Chapter 677: Chapter 433: Soft Rice Hard to Eat
Fushimi Roku squinted his eyes and once again caught the scent of a scandal.
Minamoto Tamako pointed again to the elderly couple with round glasses: "Mr. and Mrs. Yoshida run a glass workshop. When I was little, I broke the neighbor’s window, and Grandpa specially went to their place to cut a new glass as an apology!"
The glass craft in Otaru is considered a local characteristic industry with many small handmade workshops along the coast.
Fushimi Roku’s gaze swept over a skinny old man in the corner, and Minamoto Tamako, following his line of sight, added: "Uncle Sugiyama Saburo is a fisherman. In winter, Grandpa often helps him mend his broken fishing nets..."
The old man nodded in greeting to Fushimi Roku, and that’s just how Japanese socializing is: nodding when sitting, bowing when standing, and exchanging "hai hai" with each other.
Minamoto Tamako looked at an old woman wearing an apron and said, "Granny Yamaguchi opened a bathhouse..."
"The bathhouse was demolished a long time ago!" Granny Yamaguchi laughed, revealing a toothless grin, her rough hands gesturing as she said: "In the old snowy days, your Grandpa always carried you to my place for a soak. The little girl’s face would be all red, and she still wouldn’t want to leave!"
Amid hearty laughter throughout the room, Minamoto Tamako’s ears turned red.
Fushimi Roku wasn’t interested in other people; he was still stuck on gossip, and he started talking about Granny Hamada, asking if she lived nearby.
There’s no helping it; it’s too boring in the countryside. Without TV or game consoles, not even a single comic magazine, there’s nothing to do but gather together and talk about family matters.
Granny Hamada nodded, saying she lived on the slope at the end of the street. With that, she stood up, walked to the bedside, and pointed to a small red-tiled house not far away.
The yard was full of orange-yellow flowers, swaying back and forth in the sea breeze under the streetlights at night.
"Does Granny Hamada also like watering flowers?" Fushimi Roku asked.
"Yes indeed." Minamoto Tamako nodded without much thought and said to Granny Hamada: "Grandpa said after your eyes went bad, he would secretly water your flowers every morning."
The old folks exchanged knowing smiles.
Fushimi Roku thought that was indeed the case, but he immediately felt a bit bored; the feelings among the elderly seemed a bit too far from him.
Granny Hamada took Minamoto Tamako’s little hand and pointed to the canal outside in the dusk: "Your grandpa often told me, when Tamako returns, she’ll see the cosmos blooming all the way from home to the harbor..."
Minamoto Tamako was stunned, speechless.
Fushimi Roku had to take over the topic, thanked her in a few words, expressed that Granny Hamada’s thoughts were kind, and then steered the conversation back to his relationship with Minamoto Tamako.
The elderly also liked listening to gossip; the conversation returned to the young couple’s relationship. But Minamoto Tamako seemed absent-minded until Granny Hamada asked what she brought Fushimi Roku back for, which finally brought her back to her senses, and she said energetically:
"Planning to introduce him to my grandpa."
The elderly people exploded with conversations again, leaving the two of them aside, chatting incessantly, sometimes talking about how things were usually at the Kujo Family, sometimes saying that the fair-skinned young man might become a son-in-law, completely ignoring that Fushimi Roku was just sitting next to them.
Fushimi Roku didn’t mind; he just perked up his ears and eavesdropped, picking up on some alerts.
Granny Hamada shook a fan, sighing: "Master Kujo’s canning factory in Kushiro hasn’t turned off its lights since last autumn’s salmon season! The machinery’s roaring kept me sleepless at night."
Mr. Yoshida adjusted the earpieces of his glasses and picked up: "Not just the canning factory! Their family’s refrigerated fleet was fighting Russians for fishing grounds in Chishima last month, heard they even mounted machine guns on the bows of the ships..."
"The Kujo family’s trawling ships have emptied the Ishikari Bay of autumn salmon..."
"Poor Little Wei! Her father converted the confectionery store by the canal into a cold storage!" Granny Hamada pouted toward an abandoned warehouse outside the window: "Such a nice shop front, they once said it would be her dowry..."
Fushimi Roku propped his chin, from the complaints of others, he felt the power of the financial conglomerates.
Hokkaido’s fishery production began declining in the early 1990s, and around 1991, the government gradually implemented fishing bans and quota systems... Those who get it, get it.
Fushimi Roku hadn’t seen the rupture of financial bubbles in the country in his previous life, nor had he experienced the horrors of a financial storm firsthand.
But now he slightly sensed how the other East Asian countries had been ravaged by financial bubbles.
Under the Heisei bubble in Hokkaido, the monopolization by the financial conglomerates was crushing the last embers of handicraft industry, and the initial accumulation of early capital had begun.
Hmm, no wonder Kujo Yua could become the Police Chief; her family was so wealthy.
Fushimi Roku turned his head back, looking at Minamoto Tamako, as if seeing a dazzling jade Buddha. He suddenly felt himself wise and brave; the decisions he made back then were undoubtedly correct.
If he truly married Minamoto Tamako in the future, he wouldn’t need to be a criminal police officer; stealing salaries is weak sauce compared to enjoying the gratification of being a parasite of a financial conglomerate.
The angelic and demonic little men were both wrong; he needed to cast a long line to catch big fish. He wasn’t succumbing to Minamoto Tamako’s charms but was stepping into high society through her.
With this in mind, he considered himself a sigma male.
Fushimi Roku successfully convinced himself with the method of mental victory, and for a moment, he was so overjoyed he didn’t mind Minamoto Tamako’s boasting anymore.
Ordinary people boasting are considered pretentious, but the biggest boast the eldest daughter of the Kujo family’s gigantic monopolistic financial conglomerate can make in front of everyone is ’I’m Fushimi Roku’s superior,’ nothing is more low-key than that.
Empress Tamako going incognito shouldn’t be disturbed in her enjoyment.
With that thought, Fushimi Roku poured Minamoto Tamako another cup of barley tea and said, "You all keep chatting, I’ll go make some appetizers."