Tokyo: The life of a literary giant begins with home self-defense!

Chapter 399 Attending One's Own Funeral 2
How would you feel if someone who has come back from the dead stood in front of you in the dark?
Longchuan Che did not feel any fear or terror; instead, he had the illusion that he had expected this.

"That kind of person will not die peacefully."

These are Maki Takeda's original words: compared to her younger sister who simply wanted him to come back and see her, the older sister seemed to understand the old man in front of her a little better.

"It should have appeared a few days later."

Seeing Tatsukawa Tetsu standing there, Kujo Fujitaka smiled at him.

"But I came out early when I heard you were here."

When the wind picked up, the sleeves on the old man's clothes began to sway.

Long Chuanche saw the other person's thin body and the dense needle marks on his arms.

Even if he's not dead yet, his death is not far off.

This thought popped into Longchuan Che's mind.

"Want to walk with me?"

Compared to when I first came to this courtyard, the old man's attitude seemed much gentler.

He waved his hand to disperse the monks who were helping him, and the huge courtyard was suddenly left with only Longchuan Che and the old man.

Even if it's just out of politeness

The old man coughed twice halfway through his sentence.

"Isn't respecting the elderly and caring for the young a virtue?"

The old man was clearly standing there waiting for someone to come and help him up, and Long Chuanche rolled his eyes.

"Stop putting on airs at a time like this, okay?"

Long Chuanche curled his lip; the other party had been quite imposing when he waved his hand to disperse the crowd.

Now he's standing there waiting for someone to help him up.

It can only be described as a stark contrast.

"Where?"

When you help the elderly person, they feel light and almost weightless.

Like hollow bamboo, it is meant to transform into powdery bubbles.

"there."

The old man pointed to a winding path. Long Chuanche glanced at it; it was a path leading to a bamboo forest in the distance.

"Xia Zi didn't know you were still alive?"

The old man beside him seemed light and weightless. Long Chuanche glanced at him and said.

There was the rustling of bamboo leaves and the whistling of the wind in the bamboo forest.

Moonlight fell on the old man's shoulders, and Ryukawa Tetsu recalled the expression on Imamura Natsuko's face as she copied the scriptures.

When she entered, the girl's expression was a mixture of sorrow and resentment. The scriptures scattered all over the floor clearly indicated that she was preparing for a funeral.

"I tried my best to keep it from her."

The old man coughed, shaking off the moonlight.

"Walking along the forest path," said Fujitaka Kujo.

"But whether she guessed it or not, I'm not sure."

Natsuko Imamura is, in a sense, someone who absolutely cannot lie.

She could guess the thoughts of most people in the world; if an elderly person faked their death in front of someone, they would definitely be seen through at a glance.

"So you had her come with me to Europe last month? And then she came back after you had everything arranged?"

The old man's meticulousness was astonishing; Long Chuanche couldn't understand what the other party needed to hide from his granddaughter.

Long Chuanche asked if he didn't understand anything, and the old man clearly wasn't hiding his plans from him today.

"Why do you think Xiong Chuan married a woman who had separated from the family after your mother passed away?"

Imamura Yukawa, the adopted son-in-law of the Kujo family.

He was supposed to marry his mother, but after his mother chose her own partner, he married a woman who had separated from his family.

"Because of love?"

Long Chuanche was somewhat curious; the image of the potato minister with a bitter and resentful expression was still vivid in his mind.

"love?"

The old man chuckled, seemingly finding the answer somewhat amusing.

"Do not act on emotion, thoroughly."

The old man first gave a word of advice, then continued:

"Nine families divided their ties, totaling thirty-six relatives, including Xiazi's maternal family."

The old man coughed twice more as he finished speaking.

Long Chuanche patted the old man's hunched back, and the old man waited until he had recovered a little before continuing:
"Natsuko's maternal family controls businesses in southern Nagoya."

Southern Nagoya is home to Japan's most important heavy industry sector. Even excluding the Kujo family's influence within political parties, the family of the eldest daughter's mother alone is quite formidable.

"Was the young lady deliberately placed by your mother to be by your side?"

His own mother left against his wishes, leaving only one adopted son-in-law in Kujo Fujitaka's branch of the family.

She married Imamura Yukawa and became the head of the Kujo family.

Some of the more unusual daughters were even placed next to the elderly.

In just a few words, the old man told Long Chuan about the treacherous and deceitful atmosphere within his family.

"She's dangerous. You need to be careful of her in the future."

It's unclear whether the "she" in the old woman's name refers to Natsuko Imamura or her mother.

Or perhaps both?

As Long Chuanche was thinking this, the old man had already led him deep into the dense forest.

A stream flows through the dense forest, its banks lined with calamus flowers amidst the murmuring of its waters.

"It's quiet here."

The old man smiled at Long Chuanche and gestured for the boy to sit down on the stone bench next to him.

The babbling stream accompanies the swaying calamus, and as the moonlight ripples, the cicadas chirp and squeak in the bamboo grove.

"If you want to live a few more days, don't go through all this trouble."

Long Chuanche sighed and sat down next to the old man.

It's so cold here that it feels bone-chilling even in summer.

The old man didn't speak, but waited until Long Chuanche sat down before pointing east.

"where is that?"

“There?” Tatsukawa glanced over; it was in the direction of Tokyo.

"Tokyo, Izu, Mt. Fuji?"

Long Chuanche casually named a few places, but the old man shook his head in dissatisfaction.

"Edo".

The old man uttered these two words, which were the old name for Tokyo.

Tokugawa Ieyasu ushered in the shogunate era and chose Edo as his political center.

“At that time, there was a strict order of seniority and class distinctions, and the Fujiwara Kita family’s stipend reached a maximum of 3040 koku.”

The Fujiwara Hokuke family was the original form of the Kujo family; this powerful clan had separated from the Fujiwara family.

"That's all ancient history."

The old man's tone carried a hint of reminiscence, while Long Chuanche glanced at him with a touch of disdain.

The Kujo family was indeed at its peak back then, and unlike now, their prosperity was out in the open.

Unlike now.

Long Chuanche glanced at the old man. Nowadays, no one would accept the title of "noble" because it clearly indicates a class division.

"That's ancient history."

The old man didn't mind being teased by his grandson.

"But it's actually just a different form."

The so-called aristocracy or class is actually just that the upper class has more power to allocate resources, while the lower class can obtain less than one ten-thousandth of what the upper class can.

The old man looked at his grandson.

"I know you hate me."

The old man's voice was weak, like a candle flickering in the wind.

“You hate me for kicking your mother out of the house, and you hate me for never seeing you before you came of age.”

The old man was weak and hoarse, and the calamus flowers rustled against his clothes.

“I don’t hate you.” Long Chuanche sneered. More than what the old man said, he was concerned that the other man had never shown his face even once before his daughter’s death.

"Whether I hate him or not doesn't matter."

Kujo Fujitaka smiled as he looked at Tatsukawa Tetsu, who had appeared before him.

"Some things were destined from the moment you stood in front of me."

"what?"

The old man pointed to Edo, which he had mentioned, and then to the house behind him.

"Attend my funeral."

The old man's voice was dry.

"Then inherit this family business."

(End of this chapter)