juvenile onmyoji

From Omi country to Harima country, even if there is a short way, I walked overnight.

The sky is gradually brightening, and the morning breeze blows away the fog that has been condensed all night, revealing the magnificent white city wall.There was a melodious bell ringing in the distance, and a group of egrets flew over the city wall.

"This is..." Lizi looked up at the Chinese characters carved on the gate of the city wall, Himeji Castle.

She learned calligraphy when she was a child and is no stranger to traditional characters.

In the Heian era, although there were already pseudonyms, the status of Chinese characters was still extremely noble.Chinese characters are still used in official documents and important records.And to measure the quality of a nobleman, it is also reflected in how many Chinese characters the other party knows.

"It's Himeji Castle," Seimei raised her head and followed her gaze. "This place is rich in egrets, so it's also called Egret Castle. We'll go in when the city gate opens. You must be tired?"

Just saying that, the city gate slowly opened.It's not just them, many people who are ready to go to the city to work have already gathered at the gate.They are all civilians, wearing short coarse clothes and carrying working tools on their backs.

Seeing that everyone was holding a wooden signboard representing their identities, Lizi was a little nervous, and looked back at Qingming, "I, I don't have a signpost."

"Well, what should I do?" Qingming smiled a little, "Then you wait here for me."

"Ah, good, good." Li Zi hurriedly looked around, trying to find a place where she could sit and wait.The forehead was lightly tapped by the other party with his fingers.

Eh?

Qingming had a bright smile on his face, "It's too distressing, it's not okay," he reached out and rubbed her hair, "You have to learn to distinguish, and you can't believe everything. If I were a monster, you would probably already be seated." Sprinkle salt in the pot for me."

"You can't believe Master Qingming's words?" Lizi looked up at the boy who was a head taller than her.

"Well, even if it's my words, you can't believe everything." Qingming said with a light smile, "Because people have selfish desires, and they do irrational things for selfish desires. I do such things occasionally."

"Is that so..." Li Zi half understood, looking at him with round obsidian-like eyes.

Qingming took out a piece of paper with a red stamp from his pocket, "Just follow me." His fingers were slender and beautiful, and the thin paper fluttered at his fingertips, like a butterfly facing the wind.

The team entering the city soon had their turn.To Lizi's surprise, the guard didn't have the guts to take the paper.They only glanced at the emblem on Qingming's placket, then bowed in horror, "Please enter the city, my lord."

Lizi looked at the emblem curiously.Next to the black and white staggered flowers, two blue branches and leaves stick out, like the vitality of the sun growing out of the shadows.

"This is the emblem of Onmyoji," Seimei explained. "Black and white represent yin and yang, and the branches and leaves of Onmyoji in Heian-kyo are blue. The branches and leaves of Harima Ryu, who are going to visit in a while, are red."

"What are the two branches?" Lizi asked again.

"It's grades," Seimei replied casually, looking for lodgings along the road, "one is for lower ranks, two are for middle ranks, followed by upper ranks and big ones. Onmyoji."

"Then Lord Qingming is the middle onmyoji?" Lizi's eyes flashed with curiosity, "Is that powerful or not?"

"It's not too powerful, but it's enough to protect Xiaoli." Qingming evaluated himself casually, and pointed to a two-story dormitory not far away, "Let's live there tonight."

"where?"

"There," Qingming gently held her shaking head with his hand, "the shop with peaches painted on the noren curtains."

The warm heat came from the young man's hand, Lizi opened her eyes slightly, and her ears instantly became warm.She nodded like a chicken pecking rice without even looking at it, "Ah, I saw it."

"Yeah." Qingming let go of her hand and walked towards the shop first.

The redness in his ears was blown away by the wind, Lizi looked at his back and let out a sigh of relief, and chased after him.When I arrived at the door of the dormitory, I looked up, and there was indeed a cute pink peach painted on the half curtain hanging at the door.

Does Seimei-sama like to eat peaches?

Seimei asked for two rooms next to each other, and then someone brought fish rice balls and radish miso soup.

Pear stayed in the room until the afternoon.After sleeping and eating a bowl of fruit from the store, Qingming didn't come over to call her.

Didn't he say he was going to visit the onmyoji of the Harima style?She pushed open the sliding door suspiciously, planning to go to the next door to ask.

As she approached the sliding door next door, she suddenly heard voices coming from inside.

"Do you want to bring that child back to Heianjing?" An unfamiliar male voice said.

"Well, she is the only one left in the whole village, and she has no other relatives." It was Qingming's voice.

"Ah, my lord, you are really... don't take this kind of trouble, and hand it over to any lord to be a house slave after you go back."

"Teng Snake," Qingming's calm voice cooled down, "I don't want to hear similar words again."

"It's me who overstepped, but my lord, you have picked up enough things. I don't know how many injured and sick animals you have picked up at home since you were young..."

"This time it's not an animal, it's a human. She's still a very young child." Qingming's voice softened a bit, "Anyway, this is my business. When she grows up, I will help her choose a good marriage. And No trouble, you don't have to worry about me."

"You're not very old yourself."

"Go ahead and do what I entrusted to you."

"Oh. Yes, my lord."

The sound in the room disappeared again, and Lizi lowered her eyes and quietly returned to the room.

In the evening, Qingming came to call her.

In the dim yellow sky, the night is falling little by little, and the smoke from the kitchen is connected with the orange-red clouds.

The two were walking on the main road of Himeji Castle. Seimei saw that Riko had been silent, and felt a little strange, "Isn't it okay if you don't have a rest? It's okay to go tomorrow, it's not something to be in a hurry."

Faced with his gentleness, Lizi lowered her head even lower.

Qingming couldn't help but feel even more worried when he looked at her, and after a while he muttered softly, "It's really hard to guess what a girl is thinking."

In order not to worry Qingming, Lizi managed to pull herself together and said, "I was just wondering if it would be a bad idea to go now and catch up on the meal."

"Don't worry about it," Qingming said indifferently, "They won't even give you a glass of water."

Hey, are you so picky?

"Ah, too petty."

"It's not pettyness," Qingming said flatly, "it's disgust."

……

"Ah, the adults in Kyoto are too polite, but they are just sending a post for the competition, and they have to send a middle-ranked onmyoji."

"If you don't say they are from Heianjing, the middle position is probably everywhere, and the low position is not as good as a dog."

At the entrance of a gorgeous mansion, several Harima Liu Onmyouji were talking strangely.

Pear puffed her cheeks and was very angry.Blocking the door and preventing people from entering, let's not talk about such impolite things.It's really annoying to talk like this in a weird way.

She looked at Qingming, who had a faint smile on his face, but if he looked into his eyes, he could find a lazy attitude flowing inside.

"Then, we'll take our leave after the things are handed over to you," Seimei said.

"Hey, did this lord lead the He Mao family to win the first place last year? What did he say his name was?" The onmyojis looked like they hadn't heard it, and they were still chattering.

"Abe Seimei."

"Abe Seimei?" A deep voice sounded from the courtyard, from which Lizi felt a coldness to the bone marrow inexplicably.

She turned her head and looked towards the source of the sound. Behind the courtyard covered by layers of flowers and trees, a young man of seventeen or eighteen slowly came out from the path covered with cobblestones.He has a handsome face and a gloomy demeanor, as if he is always standing in the shadows.

The aggressive gaze stayed on Lizi's face for a short while, then moved to Seimei.

"Long time no see, Lord Qingming." The young man's eyes lingered on Qingming, stroking across the emblem on his lapel, staying on the two branches for a moment before moving away.For some reason, Lizi felt that he seemed to be relieved.

"You don't have to call me my lord now, Daoman." Qingming said.

"Oh, why?" Ashiya Michimi raised an eyebrow and asked in a puzzled tone.

Qingming smiled slightly, looking at the other party's emblem deliberately exposed to the light source, "Because Ashiya, you are also a middle-level onmyoji."

"So that's how it is." Ashiya Michiman looked down at his skirt, and seemed to realize that he was the middle.

"Our Doman-sama is the youngest onmyoji in the Harima-ryu." The Harima-ryu's leg hair quickly let out rainbow farts.

"That's right, that's right, it's usually in the 40s and [-]s that you can get the middle position."

"Such a young talent, there is only Master Daoman in the whole country."

"But Master Qingming is also a mid-level Onmyoji." Li Zi couldn't help reminding the blind leg hair.

The air suddenly became silent, and the leg hairs realized that they had overlooked one thing.Seimei Abe won the middle title two years ago, when he was 14 years old.

Harima even scratches the talkative girl with her eyes.

Ashiya Michimitsu's face darkened, but it only took a moment for him to recover.He glanced at Lizi twice, as if he was trying to write down her face.Then he looked at Qingming, "I will pass the post to my teacher, Qingming, is there anything else you can do?"

Riko blinked in surprise that he had changed his address so quickly.

"It's all right." Qingming didn't mind at all, and said with a smile on his face, "Then, I look forward to seeing you again at the competition in a year's time."

"Maybe it won't take that long." Ashiya Michimitsu drawled his tone, and his tone was full of asking me quickly.

But Qingming was not interested, "That's it." He nodded casually, "Then, goodbye."

When they turned around, Ashiya Michiman's voice came from behind, "I will go to Heian-kyo after a while, aren't you curious about something?"

"Then, see you again, Heian-kyo." Seimei didn't look back, but just waved her hand.

Ashiya Michimi pursed his lips tightly, staring at his back with a dark look.

After walking a long distance, Lizi asked, "Who is that person?"

"He lost to me in the last Onmyoji Conference. At that time, he was still a low-ranking Onmyoji." Qingming didn't think there was anything to say about the mid-rank winning the low-ranking onmyoji, so he just explained briefly.

There was a hint of worry in his eyes, "You offended him just now. He is a man who loves to hold grudges. If he really comes to Ping'an capital, you should avoid him."

"Eh?" Lizi felt extremely wronged, she just told the truth.

"So, you have to follow me." Qingming smiled and glanced at her.

"Will you come with me when I go out?"

"Perhaps," Seimei smiled happily, "the reward for hiring me as a bodyguard is very high."

"Need money?"

Qingming glanced at the girl who had nothing, and thought for a while, "You can also cook."

"Are you a picky eater?"

Qingming glanced at the worried girl, and held back her original words, "Don't pick."

The February wind blows the cherry trees in the city.The unflowered trees, shaking the shadows of the trees and reflecting the white walls and gray tiles of Himeji Castle, look extraordinarily magnificent in the night.

"It's a pity that we came early. If it was March, the Somei Yoshino cherry blossoms would be in full bloom, and the petals would pass over the eaves, which would be the most rare sight." Seimei said.

"I'd rather see the cherry blossoms at night in Heian-kyo." Riko said with infinite longing.

"That's not difficult," Qingming said with a smile, "I can watch it with you all night. I have a good friend who plays the flute very well. We can invite him together then."

"Who is your friend?"

"Yuan Boya."

Riko's heart skipped a beat, Genji?Could it be her fiancé?

Back at the dorm, the owner saw them kindly mentioning, "There is hot soup in the backyard, you can take a bath to relieve fatigue."

Lizi knows that hot springs are hot springs, and there are generally male and female hot springs, separated by a thin wooden wall in the pool.When she thought of being naked and Seimei next door, she immediately felt extremely uncomfortable.

"I won't go, I'm afraid of ghosts when it's dark."

Seimei paid for a yukata from the store, and stuffed one of the primrose-colored ones into her hand, "Well, in order to let you experience my professional ability, the first guard will not be paid."

"How are you going to protect it?" Lizi was surprised, "Do you pretend to be a female guest?"

"Hey, do you want this kind of service?" Qingming glanced at the woman's bathrobe hanging on the wall seriously, "Well, it's not impossible."

"No, no, no, I don't want it." Seeing that he was coming for real, Lizi waved her hands desperately.

Qingming raised the corners of her lips, "It's a pity, I can only talk to you through the low wall. If I hear your silence, it means I am in danger, and I will rush over."

pear:"……"

This... don't need it...

small theater

Qingming: Well, we must raise her well and find her a good husband.

later……

Qingming: Hey, what else am I looking for?Is there anyone better than me in this world?