Luotai * Inari

When Luotai came out of the side door of the gambling den, he was already covered in a cold sweat.

He heard Masato say, "Get rid of it."

Having followed Masato for so long, he understands better than anyone what those three words mean.

It's likely that he felt sympathy for the opposing forces, so he wanted to nip the risk in the bud before they turned against him.

She brought this on herself; she shouldn't have gone to see him at that time!

What does the fall of the Land of Whirlpools have to do with a small merchant like me?

In the afternoon, there were already quite a few people walking around in Yuhara Pleasure Quarter. Idle men strolled around the streets, while women either sat in cages or wandered the streets.

Although Yuhara Pleasure Quarter is not as large as the Capital City, it still has two thousand women living there, and with apprentices and guests, there are at least five thousand people here every day.

This made it convenient for him to hide his tracks.

He deliberately chose to walk in crowded places, sometimes weaving into crowds watching street performers, sometimes turning into alleys full of drunkards, passing between two vendors arguing, and deliberately knocking over a flower stall, taking advantage of the stall owner's cursing to slip into the alley opposite.

He grew up on the streets of the Land of Hot Water, and he knew these survival tricks inside and out.

But he still couldn't shake off the person behind him.

Luotai's neck was numb all the while. The feeling of being stared at was like a leech clinging to his bone. No matter how he took a detour or ventured into crowds, that gaze remained fixed on his back.

Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he dared not stop moving, his mind racing to find a place to hide.

As he turned past the door of a familiar Izakaya, he almost bumped into the waiter carrying a sake bottle. Without even apologizing, he hunched over and squeezed into the narrow alley next to him.

When he finally ran out of the alley, he was so tired that he could barely run anymore. He bent over, holding his knees, and took a couple of breaths. When he caught a glimpse of the shadow guard slowly appearing at the intersection, Luotai froze.

Then they ran inside as fast as they could.

There was an open side door at the entrance of the alley, and without thinking, he squeezed through.

He slammed the paper door shut with a loud crash, and a strong scent of perfume wafted out of the room.

He squinted for a moment from the choking, and when he opened his eyes again, he found himself standing in a spacious Japanese-style room. The floor was covered with gorgeous brocade cushions, and the low table was set with wine and dishes that had not yet been cleared away. The flames on the candlesticks were being violently shaken by the wind blowing in through the door.

A woman is kneeling in front of a bronze mirror, removing her makeup, her long, black hair cascading down her back.

He then realized where he had wandered into.

Hearing the noise, she put down the comb in her hand and slowly turned around.

It was an extremely beautiful face, with a composure and aloofness that only those who had long held high positions possessed. Exquisite earrings swayed gently in the candlelight as he moved.

Luotai's face turned deathly pale.

He recognized the face. It was the most famous courtesan on the entire Yuhara Street; it was said that even nobles from the Land of Fire had to send out invitations Half a Month in advance if they wanted to see her.

How did he end up in a place like this?!

The courtesan tilted her head slightly, her long, narrow eyes, outlined with rouge, scanning him up and down before revealing an undisguised look of annoyance.

"What's going on?" Her voice wasn't loud, but it carried a chilling coldness. She beckoned to the bald man standing in the doorway. "Someone, take this ill-mannered person away..."

Before she could finish speaking, a muffled thud came from the other corner of the room.

That was the sound of someone hitting the wall, followed by something crashing and shattering on the ground.

The people inside the room turned their heads at the same time and saw a man dressed in black pulling a knife out of a thug's body, the broken pieces of the wine jug creaking under his Geta.

The courtesan was startled, and her maids screamed. She herself couldn't help but back away, but she wasn't so frightened as to run haphazardly; she simply shouted, "Brother! Help!"

A debt collector ran from the end of the corridor and yanked open the door of the Flower Queen's residence.

Looking up, I saw Luotai, and the people who had rushed in after Luotai.

The man was wearing a dark short jacket with tight cuffs, and his face was expressionless. He simply took a step forward in Luotai's direction.

"Hey." The debt collector frowned and strode towards the guard. "Where did you come from, kid? Do you know whose territory this is?"

The guards didn't even glance at him, and continued walking forward.

The debt collector reached out to stop him, but the guard grabbed his wrist and twisted it outwards. The debt collector grunted and grabbed a stool next to him with his other hand, swinging it at him.

The scene instantly erupted into chaos. Guards outside rushed in at the sound of the commotion, the courtesan's maids screamed and backed away, candlesticks were knocked over, and food and wine were scattered all over the floor.

Taking advantage of the chaos, Luotai scrambled and stumbled towards the door.

Meanwhile, at the gambling den.

"Oh my, you were staring at me so intently back then, I thought you were going to kill me. I didn't expect you just wanted to buy me a drink. What a surprise!"

Mokushō, now a middle-aged man, was invited upstairs to a private room and sat facing Masato.

He was toying with a Chips in his hand, letting it flip and bounce between his knuckles.

"Someone with such incredible luck as you, it would be strange if I didn't befriend you, wouldn't it?" Masato picked up the sake pot and personally poured him a cup. "Even that so-called 'God of the Shake Hand' bookmaker couldn't resist your luck, allowing you to win three rounds in a row. It's truly amazing, making it impossible for me to even think of killing you."

"Yeah."

"My name is Sparrow White Masato. What is your name?"

Mokushō, "You're from the Land of Lightning, aren't you?"

Masato paused for a moment, then nodded. "That's right. How did you figure that out?"

"You look like someone from the Land of Lightning," Mokushō said.

Masato paused for a moment, then pushed the full glass of wine towards the Mokushō: "I am indeed from the Land of Lightning, but I have now settled in the Land of Hot Water. I wonder if you would be interested in joining my gang?"

"That sounds interesting."

"So--"

"But I'm not interested." Mokushō placed the Chips on the table. "By the way, you can call me Inari."

"Inari? Doesn't she have a surname?"

Everyone calls me Inari, so you can call me that too.

Upon hearing this, Masato paused for a moment, then smiled and shook his head, taking a sip of his sake. "Inari, you are truly a remarkable person."

He didn't press further about the surname. In a place like Pleasure Quarter, there were plenty of people who didn't want to give their full names, and asking further would only make him seem ignorant of etiquette.

He put down his wine glass and was about to say something when a subordinate hurriedly entered the side room and whispered a few words in his ear.

Masato's brows furrowed slightly, and he stood up and bowed slightly to Mokushō.

"Inari, I have some errands to attend to, so let's end our drinking here for today. If you have some free time another day, feel free to come find me at this gambling den; I'll certainly keep you company with fine wine and delicious food."

Mokushō waved to him with a smile, watching him leave in a hurry with his men, then lowered his head and continued to leisurely stack his Chips tower.

The tower has been stacked up to the seventh layer, with each Chips neatly arranged and perfectly aligned at the edges.

Just as he was about to add another layer on the web, he seemed to suddenly hear something.

He listened intently for a moment, then said with some surprise, "I never expected to find one of my followers here. That's quite rare."

He vanished from the spot in the next second.

Luotai didn't know how he got out of that alley.

His lungs felt like they were being squeezed and twisted in someone's hand; every breath he took tasted of rust, but he dared not stop.

That debt collector is dead meat, he thought as he ran.

Those bodyguards were Ninjas, trusted confidants that Masato brought from the Land of Lightning, specifically responsible for handling shady matters.

Ordinary People wouldn't even last a single move against Ninja, so a debt collector could at most buy a few breaths before having their neck snapped or being Kunai.

He abruptly turned into a narrower alley at a fork in the road, his back pressed against the damp stone wall, panting heavily.

After confirming that there were no footsteps following him for the time being, he rested for a moment, then started running towards home again.

All he wants to do right now is go home.

My mother is old and has difficulty walking, so she spends most of her time in bed.

He didn't know if Masato would send someone to his house to wait for him, but he had to go.

It would be best to send your mother away before the other party does.

You can send it to a friend in a neighboring town, or hire a carriage to take you out of the Land of Hot Water, anywhere is fine, as long as you leave this place.

Luotai is a dark-skinned man.

To be precise, he was the child of a prostitute from Pleasure Quarter wealthy family.

His mother never hid anything about his background.

His mother was a low-class Courtesan in Yuhara Pleasure Quarter when she was young. Because of her unremarkable appearance, she could only serve the lowest-class customers and barely make ends meet.

One day, a man from the Land of Lightning got drunk and spent the night in her house. He left the next day and was never seen again.

Women in the Pleasure Quarters cannot get pregnant. If they do, they cannot entertain customers, and a Courtesan who cannot entertain customers cannot survive even a day in the Pleasure Quarters.

Therefore, every Courtesan was required to drink a contraceptive soup regularly, and if she became pregnant, she had to have an abortion immediately.

But his mother didn't.

It wasn't because of some great maternal love; she was just too thin.

Long-term malnutrition and overwork caused her menstrual cycle to be irregular, and her belly never showed.

She didn't know she was pregnant until that day in the outhouse, after a sharp abdominal pain, she looked down and saw the baby curled up in a pool of blood.

His mother neither cried nor called for help.

She silently cut the umbilical cord, wrapped him in her worn-out inner garment, and then carried him back to the cramped storage room.

She told the public that he was an abandoned baby she had found, and that she had fed him little by little with her own food.

His mother cherished him as if he were the most precious treasure in the world, raising him little by little as a cherished memory. Luotai and his mother depended on each other for survival, and although their lives were hard, Luotai was happy.

As he grew a little older, Luotai started looking for work everywhere.

Because his skin was dark, it was obvious that he had the blood of the Land of Lightning. In a place like the Land of Hot Water, dark skin meant being inferior.

He was used to being discriminated against from a young age.

When he went to beg on the street, no one would give him even a single copper coin. Some vendors would wave him away as he approached, like shooing away a fly.

He finally found a job as a mover, but after working for three days, the employer noticed his skin color and fired him on some random excuse.

Before he was fifteen, he had done no fewer than twenty jobs, washing dishes, carrying goods, running errands, and cleaning fish guts, none of which lasted more than a month.

Later, he learned to walk with his head down, to finish his work as quickly as possible and disappear from his employer's sight, and to respond to all the Byakugan and cold treatment with silence.

Until he met the merchant from the Land of Lightning.

That day, he was squatting at the dock waiting for odd jobs when he saw a caravan from the Land of Lightning unloading their goods. They were short-handed, and the foreman was cursing and complaining that the porters from the Land of Hot Water were too lazy.

He hesitated for a long time, but finally went up to him and asked if he needed help.

The merchant paused for a moment, then said, "I didn't expect to find a child from the Land of Lightning here. You're the one."

That was the first time in his life he got a job because of his skin color, instead of being rejected.

After that, he continued to work as a gofer for that businessman, from the docks to the warehouses, and from the warehouses to the accounting department.

He learned quickly, had a good memory, and was good at reading people. Businessmen trusted him more and more, and later, he used his savings to start a referral business.

His life got better and better. He rented a small courtyard and brought his mother out of Pleasure Quarter Village.

My mother no longer needs to drink the contraceptive medicine. She just sits on the porch in the sun every day and chats with the old lady next door occasionally.

She had suffered too much in her life, her face etched with the lines of time, but when she smiled, Luotai felt that those wrinkles were gentle.

He had to keep his mother alive and rescue her from that cannibalistic place Pleasure Quarter. This was the only thing he had ever succeeded in, and he couldn't let it be ruined by Masato.

At the end of the alley was the small courtyard he rented, with morning glory Vines climbing all over the walls, casting a thin layer of silvery-white light in the moonlight.

His fingers trembled as he pushed open the door, but seeing the light still on in his mother's room through the paper window, his heartbeat calmed down a little.

He walked quickly to the door, whispered "Mother," and then opened the paper door.

There was no one in the room. The blankets were neatly folded, and next to the pillow was a half-sewn garment, with the needle still stuck in it and the thread hanging down, swaying gently in the candlelight.

Luotai's mind went blank.

He turned and rushed out of the courtyard, frantically searching through the surrounding alleys, calling out for his mother in a low voice.

But no one answered; only the sound of Shamisen drifted in the night wind from a distant Pleasure Quarter.

He ran through the last alley, leaned against the wall, bent over, his fingernails digging into the cracks, his knuckles turning white.

Luotai leaned against the wall, his fingernails digging into the cracks, drawing blood from his knuckles.

His mind went blank.

He thought to himself, "Luotai, look what you've done."

You shouldn't have provoked Masato out of greed. You shouldn't have been soft-hearted towards your friend after accepting the mission. Look at the result; you couldn't even protect your own mother.

"Luotai?" His mother's voice came from behind him, tinged with doubt and worry.

Luotai turned around abruptly. His mother was standing at the alley entrance, holding a small cloth bag in her hand. The dim lantern light fell on her gray hair, making the wrinkles particularly clear.

She appeared to be unharmed, only slightly out of breath after walking a short distance.

"Mother!" Luotai rushed to her, grabbing her shoulders with both hands. "What are you doing here? Are you hurt? Has anyone been with you?"

"I just went to the Inari Shrine to pray." His mother was startled by his appearance, but still patted his hand patiently. "Hasn't your business been doing badly lately? I was just hoping that the Inari God would bless our Luotai so that we can continue to make big money. Why are you in such a hurry?"

"Thank you, Mother, but now is not the time for that. Come with me!"

"What's wrong?"

"It's nothing, just come with me!"

He had only taken two steps, gripping his mother's wrist, when a figure emerged from the shadows at the alley entrance.

It was that bodyguard.

However, he was injured; there was a bleeding wound on his left arm.

He spat out a mouthful of blood, his bloodshot eyes fixed on Luotai. "You're pretty good at running, aren't you?"