Da'ao, meeting place——

The fragrant tatami, the spotless environment, the exquisite decorations, the faint smell of powder... everything is the same as before.

Qingteng often visited the meeting place in the past.

Whenever Hegong or the female officials around him have any errands to entrust to Qingteng, they will summon Qingteng at this meeting place.

Tianzhangyuan would occasionally meet Qingdeng at the meeting place.

Returning to this familiar room after a long absence made him feel a little nostalgic.

At this moment, Qingdeng was sitting in the center of the meeting place, bowing and saluting expressionlessly.

After a while, he heard a rich middle-aged female voice floating in front of him:

"General Tachibana, please stand down."

It was Gogami Nagi's voice.

Since he obtained the official title of "Sakon Guard Admiral", Aoto received the honorific title of "Tachibana Admiral" after "Tachibana Aki".

Qingdeng slowly raised his head and looked straight ahead.

The first thing that caught his eye was the colorful colors.

I saw many women sitting in front of it and on its left and right sides.

Roughly speaking, there were about twenty people, ranging in age from ten to forty or fifty years old.

Right in front of Qingdeng, at the main seat of the meeting place, there was a young girl wearing an exquisite small bag, Shang Shang and Tang Yi. Her hands were folded neatly on her legs, and she looked at Qingdeng expressionlessly.

Climb up and look at each other.

She is He Gong.

In terms of appearance alone, Wagongiya's appearance is not particularly outstanding.

It's neither beautiful nor ugly, just ordinary.

However, because he had lived in the palace for a long time and was rarely exposed to the sun, and he had never participated in physical labor, his skin was very white and delicate.

As for the other women present, they were all personal female officials of the Imperial Palace, the stinky Sanba who Qingto hated deeply.

When Wamiyoshita married Kanto, all these bastards accompanied her to Edo.

Originally, according to the shogunate's practice, the imperial office should not bring so many servants to the imperial office who had married from other places.

When they arrive at Da'ao, they will naturally be equipped with experienced attendants.

When Tianzhangyuan took over the Great Olympics, they only brought a few people from Satsuma.

However, due to Wagongiya's strong request, the shogunate could only make an exception and allowed Wagongiya to bring over her entire service team when she lived in the Imperial Palace.

These stinky Sanba, like He Gong, all have the privilege of "retaining their past living habits".

Therefore, they both wore court clothes and had their hair styled in the official style.

The public respected long black and straight hair, so women in the imperial court would comb their hair back and tie it into a long low ponytail. They would not wear it into Shimada buns, buns and other exquisite hairstyles like the women of the samurai family.

Looking at these smelly Sanba that had caused him a lot of trouble, Qingdeng felt his stomach twitch, and all kinds of bad memories came to his mind.

However, there is one thing to say, public-style clothing is really beautiful, just the complicated patterns and gorgeous colors are dazzling.

These beautiful clothes greatly eased the discomfort in his heart.

Qingden calmed down his emotions for a moment, then raised his eyes, looked straight at He Gong, and said seriously:

"Your Highness, I send you my long-awaited greetings. I wish you good health."

Facing Wagoniya, Aoto naturally couldn't be as casual as he was when he faced Tokugawa Iemo and Tenzouin. So he started to speak awkward and solemn words for a long time.

Wagongiya nodded slightly to show that he had received Qingto's greeting, then turned his head and glanced at Gogami Nagi beside him.

Mikami Nagi leaned over understandingly and put his ear to Wakami's lips.

He Gong whispered something to her.

Gogami listened carefully, and after the other party finished speaking, she said loudly to Qingto:

"General Ju, His Highness said: I have often heard of your activity in recent years. Thank you for your hard work."

Qingdeng responded in a neither humble nor arrogant manner:

"Don't dare to take it seriously."

As soon as he finished speaking, Wakomiya glanced at Gogami Nagami again, and the latter leaned forward again.

When Qingdeng saw this, he secretly twitched his lips.

Another big reason why he didn't want to see He Gong was that it was too troublesome to communicate! This "message game" was too torture!

After waiting for a while, Gogami Nagami spoke again:

"His Royal Highness asks you: How is your Majesty doing lately?"

The "Your Majesty" in his mouth naturally refers to the current Emperor.

——How could I possibly know!

Qingdeng had no good impression of the imperial court.

He would never step foot into the Imperial Palace unless necessary.

Although the imperial court has made many moves in recent years, giving people a sense of "the rise of the imperial court," if you look closely, you will find that its status has not fundamentally changed.

There are still no soldiers under the imperial court, and the emperor is still a mascot-like existence.

Qingdeng has never cared about the life and death of the "mascot", so how can he know whether he is living well now?

As Miyano is the emperor's biological sister, she probably asked this question out of concern for her brother.

With the simple idea of ​​"taking care of other people's brother-sister relationship", he began to rack his brains, trying to recall the rumors he had heard recently about the emperor.

It means "you have a good appetite" or "you are energetic". In short, just pick up some pleasant words.

After He Gong quietly listened, he smiled, and his originally tense facial lines relaxed a little.

Then, she continued the "message game".

"General Tachibana, His Highness would like to ask you: How is the weather in Kyoto lately?"

Just now he was asking about the emperor's current situation, but now he started asking about the weather in Kyoto.

The jump in the question made Qingdeng startled.

Of course, he was surprised. He quickly recovered and answered truthfully:

"Back to Your Highness, since the beginning of autumn, the weather in Kyoto has become extremely cool, which is a good time for travel."

"General Tachibana, His Highness would like to ask you: Will this year's Flower Festival be held as scheduled? Are there many flowers in bloom this year? Are they beautiful?"

Flower Festival - one of the three major festivals in Kyoto. It is held in spring when flowers are in full bloom. It can be regarded as one of the grandest festivals in Kyoto.

According to legend, during the Heian period in Japan, the god of plague was instigated by the spring spirit and wandered around the city of Kyoto, causing epidemics wherever he went.

People would sing and dance around the flower umbrellas in the streets and alleys to lure the god of plague under the flower umbrellas, and then send the umbrellas to Murasaki Ye Shrine to suppress the god of plague. This is the origin of the Flower Festival.

Nowadays, every time during the Flower Festival, in front of the main hall of Murasaki Ye Shrine, local worshipers will dress up as red-haired ghosts and black-haired ghosts and perform dances to the gods. Later, they will be joined by two other worship teams, one from

Flower parades from the Ueno and Murakami areas of Kyoto parade all the way here to perform dances to the gods.

By coincidence, Qingden happened to be attending this year's flower festival - together with his newly married wives.

That day, he and his wives went out together for the first time, leaving many beautiful memories.

"Back to Your Highness, I happen to be lucky enough to take my wife to attend this year's flower festival. The weather this year is very good, with five winds and ten rains, so the flowers are blooming particularly lush and beautiful."

When He Gong heard this, he immediately became energetic and impatiently moved his lips towards Gogami Nagami.

"General Tachibana, His Highness said: Please tell us in detail your specific experience when you participated in the flower festival."

Qingden raised his eyebrows, and then looked at He Gong thoughtfully, a look of surprise appeared on his face - he had roughly guessed the purpose of He Gong's sudden summons to him.

He cleared his throat and then described it concisely.

The bustling crowd, the fragrance of flowers that always lingers in front of the nose, the beautiful scenery like a picture... With his excellent eloquence, Qingdeng recreated the flower festival in words.

He Gong listened very carefully.

Because she was too serious, she subconsciously leaned forward and stared at Qingdeng without blinking, as if she was afraid of missing any word.

Just on her cheeks as smooth as porcelain, a faint look of nostalgia could be seen.

The female officials next to her all looked the same, listening to Qingdeng's story with rapt attention, either looking nostalgic or full of sadness.

Seeing this, Qingden confirmed his suspicion just now - as expected, Wagongong was homesick.

Another major reason why He Gong strongly opposed marrying to Kanto was that he couldn't leave home and his hometown.

Once she marries into Edo, it will be difficult for her to return to Kyoto for the rest of her life... It is no exaggeration to say that she will most likely never go back to Kyoto...

Being in a distant foreign country, trapped in a fortified castle, looking at the scenery that is very different from your hometown, it is inevitable that you will feel homesick.

In this era of underdeveloped information exchange, we can only rely on word of mouth to get news about our hometown.
To be continued...