Chapter 273: A Farce Ends

What is this?

The scene that unfolded left the entire Uesugi family and the many guests present stunned.

The ones causing the trouble were the Kii Tokugawa Clan!

Uesugi Muneyuki frowned; the Kii Tokugawa Clan were descendants of Tokugawa Yorinobu, the tenth son of Tokugawa Ieyasu (a quick aside here: the old turtle really had a robust constitution, having 13 confirmed sons and 5 daughters, and he was still capable of fathering children from 1559 until 1607 at the age of 64, so academia has never doubted that Ieyasu's children were his own—isn't that right, Lord Hideyoshi?), and this family was the most famous of the Tokugawa Three Houses, most notably because after the seventh Shogun of the Edo Shogunate died without an heir, the eighth Shogun was chosen from the Kii Tokugawa Clan's Head of the House, Tokugawa Yoshimune, who then launched the Kyoho Reforms.

The famous Taiga Drama "The Eighth Shogun Yoshimune" tells this very history.

However, despite such a glorious past, the modern state of the Kii Tokugawa Clan is poor; after the abolition of the domains and establishment of prefectures, the Tokugawa Head of the House at the time was obsessed with various music and arts, squandering most of the family fortune, and the family lived in a small detached house in Ikebukuro, with their most valuable possession being an antique piano bought from Europe.

Fortunately, the descendants were capable; after taking in two successive Adopted Sons-in-law, the current Head of the House, Tokugawa Noriko, achieved considerable success in architecture and, with the help of other Tokugawa families, founded the Ishibashi Tokugawa Architectural Co., Ltd., finally returning to the ranks of the upper-middle class, though naturally far inferior to other members of the Peerage, and because Tokugawa Noriko divorced her husband, the Kii Tokugawa Clan is a very rare case of a female Head of the House.

"Ryuichi! What on earth are you doing?" Tokugawa Noriko, seeing her son appear here, was so angry her face turned pale: "Don't you see what kind of place this is?"

"What kind of place?" The man in his thirties was already beside himself with rage; he pointed at the stage above: "I am your son! With such a big event, you actually didn't call me, but called him instead!"

"? What is the situation? The one who came with the Head of the House of the Kii Tokugawa Clan isn't the legitimate son?" Uesugi Muneyuki immediately asked his father.

"No, the one who came with the Head of the House is the Kii Tokugawa Adopted Son-in-law." Uesugi Hironori's expression was also very ugly at this moment: "How could this happen?"

Adopted Son-in-law? Biological son?

Uesugi Muneyuki had just understood a little when an argument broke out over there; the intruder suddenly swung his fist, smashing it onto a table, and Tokugawa Noriko stumbled away, hitting a chair, causing the table to tilt, the wine glasses and food plates on it to shake, and the amber liquid in the sake cups to gush down her black tomesode.

The Adopted Son-in-law sitting nearby hurriedly blocked his mother, but the Tokugawa crest on his kimono further enraged the intruder.

"A bastard dares to wear the Three-Leaf Hollyhock crest? If I hadn't come today, the main family really wouldn't be mine anymore!" The intruder grabbed the Adopted Son-in-law by the collar and signaled for him to get lost; with a shove, Tokugawa Noriko and her Adopted Son-in-law both fell to the ground, knocking over the stacked mirror rice cakes, and the glutinous rice flour buried half of her obi like an avalanche.

Everyone was stunned by what was happening; only now did the crowd react.

The one who broke in was the biological son of the Kii Tokugawa Clan's Head of the House, Tokugawa Noriko, while the one beside Tokugawa Noriko was her Adopted Son-in-law?

Tokugawa Noriko fell to the ground, wailing: "Ryuichi! There is no more money in the family for you!"

"No money? Who are you lying to! If there's no money, why are you passing such a large family business to him?" Tokugawa Ryuichi grabbed the Adopted Son-in-law's head and slammed it hard into the ice sculpture of the sashimi platter.

"Enough!" Uesugi Muneyuki could no longer watch.

With his angry shout, the people around also seemed to wake from a dream; everyone who came today was a big shot, and who didn't have a bodyguard with them? It was just that no one had expected someone to come and cause trouble at a wedding.

Hearing Uesugi Muneyuki shout like that, several bodyguards around them immediately stood up, and besides them, people from the former Metropolitan Police Department and the current Metropolitan Police Department also silently prepared themselves.

Except for Miss Minami; she was really not cut out for fighting, not to mention she was wearing a kimono.

Uesugi Muneyuki walked quickly from the main table, and just as he was approaching rapidly to stop this farce, someone reached out and grabbed him.

It was Headquarters Chief Kirekawa of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office special investigation team.

That's right, today was the Peerage Assembly, and this guy had come too.

Uesugi Muneyuki thought Headquarters Chief Kirekawa was going to stop him, but Headquarters Chief Kirekawa said very seriously: "As long as there are no fatalities, it's self-defense; I'll keep a record for you, and I'll handle the District Public Prosecutors Office side."

"Good." Hearing this, Uesugi Muneyuki thought that sounded like human speech.

"Hey." Uesugi Muneyuki approached and grabbed Tokugawa Ryuichi's shoulder, signaling him to let go of the poor Adopted Son-in-law, but the other party violently shook off Uesugi Muneyuki's arm: "What does it have to do with you? Get lost, this is an internal matter of the main family."

"Hey, you don't know whose wedding it is today, do you?" Uesugi Muneyuki said coldly.

He quickly retreated half a step to open up a safe distance, bent his knees into a Karate front stance, lifted his heels slightly to maintain mobility, held his left palm vertically to protect his jaw, kept his right fist loosely clenched by his ribs, and scanned the opponent's deltoid muscles with eyes like lightning—this is the early warning system for all upper-body attacks.

Sure enough, the moment Tokugawa Ryuichi swung his right arm, Uesugi Muneyuki immediately caught the sign of his right shoulder pulling back.

This guy's punch was indeed accurate and ruthless, but he had run into Uesugi Muneyuki.

Precision Defense!

Facing the fierce attack, Uesugi Muneyuki's left palm suddenly turned into a knife-hand, striking the ulnar nerve groove of the opponent's right wrist; the nerve shock instantly paralyzed the opponent's entire arm.

Taking advantage of the opponent's off-balance forward lean, he rotated his right fist 120 degrees and struck the xiphoid cartilage from bottom to top; the fist peak precisely sank into the depression at the end of the sternum, and the violent vibration of the celiac plexus caused this guy to curl up on the ground as if his spine had been pulled out.

Then, taking this opportunity, Uesugi Muneyuki's right index finger aimed at the junction of the opponent's mandible and temporomandibular joint.

Spirit Sphere!

Biu!

Tokugawa Ryuichi was hit by a Spirit Sphere, dislocating his jaw and flying backward; then, several bodyguards of other Peerage bigwigs swarmed up, pinned the guy to the ground in a pile, and in the chaos, dragged him out, foaming at the mouth, to call the police.

Everyone was dumbfounded by Uesugi Muneyuki's sudden display of prowess, and when he returned to the main table, Miss Minami was extremely excited: "Hey, I say, Muneyuki-kun, you've been with Ikeda for so long, you've learned a thing or two after all!"

"………… What else? Why do you think I call her Master Eirina?" Uesugi Muneyuki said helplessly.

"Is that so? I thought you only learned martial arts from her to hit on her... alright, I was wrong." Miss Minami said with a bit of mischief: "It's over, the final use of your Master Eirina is just to be a cup."

"Minami!" Uesugi Muneyuki hurriedly signaled her not to talk nonsense.

"Hmph~ when we get married, we must strictly issue invitations." Miss Minami said indignantly.

From the moment Tokugawa Ryuichi rushed in to the moment Uesugi Muneyuki beat him down and dragged him out, the whole process took no more than five minutes.

But because of this accident, the joyful atmosphere that had previously filled the wedding venue was completely gone, and since most of the wedding procedures had already been completed, people began to leave under various pretexts after sitting for only a few minutes.

At this time, the banquet was only on its second course, with Yonezawa beef teppanyaki with gold leaf and ginkgo nuts being served one after another, but seeing that the atmosphere was gone, Uesugi Kuninori had no choice but to signal the waiters to immediately bring the Yonezawa Domain wedding replica konpeito boxes to the guests who were about to leave; the entire event program was in disarray, and by the time the dessert of early cherry blossom mousse and Yamagata Prefecture cherry tea were served, most of the guests had already dispersed.

The dozen sets of 【Uesugi Twenty-Four Generals】 ukiyo-e style bookmarks prepared by the Uesugi Residence were not even fully distributed.

The Tokugawa side also hurriedly led the Kii Tokugawa family over to apologize, and from Tokugawa Noriko's own mouth, Uesugi Muneyuki finally learned what had happened.

As a female Head of the House, Tokugawa Noriko had married early and taken in an Adopted Son-in-law, but the Adopted Son-in-law did not expect the Kii Tokugawa Clan to be not as wealthy as imagined, being only a small middle-class family, so they divorced after a few years, leaving behind a son, a daughter, and a female Head of the House.

Tokugawa Noriko had finally managed to restore the Kii Tokugawa Clan to the ranks of the upper-middle class through her architectural expertise, but she did not expect her son, Tokugawa Ryuichi, to be very unpromising, picking up many bad habits, gambling on pachinko, and carrying huge debts, coming home every day to ask for money; forced by necessity, Tokugawa Noriko decided to take in an Adopted Son-in-law to inherit the family business, but it hadn't been made public yet, and she didn't expect her son to find out, leading him to come and cause trouble.

A son is not as good as an Adopted Son-in-law.

Uesugi Muneyuki suddenly thought this, and Miss Minami beside him seemed to think the same, pinching his palm.

It was I who chose you, Muneyuki-kun!

"Truly, I have failed to discipline my son!" The Head of the House of the Kii Tokugawa Clan, a dignified Marquis family, and the next successor knelt before the Uesugi family in a dogeza apology: "I am deeply sorry, there are no words to express my apologies!"

"………… That things turned out this way is not what the Kii family desired." Uesugi Kuninori took a few deep breaths, his Adam's apple bobbing: "Let's not mention today's events; let's just have no further contact from now on."

Tokugawa Noriko gasped; she knew that from today on, the Peerage would no longer invite the Kii Tokugawa Clan to attend these events.

Just like that, the wedding of Uesugi Muneyuki's older brother, Uesugi Sadanori, which had started off perfectly, ended inexplicably due to a farce, and even the final ceremony where the newlyweds rode in an antique Rolls-Royce around Hibiya Park with guests holding LED lanterns to see them off at the hotel arcade ended in a rush.

Older brother Uesugi Sadanori witnessed the whole process with his own eyes, and at one moment, he recalled the opening poem of The Tale of the Heike.

The bells of the Gion Monastery ring out the sound of life's impermanence;

The colors of the Sala Twin Trees reveal the truth that the prosperous must decline.

Facing this accident, Uesugi Sadanori was neither angry nor sorrowful; a sense of chaos regarding the impermanence of the world simply filled his body and mind, and he felt more and more that his newlywed wife and the many guests who had come today were all detestable people.

Getting married, having children, passing on the legacy—can one truly be happy?

Uesugi Sadanori looked at Uesugi Muneyuki not far away, suddenly sighed, his expression dim and lonely.

It is all my fault.

It is all my responsibility; I should never have taken a wife, harming her and harming my family as well!

Perhaps the continuation of the main family can only rely on you, brother.

The family had just entered the door, and Kuninori had walked a few steps in front when his body suddenly tilted, and he fell headlong to the ground.

"Grandfather!" "Father!"

There was a chorus of exclamations all around, but Uesugi Muneyuki was the fastest, using his own body as a cushion to catch his grandfather just as the old man was about to fall.

"Grandfather!" "Quick, call an ambulance! Quick!!!"

With the arrival of the ambulance from the University of Tokyo Hospital, everything that happened today cast a shadow over Uesugi Sadanori's marriage and the future of the Uesugi Residence.

(End of this chapter)