Among them, the two siblings, Chiba Jutaro and Zuo Nako, contributed the most and worked the hardest.

Even though he didn't even have a single horoscope, Chiba Jutaro had already regarded Qingto as his half-brother-in-law a long time ago.

Especially in the past few days, after he had vaguely noticed the interaction between Qingdeng and Zuo Nazi, which seemed to be a little ambiguous, he became even more fond of Qingdeng.

My brother-in-law is in trouble, how can he, the older brother, remain indifferent?!

As for Zuo Nazi...

What Souji just said just now, "I heard that you live like an ascetic every day in order to find Tachibana-kun as soon as possible"... Actually, this sentence is not wrong.

Zuo Nazi's recent daily routine is basically a true reflection of the term "forgetting to sleep and eat".

He spends at least 16 hours every day, running around trying to find Qingdeng and recruiting helpers.

Fortunately, she is a female warrior who has been trained since she was a child, otherwise ordinary people would have collapsed from exhaustion.

Whenever someone asked her why she was so desperate, she would always answer the question by saying, "Tachibana-kun saved my life, and now I'm just repaying the favor."

All in all, thanks to the efforts of Chiba Jutaro, Chiba Michizaburo, Sonako and others, the power of the "Protect Orange Alliance" has grown a lot.

Although at first glance it seems that the manpower is much more abundant, Edo is a megacity with nearly 2,000 towns and a population of one million.

Everyone’s search cannot be said to be without seriousness and effort.

However, so far, nothing has been found...

Not to mention finding Qingdeng, there was not even a single figure similar to Qingdeng.

However, even so, except for the helpers temporarily recruited by the Chiba family, no one complained about tiredness, and no one threatened to quit.

Everyone, headed by Souji, Zonazi, and Mai Kinoshita, devoted every effort they had to finding Aoden without hesitation.

Souji and Zuo Nazi quietly returned to the living room and sat back to their original positions.

What a coincidence - the seats of Saunako and Mai Kinoshita happened to be adjacent to each other.

The pleasant body fragrance hits Kinoshita Mai's nose.

She subconsciously moved her eyes sideways and looked at Zuo Nazi who had returned.

Zuo Nazi felt Kinoshita Mai's gaze and turned around late at night.

The bright and beautiful eyes of the two women clearly reflected each other's eyes.

"Shorty Cat" and "Elegant Fox" look at each other...

After a while, the two women looked away in unison.

Zuo Nazi looked dull.

On the other hand, Kinoshita Mai's expression was richer. While she looked away, she curled her red lips in an imperceptible arc.

Although it is now a tense moment when "Aoto is missing", the strange relationship between Zuo Nako and Mai Kinoshita that they dislike each other has not changed.

In order to avoid embarrassment, Zuo Nazi tried his best to avoid any verbal communication or physical contact with the girl in red next to him.

She originally planned to just live alone with the other party without disturbing each other.

result……

"...Ms. Chiba, you look very bad. Have you had a good rest recently?"

Suddenly, a female voice, as thin as a mosquito's moan, entered Zuo Nazi's ears lightly.

Suddenly, Zuo Nazi's eyes were filled with surprise.

She turned her head and cast a confused look at Kinoshita Mai.

I saw the girl in red who suddenly expressed concern for Zuo Nazi, looking straight ahead with an expressionless face.

If he hadn't remembered Kinoshita Mai's voice and was sure that he heard it correctly, Zuo Nazi would never have believed that the words just now came from Kinoshita Mai, who had always been at odds with her.

She originally wanted to reply, "No need to worry about it," but when she was about to speak, she changed her mind.

Although she didn't like Kinoshita Mai, the other party was showing concern for her no matter what she said. It would be too rude to answer her in such a cold way.

So, she immediately changed her words:

"Thank you for your concern, but my physical condition is not bad and I am not in a state where I need to rest immediately."

"……That's good."

As soon as Zuo Nazi finished speaking, Kinoshita Mai immediately responded:

"You should pay more attention to rest."

"……The same to you."

Zuo Nazi answered like this out of nowhere.

Kinoshita Mai: "..."

Zuo Nazi: "..."

Afterwards, the two women stopped talking or looking at each other.

At this moment, even though a deathly silence accumulated on them, the indescribably complicated atmosphere lingering between them seemed to have faded a bit.

…

…

When the General Secretary and Zonazi returned to the hall, tonight's meeting was about to end.

After a moment, Hijikata, who frequently took over the position of "host" because of his good eloquence, let out a sigh of relief.

"Okay, that's it for tonight. Let's all go back and rest."

Without any fancy politeness or excuses, after hearing Hijikata announcing that tonight's meeting was over, everyone stood up and prepared to leave.

Suddenly, at this moment——

Winter winter winter!

Suddenly there was a knock on the door from the direction of the entrance.

"Um?"

Isamu Kondo raised his eyebrows.

"It's already this time...who is it..."

He murmured this while walking quickly towards the entrance.

Since they were about to leave the trial hall, Zuo Nazi and others followed closely behind Kondo and walked towards the entrance.

"Coming!"

Kondo shouted and opened the door.

Cold air leaked into the house through the crack of the open door.

Also leaking into the house was a rather loud and spirited greeting:

"Gui'an! Please forgive me for taking the liberty of visiting!"

I saw a middle-aged man with a tall figure and excellent temperament standing outside the door.

While greeting loudly, he bowed slightly and bowed to Kondo and others in a neither humble nor overbearing manner.

"Uh... who are you?"

Kondo looked up and down at the strange middle-aged man in front of him with blank eyes.

The middle-aged man straightened up and said brightly:

"Shunzo Miyagawa! I wonder if Tachibana Aoden is here?"

"Miyagawa Toshizo?"

At this time, Zuo Nazi, who was standing behind Kondo, let out a low exclamation.

"Hmm? Zuo Nazi, do you know this person?"

Chiba Jutaro, who was on the side, looked at the middle-aged man, then looked at Zuo Nazi, with a suspicious look on his face.

"Well... that's right."

Zuo Nazi nodded slightly.

How could she not know this name?

Just at the end of last year, she heard Qingtou introduce this person, and together with Qingtou, she rescued this person's son-in-law, Otsuki Tsuneji, from the hands of the "Shimizu Clan".

If she remembered correctly, this person seemed to be Tachibana Takayuki... who was also a good friend of Aoden's late father.

"Zuo Nazi?"

At the same moment when he heard the name "Zonako" from Chiba Jutaro's mouth, Miyagawa Shunzou's eyes lit up.

"Are you Chiba Zuo?",

He looked straight at Zuo Nazi with bright eyes.
To be continued...