[Comprehensive] Natsume Reiko's trip

It turns out that the life of human beings is still good. No wonder so many senior civet cats are scrambling to think of the human world to make a living.

On a cold winter night, sitting around a fire, drinking a bowl of warm wine, and telling stories about the mountains with humans, wouldn’t it be much happier than staying alone in the forest shivering and enduring hunger?

What's more... that thing called "wine" is simply a gift from the gods. After drinking the wine, the whole demon becomes ecstatic, like fish flying in the air and birds swimming on the bottom of the sea.

"Senior civet cat, can you tell another story to Chai?" The stupid A Chai saw that all the wine he brought back had entered the civet cat's stomach, and he was not angry, but begged the civet cat with a silly smile.

"Hi! Now that you've said that, I'll tell you another story about a monk." Drunk-eyed, the civet cat rubbed its belly while drinking, and said, "Today I met a monk with profound mana. His dog-eyed I don’t know Taishan, but I want to accept this civet cat, and then guess what happened? Ben civet cat stretched out its paws, and put on an extremely heroic posture, so the monk immediately bowed to my powerful strength..."

"Senior civet cat is amazing!" A Chai looked at civet cat adoringly.

"Hi...Of course!"

The gloomy sky gradually began to drift light snow, and some crystal snowflakes slowly drifted in along the holes in the roof, and disappeared without a trace as water droplets above the fire.

A Chai added some firewood to the fire, then curled up and lay down in a corner of the dilapidated house, covering his body with thatch.He looked at the civet cat lying beside the fire, sleeping soundly with its wine jar in its arms, grinning and showing some yellow teeth.

The wine was bought by him to keep out the cold.

Wine in this era is not cheap, A Chai does not know how much firewood he has to carry back and forth in exchange for this small jar of wine.Fortunately, the weather is cold, and the price of firewood is a little higher than usual. If you work harder tomorrow, step into the forest earlier, and chop a few more bundles of firewood, you may even be able to buy a small jar of wine.

Tanuki is the first existence willing to talk so much with him, whether it is a human or a demon, they are all his friends.

The civet cat has been living quite comfortably these past few days, but he is full of warmth and longing for sex.Desire, without the threat of life and the pressure of survival, on a certain sunny morning, it planned to take a good look around the village.

A Chai goes up to the mountain to chop firewood every morning, and the civet cat selectively forgets the possibility that he can follow him together, but nests in the house every day, waiting for A Chai to bring wine back.

It has been snowing for several days, and today is a rare sunny day. The civet cat walked along the snow-melted path to avoid exposing its brown fur to the white snow.

Around me came the voices of women going to wash clothes by the river.

"It's a crime to do laundry on this day."

"Yes, if the water is boiled and mixed with snow water, it won't be so cold."

"Don't be kidding, this kind of firewood from God, who would like to go into the mountains to cut firewood in a snowy day, except for that idiot A Chai? He is not afraid that he will die one day. How come I haven't seen him work so hard in previous years."

"Who knows, it is said that they want to exchange money to buy wine."

"A fool is a fool, and he would give up his life for wine."

"Let me tell you, thanks to that fool, we won't suffer from the cold this year. How much his firewood sells is not up to us? No matter how much firewood he chops, just give him the price of a jar of wine. He will happily accept it."

Listening to the women's arguments, the civet cat retreated into the shadows between the houses.

All the wine bought went into the civet cat's stomach, and A Chai never drank even a sip.

It's not that the civet cat didn't see A Chai going in and out in the snow every day, but when he drank, he forgot everything.Those guilts, those condemnations of conscience, all turned into a wisp of green smoke in the wine, and the wind blows, and it dissipates.

It tells stories to A Chai and becomes friends with A Chai, so drinking the wine bought by A Chai is a natural thing, isn't it?

The civet cat silently went back to A Chai's house, waiting for him to come back—to apologize to him.

In the future, it will go to the mountains with Chai, share half of the wine with Chai, and stay in the house with Chai on snowy days, telling him stories.

"And then? Didn't Achai come back?" Looking at the civet cat that suddenly stopped, Reiko couldn't help urging it to tell the following story.

"No, I'm back, it's just..."

A Chai came back with bruises all over his body.

His face was covered with bruises, the blood at the corner of his mouth hadn't completely dried up, his worn clothes had almost turned into strips of cloth, and even his shoes were stained red by the blood.But even so, he still had a cheerful smile on his face, as if he was not the one who was hurt.

"I'm sorry, senior raccoon, there's no more wine today." A Chai looked at the raccoon cautiously, as if once he said that, the raccoon would tear his skin with sharp claws just like those who beat him.

"Did the wine seller beat you?" Tanuki asked angrily.

A Chai smirked and scratched his messy hair with his hands: "Why? The proprietress who sells wine is a plump woman, and she's a nice person."

"Who is that?"

"Senior Civet Cat, don't blame them. It's because my feet hurt today, I can't walk, I cut less firewood, and I begged them to give me more money, so they beat me."

On snowy days, I would wear a pair of straw sandals, step into the snow with one deep foot and one shallow foot, climb up the mountain, and chop off the branches for wine.

Chilblains are broken, rotten, bleeding, and festering...how can it not hurt?

It turned out that everything was its fault.

The civet cat that has just transformed has never seriously experienced the feelings of a human being. It only feels very sour in its heart, as if a thousand ants were eating its heart.

Without wine to numb the strong guilt, the civet cat doesn't know how to relieve the extremely tormenting mood in his heart.

Does it mean that as long as you help A Chai get revenge, it will feel better?

"Senior civet cat, are you still telling stories today?" A Chai looked at the civet cat expectantly.

"Talk! That was when I was not a monster..."

A man and a demon sat by the fire, the speaker was absent-minded while the listener listened with gusto.

At night, the civet cat took a burning branch and found the house that had cheated A Chai of his money during the day, and then... lit a corner of the house with flames.

The raccoon cat wanted to burn down that family's house and let them suffer from the cold wind. In this case, no matter how high the price was, they would buy A Chai's firewood to keep warm.

But civet cats did not expect that the wooden houses are next to each other, and when one house burns, the fire will spread uncontrollably to another house, and finally... connect together.

The civet cat looked at the large flames that dyed the sky red, and listened to the villagers' cursing and crying, and finally realized that it had caused a catastrophe!

It ran back to A Chai's house in a panic, looked at A Chai standing at the door and looked out, and hesitated and couldn't speak.

A Chai is a fool, but sometimes fools have the clearest minds, they will not be confused by appearances, and they can see the bottom of people's hearts at a glance.

For the first time, A Chai didn't show a silly smile, but looked at the raccoon with a serious face: "Senior raccoon, it's wrong to run away after doing something bad, you have to apologize to everyone."

Could it be that even A Chai wants to hand it over?

As if feeling the civet cat's fear, A Chai softened his face, opened his mouth and smiled again, showing his yellow teeth: "Thank you, senior civet cat, all this is for Chai, so it's A Chai's fault. If there is a chance in the future, can A Chai buy wine for senior civet cat? Senior civet cat is unhappy tonight, it must be because he didn't drink."

Wait, what the hell is A Chai talking about?This is obviously its fault, isn't it?How could it be A Chai's fault?

But as soon as he thought of the scene of angry humans tearing it to pieces, the civet cat shivered abruptly.

"Ming, obviously no one knows that I did it, right?" So why do you have to call yourself out?

"You must apologize for doing something bad." A Chai stubbornly shook his head, and then took the initiative to walk towards the panicked villagers.

A Chai, you big fool!

The civet cat stomped its feet, but finally followed secretly.

"Because you hit me and it hurt so much, I burned the house down. But it's wrong to do bad things, so I want to apologize to you." A Chai said these words to the villagers solemnly, and then knelt He landed on the ground, looking like he was going to catch him with nothing.

"Is an apology useful? Can you afford to pay for what you burned?"

"I'll pay you back."

"Just relying on you fool! What compensation do you have! It's better to beat you to death!"

At this time, it doesn't matter who is the culprit. When the loss is destined not to be compensated, all they need is a window to vent.

The raccoon cat hid in the corner, watching the villagers punch A Chai one after another, but A Chai just kept silent and endured all this silently to make amends for him.

The most important thing it should do now is to tell the villagers: It set the fire, and it has nothing to do with A Chai!

But...but...

Those figures in the flames, like evil spirits, danced wildly there.

I'm sorry, A Chai... I'm really sorry!

It's scared, it's really scared!

So... it ran away like a coward.

Just like that, ran away.

When it is successful in cultivation and can perfectly become a human being, it will definitely come back and apologize to A Chai, for sure!

"However, when I came back, A Chai's house was gone. I remembered that A Chai said that he had been buying wine from a plump woman, so I turned into a woman and waited for A Chai here. , but Ah Chai never came here once.”

Presumably the civet cat, who came to the human race for the second time, used the name "A Cai" and pretended to be the character of "A Chai", just waiting stupidly like this.

"So, have you never asked anyone else about the existence of Chai?" Reiko asked.

Tanuki looked at Reiko with a very confused expression.

"Okay, I know." Reiko sighed.

A Chai is a fool, so why not the civet cat?

If there were more "fools" like this in this world, there wouldn't be so many tragedies.

Even fools understand the principle of "you must apologize if you do something wrong", but many smart people just don't understand and don't do it.

It is not difficult to find out about A Chai, "the fool who once set fire to almost burning the whole village", based on this alone, most of the villagers should know the existence of "A Chai", the premise is...

That time was not too far from now.

"Ah Chai?" An old man with a gray beard tapped his cigarette stick on the ground twice, "That fool worked so hard to compensate those who suffered losses, and died at a young age."

dead, dead? !

The civet cat stood there dumbfounded as if it had been shocked by an electric shock.

Why did A Chai die in the blink of an eye?

Reiko looked at the civet cat's froze expression for a moment, but didn't speak.

This is the ending I guessed a long time ago, isn't it?

The time of humans and the time of monsters are completely different.

When a monster is hesitating, when a monster is eating and sleeping, when a monster is practicing meditation, perhaps, the change of several generations is completed quietly like that.

Therefore, most monsters live in deep mountains and old forests, and they are unwilling to contact humans, because they do not want to taste the loneliness abandoned by time alone.

Waiting for her and Seimei... No, Seimei may have a long lifespan, long enough to accompany his shikigami through the long river of that time.But Reiko is different. For Reiko, a lifetime is just a short period of time for Seimei?

these questions.Reiko doesn't want to think about it, just like Tanuki doesn't want to think about the possibility that Chai is dead.

"However, A Chai seems to have adopted a child before he died. That child is in the house in the west of the village. If you are interested, you can go and see it." The old man added slowly.

A person dies, but their children live on.

Therefore, there are always those monsters that cannot be let go, and will choose to protect the descendants of that generation after generation.Perhaps, deep in the soul of a certain generation, there is still something familiar.

Reiko and his group walked silently on the road leading to the house of Empress A Chai, the raccoon cat still maintained the appearance of "A Cai", but there was no smile on its chubby face.

"Why did you choose the name 'A Cai'?" Reiko asked softly, but Tanuki didn't answer.

"It's because you want to commemorate A Chai, isn't it? So you imitate A Chai every day and face everyone with a smile. Don't you think that every time you smile at others, every time you drink , can you see A Chai's figure?"

"A human's lifespan is limited, so they need to inherit their families and raise children, because they hope that even if they turn into mud, someone can inherit their spirit and will."

"A Chai has no blood-related children, only an adopted son. If his adopted son fails to inherit the spirit of A Chai, who will inherit it?"

Reiko stood in front of the civet cat: "Only you, because you are A Chai's best friend, aren't you?"

The cold wind blew Reiko's light brown hair, and the kimono printed with cherry blossoms seemed to really start to shed petals, and then fell on Tanuki's head.

"If you're not happy, just drink! Have a little wine and you'll be happy."

"If you do something bad, you must apologize. It is wrong to run away."

In fact, if you drink alcohol, you may not be happy; if you do something bad, not everyone will apologize.

From the beginning to the end, the only one who did that was a fool like A Chai.

But this is also A Chai's most precious thing.

"I see, thank you, Reiko." Perhaps the best apology for A Chai is to convey A Chai's happiness and justice to more people.

After A Chai's adopted son learned the whole story, he took out a jar of wine from the corner: "Before he died, my father told me that he had promised to invite a friend to drink and let me keep the jar of wine. When you come here, give him this jar of wine, and then tell a story. You have finished telling the story of your father, and this jar of wine will be given to you according to your last words."

The raccoon cat returned to its own body, holding the jug of wine tightly with its short limbs—the wine still tasted like decades ago, but it became thicker and stronger after years of precipitation.

"Please cheer up after drinking, Tanuki-senpai!"

Suddenly, the civet cat heard A Chai's voice.