Boundless darkness...

Nothing can be seen.

Can't hear anything.

The body seems to have lost its sense of time.

It feels like only 1 second has passed.

It feels as if I have been in this boundless darkness for hundreds of years...

It was not until an unknown amount of time passed that, in this darkness filled with deathly silence, something new finally appeared.

"..."

Ogata heard the voice, but it felt so far away that he couldn't hear the sound at all.

After the words fell, Ogata felt his body shaking.

It seemed like someone was gently shaking his body.

"……how?"

Another voice came.

The sound coming this time was much closer and clearer.

"...amazing...recovery...fast..."

Another person's voice rang out.

The man's words were intermittent, and Ogata could barely hear a few words in them.

"...I know...you...go out..."

The sound gradually approached.

It's an old male voice that always feels...very familiar...

Where did you hear this sound?

My mind is so confused...I can't remember...

The dark world suddenly burst into white light at this moment.

This beam of white light destroyed all the boundless darkness.

The darkness was like broken glass, breaking into thousands of pieces, falling and disappearing.

As the darkness ended, Ogata finally felt that he was gradually regaining control of his body.

"Well..." Ogata slowly raised his eyelids as his consciousness regained consciousness.

The first thing that pierced Ogata's eyes... was the flickering candlelight. The candlelight dimmed Ogata's vision with a hazy yellow.

When Ogata's eyes subconsciously lowered his eyelids because they were not used to the light,

"Huh? Are you awake?"

The familiar male voice that he heard in the darkness just now reached Ogata's ears again at this moment.

This voice...?

Ogata's eyelids that had just sunk opened them again regardless of the bright light around them that he was not used to yet.

He widened his eyes and looked in the direction from which the old male voice came.

I saw...an old man standing next to him.

When his eyes turned to the old man, Ogata's eyes had barely gotten used to the bright light around him, and he was able to see the old man's face and clothes clearly.

The skin becomes wrinkled with age, like a piece of dried orange peel.

There is a conspicuous goatee on his chin.

He was wearing a simple monk's robe.

It was the old monk with a goatee that Ogata had met when he was attacking Mount Koya before, and he had come over to criticize Ogata, angrily scolding him as to why he wanted to attack Mount Koya!

If Ogata remembers this person's name correctly... the name of this old monk with a goatee seems to be "Qingyan".

Why is this person here? Where is this place?

With all these questions in his mind, Ogata moved his eyes away from Qingyan and looked at the rest of the place around him.

I seem to be in a small tent now...

The top of the head is a white tent.

Underneath him is a simple bed.

Apart from the bed under him and the candlestick placed at the head of the bed, there was no other furniture around him.

The items placed beside the bedside included a candlestick, Ogata's two swords, and... the beautiful brocade box containing the heads of eight hundred bhikkhunis.

After seeing that his sword and the brocade box were not lost, Ogata couldn't help but feel a little reassured.

The memory before falling into the boundless darkness slowly revived in Ogata's mind.

He only remembered... After defeating Itagaki, he exhausted the last bit of strength in his body and fell to the ground. He could only let his consciousness fade away little by little, let the waves rise little by little, and let the sea water gradually swallow him up.

drowned...

"That...sir." Ogata, who couldn't hide his astonishment, turned his attention back to Qingyan and subconsciously wanted to get up, "This is...um!"

As soon as he tried to lift his upper body up from the bed, the soreness in his thighs immediately rushed out of every muscle in his upper body like a fierce snake, biting Ogata's brain, causing Ogata to cry out in pain.

At this moment, Ogata suddenly realized that every part of his body was in severe pain, and it was difficult to even lift his arms.

His body was covered with a thin blanket. After struggling to lift the thin blanket, Ogata immediately saw that he was wearing clean clothes. There were no external injuries on his body under the clothes, but he was sore.

sharp.

"Don't move around, lie down obediently." Qingyan stepped forward, rushed to Ogata's bed, raised his hand to cover Ogata's thin blanket again, "The doctor said that your body is overworked, at least in the future

During the seven days, you must rest peacefully in bed and not move rashly."

"Ah, thank you..."

Ogata subconsciously said "thank you" and couldn't help but look at the old monk who was helping him put the blanket back up and down several times with surprised eyes.

Ogata didn't know if it was his imagination...

He always felt that Qingyan was a lot more polite when he spoke to him.

No, I can't say that to be polite.

To describe it as "pleasant"... seems a bit inappropriate.

It should be said that when talking to him, there seemed to be a little more... awe in his tone?

"The doctor who treated you has just been here once." Ogata heard Qingyan chatting in a casual tone and continued to him, "He said that your injuries are basically healed and you only need to rest for a while.

Recover as before.”

Having said this, Qingyan paused for a while, and then changed into an emotional tone:

"It's really amazing... This is the first time I've seen someone with such amazing resilience like you... Even the doctor who treated you called him a strange person."

Listening to Qingyan's emotion, Ogata couldn't help but change his expression slightly.

He was a little worried that Qingyan would ask him "Why is his body so special?"

If he were asked this question, it would be really inconvenient for Ogata to answer such a question.

But fortunately, Qingyan doesn't seem to be delving into the issue of "Ogata's recovery ability."

He raised his hand and patted Ogata's chest a few times, then continued to sigh:

"In less than two days, all the injuries on the body were healed, and there are no more external injuries..."

At the end, Qingyan murmured in awe in a tone that only he could hear clearly: "As expected of someone who can even trigger thunder..."

Ogata didn't hear Qingyan's murmur clearly.

He only heard Qingyan's words just now, "it takes less than two days."

Ogata, whose brows furrowed uncontrollably, hurriedly asked Qingyan:

"On the 2nd? Sir, how long have I been unconscious?"

"Huh? It's probably...five days."

"On the 5th?" Ogata, who almost screamed, quickly asked, "Sir! What exactly is this place? Why am I here?"

"Hmm..." Qingyan raised his hand and stroked the beard on his chin, "This is somewhere in the wilderness of Kii. I can't tell where it is specifically."

"As for why you are here..."

…

…

5 days ago
To be continued...