That night——

Edo, a certain restaurant——

In order to celebrate Qingnobo's victory in this swordsmanship competition, following the "red and white battle" of the "Plum Blossom Festival", Shusuke once again generously donated money, booked a room in a certain restaurant, and held a lively

Celebration banquet.

Anyway, it was Zhou who helped him pay the bill. Everyone ate with ease, drank with ease, put down their pretensions and had fun together.

It was quite lively with people drinking and drinking.

Qingdeng has been very busy recently, and the attack on the "radical anti-foreigners" is still in full swing, so the official affairs seem to be endless. It is indeed a long time to solve one official matter and then another.

I didn’t have a good time to relax.

Therefore, Aomori temporarily relieved all his burdens tonight, completely emptying his mind and having fun with Kondo and Hijikata's brothers.

Hijikata's drinking capacity was very good. After drinking a few cups of sake, except for his cheeks being slightly red, everything else was as usual.

When the atmosphere of the celebration banquet was getting extremely jubilant and lively, Hijikata suggested inviting some geishas to come over and add to the fun.

Geisha are female performers who do not sell their bodies.

Of course - their "artwork but not body" is just a nice thing to say.

In the beginning, geishas did not sell their bodies.

But no industry can stop practitioners from getting involved!

Among the geishas who are constantly entangled with each other, someone finally crosses that bottom line - while performing their talents for their clients, they also display other talents that cannot be detailed.

After someone breaks through this bottom line, more and more geisha will naturally follow suit in order to make a better living.

Finally, in this continuous interplay of industries, those geishas who "perform their art but not their body" find it difficult to compete with their counterparts who "perform both their art and their body", and their living space is increasingly squeezed out.

Therefore, in order to survive, many geisha were forced to let go of their last bit of reserve and dignity as artists, and began to play the piano with their left hand and undress their clients with their right hand.

To this day, those geishas who still manage to insist on "showing off their skills but not their bodies" are almost all big star figures who have money but may not be able to hire them to perform.

After all, only these big stars with outstanding talents or extremely beautiful looks have the confidence to stick to the bottom line of "never sell themselves".

Because geishas now basically take the route of "selling both their skills and their bodies", the overall hiring cost has become a lot more expensive.

Zhouzhu, who was sitting on the main seat, silently took out the money bag from his arms with careful movements. After taking a look at the savings in the money bag, he solemnly put the money bag back into his arms with a righteous look.

"Tufang, those who practice martial arts should not be too obsessed with beauty."

"Those who indulge in beauty are often depressed and depleted of energy and blood, which is extremely harmful to the practice of martial arts."

…

Zhouzhu was chirping, beeping and talking at length about Hijikata.

He talked so much in a long way, but the central theme was just one sentence - let's just eat and drink tonight, geishas and the like, wait until next time.

"Hmm... Why is there no wine..." Okita, who was sitting next to Qingto, grabbed the wine bottle placed next to his dining table and shook the empty bottle vigorously a few times.

"Okita-kun, you can't drink any more." Qingto, who was also a little tipsy at this time, grabbed the wine bottle from Okita's hand, and also grabbed the wine glass on Okita's table, "No one is allowed to drink."

Pay attention, you are so drunk...Hey, are you still conscious?"

Aoto waved his hands vigorously in front of Okita's eyes.

Okita, who had a poor alcohol tolerance, was now so red that his face seemed to be dripping with dark red blood at any moment, and his eyes were half-squinted with confusion.

After he glanced at Qingdeng who was waving his hands vigorously in front of him, he smiled brightly and showed Qingdeng a bright smile with both eyes bent into crescents.

"Tangerine-kun...you have performed very well in the competition these past two days...you have passed all levels and are unbeatable..."

Well, I can still speak normal human language, and it seems that I am not too drunk... After confirming that Okita was not so drunk that he could not speak clearly, Qingto nodded with confidence.

Since Aoto was forbidden to drink alcohol, Okita simply drank soup instead of alcohol.

"Hehehehe..." Okita picked up the miso soup on the dining table with both hands, took a sip and said happily, "Tachibana-kun won this competition... The apprentices who come to our trial defense hall in the future should also

It can become more..."

The previous victory in the "Red and White Battle" in the "Plum Blossom Festival" successfully gave their trial defense hall a bad reputation. From that day on, people came to their side because they heard about the name of their trial defense hall.

The number of apprentices studying increased greatly.

Today, Qingdeng successfully won the first prize in this high-profile and grand swordsmanship competition, which is bound to further increase the reputation of their trial defense hall.

It is not difficult to imagine that the number of apprentices coming to the Trial Guard Hall to study in the future will definitely increase further!

As soon as Okita finished murmuring, he heard Zhou Zhuchang in the chair sigh, and then echoed:

"Hohohoho, it has been so long since the establishment of the Trial Guard Hall, and now we are finally in a good position."

Hijikata, who was sitting side by side with Kondo, suddenly paused while passing the wine glass to his lips after hearing these two sighs from Okita and Shusuke.

He raised his gaze, glanced at Shusuke, then at Kondo beside him, and then silently put the wine glass in his hand back on the table.

"...Since we mentioned the Trial Guard Hall...this is a rare opportunity. Master, Asheng, I have some opinions on the current operation of the Trial Guard Hall. Are you interested in hearing it now?"

"Huh?" Kondo squinted his eyes and looked at Hijikata, "Opinions? What opinions?"

Hijikata put the chopsticks he was holding in his right hand back on the dining table and cleared his throat: "As for how to further strengthen our trial defense hall... I suddenly thought of a new idea recently."

"Oh?" Shusuke's eyes flashed with interest. He looked straight at Hijikata and motioned for Hijikata to continue.

The rest of the people at the banquet, including Qingto, also stopped what they were doing and focused their curious and doubtful eyes on Hijikata.

Everyone was looking at him, but Hijikata didn't show any stage fright. After stuffing a peanut into his mouth, he spoke calmly:

"I'll just get straight to the point."

"Let's try to recruit some warriors with a certain reputation as disciples or diners of the Imperial Guard Hall."

As soon as Hijikata said this, everyone at the banquet immediately looked puzzled.

"Ah Sui." Kondo put down the bowls and chopsticks in his hands, turned around and faced Hijikata, his face full of doubts, "What do you mean? Why do you want to try to recruit a samurai with a certain reputation as our disciple or diner?"

?”

Hijikata seemed to have expected that Kondo would ask him this question. He folded his hands in front of his chest, showing a confident look.

"This is the inspiration I got by chance recently."

"Just a few days ago, I was chatting with a few newcomers in the library because I was bored."

"While chatting with these newcomers, I learned from their mouths that they were all attracted by Tachibana's name and chose to learn swordsmanship from us."

Having said this, Hijikata turned his attention to Qingto.

"Tachibana is now a celebrity in Edo. I had expected that some people would come to the Imperial Guard Hall because they were attracted by Aoshito's name."

"But after chatting with the newcomers, I suddenly realized that the number of people in this group seemed to be much larger than I had previously expected."

"So, with a playful attitude, I launched a serious investigation to find out how many people entered the Trial Guard Hall because of Qingdeng."

"The results of the survey surprised me: quite a few people heard that the 'Hokubansho Kotengu', who has recently gained a reputation and has made many extraordinary achievements, studied here, so they decided to come to the Shiwei Hall to practice swordsmanship."

"After finding out this fact, a new inspiration emerged in my mind."

"If a sword hall has famous disciples or patrons, it can have a strong 'attraction' to others."

"People can't help but wonder: What is the ability of this sword hall to recruit so many celebrities under its command, so they become interested in this sword hall."

"This is similar to the fact that when Yoshiwara oirans use accessories or cosmetics from certain merchants, women will often go crazy to buy these accessories and cosmetics."

"So, I think that if we can try to recruit such famous warriors as disciples or diners in the hall, it will definitely be of great benefit to the future development and growth of our trial defense hall!"

Hijikata's eloquence was quite good, and with just these simple words, everyone understood his proposition.

When Hijikata was only halfway through his explanation, Seito had already understood what Hijikata meant - simply put, it was to use the "celebrity effect" to expand the reputation of the trial gym so as to attract more people.

Learn the sword at the Trial Guard Hall.

Zhou Assistant raised his hand, smacking his lips and stroking his smooth chin: "Well... Hijikata, I understand what you said."

"But..."

As Zhou Zhu changed the subject, a wry smile appeared on his face.

"Trying to recruit famous samurai as apprentices or diners... This is easier said than done."

"Why do those celebrities come to be our disciples or diners at the Imperial Guard Hall?"

"To put it bluntly, a little harshly... our trial gym has not completely eliminated the stigma of 'Taro Dojo' yet."

"Currently, all over Edo, there are more attractive sword halls than ours, and I can't count them on two hands."

"Besides, it's easy to talk about disciples, but as for diners... our current financial resources are not strong enough to support many diners."

"It's very expensive to raise diners. The amount of money a diner pays for a month is not a small sum..."

Although the practice of hiring diners to live in the kennels and help out during the Edo period has always been popular among kenkans in the Edo period, the high cost of supporting diners meant that only a few kentans had diners.

Hijikata interjected at this time and asked: "Approximately how many diners can our trial guardhouse support now?"

"Well..." Zhou Assistant looked like he was thinking, and the hand rubbing his chin was a little harder, "Compared with before, our recent income is much better, but if we make full use of it, at most... we can only support 2,

Just 3 people.”
To be continued...