The Legend of Tokyo Taoist

Chapter 322 The Child I Pushed (11)

The TV in the box was playing the Spring Festival Gala as background music, trying to add a festive touch to the atmosphere in the room. However, even without doing so, the atmosphere in the box was lively enough. The people at the table were drinking so hard that their faces were red and their necks were thick. The sounds of people urging each other to drink sounded like quarrels, which made people feel irritated.

But not everyone drank alcohol, like Qian Xiaoyi and Inuyama Heita. Qian Xiaoyi came here on the pretext of riding a bike and couldn't drink and drive, and Inuyama Heita was simply a minor, so after taking a few symbolic sips of the drink at the beginning, no drunkards came to find Qian Xiaoyi.

Facing a table full of delicious food, the two turned into gluttons and kept stuffing food into their mouths, making their mouths bulge. A table full of food like this would be extremely expensive in Japan, and you can't usually find such authentic flavors, so of course they had to eat a lot.

"This is delicious, and so is that... Is that a frog? Damn, it's delicious too." Inuyama Heita had worked here before, but found that the table was full of dishes he had never seen before. After asking Qian Xiaoyi, he realized that these things were authentic Chinese dishes, and the menus usually shown to the Japanese were all misleading.

It’s not that the food sold normally is not delicious, it’s just that it is more in line with the “Chinese style” in the eyes of the Japanese.

The table was filled with all kinds of hard dishes such as crystal pork elbow, nine-turn large intestine, Buddha jumps over the wall, Cantonese roast goose, etc. Before you could taste the food, your eyes had already been feasted. Inuyama Heita felt astonished and thought to himself, "What on earth do I usually eat?"

In addition to these two guys who came to eat for free, there was another person who didn't drink, and he was the host of the table.

Although it was night, Zhang Chunfa was still wearing his signature sunglasses, so people couldn't see his eyes and guess what he was thinking. At this moment, he held the coconut milk in his hand and took a sip from time to time. When someone came to toast him, he would gently raise his glass as a token of his appreciation. No one dared to urge him to drink. He didn't eat much either, perhaps because he was already tired of the dishes in front of him. The noise around him seemed to be in two different worlds from him.

When they had almost finished drinking, it was time for the table to leave. Qian Xiaoyi asked the waiter to pack up the remaining dishes and let Inuyama Heita take them back by train, so that they could have two meals tomorrow. He himself stayed behind, waiting for something.

Zhang Chunfa spoke to a mother and son at the door of the private room. After sending them away, he snapped his fingers at Qian Xiaoyi and said, "Done. I'll let my wife and son go home first. Are you full? I'll take you to the sauna."

"Is my sister-in-law a local?" Qian Xiaoyi looked at the woman who was leaving. Her posture certainly did not seem like that of a Chinese.

"Yes." Zhang Chunfa said, "Since we have settled here, it would be more convenient to find a local one so we don't have to travel back and forth."

They went downstairs, and Zhang Chunfa took him to his car and said to the driver, "Rongzi, let's go to the bathhouse."

The car started, and the three people in the car were all silent. Zhang Chunfa leaned back in his seat, took off his sunglasses, rubbed his brows, and had no intention of speaking. Qian Xiaoyi naturally would not make small talk.

Fortunately, we arrived at our destination very quickly. It was an old-style Japanese bathhouse that looked very vintage.

Zhang Chunfa put on sunglasses and walked in with Qian Xiaoyi. Behind the counter was an old man wearing reading glasses and reading a newspaper. When he saw Zhang Chunfa, he smiled and said in Japanese: "Mr. Zhang is here? Today is the Chinese New Year, right? I wish you a happy new year. Did you bring your friends here to take a bath?"

"Yes, my friends from China." Zhang Chun said with a smile, "Congratulations on your prosperity, Uncle Sanlang."

Qian Xiaoyi nodded to the gatekeeper as a greeting, and the other party responded in a friendly manner, just like a kind old man reading a newspaper. However, Qian Xiaoyi noticed that the little finger and ring finger of the hand holding the newspaper were all broken, leaving only three fingers. "Here, the key to the locker, go in and change your clothes." Zhang Chunfa took two key cards from the old man and threw one to Qian Xiaoyi.

The two put their clothes away, then entered the bathhouse with a small wooden basin in their hands and a towel draped over their shoulders.

Compared to the gangster bathhouses in the movies with flashing cold colors, this place is actually just like any other bathhouse, with bright lights and mist. The wall next to the bath is covered with tiles with patterns of Mount Fuji and blue sky, which is very old-fashioned.

There are quite a few people taking a bath here at this time, all of them are middle-aged and elderly people, and they even look similar to the bathhouse that Qian Xiaoyi often goes to, but the only difference is that these middle-aged and elderly people often have large areas of tattoos on their backs. Qian Xiaoyi even saw an old man with 80% of his body covered with tattoos walking past him.

"Did you get scared?" Zhang Chunfa said, "I'm sorry, but people in our profession all have tattoos on their bodies. You know, ordinary bathhouses don't allow us to go in, so we can only build a bathhouse for ourselves and come here to take a bath from time to time."

Qian Xiaoyi said: "It's not that I'm scared, I just only saw it on TV before."

"It's nothing, they are just some retired old men." Zhang Chunfa waved his hand and said, "It will be fine."

The two of them found a shower head and washed their bodies first. After Qian Xiaoyi finished washing, Zhang Chunfa had already sat in the pool, with his hands on the edge of the pool, enjoying the moisturizing of the hot water. And it is worth mentioning that even at this time, he was still wearing sunglasses.

Qian Xiaoyi also went into the pool. The water level was above his shoulders, and he let out a comfortable sigh.

Neither of them spoke until two minutes later, when Zhang Chunfa finally spoke: "Only at times like this can I feel at peace... Brother Qian, you suddenly came to me a few days ago and asked me about that matter. I... don't know how to tell you."

"Why?" Qian Xiaoyi turned and looked at Zhang Chunfa.

"Why?" Zhang Chunfa smiled and did not answer the question. Instead, he changed the subject and said, "You must think it's funny. I even wear these sunglasses when I take a bath to look cool. I'm not a child anymore... But there is a reason for this, because..."

He took off his sunglasses, revealing a pair of normal-looking black eyes, but then he did something surprising.

He stretched out his finger to his left eye and tapped the eyeball with his fingernail, making a crisp "tapping" sound, and said: "Because of this, this eye of mine is blind."

Qian Xiaoyi finally noticed that his left eye was out of focus and looked lifeless. If you looked closely, you could easily tell that something was wrong. He pondered, "So you wear sunglasses all day because you don't want others to see you like this?"

"So..." Qian Xiaoyi asked, "Did your eyes become like this because of what happened 20 years ago?"

(End of this chapter)