Imagawa Ujimoto and his party were following the young man holding a torch in a gloomy secret passage. The corpse of the dead rat exuded a stench that made everyone feel anxious before they could hold it in and vomited it out. The secret passage was full of spider webs, and it looked like no one had used it for a long time. If this young man hadn't led the way, Imagawa Shimoto would never have imagined that there was a secret door hidden under the moldy tatami in a dilapidated thatched house.
By the light of the fire, Imagawaji Yuan began to look at this tunnel. The cross-sectional area of this tunnel is more than twice as large as that of Nagoya Furuno's tunnel, so there is no problem in walking upright. Every few dozen steps, you can see a fork that leads to all directions. At first glance, you can see a large tunnel group. To dig such a huge group of tunnels without being discovered requires unimaginable manpower, material resources and control over Kyoto - these tunnels were either dug by the royal family hundreds of years ago, or by the Kamakura Shogunate and Muromachi The shogunate was built to monitor the emperor when he was still in his prime.
"Who are you?" Imagawa Yuan was slightly uneasy and asked the young man in front of him softly.
"A commoner warrior, accompanied by a phoenix chariot, such a story has never been heard before."
The young man quoted a poem written by Fujiwara Tamabusa five hundred years ago and gave a vague reply. Imagawa Ujimoto, who is well-read, naturally knows what the young man is referring to: when Emperor Shirakawa was in power, in order to protect the traveling emperor from the frequent attacks of the monk Ikaku, the ancestor of the Imagawa family, Hachiman Taro Minamoto no Yoshiie, led his retainers, Attending the Emperor. However, Minamoto no Yoshie and others did not have official positions at that time and could only be regarded as civilians. In order to facilitate the battle, he did not wear the official belted dress of the court, but replaced it with civilian clothes to facilitate the battle. He followed the emperor's sedan chair with a bow and arrow in hand.
Such behavior could be described as nondescript in the court at that time, so Fujiwara Tamifusa left a record. Who would have expected that this incident was the first for the royal family to hire samurai without official positions, and it was also the beginning of the famous "Northern Samurai". Since then, the focus of Japanese history has gradually shifted from the imperial family to the samurai family.
Just when Imagawa Ujimoto was pondering the meaning of the young man's reply, the young man suddenly stopped and said, "We're here."
"Where is the exit?" Imagawa Shimoto looked around, but could not find any passage.
"Here." The young man pointed to a small ditch at their feet. "From here, crawl over more than ten feet, then climb up half a foot, and you can enter the hotel."
"Where are you staying?" Imagawa Shimoto was choked by the pungent smell coming from the ditch.
"Shit pit." The young man said without hesitation, "I will send it here, you can do the rest."
Imagawa Ujimoto used a torch to shine a light there, and he could see that the ditch was covered with feces, urine and feces, and there were also many rats eating feces.
"Ugh--" The Furunoji Yutaka who followed behind him couldn't hold back after all, and vomited it out in one mouthful. Kira Ushinari, Tian Shen Kentaro and the four Nakasugi family ninjas also had expressions of embarrassment. Even Nakasugi Torachiyo, who wanted to save his sister, retreated for a while, but he had no intention of raising it himself - anyway, Imagawa Ujimoto, who was so obsessed with germs that he would not even take a skewer stained with mud, would not do it anyway - —
Before he could finish this thought, he saw Imagawa Ujimoto, who was wearing white clothes, get into the ditch without hesitation and crawl forward on his hands and knees. The rats were startled by his movement and fled from under and around him.
"No way..." Torachiyo Nakasugi held back the churning gastric juices, gritted her teeth, and crawled over with Imagawa Ujimoto. "Forget it, we can't let that fool Goro die alone!"
·
In the hotel, which was only a few dozen meters away from Imagawa Ujimoto, the ninjas at the door on the second floor suddenly felt something was wrong. There were some small noises in the room just now. They thought it was Ginkgo struggling and didn't think much about it. Someone proposed to come in and have a look, but the other three people rejected it. They were afraid that Ginkgo would start shouting "being molested" again as soon as they entered the door. Imagawa Yoshima followed the sound and saw that they were in the house, which would cause trouble.
However, as time passed, the noise in the house became louder and louder. But after a while, there was no movement at all. Several ninjas looked at each other, but in the end they still didn't dare to open the door themselves, so they went upstairs to report to Imagawa Yoshima and asked him to come down and see for himself.
"I have to come in person for such a trivial matter. Are you all just losers?" After hearing the report, Imagawa Yoshizhin was furious again, but the four ninjas couldn't express their suffering. When Imagawa Yoshima opened the door and walked in, everyone was shocked - the rope binding Ginkgo had fallen to the ground, the window of the house was opened, and Ginkgo was nowhere to be found.
"You guys..." Imagawa Yoshima wanted to immediately cut the corpses of the unlucky subordinates in front of him into pieces, but he still suppressed his anger and quickly ran to the window to take a look - there was a block behind him.
"Did you see the hostages running away?" Imagawa Yoshima shouted to the ninjas who were watching in the corridor on the second floor and on the street behind the window. Everyone looked at each other in shock.
"What a bunch of losers! They're just as useless as the air crash rescue team!" Imagawa Yoshima was speechless at the efficiency of his ninjas, and immediately yelled, "They shouldn't have gone far! Go out and search the surrounding neighborhoods for me." !”
After saying that, he stepped out in a rage, and the ninjas behind him kowtowed and hurriedly followed.
"Huh - why did it take you so long to leave? I almost fell asleep. I was so sleepy." In fact, Ginkgo, who was hiding in the closet in the house, finally breathed a sigh of relief after hearing the footsteps and finally left. Li Miaomiao's hair, "Good performance, I'll add chicken legs for you."
·
Imagawa Motoya, who finally crawled out of the ditch, ignored the bad smell and sticky attachments on his body that were so bad that he had never felt anything in his life - in normal times, such a situation would be enough to make him worse than death. He committed suicide immediately - but now he had to quickly find Ginkgo - of course he didn't know that the hostage he wanted to rescue had already escaped on his own. But he knew that if he saw Ginkgo being wronged, he, a good man who had never killed anyone according to the precepts for more than ten years, might also go on a killing spree in anger.
After Imagawa Ujimoto, Nakasugi Torachiyo, Kira Hidenari, Taro Shen Kentaro, Nakano Ujitoyo and the four Nakasugi family ninjas also emerged from the ditch. They all picked up their weapons and stuck them to the toilet door. After Imagawa Shigen made a gesture, they rushed out together.
The two ninjas who were watching next to the toilet on the first floor of the hotel never expected that an enemy would appear here, and they were instantly cut down by Imagawa Ujimoto, who was at the forefront. However, Imagawa Ujimoto did not kill him as always. These ninjas were all desperadoes who did not hesitate to perform their tasks. After finding that they were still breathing, they took out their hidden weapons and wanted to attack Imagawa Ujimoto at the closest distance. By the time Kawaji Yuan noticed it, it was already too late.
However, at the critical moment, Chiyo Nakasugi Tora rushed over behind him and struck out with two more daggers, stabbing straight into the throats of the two fallen ninjas. Blood continued to gush out from the corners of their mouths.
"Goro, what time is it? Come on, kill me! Otherwise, you will be the one who dies!" Nakasugi Torachiyo cursed with hatred.
"Sorry Torachiyo, I caused trouble." Imagawa Ujimoto said very apologetically when he saw that his soft heart caused Nakasugi Torachiyo to have his hands stained with blood.
"Forget it, these are brothers. You risk your life to save my sister, and I'll help you clean up the aftermath with my dirty hands as a return favor." Nakasugi Tora Chiyo laughed twice, and asked Imagawa Ujimoto to continue rushing towards the corridor. , "Let's go!"
At this time, Imagawa Yoshima just happened to lead people to the first floor, and was bumped into by Imagawa Ujimoto and others. Although the ninjas were good at assassinations and attacks, they were no match for the samurai in a head-on duel. No matter how many there were, they could not perform in this narrow corridor, and they were beaten back by Imagawa Ujimoto and his entourage. Although Imagawa Ujimoto still didn't kill anyone cruelly, Nakasugi Torachiyo followed him in a tacit understanding, killing the fallen people with one knife after another.
"What the hell, how did you come out here? Are all the ninjas watching outside taking a nap? So many people sneaked into the hotel without even a warning!" Imagawa Yoshima was continuously beaten by his ninjas within an hour. After being tricked, I was already so angry that I couldn't have any more love. Originally, he led the ninjas to enter the hotel first, suppressing the surrounding open space with hidden weapons, and was already in an invincible position. Unexpectedly, Imagawa Ujimoto appeared directly in the hotel for some reason.
As the saying goes, good things come in pairs and misfortunes never come singly. Just when Imagawa Yoshima complained that the ninjas under his command were not useful, the ninjas brought by Imagawa Ujimoto came to a rare end.
"I've sensed something was wrong a long time ago. It's true that I'm trying to lure the tiger away from the mountain. Otherwise, why would His Highness send a stranger to deliver the order?"
Not long after being transferred to the north, Tsuchi Atonsune, who suspected something had changed, rushed back to Kyoto with most of his subordinates, and happened to meet Nao Hayasaka who came to deliver the order. After hearing Hayasaka Nao's report, the ninjas realized that they had been tricked and hurried to the hotel where Imagawa Ujimoto was staying. After discovering that a fight had begun in the hotel, he immediately joined the fighting group.
Imagawa Ryozhen's ninjas were attacked both internally and externally, and were thrown into disarray by a sudden attack. They were about to be unable to hold on any longer. Imagawa Yoshima realized that the situation was beyond control, and without saying a word, he took the people around him and evacuated the door. Before the people of the Sui Aton Sutra could control the horses, he grabbed the horses and fled eastward, directly evacuating outside Kyoto. Seeing that Imagawa Yoshima himself had withdrawn, the remaining ninjas immediately dispersed like birds and beasts and fled for their lives. Imagawa Ujimoto didn't have time to chase them. Instead, he filled the hotel and started searching for the whereabouts of Ginkgo.
He rushed straight to Ginkgo's room, only to find that the room was already empty. Ginkgo's belongings were thrown carelessly in the corner, and there was a broken rope next to the overturned chair. Imagawa Ujimoto knelt down and tried to look for clues, but found several slender hairs scattered on the ground. He picked up a piece of hair and brought it to his nose and smelled it. It was the smell of ginkgo.
Ginkgo...has been taken away...
Imagawa Ujimoto's face instantly turned pale, and his brain could not function at all. He tried to stand up tremblingly, but his body seemed unable to move. He suddenly fell to the closet next to the wall and opened the closet door. .
As a result, he was surprised to find a young girl sleeping peacefully on several sets of mattresses placed in the closet. On the girl's belly, Miaomiao also slept soundly.
As if disturbed by the sudden movement, Ginkgo blinked, and then stretched, as if she hadn't woken up. She rubbed her eyes and sat up, looked at Imagawa Ujimoto, and greeted him lazily like she did when they first met: "Good morning, sir."
"Ms. Ginkgo, are you... okay?" Imagawa's Yuan, who had been lost, asked stammeringly even as he spoke a little awkwardly.
"It's okay. I figured out a way to escape on my own, but I couldn't get out of the hotel, so I hid here. There was no light and I was sleepy, so I fell asleep." Ginkgo, who was dizzy from sleep, has not yet responded. Come here——Imagawa Shimoto who suddenly appeared in front of him had to put in a lot of effort and risk to break in.
"They didn't do anything to you, right?" Imagawa Ujimoto nervously checked Ginkgo's skin and clothes, and then breathed a sigh of relief when he found nothing unusual.
"No..." Ginkgo rubbed her eyes and continued to mumble, "I said I was going to use it as a hostage to threaten you, how dare you use me like this? Just fine."
"It's okay...it's okay..." Imagawa's disordered breathing gradually calmed down, but as he thought about it, he suddenly realized a problem.
"So if we don't come to rescue you, Miss Ginkgo can escape by herself?"
"Ah? Are you here to save me?" Ginkgo, who finally recovered from her half-asleep state, shook her head slightly to make herself more awake, "Yes, I took care of it myself. You guys have been working so hard for nothing." trip."
"Then..." Imagawa Ujimoto took a deep breath, then leaned over to look at his "brown" clothes stained with feces and urine and his stinky body. His mental breakdown was even more severe than before.
"ah--------------------"
A shrill scream rang out in the hotel, and a man covered in filth rushed into the bathhouse on the first floor with lightning speed and did not come out for a full hour.
·
After the chaos, in order to avoid investigation by the security officials, Imagawa Ujimoto and his party moved to another hotel. Simply because the security situation outside Kyoto has always been poor, their fight did not attract much attention.
At this moment, Imagawa Ujimoto was lying on the bed with a face full of grief and anger. Every time he thought about what he had experienced today - the heroic visual and olfactory impact, this young man with severe mysophobia wanted to hit him to death.
"I'm not clean anymore...I'm not clean anymore...I can't get better..."
Imagawa Shimoto repeated these words like a young monk chanting sutras. Ginkgo, who pushed open the door and saw him like this, felt funny and distressed at the same time, and sat down next to him.
"I heard from Koichiro, sir, that you have been lying here all afternoon? My brother has even finished his apprenticeship and has retrieved the art of war book he wanted to ask for from his master. Are you still lying there?" Ginkgo patted Mr. Imagawa gently. Yuan's chest, and then began to play with the messy hair on his forehead, "Are you feeling better? Buy some Jinping candies for sir?"
"I can't get better." Imagawa Jigen slowly raised his right hand and pressed it on his face, "I'm about to burst."
"I've heard about it. Tell me about you. You are so clean that you don't even want to touch a skewer with some mud on it. You have to wash your hands after doing anything. How can you still jump into a cesspit when you see it? "Ginkgo was amused by Imagawa Ujimoto's appearance and couldn't help but chuckle.
"Aren't you worried about Miss Ginkgo?" Imagawa Shimoto muttered angrily, and then remembered the heart-wrenching feeling at that time, and sighed with fear, "I am afraid that Miss will encounter an accident, and I am afraid that I will never see Miss again. When I think of these things, I don't care about anything else. I just want to save you, so why should I care about mysophobia?"
"Haha, I'm fine. A girl from the mountains is very capable. She's not as delicate as you girls from Kyoto. She has to be protected by someone to be fine. Don't worry, sir, we won't see you again. ..." Ginkgo was moved by Imagawa Ujimoto's words, but she still boasted indifferently.
"But Miss Ginkgo will marry someone else in the future, and I'm afraid we'll never see her again again, right?" Imagawa Ujihara turned sideways, afraid that Ginkgo would see her reddish eyes, and said softly.
"Hey..." Ginkgo was also a little sad by Imagawa Shimoto's words, but in order to ease Imagawa Shimoto's mood, she still forced a smile and joked, "There are many ways, I can go out to have an affair with my husband, or he can take me My future husband's family was destroyed and they took possession of me by force. However, my husband will leave a bad reputation for lusting after beauty and stealing wives. And I will probably be called a beauty, and in the future, some people may say that my husband is They started a war just to get me."
Imagawa Ujimoto was not amused by the joke, but suddenly stood up, held Ginkgo's jade hands, and stared into Ginkgo's eyes solemnly.
"Miss Ginkgo, let's get married."
Ginkgo was instantly attracted by the moving light in Imagawa's eyes, her heartbeat suddenly accelerated, and she felt like her soul had disappeared.
After a moment, I realized what Imagawa Ujimoto was talking about.
"Sir... what are you... talking about..." Ginkgo blushed suddenly and hurriedly took her hand away from Imagawa Shimoto's hand. I took two deep breaths, trying to calm down my emotions, but still couldn't do anything. Finally, he turned around shyly and ran out of the door without looking back.
