A-Li

The massive Higokumaru, wreathed in Fox Fire, used her four legs and five tails to pin the ten-meter-tall Ghost Courtesan in a death grip, leaving her unable to move.

She could only suffer through the agony of the Fox Fire's burning. As the flames continued to rage, the resentment clinging to the Ghost Courtesan began to wane, and her obsession actually started to crumble away.

Then... her beautiful form gradually revealed itself.

Her once ghastly blue skin returned to a normal hue, and her white hair turned back to black.

After about ten minutes, the Ghost Courtesan had reverted to the most beautiful appearance she had held in life, and she slumped onto the ground.

As the Ghost Courtesan's obsession collapsed, the surrounding vengeful spirits also began to slowly return to normal.

Higokumaru... she actually has the ability to purify vengeful spirits as well... Even Yae Sakura had not known this.

"That's enough, Sakura, tell Higokumaru to stop!" Kikyo hurriedly said to Yae Sakura.

"Understood, Higokumaru, you can stop now," Yae Sakura quickly called out to Higokumaru.

"Yes, Big Sister!"

Higokumaru retracted her flames and detached herself from the Ghost Courtesan's body, transforming back into a little girl with fox ears.

"Big Sister, wasn't I amazing?"

Higokumaru flew to Yae Sakura's side, looking at Kikyo with a smug expression.

"Amazing... but was it necessary to make such a scene? Now everyone in Bungo Province knows what happened here. And besides..."

Yae Sakura looked at the temple, which had been built specifically to bury courtesans; it had been completely destroyed by Higokumaru's flames.

"Hehe, but this was simple and direct..." Higokumaru felt no shame at all.

"..." Luna stood behind Kikyo, watching the tiny Higokumaru with great trepidation. She had not expected the little fox belonging to the shrine maiden to be a great yokai.

However, looking at the Ghost Courtesan ahead, Luna felt no fear or dread, but rather a sense of desolation and sorrow.

So this is the future of a washed-up courtesan...

It was even more miserable than she had imagined. Luna felt absolutely no lingering attachment to the position of courtesan anymore.

"Someone is rushing over, likely samurai and onmyoji... Kikyo, go and perform the rites for them now!"

Yae Sakura's fox ears twitched as she suddenly heard footsteps in the distance. There were many of them, and they were either samurai or onmyoji. To avoid further complications, it was best to handle this quickly.

"Very well." Kikyo nodded and walked toward the Ghost Courtesan and the surrounding spirits of the courtesans.

"Your obsessions have faded; I shall send you to the other shore to report!"

These spirits were women who had been hastily buried at Jingxian Temple. Because they mourned their lost youth, they had lingered here, forming obsessions.

Their souls had been imprisoned on this shore, unable to leave, becoming vengeful spirits forever lost in false dreams.

Now that their obsessions and false dreams had been destroyed by the Fox Fire, they were forced to face reality.

"The splendor of the Oiran Dochu of the past is still vivid in my mind. In the blink of an eye, decades have passed, and I have ended up in the sorrow of dying with no one to ask after me," the Ghost Courtesan said, sitting on the ground with a mournful tone.

"Go and be reincarnated! In your next life, strive to be born into a good family. If you insist on remaining in the human world now, even if we let you go, others will come to exorcise you. When that time comes, they will not be as kind as to perform rites for you; they will simply destroy you."

Yae Sakura brought Luna to Kikyo's side, looking at the ghosts before them—they were all pitiful souls.

"Sigh..."

A single sigh...

The Ghost Courtesan nodded in agreement.

As Kikyo began to perform the rites for the departed souls, the local samurai and onmyoji finally arrived.

However... Higokumaru spat a mouthful of Fox Fire outside the ruined Jingxian Temple, and neither the samurai nor the onmyoji could take a single step inside.

Once the Ghost Courtesan and the other spirits had been fully purified, Yae Sakura took Kikyo and Luna, mounted Higokumaru, and left Jingxian Temple.

[Mission: Purify the Ghost Courtesan (Completed)]

This was worth more than slaying a great yokai.

Just the 200 Crystals alone made it worthwhile, and the main quest progress had also increased slightly; Higokumaru's intervention counted toward it.

"Luna..."

After leaving Jingxian Temple, the three of them found a small town along the coast to stay in, sitting together to drink tea.

"Yes, what is it, Lady Sakura?"

"Do you know of the great yokai Shiranui?" Looking at the lights outside the window, this place felt like a different world compared to those villages.

"Shiranui? Of course I know her! I should say... there isn't a soul in all of Kyushu who doesn't know of Shiranui."

"Then do you know of Li Island in Yoshiwara Bay?"

"Yoshiwara Bay... I know it." Luna knelt before Yae Sakura, holding her teacup.

"You know it..." Yae Sakura's face lit up with joy.

"Yes, but if Lady Sakura wants to see Shiranui, you should wait a few more days. There are still a few days left before Shiranui descends."

"You even know when Shiranui descends?" Yae Sakura felt as though she had struck gold.

"Yes, Lady Sakura, have you ever heard the other story about Shiranui?"

"I have not..."

"A story that circulates in the pleasure quarters, one that happened over a hundred years ago, about the songstress Shiranui."

Over a hundred years ago, before Bungo Province existed, there was a power known as Yoshiwara.

In the bay of Yoshiwara, Yoshiwara Bay, there was an isolated island called Li Island. No one lived on Li Island, save for Liren Pavilion, a pleasure house famous throughout Yoshiwara.

The owner of Liren Pavilion adopted a little girl from a fisherman and took her as an apprentice, naming her A-Li and training her to be the top songstress.

Ten years later, the little girl had blossomed into the most popular songstress in Liren Pavilion.

She could sing and dance beautifully, her movements graceful, her robes fluttering...

Every nightfall, A-Li would walk step by step toward the stage standing above the sea.

In the distance, the flickering lights were the fishing lanterns from the boats that had come to see her. As the night deepened, those lights would spread.

They numbered in the hundreds and thousands, covering the sky and the sea, just like the legendary great yokai Shiranui. Because of this... A-Li was also called the songstress Shiranui.

However, to A-Li, the existence of Liren Pavilion was nothing more than a cage for her heart.

Time had simply passed in a numb blur, until a reckless onmyoji stumbled into A-Li's life.

He was like a beam of light shining into a dark room—blinding, yet warm.

The onmyoji understood the helplessness in A-Li's singing. He took A-Li out to sea and told her of the vibrant world beyond.

A-Li, in turn, would dance to the waka poems he composed, dancing steps of true freedom.

The summer sea was dark and silent, yet suddenly, beams of fire appeared. First a small, distant cluster, then more and more, spreading across the entire surface of the sea.

They were not the lanterns of pleasure boats, but flickering orange flames. They rose and fell with A-Li's movements, as if they were old friends.

Perhaps, in the long passage of time, the songstress Shiranui had become one with the legend itself...