I assembled the strongest swordsman group.

Harada, lying on his side on the tatami mat, reached out and picked his nose with his finger.

"If I remember correctly... it was about having the Great Tree Lord marry the princess of Kyoto, uniting the noble families and the samurai families or something..."

“…I understand.” Hijikata nodded. “Simply put, it’s about using marriage to leverage the authority of the Kyoto court to strengthen the power and status of the Edo shogunate.”

With this concise explanation in the local dialect, Nagakura immediately understood.

"It feels... kind of frustrating..." Nagakura scratched his head. "The Kyoto court is broke, starving, and without soldiers or generals. And the shogunate is actually trying to arrange a marriage alliance with the court..."

"After all, the imperial court has unparalleled influence."

Tu Fang said calmly.

"A public institution with a history of a thousand years is a very useful banner."

"Whoever can grasp this banner will possess a powerful force called 'righteousness'."

"Don't underestimate this power. If used properly, it can be as powerful as a thousand troops."

"Ah... what a chaotic world..." Nagakura sighed deeply, "All sorts of messy and major events happen every now and then... it's really unsettling..."

"The world is indeed in a very turbulent state right now." Hijikata crossed his arms and nodded slightly. "The shogunate is currently pushing hard for 'union of the court and the military'... If handled well, it could be a brilliant move. If they could gain the support of the court nobles, the shogunate's current situation could improve considerably. But I think this 'union of the court and the military' will definitely not go so smoothly..."

Just as Hijikata, Nagakura, Harada, and the others were having a lively conversation—

Thump thump thump thump...!

Suddenly, the sound of hurried running came from the corridor outside the room.

Before Hijikata and the others could even turn around to look at the sound, the door between the diners was forcefully pushed open with a "thump".

"Quick, quick! Everyone come and help!" Abi, with a white towel wrapped around his head and a broom in his hand, shouted urgently from outside the door, "We've found a mouse! Come quickly and help us kill it!"

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Chapter 209 Shocking! Okita Souji is actually a girl! [7800]

"mouse?"

Harada sat up abruptly from the tatami mat.

"Mrs. Kondo, didn't we already wipe out all the rats in the Shieikan today?"

During the day today, Abi, along with Saito and Harada, who had plenty of free time, searched every corner of the Shieikan, killing more than ten rats. They continued killing until they could no longer hear any strange noises from the cracks in the ceiling and walls.

"I've spotted some that slipped through the net! They're on the ceiling of the dojo! The sound is very faint, there must be two or three of them!"

Abi gripped the broom tightly in his hand with a serious expression.

"We can't ignore these few who slipped through the net!"

"If we ignore this, these few escaped fish could multiply into dozens in a few months! All our efforts today will have been in vain!"

"The ceiling of the dojo is too big; I can't clean it all by myself. If any of you have time, please come and help!"

Nagakura, Saito, Harada, and the others are currently living as guests at Shieikan, and the hygiene conditions of Shieikan are closely related to their living conditions.

Killing the rats in the test hall is equivalent to ensuring the cleanliness of one's own living environment.

Even disregarding the materialistic reason that "killing the rats at Shieikan would benefit them," the fact that the Kondo family was willing to let them make Shieikan their home was enough to make them take on this not-so-troublesome little job without hesitation.

“Alright!” Harada’s body sprang upwards like a spring, straightening his legs the instant his buttocks left the tatami mat, turning from a sitting position to an upright one. “Then let’s go and bring the remaining few who slipped through the net to justice!”

“I already said… ‘Bringing someone to justice’ isn’t done like that…” Saito slowly propped himself up from his tatami mat like a corpse.

Hijikata, Nagakura, and Kyubei stood up right after Harada and Saito, silently demonstrating their willingness to do their part for the "rat extermination operation."

Apart from Aoto, who was taking a bath with Souji, all the guests from the dining area followed Abi to the Shieikan dojo.

Upon arriving at the dojo, they were greeted by Shusuke, Kondo, and Inoue, who had been waiting there since early morning.

"Master," Hijikata asked, "do you want to come and catch mice too?"

"Hehehe." Zhou Zhu stroked his smooth chin. "Our Shieikan dojo is so big, the more people who can come to help, the better."

The area of ​​the Shieikan dojo is around one hundred square meters. Thoroughly inspecting the ceiling of such a large place would be a considerable amount of work.

“Father, Mother, Mr. Kyubei, leave the work of climbing to the ceiling to us young people.” Kondo patted his extremely muscular chest muscles forcefully. “You can help us hold the ladder and hand us the tools.”

Kondo's proposal was unanimously endorsed by Hijikata and others.

Shusuke, Abi, and Kyubei are all elderly people with gray hair. Logically and emotionally, they shouldn't be made to do something as dangerous as climbing the ceiling.

"Are you sure you can handle this?" Zhou asked, somewhat worried.

"Hahaha, leave it to us with confidence!" After a few hearty laughs, Kondo took a wooden ladder and climbed it to the spot closest to the ceiling.

As soon as Zhou Zhu pushed aside the wooden plank above his head, he saw a small cloud of dust drift down through the gap in the plank.

The ceiling of the Shie-gwan is only cleaned once a year, close to the New Year.

After more than half a year of accumulation, the ceiling of the test hall was covered with a thick layer of dust and a lot of disgusting cobwebs.

Kondo stretched his neck, using his skull to prop up the wooden board, and poked half of his head into the ceiling. After quickly surveying the dust and cobwebs that filled his entire field of vision, a wry smile crept onto his face.

"Looks like... after killing the rats, I'll have to go to Chihiro's house for another bath..."

……

……

The two areas, "shower room" and "bathtub", must be strictly separated.

The "shower room" is usually a fairly large room without partitions. Everyone gets water here to wash their bodies, and they can only go to the bathhouse to soak after they have washed themselves thoroughly.

When taking a bath, you can only soak in it; you cannot swim in it or wash your body in it.

Logically speaking, no one would be so disgusting as to use bathwater that has been used by countless people to wash their body.

All of these are the rules that must be followed when taking a bath in a public bathhouse.

At this very moment, in the bathroom of Chihiro-ya, Aoto cast a puzzled look at Souji.

"Okita-kun, why are you sitting so far away?"

Perhaps because he had already realized that he could not escape Qing Deng's grasp tonight, after being dragged into the men's bath by Qing Deng, he seemed to have resigned himself to his fate and stopped struggling.

Souji, who was also completely naked, was sitting quite a distance away from Aoto with his back to him.

Just now, when he was taking off his clothes in the changing room, Souji stood far away from Aoto with his back to him while taking off his clothes. After taking off his clothes, he hurriedly led the way into the bathroom by himself.

Souji slipped into the bathroom very quickly. Aoto, who had just taken off his shirt, turned around when Souji said, "I'm going in first," but Souji's figure had already disappeared into the bathroom.

"I...I...I'll sit here..."

As Souji said this, he shrank his body even smaller.

Souji's current posture is completely curled up.

He stood with his legs together, pulled his shoulders and arms forcefully towards his chest, and used only his right hand to hold a damp towel to wash his body.

Because Souji had his limbs tucked in, from Aoto's perspective, he could only see the back of Souji's head, back, and buttocks.

Ever since entering the bathhouse, Souji's behavior has been strange... Aoto couldn't help but stare intently at the back of Souji's head and back with an even more intense look of doubt.

Souji's evasive attitude made Aoto uncontrollably suspicious:

—Is this because I forced him, who likes to bathe alone, to bathe with me? Souji is angry and doesn't want to get close to me?

—Or is he the kind of person who isn't good at being "open and honest" with others?

This kind of person is quite common; you often see them in bathhouses: they don't like to be "open and honest" with others, especially they don't want others to see their private parts.

Aoto wasn't sure if Souji was that kind of person.

All Qing Deng knew was that Souji had been acting extremely strangely these past two days.

He simply took Souji's unusual behavior after entering the bathhouse as an extension of Souji's strange actions over the past two days, and therefore did not pay much attention to Souji's bizarre behavior, silently withdrawing his gaze.

Neither Aoto nor Souji spoke... The only sounds in their large bathroom were the rustling of towels being used to dry themselves.

The speed at which Souji washed himself was just as fast as the speed at which he took off his clothes.

"I'm done washing!"

From the moment he entered the bathroom to when Souji shouted, "I'm done showering," less than two minutes had passed.

"Are you done washing?"

Startled by Souji's speed in taking a bath, Aoto subconsciously turned to look at Souji, but he couldn't see Souji—Souji had already darted through the pomegranate-shaped opening like a rabbit and into the bathhouse before he could turn around.

—Okita-kun… he’s really strange…

Qingdeng stared intently at Shiliukou, his eyelids drooping slightly, and the allure that had just faded returned to his eyes.

……

……

Shieikan, Dojo—

"We've finally managed to bring you to justice..."

Harada held a fat, dead rat upside down with a smug grin.

Saito, standing beside him, was too lazy to correct Harada's use of idioms.

"This should be the last one." Kondo took the fat rat from Harada's hand and casually tossed it into the winnowing basket at his feet.

Including the fat rat that Harada caught, there are now three dead rats lying quietly in the winnowing basket at Kondo's feet.

“This should be the last one,” Hijikata said. “We’ve searched every corner of the dojo’s ceiling. Even if there are any left, they should be far away by now.”

"Hehehe, thank you for your hard work." Zhou Zhu walked over with a broom in hand. "The rats in the dojo should be all gone... Let's call it a night."

"Ugh, how disgusting!"

Suddenly, Yongcang let out a scream.