Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 19 A Qing
Yuanye and Aman chatted for a whole night and got a basic understanding of the major families in Owari Province. By the way, they also got a "Map of Owari Province and Vicinity in Medieval Times" which was out of proportion, with the locations of mountains, rivers and cities mostly incorrect, but all the necessary place names were included.

A'man chattered the whole night until his mouth was dry. He felt that he had deserved his stewed chicken and white rice. He covered himself with the quilt with peace of mind, patted his belly and went to sleep with a contented sound sleep. Yuanye, on the other hand, spent some time looking at the familiar or unfamiliar cities, family names, and family crests on the map, trying to recall the relevant historical data and mark them in pinyin.

A good memory is not as good as a bad pen. Write it down now while your memory is still clear. Otherwise, if you leave it for too long, you might forget some things. It would be too unfair if you lose your life because of it.

When it was late at night, he couldn't remember anything for a while, so he blew out the light and went to rest. However, there was too much information in his mind. Faced with this Japanese Warring States Period that was completely different from his stereotype, he was completely unable to fall asleep and his mind was full of random thoughts.

The little historical knowledge he knew was totally inconsistent with what Aman said!

In this chaotic and bizarre era, can he, a foreigner, really survive safely?
He was thinking restlessly, and just when his sense of superiority began to waver, he suddenly heard Ah Man shouting: "Who is it!?"

Then, in the pitch-black earth seat, there were sounds of fists and kicks, the sounds of blocking and collision, muffled groans, and the sharp cries of some animals, and the whole place was instantly in chaos.

Yuanye subconsciously rolled to his stupid son Meng Ziqi's side, and picked up the signal gun and electric baton from the quilt. His wild thoughts turned into a stomach full of MMP.

He was really speechless. He only exchanged more than ten strings of copper coins, which was equivalent to RMB 20,000 to 30,000 based on the rice price in later generations. Although it was not a small amount, it was not much more either. Was it necessary to attract thieves for two consecutive nights?
However, before he could finish complaining in his mind, and before he could figure out how to help in the dark, the outcome was decided in a few breaths on the edge of the throne. In the darkness, Aman screamed, as if he had been hit hard, and fell to the ground with a "bang". There was no movement since then. He was probably defeated and was forced to play dead.

Yuanye's eyes fixed, not daring to hesitate and wait. He wanted to shoot at the intruder's approximate direction based on the sound, at least to stop him from continuing to chase A-man, or to attract his attention, so that A-man would have a chance to launch a sneak attack and turn the defeat into victory. But just as he raised his gun, he heard a cold voice, calling out with a little hesitation: "Sister?"

There was silence in the darkness for a moment, and then Ah Man's groaning and complaining could be heard. "Damn it! I was wondering why a little beast was digging at me. It turned out to be you...hiss, my eyes... they hurt me so much! Damn it! You still have the nerve to call me sister? Now that you've grown wings, you even dare to hit me. I really saved you in vain. I might as well have saved a dung beetle..."

There was silence in the darkness for a moment before a voice was heard, "You kicked me first, sis."

"How could I kick you if you didn't touch me? Besides, I didn't kick you, look at how you hit me..."

There was no sound in the darkness again. The intruder did not continue to answer, as if he did not want to argue with Aman. Only Aman's groaning and complaints never stopped, and he kept saying that the intruder had no conscience and was worse than a dung beetle.

Yuanye took out a tinderbox to light the oil lamp, only to see that Aman had fallen from the earthen seat onto the dirt floor. Not only was her face covered in dirt, her hair looked like it had been scooped by some animal, and one of her eyes was black and blue. She looked extremely miserable and pitiful. On the edge of the earthen seat where she had been lying, stood a strange little girl, with a red-eyed little monkey squatting on her shoulder.

When the strange little girl saw the lights come on, she instinctively turned to face him, her face expressionless, her eyes cold and focused. She put her hands on the kunai at her waist and slowly bent down to assume an attacking posture. The little monkey on her shoulder also stood up and grinned at Yuanye, revealing its sharp canine teeth, as if it could leap over at any time and dig his head into a chicken coop.

"Alright, alright, stop being nervous." Ah Man crawled back to the earthen seat in a panic, covering his bruised right eye and said in pain, "We are all family, stop fighting. If we keep fighting, I will be the one who gets hurt!"

She had been quite happy today. She was very lucky. She was caught robbing her own gang but was not killed. She also had rice with fat chicken and drank Ming Dynasty tea. However, she never expected that she would encounter another disaster in the middle of the night. She was almost blinded for no apparent reason. She was really unlucky.

She was whining and complaining there, and the strange little girl was obedient. She slowly relaxed her posture, lowered her eyes and stopped staring at Yuanye. The little monkey on her shoulder also quieted down, but still stared at Yuanye curiously with its big round eyes - it was probably a Japanese macaque, with white hair, red face and short tail, and not very big, about seven or eight kilograms.

Ah Man sat there again, covering his eyes for a while, and then he introduced them to each other painfully, "Hiss, let's get acquainted. Ha, Ah Qing, this is the Western samurai Nohara whom I just met...hiss, what's your common name? Oh, Nohara Saburo... Ah Qing, this is the Western samurai Nohara Saburo, who just invited me to dinner, and he's quite a nice guy. That, hiss, this is my sister Ah Qing, and her little beast Rotten Asshole."

Aqing looks about the same age as Aman, but is a head taller than her. She is just very thin, even thinner than Aman - Aman is not fat herself, and Aqing looks even more slender.

In terms of appearance, she and A-man were dressed like little boys. They had short hair, bangs, a dirty face, a small bun on their heads, and a ragged patched cotton cloth. They were barefoot and wore straw sandals, but the two of them didn't look alike at all. They were probably not sisters - A-man had a round face, big eyes, and small eyebrows, while A-qing had a small oval face, willow eyebrows, and thin eyes. Her temperament was not as lively and lively as A-man's, but instead had a kind of alienated aura that kept people away from her.

Simply put, she looked like she had been frozen in the refrigerator for three days.

Yuan Ye glanced at her quickly and smiled at her politely. He did not treat her perfunctorily because of her young age. He nodded politely and said, "Hello, please give me your guidance in the future."

Just now, when Ah Qing stared at him coldly, he instantly felt as if he was going to be killed, and the hairs on his back stood up, so he was extra polite.

Of course, it could also be an illusion.

Ah Qing looked up and gave him a cold look, then lowered his eyelids and said nothing, appearing quite rude.

Ah Man was not surprised and explained to Yuan Ye casually: "Don't mind it, she is just like that, she doesn't like to talk, and it takes three beatings to make her fart."

Yuanye glanced at Aqing, waved his hand and smiled, "It's okay." After that, he knew that the sisters must have something to say, so he tactfully went to the earthen room to light a fire and prepared to boil an egg for Aman to apply on her eyes.

It was really tragic. In just a short while, one of Aman's eyes had swelled into a slit, and the dark blue was shiny with oil, which looked miserable no matter how you looked at it.

Ah Qing came over when he left, lowered her head and looked at Ah Man calmly and asked, "Sister, what's going on? Didn't you get caught stealing something?"

Before A-man went to Zhengyi to rob his fellow thieves, he left her a code word, saying that he was going to Hibizun Village to earn some extra money and asked her not to run around and to wait for her in the castle town of Furuno Castle. Then they would go west together.

After reading the code, Aqing waited obediently, but when it was dawn today, Aman still didn't come to meet him. He suspected that Aman's old habit had come back and he was going to get back what he had stolen.

To prevent the tragedy from happening again, she rushed to the casino to look for her, but after searching all day she still couldn't find her. That's when she started to suspect that something had happened to Ah-man. In theory, with Ah-man's skills and experience, she should have been able to steal some money without any intention, and even if she couldn't steal anything, she shouldn't have been caught. So she hurried all the way to Hibitsu Village, and even tied up a villager who was on guard at night to interrogate him about the situation. She found that she was right. Her sister and the two river pirates failed to steal and were caught.

The river pirates had been sent to Huangzi City, and their fate was worrying. Her sister was being held in the village, in the hands of a foreign warrior.

Originally, she had prepared herself mentally for her sister to be humiliated into a rag doll. With murderous intent rising in her heart, she planned to launch a surprise attack on Yuanye first, rescue her sister or force her to tell her where her sister was, and then slit Yuanye's throat in front of her sister, using her blood to wash away the shame suffered by her sister. However, she never expected that her sister was lying on her back next to the earthen throne, and as soon as she touched the throne, a flood washed away the Dragon King Temple.

At this moment, Aman was wearing a strange dress (her clothes were all smelly and she had to change, but Yayoi only had one set of clothes and couldn't change them for her, so Yuanye cut a piece of cotton cloth, cut three holes in it and put it on her, letting her make do with it temporarily), and was sleeping on a dirt seat with a strange mat on her. To be honest, this was a bit weird and she couldn't understand it at all.

"Bullshit, who said I was caught? How could I be caught? No one in this world can catch me!" After hearing what A Qing said, A Man felt a little embarrassed. A Qing's words were simply an insult to her professionalism and a lifelong stain. She could never admit it.

She quickly told the story of the "six cents" to prove that she had a kind heart, that saving a life was better than building a seven-story pagoda, and that she was a good person who wore 24K pure gold inlaid with diamonds.

The reason why she is here now is definitely not because she is not skilled enough or not good enough and was injured and can't leave, but because he is so nice and Yuanye forced her to stay to thank him. She originally planned to leave after saving the man and hide her merit and fame, but Yuanye was so moved that he lay on the ground, hugged her thighs, and begged her with tears to stay and accept his hospitality. She had no choice but to reluctantly enjoy the fat chicken and rice and temporarily sleep on the edge of the earthen seat.

Ah Qing listened silently, probably not believing it at all, but she didn't argue with Ah Man. After Ah Man finished explaining, she said softly, "So that's how it is. Okay, sister, shall we go now?"

"Are we leaving now?" Ah Man was stunned. He hesitated for a moment, covering his dark blue eyes. His tone was very hesitant. "I don't think so?"

Ah Qing frowned slightly in confusion, then looked down at her indifferently, not quite understanding why she wanted to stay in a stranger's house, especially with a warrior.

Ah Man turned around and glanced at Yuan Ye. Seeing that he was lighting a fire and not paying attention to this side, he lowered his voice and said to her, "He bought a lot of rice. Let's eat it for a few days before leaving. Anyway, the old man won't be back for a while. It's useless to wait anywhere. At most, we can go to Gu Ye again and leave a letter for him."

"But what Grandpa ordered..."

Ah Man interrupted her before she could finish, "Don't worry about getting the news, I'll talk to the old man when the time comes. At best we'll fart at each other, and it's not certain who will end up dead!"

Ah Qing was silent for a moment, then lowered his eyelids and said, "But he is a samurai, and there are no good samurai. We shouldn't stay here!"

"That's true. The warriors are all bastards, but... he seems different." Aman hesitated for a moment, glanced at Yuanye and whispered, "He caught someone like me... uh, saved him, and he actually believed me and didn't kill me. This is a bit strange. No matter what a thief and a lowly person like me said, he should have killed me directly. He should have felt it was beneath his status to talk to us.

But he didn't. He treated my wounds, gave me new clothes, fed me chicken, let me sleep on a dirt seat, and spoke to me politely, as if he treated me as a human being like him... He doesn't look like a samurai, at least not like an ordinary samurai, so it should be okay to keep him for a few days."

Ah Qing stopped talking, protesting silently. He obviously disagreed with what she said, but he didn't want to argue or refute, so he could only express his dissatisfaction in this way. Ah Man didn't care whether she was happy or not. Seeing that she had nothing to say, he waved his hand and made a decision, "Okay, okay, I can't make mistakes when I look at people! Besides, the old man is not here, so I have the final say. I will stay a few more days if I say so!"

Then she turned to Yuanye and shouted, "My sister came here so late, can you give her some food and let her stay here for a few days?"

She was originally a part-time blind wizard, and was also half a beggar. She was extremely shameless and had no psychological burden about begging for food. Yuanye didn't take it seriously when he heard it, and agreed without thinking.

Originally, he was planning to let A-man recover from his injuries before leaving. He had to provide for her food anyway, and now it didn't matter if he had another sister. He didn't need those few kilograms of rice.

Compared with the "intelligence" provided by Aman, spending a little more rice is nothing.

…………

Ah Qing was forced to stay. She had worked so hard to save her sister, but her sister got greedy and wanted to eat more rice. She insisted that the stranger she just met was a good person and refused to leave. In the end, she couldn't leave and could only stay here temporarily. Fortunately, the two of them were children (children in Yuanye's eyes), and they didn't take up much space. It was not crowded to sleep in the same bed, and the earthen seat could accommodate them.

More than 20 minutes later, Yuanye managed to cook a pot of thin rice porridge and an egg for A-man to apply on his black eye. A-man took the peeled egg and stuffed it into his mouth at lightning speed, fearing that Yuanye would snatch it back. But before he stretched his neck to swallow it, hesitantly spat out a small half of it and threw it into A-qing's bowl reluctantly, leaving Yuanye speechless - people of this era act like crazy when they see food, it's really unbearable.

Ah Qing sat alone in the dark corner of the fire pit with the little monkey, drinking porridge in silence. His expression was always a little distant and alert. Occasionally, he would accidentally meet Yuanye's eyes, and her eyes would be cold and they would look away after a moment. She had no intention of communicating with him at all, a bit like a proud, cold and slender little crane, refusing to deal with ordinary people.

Yuanye even felt a hint of hostility in this gaze, which was a bit puzzled, but he was not sure, so he did not use the wooden spoon to add porridge to her enthusiastically or show his hospitality. Seeing that she was uncomfortable with him being here and there was nothing for him to do here, he just said politely and went back to his seat to rest.

Sure enough, after he left, Ah Qing seemed to relax a little, started to add more porridge by herself, and occasionally talked to Ah Man. Of course, Ah Man was the one who chattered most of the time, and no matter what Ah Man said, she just looked at the fire, drank the hot porridge and listened quietly.

Yuan Ye slowly closed his eyes as he listened to the gentle words. Half asleep and half awake, he suddenly remembered something and sat up abruptly and asked A Man, "By the way, do you have any brothers or sisters?"

If there are any, call them all together quickly. At most he can go buy another stone of rice. He doesn't lack this little money. But don't let them kill him one by one in one night. His heart can't stand this kind of stimulation. He was lucky this time. Aman happened to be sleeping outside. Otherwise, he would probably be awakened by a knife on his neck, which would shorten his life by at least three days. And what if one of them is brainless and throws a kunai from a distance and stabs him in the head, killing him first? Who can he complain to then?
"That's all!" Ah Man was slurping rice porridge, as if he could never be full. He said vaguely, "There are only two of us from Haidong County. You can sleep peacefully. No one will disturb you anymore."

"That's good!"

Yuanye felt relieved. He tucked the corner of the quilt for his silly son, lay down, closed his eyes, and slowly fell into sleep.

(End of this chapter)