Chapter 246: Chapter 110: The Incident of Aoto Encountering Strange Black-clothed People at Night

Looking at Hijikata, who still wanted to have a practice duel, Aoto was momentarily stunned, then laughed heartily.

"Sure, let’s go again!"

Aoto was in a good mood now. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Pushed by this good mood, Aoto almost immediately accepted Hijikata’s invitation to spar.

The two grown men once again engaged in a bout of fists...

Sitting at the edge of the dojo watching the match, Chokata was not particularly interested in sparring with fists and feet. If he weren’t bored with nothing else to do, he wouldn’t have come to watch.

When Aoto and Hijikata started fighting again, Chokata yawned loudly, crossed his legs, rested his left elbow on his left knee, supported his face with his left hand, stretched his right hand behind his head, brought his ponytail to the front, and idly played with the tip of his braid...

...

...

The next morning——

"Young Master, Mr. Saito, be careful on the road."

As usual, Kyūbē stood outside the Shiwei Hall’s entrance, bowing to send off Aoto and Saito. Since Kondo and the others woke up a bit late today, Kyūbē was the only one seeing off Aoto and Saito this morning.

"Did you bring your lunch and blankets?" Kyūbē inquired.

"Yes." Aoto showed Kyūbē the lunch and blankets in his hands, "Brought them all."

Beside him, Saito silently displayed the lunch and blankets in his hands to Kyūbē.

Compared to every morning when they left for "work," Aoto and Saito both had something extra in their hands—thick blankets.

These blankets were for them to spend the night with.

Today, it was Aoto’s turn for the night shift at the Magistrate’s Office, and he had to stay there until dawn.

It was still very cold at this time, and the night would be even colder. If they didn’t bring sufficiently thick blankets, the night shift would be quite hard to endure.

Seeing that Aoto and Saito had everything, Kyūbē breathed a sigh of relief.

Aoto reminded Kyūbē to "remember to tell the master not to prepare dinner for him and Saito tonight" before he and Saito left in large strides under Kyūbē’s gaze.

Aoto was so familiar with the route from Shiwei Hall to the North Guard Station that he could walk it with his eyes closed—yet something unexpected happened on this route he had walked countless times today.

"What’s going on?" After reaching a certain intersection, Aoto suddenly found that the road ahead was blocked by a dense crowd.

Stretching his neck, using his height advantage, he looked towards the front of the crowd—it turned out there was a large convoy of carts and horses.

This must be a merchant’s convoy purchasing goods, with the ox carts and horse carts blocking the already narrow road, leaving only a small gap on the far right side of the street enough for two people to pass side by side.

With so many people lined up in front of Aoto and the others, waiting to pass through this small gap... choosing this path would mean who knows how long it would take to get through the street.

So, after a moment’s thought, Aoto decided to take a detour.

He led Saito and turned onto a rarely-used street nearby.

Just as Aoto was focusing intently on the road, out of the blue—a pleasantly familiar female voice, one he hadn’t heard in a while, came from behind him:

"Eh? Mr. Tachibana?"

Stunned, Aoto halted, turned around, and looked back.

"Miss Kinoshita?"

With a gentle joyous smile on her face, Mukiwa tapped her red-laced flat wooden clogs, holding a wooden bowl with unknown contents, and quickly arrived in front of Aoto and Saito.

She first bowed and greeted Saito, then turned all her attention to Aoto.

"Mr. Tachibana, long time no see!" Mukiwa’s cheeks, with a hint of rosy blush, brimmed with more joyful smiles.

Since the celebration party for the victory over the Little Chiba Sword Dojo, Aoto hadn’t seen Mukiwa.

Seeing the girl in front of him, who hadn’t been seen for more than half a month and was now smiling so happily, Aoto smiled slightly:

"Miss Kinoshita, long time no see. What a coincidence to run into you here."

Aoto greeted Mukiwa while secretly thinking to himself:

—Miss Kinoshita seems to be getting more familiar with me...

Aoto clearly felt that Mukiwa’s attitude toward him was much warmer than before.

Thinking back to when he first met this girl, she didn’t even dare to look him in the eye and spoke to him in a voice so low it was like chanting a spell.

But now, Mukiwa could look directly at Aoto openly and even show him a bright and natural smile. When bumping into Aoto on the street, she could also take the initiative to call out to him and greet him, not speaking in a mosquito-like voice anymore.

Aoto speculated that it was probably because after meeting Mukiwa, he frequently interacted with her in various ways, and over time, they became familiar with each other.

Faced with such a well-acquainted person, Mukiwa naturally wouldn’t be so reserved anymore.

As soon as Aoto finished speaking, Mukiwa nodded vigorously.

"Yeah! What a coincidence! Mr. Tachibana, are you heading to the Magistrate’s Office?"

"Yes." Aoto grimaced, "It’s a special period now, and the previous ’two days on, one day off’ rule has been temporarily abolished. Now when we can have a break depends entirely on luck."

"And you? Miss Kinoshita, are you... going to buy tofu?"

When Mukiwa approached, Aoto noticed that the wooden bowl she was holding contained two extremely fresh pieces of tofu.

"Yes." Mukiwa nodded meekly, "Mr. Kiryu promised me yesterday to make my favorite tofu soup today."