"Look at the move!"

Whew~, a snowball flying in mid-air crossed an arc, and the head with a black velvet hat was not far from the center.

Syllable! Snowflakes scattered~, "Damn! With a sound of irritation, the figure under the black velvet hat shook its head. The scattered snow took the opportunity to slide into the collar, and the shuddering exclamation of "ah" caused the companions not far away to laugh.

"Come on, Nissan~"

"Haha, the kid from the Shirakawa family is really a nerd, and the snowball print on his hat is whiter than a rice stick."

The crowd watching the excitement on the side also coaxed, including the little girl next door who clapped her palms to cheer up the teenager, and the lazy man who chatted in front of the door in winter.

The boy shook his collar, and when he heard the crowd and the smug look of the guy on the other side, he grabbed another handful of snow and pinched it, ready to start his revenge.

"Xiao Feng, it's time to eat"

Shirakawa Kaede followed the voice and saw a woman in a crimson canvas kimono under the eaves waving to him.

"Hai" Shirakawa Kaede threw away the snowball in his hand and clapped his palm. When he went home, he didn't forget to turn around and shout to his revenge object, "Torotaro, I'll spare you today, and I won't be so lucky next time." ”

After finishing the cruel words, Shirakawa Feng walked towards the door of the house.

Well, I can't feel it today, it's definitely not that I can't beat Torotaro.

"Haha~" The crowd burst into laughter, especially Torotaro's cross-smiling sound.

Seeing Shirakawa Feng's back with his head held high, if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, those who didn't know would have thought that he had won the battle.

"Speaking of the boy of the Shirakawa family, although he is not good at fighting. But it's really good at reading, and I heard that I'm going to go to university in Tokyo soon? ”

"yes, a nerd. That's Tokyo, the metropolis. ”

With the departure of Shirakawa Kaede, the crowd of people watching the excitement gradually dissipated. While chatting, everyone sighed that the Shirakawa family was going to come out this time.

At this time, someone noticed that Torotaro, who was exhaling white air, was still proudly holding his head high, and couldn't help but make fun of him.

"Hey, Torotaro. The Shirakawa family's trip to Tokyo is to study, so you follow to join in the fun. ”

Torotaro was even more energetic when he heard this, and regardless of the cold, he directly rolled up the wide sleeves of his kimono to reveal a pair of thick black arms. shouted loudly, "I'm going to Tokyo to make a lot of money, maybe that guy Xiaofeng will ask me for help in the future." ”

Hearing Torotaro's words, the crowd erupted in laughter again. After laughing, everyone quickly fell silent, accompanied by an occasional sigh or two.

The last rays of the sunset on the horizon in the distance also quietly disappeared into the mountains and forests. The sound of the tireless cold wind whistling through the treetops is the only melody of the night in this mountain village.

…

"It's so warm" returned home and turned around to close the thick door curtain, and the temperature of the fire in the house made Shirakawa Kaede shiver comfortably.

He casually threw down his velvet hat and couldn't wait to climb onto the table. "Snap" a pair of chopsticks slapped accurately on his half-stretched paws.

Looking up, his mother was looking at him with a smile, "It's not a good habit to eat without washing your hands."

"Ha~Yi~" dragged out the tone, and Shirakawa Kaede turned listlessly to the kitchen to complete the pre-dinner ritual fixed by the Shirakawa family.

Although it was a basic habit to wash your hands before eating in a previous life, who would want to put their hands in the icy water in the ghost weather when the north wind was howling.

Besides, the whole village didn't have such a habit in this era, but Shirakawa Kaede's mother insisted on letting him do it.

As for heating or something, sorry, there are no such conditions in the countryside.

I saw Shirakawa Kaede grunting as she disappeared into the kitchen. Hayato Shirakawa curled the corners of his mouth, which made his serious face look a little warmer.

It can be seen that he is in a good mood, whether it is the bumper harvest of grain this year, or the fact that his son is about to go to a prestigious university to study, he has every reason to be happy.

Now it's just curling the corners of his mouth, which is already very restrained.

Kazuko, who is a wife, knows her husband the most. "I'm in a good mood."

"Hmm" without his son present, he didn't have to pay attention to the majesty of being an old father, and showed a smile to his wife.

"How's it going?" Taking advantage of her husband's good mood, Kazuko asked about the most important things at home recently.

Hayato Shirakawa restrained his expression and poured himself a glass of warm sake. "Although there are some twists and turns, it is probably done."

With that, he raised his glass and drank it down, then let out a satisfied sigh. Kazuko also fell to the ground like a stone in her heart, her shoulders slackened slightly, and then she hurriedly poured a glass of wine for her husband.

It is a joy for my son to be admitted to university, let alone a prestigious school in Tokyo. Hayato Shirakawa, who has been an authentic farmer all his life, may not know what Meiji University means.

However, Kazuko, who used to be a landlord in the old days, knows very well that although it cannot be compared with a super-first-class school like the University of Tokyo, Meiji University is definitely a famous school.

As long as Kaede can successfully graduate, then he may be able to settle in a metropolis like Tokyo in the future. At least you don't have to nest in this remote mountain village and be a farmer for a lifetime.

However, Meiji University is also famous for its high tuition fees, and unlike national universities, private universities have little tuition subsidy.

There are some that cannot be compared to national universities, especially Meiji University.

In order to make up for Shirakawa Kaede's hundreds of thousands of yen tuition, the family's rice and the jewelry and kimonos that were handed down from Kazuko's family were all exchanged for money.

It's still a little bit close, and there is no way for Shirakawa Hayato to go door to door and make it up again. Lately he's been bothering with these things, going back and forth between mountain villages and towns.

Although he has been a farmer in the countryside for generations, it doesn't mean that Hayato Shirakawa doesn't understand the importance of going to university. Especially his wife's horizons are wider than his own, and listening to her is right.

Hayato Shirakawa relaxes and prepares to treat himself to another drink. When I looked up, I saw that my son had come out of the kitchen, and he was sitting reservedly, maintaining his father's majesty.

However, his reserve was destined to go down the drain, and Shirakawa Kaede didn't notice his father's demeanor at all. As soon as I came out of the kitchen, I couldn't wait to sit down at the low table.

"I'm going to move," he put his hands together perfunctorily, and he couldn't wait to grab a rice stick and stuff it into the miso soup in front of him.

It is said to be miso soup, but it is actually more like a casserole. In addition to the soup, there were also vegetables, mushrooms, and even Shirakawa Kaede saw a piece or two of chicken, which made him even more appetizing.

This is the traditional food of Akita Prefecture, the rice stick nabe. It has a history of hundreds of years, and at first Shirakawa Kaede was not interested in such local food, and in the previous life, there were thousands of kinds of Chinese food, most of which were enough to beat the rice stick pot.

It's just that he was hungry a few times, and he faced the rice stick pot in front of him again, sniffed his nose, and actually smelled quite fragrant.

Alas, it's really too poor. It's not that the family is poor, it's that the whole village is poor.

A dark blue coarse cloth kimono with a head wrapped in a white turban. Dark land, farmhouses with cedar bark roofs. When Kaede Shirakawa opened his eyes for the first time and saw this scene, if it weren't for the difference in language, he almost thought that he had returned to the countryside of his hometown in the 70s.

Actually, it's not too bad, but the location has been changed to neon.

Not to mention all kinds of dishes, it would be good if the vegetables and mushrooms could meet daily needs. It's enough rice, after all, it's the only thing in Akita Prefecture that can get its hands on. Oh yes, and sake.

"Xiao Feng, do you want to come some?" Kazuko shook the sake in her hand, and the family's major events were settled, and she also poured herself a glass in a relaxed mood.

Shirakawa Kaede, who was burying his head in dealing with the baked rice sticks in the bowl, raised his head when he heard this, "Ogasang, I'm still a few months away from turning eighteen." ”

"Eighteen?" Kazuko glanced at him suspiciously, "That's still far from being twenty years old, but what does it matter." When you're happy, you have to do something you're happy about."

At this time, Shirakawa Kaede remembered that the legal age of majority of RB people was still at twenty years old, which was still a short distance from the eighteen years old of the Celestial Empire.

Without waiting for Shirakawa Kaede to respond, Kazuko took out another wine glass, poured sweet sake, and gently pushed it in front of him.

"It's okay to have a drink once in a while, it's good for your body."

Shirakawa Kaede has been thin and weak since he was a child, which is why Kazuko insists that he wash his hands before every meal. If you accidentally get sick, with the conditions of the mountain village, it is enough for the family to toss for more than half a month.

Looking at the clear liquor in the wine glass in front of him, Shirakawa Kaede hesitated, but still didn't resist the temptation.

When a glass of sake enters your throat, the unique fragrance and sweetness of rice flow between your lips and teeth. His eyes lit up, good thing.

"Now, one cup will do." Kazuko seemed to guess his thoughts, and before he could say anything, she turned over her hand and put away the wine glass in front of him.

"Tsk" Shirakawa Kaede smacked his lips with some aftertaste. Seeing his son's appearance, a smile appeared in Hayato Shirakawa's eyes.

He thinks it's natural for a man to drink some wine, not to mention Akita, which is located in the northeast, and spends three or four months of the year in snow.

Merely... Hayato Shirakawa glanced at his son's small body again, and it was better to hold it steady.

"Although Torotaro is a little impulsive sometimes, he is still very reliable." After another drink, Hayato Shirakawa began to chat with his son about his upcoming trip to Tokyo.

It's mid-to-late March, and school is about to open in early April. Because it is located in the countryside of Tohoku, Shirakawa Kaede needs to pack up in advance and arrive in Tokyo by the end of March.

This small mountain village at the foot of a large mountain has hardly been visited by the legendary metropolis before. However, with the development of the economy in the past two years, there has been a gap in the labor demand in large cities.

Find a little work there, and the money you get in one day is almost as good as the harvest of a month's work in the fields in the village. So one after another people began to defect to the big cities.

The legendary women, the wine, and all sorts of new gadgets are something that no one here has ever seen in a lifetime. They are cloaked in a dazzling coat and are displayed in the windows.

Not to mention whether you can afford to buy them, at least you can always appreciate their colors and appearances, or smell their incense.

As a result, more and more people from here have gone out and are now bathed in the splendor of the big city.

More and more people are desperate to leave the sinking and empty hulk ship and take the unclear and already crowded "city" train instead.

Now Torotaro is about to become one of them, and according to his past nature, he should be the first to leave here. It's just that his mother's health has always been poor, and his father is a rotten drunkard and almost doesn't have a home, which slows him down.

Now that his mother's health is getting better day by day, he can no longer hold back the restlessness in his heart. While Shirakawa Kaede was going to study in Tokyo, it was natural for him to move forward together.

Under the eyes of his father's ear and his mother's words, Shirakawa Kaede rarely didn't look like he didn't care.

They had never been out of the mountain, and they had never been to Tokyo.

But I still want to find even a trace from my decades of monotonous life experience, which can comfort my son's heart that is about to go away, and an experience like this is also good.

Even if Shirakawa Kaede doesn't need it now.

Human emotions are both simple and complex, with different languages and different customs, but they do not prevent each other from empathizing.

In the dead of night, Shirakawa Kaede was still tossing and turning in bed. Maybe it's the excitement of going to Tokyo, or maybe it's because of my parents.

In the end, he simply got up and opened the window, and the cold on his face made him shiver subconsciously. It also calmed the restless heart a little.

There is an arched snow cave under the eaves, which enshrines the tablet of the god of water. This is also the custom here, and every house has such a snow cave in front of the door, and the hostess will go in every day to pray for good weather and good harvest in the coming year.

The night was silent, but the snow was still visible. The river not far in front of the house was covered with snow, and only a shallow trace remained, just like his surname, Shirakawa, a white river.

Speaking of his name, it is still given by his mother, maple, and autumn leaves. Autumn also means the season of harvest, and there is no better meaning for being a farmer.

The people in the mountain villages make a living from farming, and they all live mainly on rice. It's just that because of the geographical location, the fields here are basically terraced.

The rest of the world is full of forests.

The howling cold wind woke Shirakawa Kaede from his fugue, and he closed the window to continue his dream. At this time, there was movement at the door.

"I haven't slept yet," the mother and son's voices came from the door, but she didn't push the door in.

"Hay, go to sleep right away." For some reason, Shirakawa Kaede suddenly had a feeling of weakness that he played games late at night in his previous life and was captured alive by his mother.

"Pay attention to rest, there are still things to do tomorrow" The gentle voice faded away, and occasionally a few words of conversation were mixed in between.

It turned out that they didn't sleep either, Shirakawa Kaede lay on the tatami mat and let out a long sigh.

The moon and the stars are long, and the night is long.