Done!【7500】

Test room, kitchen——

"Soji, who are those three people?" Ah Bi asked Okita who was helping her next to her while preparing tea with skillful techniques.

Abi is very confused now.

Just now, she had been staying in the bedroom on the second floor, sorting out the swordsmanship hall's account books, summarizing and calculating the swordsmanship hall's income and expenses in the past month.

Just when she was feeling dizzy, Okita suddenly knocked on the door and told her: guests are coming and asked her to help make tea.

Among all the people in the imperial examination hall, apart from Gensaburo Inoue, who has stayed in his hometown because of something else and has not returned to the imperial examination hall, only Abi can make good tea.

Normally there were very few visitors, so why did they suddenly come? Confused, Abi went down to the first floor and secretly took a look into the living room - three young people who he didn't know at all came here.

"Those three people are Tachibana-kun's Okabiki." Okita explained while passing the washed teacup to Abi, "Nagakura Shinpachi, Harada Sanosuke and Toudo Heisuke."

"Okabiki?" Abi frowned slightly, "Why did Tachibana-kun's Okabiki suddenly come to our place?"

"Ah..." Okita reached her hand behind her head and played with the slender ends of her short ponytail, "Yes... I seem to have forgotten to tell Auntie about this."

"Ahem, it's like this-"

Okita cleared his throat, and then told Abi in a concise and concise manner the plan they had drawn up at the celebration banquet last night to rely on the "celebrity effect" to further develop and expand the Trial Guard Hall.

As soon as Okita finished speaking, Abi's eyebrows suddenly stood up, and she yelled quickly like a conditioned reflex:

"What? Inviting diners? No! I don't allow it!"

"Shh..." Okita quickly raised his right index finger and put it against his lips, "Auntie, please keep your voice down..."

The kitchen where Okita and Abi are currently located is on the first floor of the bathroom hall together with the living room where Aoto, Kondo, and Nagakura are. The two rooms are not far apart. If Abi's voice is heard by Nagakura and the others,

If you go, that would be embarrassing.

Abi also realized that his voice might have been too loud just now, so he pursed his lips, suppressed the urge to roar in his heart, and scolded Okita in a low voice:

"What are you thinking? Why do you invite a few people who are not related to us to stay with us for no reason?"

"Aunt, listen to me." Okita said patiently, "If a sword hall has such famous disciples or diners, it can have a strong 'attraction' to others..."

Okita relayed to Abi exactly what he heard from Hijikata last night about the benefits of bringing celebrities into the sword hall.

Ah Bi, who was still angry and puzzled at first, slowly became more cheerful after listening to Okita's explanation.

But her eyebrows were still twisted.

"...No, I still can't accept it." The corners of A Bi's mouth drooped downwards, and the whole mouth curved into a sharp arc, "If you are here to be an apprentice, then that's it."

"But if you want to stay with us as a guest...I can't accept it!"

"After letting Mr. Tachibana and the others move in, we will already have enough residents here."

"If we let more people move in, you won't be too crowded, but I will be too!"

"Besides - how can we have so many places for people to live in our trial defense hall?"

"There is a place to live." Okita was still playing with his ponytail, "Auntie, have you forgotten? There are quite a lot of empty seats in the 'diners room' where Tachibana-kun and Saito-kun are staying.

"

Hearing Okita's response, Abi choked up.

When Zhou helped him build the Trial Wei Hall, he considered that the Trial Wei Hall might attract some diners in the future, so he built a large room on the second floor of the Trial Wei Hall specifically for the diners to live in.

However, since the establishment of the Trial Guard Hall, it has not successfully attracted diners, so this "diners' room" has been abandoned.

It was not until more than three months ago, after Aoto, Saito, and Kubei moved into the Imperial Guard Hall that this large room that had been abandoned was finally put into use and freed up for Aoto and the others to live.

The "diners' room" is quite spacious, and it is more than enough to accommodate even 10 people. After excluding the current three tenants, Ainoto, Saito, and Kubei, it can accommodate at least 7 more guests.

A Bi, who had forgotten that there were quite a few empty seats "among the diners", had a trace of embarrassment on her face, but she quickly suppressed it.

With her eyebrows still tightened and not relaxed, she opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something more.

But Okita took the conversation one step ahead:

"...Auntie, let Brother Kondo give it a try."

Okita put down the hand playing with his ponytail, and slightly pulled up the corners of his mouth, revealing a peaceful smile.

"This is the first time that Brother Kondo has used his own will and ideas to run the sword gym."

"In the past, he always followed the master step by step."

"How the master usually runs the sword hall, he copied the master's business methods exactly the same."

"I'm not saying that this method of completely copying the experience of our elders is not good."

"But I think...if you only know how to rigidly copy the experience of your elders, it is not a good thing after all."

"This is the first time that Brother Kondo has tried to improve the existing management methods of the sword hall based on his own thoughts and ideas, which is very different from the experience of his elders in the past."

"Whether this move is successful or unsuccessful in the end, I feel that I should give Brother Kondo encouragement."

"I guess Master thinks so too, so that's why he let Brother Kondo do it."

After finishing speaking, Okita stopped talking.

He just smiled and stared at A Bi quietly in front of him, waiting for A Bi's response.

The emotions on Abi's face changed rapidly.

The wrinkles on his face were piling up and loosening for a while. His lips were constantly opening and closing due to wanting to speak but not wanting to speak.

It lasted like this for quite a while... A Biben's frowning eyebrows finally relaxed slowly.

"...Hmph!" Abi, whose mouth was still drooping, snorted heavily through his nose, then turned his head and looked at the kettle on the stove instead of looking at Okita, "You young people...

Since I've grown older, I've become more and more fond of confronting old people like us, and I've become more and more sharp-tongued."

"You can make it whatever you want! Make this sword hall whatever you like! I don't care!"

Okita, who knew Abi's temper, did not feel angry or embarrassed because of Abi's strange behavior just now.

"Thank you, Auntie!" Okita smiled so hard that his eyes turned into a pair of crescent moons.

Woo--the kettle on the stove just made the sound of boiling steam at this time.

Abi grabbed the boiling kettle, made tea with very skillful movements, and then poured scalding hot tea into the teacups that Okita had just washed.

The kitchen suddenly became filled with the aroma of tea.

Okita sniffed hard, took a few big breaths of the alluring tea fragrance, and put his hands on his waist.

"It smells so good... Auntie, why is the tea you brew so much more fragrant than the tea we brew?"

"It's just a matter of chance." Abi put the emptied kettle back to its original position, and then placed the teacups filled with tea on the tea tray, "Let's go and give them tea."

Even though there were so many teacups on the tea tray in his hand, Abi still walked very steadily.

What did Nagakura and the others say? They were also guests of the Trial Guard Hall.

As the hostess of this family and this sword hall, Abi would be a little rude after all if she didn't meet and say hello to guests like Yongcang and others.

We still need to show our due respect to landlords, and we still need to be polite.

Together with Okita, they quickly arrived at the door of the living room. After opening the door, Abi and Okita saw Qingto, Kondo, Nagakura and others sitting opposite each other.

Nagakura, Harada, and Toudo sat in a row, while Kondo and Hijikata sat side by side opposite them - Hijikata happened to be staying at the Trial Guard Hall today. After Ayoto brought Nagakura and the others, as a

The local members of the core members of the Trial Guard Hall also took advantage of the situation and came over to join in the fun.

As for Aoto and Saito, they sat in front of Nagakura and the others one behind the other, facing Kondo and Hijikata.

Zhousuke happens to be out of town on business right now and is not at the Trial Guard Hall. So this time Kondo will be the plenipotentiary representative of the Trial Guard Hall to conduct an interview with Nagakura and the others.

After A Bi held the tea tray and opened the hall door, everyone in the hall immediately focused their attention on A Bi.

"Ah, let me introduce you." Kondo immediately spread his palm towards Ah Bi, "This is my mother: Kondo Bi."

"Mother, these are Tachibana-kun's Okahiki: Nagakura Shinpachi, Harada Sanosuke and Toudo Heisuke."

"This is our first meeting." Todo, who is highly educated and knows etiquette, took the lead in bowing to Abi and saluted, "I'm Todo Heisuke, please forgive me for the intrusion!"

Nagakura and Harada, two idiots with little education, only realized it after Todo's salute was over, and imitated Todo just now, saluting and saying hello to Abi in the same way.

Perhaps it was because Yongcang and others were much more polite than she thought, Abi raised her eyebrows in surprise.

Squeezing out a smile and responding to the greetings of Yongcang and the others one by one, Ah Bi took off the teacups on the tea tray one by one, handed the right number of teacups to everyone in the hall, and then walked out quickly holding the tea tray.

They left the living room, leaving plenty of room for Aomori and Kondo to talk.

Okita stayed and sat in Kondo's vacant right-hand seat.

After watching his mother Abi leave, Kondo turned his attention back to the Nagakura trio in front of him.

"Sorry, the topic was interrupted just now."

"Let's get on with it."

Kondo picked up the tea that Abi had just handed him, took a sip of the still hot tea, moistened his slightly dry throat, straightened his back, and continued speaking seriously.

"What I just said is the whole reason why I want to invite you to join the Trial Guard Hall."
To be continued...