He ​​has a handsome appearance, and his smooth black hair is tied back into a smooth and slender high ponytail with a purple ribbon. There is always a soft smile on his cheeks, except that the clothes he wears are different from yesterday.
Except for that, everything else was the same as yesterday - it was the handsome young man whom I met at the Imperial Guard Hall yesterday: Souji Okita.
When Qingto cast a surprised look at Okita, Okita, who was currently holding a steamed bun in one hand, also looked at Qingto in surprise.
"Jijun, why are you here?"
"I was patrolling here just now and saw a teahouse here, so I wanted to stop here and have lunch."
"Oh! That's a coincidence!" Okita smiled and waved to Qingto, "I still have an empty seat here. If you don't mind, you can share a table with me!"
The table Okita sat at was a small table that could only accommodate two people.
Okita was sitting alone at this small table, and there was an empty seat opposite him.
It's lunch time now, which is one of the most crowded times in teahouses, restaurants and other places.
The teahouse where Qingteng is currently staying has almost no empty seats left.
Seeing that Okita took the initiative to invite him to share a table, Qingto was more respectful than obeying the order. He ran to the opposite side of Okita and sat down in two steps at a time.
"Okita-kun, why are you here?" Aoto asked Okita after ordering a cup of cheap tea with the tea house's hand proxy.
This handsome boy is now stuffing Japanese steamed buns stuffed with red bean filling into his mouth one by one with one hand, and his cheeks are bulging like a hamster stuffing his mouth full of winter food.
[Note: Japanese steamed buns are stuffed buns]
"There's not much work to do in the Trial Guard Hall today, so it's a rare opportunity for me to come out for some air."
"This tea house is a 'treasure place' that I have been visiting frequently recently." After Okita swallowed the steamed buns in his mouth, he smiled and said, "The steamed buns sold in this tea house are sweet and soft, and they are very suitable for me.
.”
"As long as you eat a few pieces of the steamed buns here, you won't be depressed anymore!"
After saying that, Okita pushed the plate in front of him with three steamed buns left in Qingto's direction.
"Tachibana-kun, do you want to give it a try?"
Qingden also likes sweets.
Facing the steamed bun that Okita pushed towards him, Qingto didn't make any fuss and took a piece of steamed bun from Okita's plate generously.
After putting the steamed bun into his mouth, Qingdeng's brows immediately raised slightly in surprise.
It tastes really good.
The softness and sweetness are just right.
Okita, who had been observing Qingneng's expression carefully, now asked Qingneng excitedly:
"Ju-kun, do you also like sweets?"
"Huh? Yes, I am the kind of person who will feel uncomfortable if I don't eat anything sweet for a few days."
"I also love sweets the most!" Okita showed a bright smile, with two crescents in both eyes. "I'm a little more serious than you. If I don't eat some sweets every day, I feel uncomfortable all over my body."
"So I always carry this with me."
Okita put his hand into his arms and fumbled around, then took out the half-eaten Jinping candy.
Jinpingtang is a small candy grain that looks like a star. It is sweet and can be said to be one of the favorite snacks of children in this era.
"Speaking of which, Tachibana-kun. If you were patrolling around here just now, why didn't you see your Okabiki?" Okita looked around with confusion.
"I don't have Okahibiki." Qingden wrote lightly, "Our family owes Yakuza an extremely large amount of gambling debt, so we don't have enough money to hire Okahibiki."
"Gambling debt?" Okita's eyes widened.
The Okabiki System is the second special system that allows the Minami and Hokuban Police Stations to maintain public order in Edo with only a small amount of police force.
Okabiki, also known as Meimei, has quite a few names, and its functions are similar to modern auxiliary police.
The shogunate also knew that maintaining law and order in such a large city with only such a small police force was a complete fantasy.
Therefore, with the tacit approval of the shogunate, the colleagues of the "Sanchai" of the Southern and Northern Divisions were able to use their private wealth to hire others to work for them.
These people who were hired by Tongxin with their own money and were responsible for assisting Tongxin in maintaining law and order were called "okayiki".
In modern terms, they are a group of non-staff personnel without formal establishment.
No... they shouldn't even be inferior to non-staff members. To be more precise, they are just a bunch of wage earners who receive salaries from Tongxin.
Because he is not a member of the government staff, Okabiki can be either a samurai or a civilian.
After becoming a certain Okahibiki of the same mind, you can receive a Juju from the government as proof of your Okahibiki identity.
There are no restrictions on Okabiki's recruitment, it all depends on the personal preferences of the members.
If you want, you can hire a beggar on the roadside to be your guide.
Although occasionally there will be a few extremely powerful Okabiki who can assist Yuli and Tongxin in investigating and solving cases, but such Okabiki are only a handful.
Most Okabiki can basically only do some chores and backbreaking work. The main case-handling work still has to be done by themselves.
The "Okahiki System" that helps share the workload, and the "township residents' self-government system" that helps reduce the workload - Edo's "Sankai" relied on these two major systems to successfully maintain Edo with only a few police officers.
of security.
The night before yesterday, during the extermination operation against the "Benevolent and Righteous People", the large group of people who rushed into the house along with Arima, Aoto, Inotani, and Ushiyama were Ino and Ushi's Okabiki.
If Seito remembers correctly - Ushiyama raises 5 Okahiki, and Inoya raises slightly more Okahiki, and there are a total of 9 Okahiki employed by Inoya.
When Ainoto took over his father's position and entered the Sadachi Kai family, the Tachibana family was already in debt. Therefore, Ainoto naturally did not have the extra money to hire Oka Hiki to do odd jobs for him. He had to do all the big and small work himself.
Do it yourself.
When the Toshin of the Sadauchi Hui patrols his area of ​​jurisdiction, he often lets several Okahiki under his command accompany him, so just now Okita asked Aonto "Why don't you see your Okahiki?"
After telling Okita concisely and concisely about his current family situation, which was dragged down by his late father's gambling debts, Okita apologized to Qingnobo in embarrassment:
"Sorry... I seem to have accidentally mentioned something that I shouldn't have mentioned..."
"It's okay, no need to apologize." Qingden smiled freely at Okita, "I don't care."
The tea that Qingdeng ordered just now has been served.
Accompanied by this slightly inferior tea, Aoto began to nibble on the three rice balls that Kyuubei gave him this morning.
"Okita-kun, why do you have time to come here to eat steamed buns?" Qingto, who was munching a rice ball, asked casually, "Don't you need to look after the test hall?"
"No need." Okita smiled slightly, "Because Brother Kondo has come back. With Brother Kondo in charge, I don't need to help look after the trial gym anymore."
"Kondo-kun is back?" Qingto was surprised.
"Tama is very close to Edo. Brother Kondo returned to Tama smoothly yesterday afternoon."
"After visiting Mr. Hijikata and confirming that Mr. Hijikata was fine, he hurried on all night and returned to the trial defense hall smoothly this morning."
"Kondo-kun rushed back all night..." Qingto asked puzzledly, "Why are you in such a hurry? Can't you just spend the night at Tama's place and come back after dawn this morning?"
Night travel in this era is very dangerous.
One is because there are no lighting facilities such as electric lights.
Second, because of the public security situation in this era, it is not suitable to travel at night.
Not to mention those remote areas, even around Edo, there are often thieves and bandits.
"There's no way... Now is a critical period for Brother Kondo. If you leave the trial gym for too long, you'll easily be gossiped about."
"Critical period?" Qingdeng asked, "What do you mean?"
"Master, he is very old..." Okita looked a little disappointed between his brows, and raised his hand to play with the slender ponytail on the back of his head, "Whether it is natural Rishin-ryu teaching work or the daily operation and management of the trial academy,
The master is already a little overwhelmed."
"So Master has been preparing to pass this imperial examination hall to Brother Kondo in the next few years, and let Brother Kondo succeed him as the fourth generation head of the Tenurishin-ryu clan."
"Therefore, when you are about to become the new owner of the Trial Guard Hall, if you leave the Trial Guard Hall for too long without any reason, it is easy for some people to gossip and gossip."
"It's not easy to be the young master of a sword hall..." Qingdeng said with emotion.
"Yes." Okita nodded slightly as if he had the same feeling, "So in order to make Kondo-san feel more relaxed, I have to work harder on arithmetic."
"Arithmetic?" Qingden was stunned, "Okita-kun, why are you learning arithmetic?"
"If you want to run a sword gym, you don't need to know how to keep accounts." Okita put his hands on his hips, puffed out his flat chest, and looked confident, "Kondo-san's arithmetic has never been very good."
To be continued...