Group【6200】
Qingdeng was now hugging the shadow from behind, hugging the shadow closely, with his chest pressed against the shadow's back.
When the black shadow took off his handkerchief and raised his head to look up at Qingdeng, Qingdeng was the first to see a pair of big, moist eyes.
Velvet-like long eyelashes, black and white eyes.
Below these beautiful big eyes, there is a delicate Yao nose and rosy and full lips. If you poke it with your fingers, you will feel very good and elastic white skin...
This is a cute face that is quite familiar to Qingdeng.
The moment he saw this face, Qingto, who was stunned, immediately called out involuntarily: "Miss Kinoshita...?"
It's Kinoshita Mai.
The dark shadow that suddenly fell from the ceiling and appeared behind Qingden was none other than Mai Kinoshita who happened to meet her on the way home yesterday.
Qingnobo was extremely surprised: "Why did Miss Kinoshita appear here at this time?"
But immediately after, less than two breaths later, Qingdeng's emotions were overtaken by a new feeling of shock.
Due to the suddenness of the incident and the fact that he was startled by Kinoshita Mai's sudden appearance, Qingto was solely focused on "quickly subduing this uninvited guest", so he did not pay attention to Kinoshita Mai's costume at all.
It was only now that Qingto finally discovered that Kinoshita Mai in his arms was wearing... a rather extraordinary outfit.
She was wearing slightly loose black clothes on her upper and lower body, with a black headscarf on her head. The scarf that had been covering her face just now was now pulled up to her neck, and her hands and feet were covered with black gloves and black footbags.
Qingdeng...he had seen this costume that only exposed a pair of eyes.
On the night when I copied the talent "Milk".
On the night when the Fanshu Diao Institute was attacked by the anti-barbarian group.
No matter how you look at it...it's the costume of the great phantom thief Neko-monk who has been causing turmoil in Edo in recent months!
Compared with before, the only difference in her clothing is probably that Kinoshita Mai is now carrying a small package containing something unknown on her back.
A huge amount of questions and information hit Qingdeng's brain like a meteorite.
For a while, the brain was unable to process this huge amount of information, and fell into a state of near shutdown.
Looking at Kinoshita Mai in his arms, Qingto, whose brain was shut down, could not open his mouth to say a word with specific meaning.
After a long while, Qingdeng's soul finally began to return to his body, and he mumbled out: "Why are you... wearing the clothes of the Cat Monk?"
At this moment, Kinoshita Mai, who was still raising her head and looking up at Aoto, showed an aggrieved look as if she had been unfairly wronged.
Her big, moist, bright eyes were softly gleaming, her teeth were biting her lower lip lightly, and light red clouds were rising from her cheeks.
She opened her red lips and was about to say something——
Thump, thump, thump, thump!
In the corridor connecting the dojo and the Kondo family's residence, extremely dense footsteps could be heard at this moment.
Just by hearing this sound, Qingto knew that it was probably the "someone" he said just now that alerted Kondo and the others.
Kinoshita Mai, who turned to look at the corridor entrance with Aomori, lowered her voice and said quickly with a worried look on her face:
"Tachibana-kun, come to the alley behind the ramen shop east of the trial hall later. I'll wait for you there."
"Ah? Oh, oh." Qingdeng now gradually suppressed the shock in his heart and stabilized his mind.
Before they figured out what was going on, it was really inappropriate for Kondo and the others to see him hugging Kinoshita Mai, who was dressed as a cat monk.
After nodding towards Kinoshita Mai, Qingto quickly let go of Kinoshita Mai in his arms.
Kinoshita Mai, who had regained her freedom, squatted down, and then jumped upwards with all her strength - like a cat, she jumped back to the top of the ceiling.
Returning to the ceiling, she moved the grid she had just moved back to its original position, and then there was a "click, click, click" sound from the ceiling from near to far, like a mouse hopping around - from
From the sound of this sound, Kinoshita Mai must have successfully escaped along the ceiling.
Not long after the "clack-clack" sound dissipated, the footsteps of Kondo and others finally approached the entrance of the corridor.
"Tachibana-kun, what happened?" Kondo shouted loudly, making people feel refreshed.
Qingdeng turned his head and looked towards the entrance of the corridor, and saw that everyone was here.
There was no time to change clothes, and everyone was dressed in pajamas, holding various weapons.
Kondo, Saito, and Shusuke held up their sabers with serious faces.
Abi, on the other hand, was carrying a woman's naginata majestically.
The naginata was originally the mainstream weapon on the battlefield from the Kamakura to Muromachi eras, but due to its performance and cost being completely inferior to the spear, after the Warring States Period, the naginata's status on the battlefield was completely replaced by the spear.
By the Edo period, the art of the naginata, which had almost no use on the battlefield, had completely become a women's self-defense technique for the daughters of the samurai family, and evolved into a variant of the naginata with a shorter handle and a slimmer blade: the women's naginata.
All samurai families with a good family background and strict education for their offspring will require the girls in the clan to practice the art of the naginata.
For example, Sanako - Kondo and the others once told Ayoto that Sanako's naginata technique is as exquisite as her kodachi technique. She is not only the kodachi master of the Kochiba Sword Hall, but also the naginata master.
Ayoto had heard that Abi, who was born in a pretty good family, had been practicing the Katori Shinto-style naginata technique since he was a child, and his level was quite high.
Okita also carried a sword like Kondo and the others - but with his hair disheveled from sleep, he seemed to be a little awake.
With a trace of drool remaining on the corner of his mouth, he walked with a zigzag step and walked crookedly, looking like he had difficulty controlling his body.
There was a "bang" sound - his head hit the door frame on the side of the corridor.
Although he was still in a dazed state without waking up, his pace of rushing into the dojo with Kondo and others did not slow down at all.
He raised his hand and rubbed the red mark on his forehead while continuing to follow Kondo and others in a hurry.
Kyuubei also came. He clutched his pillow tightly and followed everyone step by step.
"Tachibana-kun, what's wrong?" Shusuke, who rushed into the dojo first, looked around with a solemn expression, "We just heard you shouting 'Who is it?' Did some thief break into the training hall?
?”
"Uh..." Qingto slightly twitched the corner of his mouth a few times with an imperceptible amount. After thinking carefully about how to fool Kondo and the others, he had an idea -
"Master, I'm sorry for alarming you."
Qingdeng laughed a few times.
"No thieves broke in. I made a mistake."
"When I was stretching my muscles just now, I suddenly saw a black shadow flashing outside the window."
Qingdeng pressed his chin toward a window next to him.
"I thought it was some kind of thief, so I yelled 'Who is it?'"
"After I ran over and looked out the window, I realized I had made a mistake - it was not a thief, it was just a... big black cat."
——I actually wasn’t completely telling a lie.
After finishing speaking, Qingdeng added this sentence silently in his heart.
He really wasn't lying.
From another perspective...did he really lie just now?
He did indeed encounter a "black cat" just now.
"Cat?" Zhou Zhu raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"Yeah." Qingdeng nodded firmly, "Yes, it's just a cat."
He rushed to the dojo with murderous intent, only to find out that it was an accident. Kondo and others all looked at each other in confusion.
Kondo and the others asked Aonto some more questions, but they were dismissed by Aoto who insisted that "nothing happened, it was just a misunderstanding."
Seeing that nothing serious seemed to have happened, Kondo and the others had no choice but to disperse.
After watching Kondo and others, who had finally been fooled, file out along the corridor, Aoto quietly showed an expression of relief and let out a long breath.
Immediately afterwards, Qingdeng turned his head with a complicated expression and looked in the direction of the ramen restaurant to the east outside the Trial Guard Hall...
…
…
The ramen restaurant not far to the east of the Shoei Hall is called "Eraku Ramen". Since it is very close to the Shoei Hall, Qingto occasionally goes to this noodle shop to patronize, so for what Kinoshita Mai just said to him, "
"The alley behind the ramen restaurant to the east of the Shoeikan", Aoto naturally remembered where it was.
After sending Kondo and the others back to sleep, Qingto quietly changed his shoes, slipped out of the trial hall, and went straight to the alley behind Erraku Ramen.
As soon as he ran into the alley, Qingdeng left and found the person he was looking for.
Pulling up the black scarf again and covering her face from the eyes down, Kinoshita Mai squatted in the deepest part of this dank alley with her hands and knees.
She hung her chin on her round knees, lowered her head, and seemed to be looking at something.
Aoto, who has strong night vision due to his "cat's eye" talent, took a closer look - Kinoshita Mai was looking at a row of ants on the ground carrying food.
After catching sight of Aoto striding from the alley out of the corner of her eye, Kinoshita Mai quickly stood up, then quickly walked towards Aoto with three steps at a time.
"Jijun," she said, "you came much faster than I expected."
"..." Qingden subconsciously wanted to say hello to Kinoshita Mai.
But after opening his mouth, Qingdeng found that he couldn't say a word.
To be honest...he still has a sense of emptiness and unreality that he is still floating in the sky, stepping on soft clouds.
The famous kaiju cat monk... turned out to be his very familiar friend Mai Kinoshita...
Qingdeng didn't even know what words or sentences to use to describe his current mood.
This kind of thing... If he hadn't seen with his own eyes just now that it was indeed Kinoshita Mai's face under the black scarf, otherwise he wouldn't have believed it to be true.
At this moment, Kinoshita Mai noticed the strange look on Qingdeng's face.
As if she had expected Qingdeng's reaction, she put her hands on her hips and laughed "haha" several times.
"Tachibana-kun, you look surprised."
"But you will be shocked, which is normal."
After saying this in a proud tone, Kinoshita Mai suddenly straightened her back, and then performed a strange little theater as if a famous detective was about to explain his superb reasoning to the crowd.
"That's right!"
"Just like what you just saw!"
"On the surface, it's Mai Teyo Kinoshita, an inconspicuous employment agency."
"But his true identity is actually the great monster thief who makes countless evil people fear him, and he is the Cat Monk!"
While shouting the last words, Kinoshita Wu bent her right leg upwards, standing in a golden rooster independent posture, then flattened her hands into a palm shape, with both palms facing up, and her arms raised high.
quiet……
After Kinoshita Mai's words fell, this remote alley suddenly became extremely quiet.
"..." Qingden opened his mouth slightly, looking directly at Mai Kinoshita, who had been maintaining this weird posture, as if he didn't know what expression to put on now or what to say.
After a while, Kinoshita Mai, who had not received a response from Qingto for a long time, smiled awkwardly and silently lowered her arms and right leg.
"Ji Jun, your reaction is so bland... I thought I could see some interesting reactions from you..."
"Ah, I'm sorry... I'm actually feeling very shocked right now, but I just don't know what to say at the moment..."
What Kinoshita Mai did just now caused the number of questions in Qingto's mind to increase a lot...
Qingden took several deep breaths to steady his mind.
"Ms. Kinoshita, don't you feel uncomfortable talking when you wear such a thick face scarf? Anyway, there are only you and me here, so why not take off the face scarf."
After saying that, Qingden wanted to take off Kinoshita Wu's face.
Seeing Qingteng's stretched out hand, Kinoshita Wu's face under the scarf suddenly changed its expression.
"Don't take off my face scarf!" Kinoshita Mai hurriedly raised her hands to cover the face scarf on her face, and then quickly took two steps back. "Without the face scarf, I wouldn't dare to speak as loudly as I did just now."
——So you are the type who lets yourself go as long as you cover your face!
Qingto carefully recalled the scene after he reunited with Kinoshita Mai in this alley - indeed, Kinoshita Mai who was standing in front of him at this time was more cheerful than the Kinoshita Mai in his impression.
many.
No matter the tone of speaking, demeanor, or movements, he has become more lively. Compared with his usual introverted and shy image, he is completely different.
Since Kinoshita Mai doesn't want to take off her hijab, it's not easy for Qingto to force her.
Qingdeng let out a silent sigh, then lowered his head, raised his right hand, and pressed the center of his eyebrows vigorously with the second joint of his right index finger.
Qingden originally wanted to sort out his still confused thoughts and sort out the current information.
However... because Qingden lowered his head, his gaze also lowered.
And his lowered gaze... happened to glance at the chest of Kinoshita Mai, who was a head and a half shorter than him...
Because she was wearing looser clothes, Kinoshita Mai's breasts, which were very outstanding among her peers, did not show the presence they should have.
After his eyes glanced at Kinoshita Mai's unremarkable breasts, which were accentuated by loose clothes, Qing touched the skin of her right arm, and instantly "recalled" the touch on her forearm when she tried to subdue Kinoshita Mai in the training hall.
That... wonderful feeling.
At that time, Qingdeng didn't know what the heavy, soft, elastic water bag-like object that his right arm touched was.
But now, this memory came to Qingteng's mind, and Qingteng finally understood where he had touched Kinoshita Mai at that time...
Qingdeng's expression became weird at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Whether in his previous life where he had not had a girlfriend or in this life, Qingdeng had never touched these private parts of a girl.
Shame, embarrassment...all kinds of emotions began to surge in Qingdeng's heart.
And at this moment, Qingdeng suddenly recalled something...
——Miss Kinoshita is the cat monk...
——That means... I was... copying the "milk" talent from Miss Kinoshita...
At this thought, Qingto couldn't help but look at Kinoshita Mai's part a few more times.
The talent introduction of "Milk" played back and forth in Qingdeng's mind uncontrollably, and he couldn't stop even if he wanted to.
The constantly playing talent introduction made Qingdeng's expression become more and more weird.
At this moment, Kinoshita Mai noticed Qingteng's eyes staring directly at her breasts, as well as the strange look on Qingteng's face.
Like Qingdeng, she recalled the scene that had just happened in the trial defense hall.
Because it was covered by a towel, Qingto didn't see it - Kinoshita Mai's face was turning red and hot at an extremely fast speed.
She unconsciously pulled her shoulders inwards slightly, hunched over her chest, and turned her body slightly sideways, with her right shoulder facing Qingdeng.
Qingto noticed that his actions of staring at Mai Kinoshita's breasts were really rude. He quickly averted his eyes and coughed a few times to cover up his embarrassment.
"Ms. Kinoshita, that... was in the training hall just now... I'm really sorry."
"It's okay..." Kinoshita Mai murmured, "I can understand..."
The atmosphere that permeated the two of them at this moment was... indescribably awkward.
For the sake of the suffocating embarrassing atmosphere around him, and in order to get the answers to the pile of questions in his mind as soon as possible, Qingto was silent for a while before coughing a few more times, and then looked at Kinoshita Mai again, his face serious.
"Miss Kinoshita, I have as many questions as a mountain and want to ask you one by one."
"First of all - can you tell me first, why did you become a Phantom Thief and stir up trouble in Edo?"
Hearing Qingden's question, Kinoshita Mai was stunned for a moment, then laughed a few times:
"Haha...you asked me such a serious question right from the start..."
"Why do you want to be a Kaitou..."
After Kinoshita Mai softly repeated the question Qingto just asked, she pursed her lips and remained silent for a moment.
"Actually, the reason is not complicated."
"I just want to punish evil and promote good, and lend a helping hand to the poor people who have no power."
"Since I was a child, I have always heard all kinds of heroic stories from my grandma, Uncle Machi, and Aunt Machi."
There was a flash of memory between Kinoshita Mai's brows.
"For example, the 'First Soldier of the Warring States Period' Sanada Yukimura, in order to save the Toyotomi clan whose building was about to collapse, personally led a cavalry team at the Summer Battle of Osaka and charged directly into the Tokugawa Army's main formation, almost taking down Tokugawa Ieyasu's leader.
class."
"Another example is 'Shura' Ogata, who defeated seven formations, killed nine generals, and defeated the 10,000-strong army of the shogunate with just a few dozen cavalry in the 'Red Moon Battle', creating an 'unparalleled eternal swordsman in the past and present'"
'The prestige."
"I grew up listening to these heroic stories, so under the influence of my ears and eyes, I gradually began to admire these heroes."
"Tachibana-kun, do you still remember what Mr. Kiryu told you about my past? A year ago, I left Osaka at the request of my grandma on the grounds of 'training from the bottom'.
I’m here in Edo to serve as Mr. Kiryu’s successor.”
Aomori nodded. He still remembered the past events about Kinoshita Mai that Mr. Kiryu had mentioned to him before.
"I'm from Osaka."
Kinoshita Mai continued.
"Before coming to Edo, I had been living in Osaka and learning various things from my grandma and some of her friends and subordinates."
"Chinese studies, history, arithmetic, martial arts..."
"At that time... under the protection of my grandma, the 'world' I could see was always very small."
"I am well protected by Mr. Makimura and Mr. Asai every day. I can only move around at home and in very few areas."
"It wasn't until I left my grandma and came to Edo that the 'world' in my eyes finally became broader."
"Then...as the 'world' I saw became broader, I also saw many sights that I had never seen in Osaka before."
Having said this, Kinoshita Mai paused for a moment, and then let out a low, self-deprecating laugh.
"Before I came to Edo, I didn't know that there were so many people in this world who were so poor that they couldn't even afford one meal a day..."
"Tachibana-kun, you probably don't know that in an employment agency like ours, almost every day we see many... customers who make us feel so sad."
“The young woman whose husband was persecuted to death by Yakuza can only raise the three children of her family by herself and has to work four jobs every day.”
"I am seriously ill, but in order to make a living for my family, I still have to grit my teeth, drag my body with me, and go to Qianshiwu to find a job."
"The height is less than my waist, but because my family is so poor, in order to share the burden of my parents, I cried and begged Mr. Kiryu and I to help her find a job that a person of her age can do."
"So many poor people are living in dire straits... I feel so sad to see them."
"Probably because I have admired those heroes since I was a child, so I have always dreamed of becoming a hero who can do something practical for the people!"
"So, at the end of last year, I finally made up my mind - I will use my ability to do my best to help these poor poor people!"
"This is the origin of the great thief, 'Cat Monk'."
After quietly listening to Kinoshita Mai's narration, Qingto was silent for a moment, and then let out a long breath.
"...Then why did you suddenly come to me tonight regardless of exposing your identity?"
Another very serious question.
This time, Kinoshita Mai didn't think much and answered without thinking:
"Ji Jun, the reason why I came to you suddenly tonight is because I want to ask for your help!"
"I would like to ask you to come with me to deal with a group of people who have been using Guduo to test their swords frequently recently!"
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Let me give you a piece of advice: Kinoshita Mai's Kaito Thief costume was originally designed to have no sleeves, both arms were completely exposed, and only the wrists were covered with black wrist guards.
But considering Kinoshita Mai's personality, she probably couldn't wear such highly revealing clothing, so she had no choice but to give it up.
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This chapter has been completed!