull knife with your fingernail than to do nothing with it."
As he said this, a thoughtful look appeared on Ogata's face.
After thinking for a moment, Ogata said softly again:
“Give some light if you can. Even if the light is as small as a firefly, it can bring some light to the darkness. There is no need to wait for a torch to illuminate the darkness.”
This is a famous quote from a famous person in Ogata's previous life.
For some reason, after hearing Ueo's words just now, this familiar quote automatically popped up in Ogata's mind.
So Ogata slightly modified this famous saying, changing it into a mode that is more suitable for Japanese oral habits, and then said it to Uesugi.
As soon as Ogata finished speaking, the look of astonishment and surprise appeared on Uesugi's face at a speed visible to the naked eye.
"... You really deserve to be the first in the essay test." After an unknown amount of time, the astonishment and surprise on Guasheng's face turned into a faint smile, "To think that you can say such amazing things..."
Hearing what Uesugi said, Ogata couldn't help but feel a little guilty...
Because he knew that the words he just said were not something he came up with himself, but were borrowed directly from that famous person in his previous life...
"I didn't come up with this sentence, but it was something I heard from a great writer before..."
Ogata hadn’t finished speaking the truth yet—
“You bastard!!”
A sudden shout interrupted Ogata's words.
The shout came from quite far away, but because it was so loud, Ogata and Ueyu could still hear it clearly even from a long distance.
As soon as this loud shout, which was obviously made by a man, fell, Ogata and Uesugi's faces changed.
Without anyone telling the two of them anything, they took up the swords at their waists and ran towards the source of the shouting.
He didn't know if it was Ogata's illusion, but he felt that the shouting sounded familiar, as if he had heard it somewhere before...
After running all the way to the place where the shouting came from, Ogata and Uesugi saw that many club servants who also came to support Yangmei House, as well as guards hired by Yangmei House itself, had arrived at the scene.
The shout came from a large room on the third floor of Yangmei House.
When Ogata arrived at the scene, the door of the large room was open.
After entering the room through the open door, Xu Fang saw a messy scene.
And someone who looked very familiar.
"Takigawa?" Ogata frowned.
“Mashima Goro…?!” Takigawa, who was standing in the corner of the room, also frowned when he saw Ogata.
After meeting Takigawa, Ogata finally understood why he felt that the voice of that shout sounded so familiar.
This is Takigawa's voice.