Inuyama Castle

Xu Zhiqiu felt as though she had slept for a century. An endless stream of warmth flowed into her body, restoring her depleted strength.

So tired. I don't want to wake up.

If I don't want to wake up, then I'll just keep sleeping. Sleep, sleep.

"Mm."

A woman lay curled up in a space suffused with blue-green light. Motes of the same light kept settling on the wounds scattered across her body. As the days accumulated, her wounds and scars disappeared, gradually restoring her skin to its original creamy smoothness.

Xu Zhiqiu had no idea how long she had slept, only that it had been a very long time. She felt boundless strength filling her body, and her consciousness urgently demanded to awaken, so she opened her eyes.

Before she could make out her surroundings, her vision went black.

Xu Zhiqiu appeared in the woods. She rolled her stiff neck and looked up at the sky, then toward the people coming and going in the castle town. Their hairstyles and hair told her that she had ended up in that little island nation again.

Having gone so long without walking, Xu Zhiqiu immediately fell to the ground. She sat cross-legged and recovered for a while, then braced herself against a tree to stand. Walking into a clearing in the woods, she began swinging her arms and rotating her neck and legs.

As she exercised, she kept feeling that something was missing from her hands. Xu Zhiqiu stopped and held them out for a look. The pendant she had worn on her hand was gone! Her life-saving Jade was gone, and she could no longer use the Jade Blade!

"Wh-what's going on?!" Xu Zhiqiu clenched her fist and punched a nearby tree.

A few green leaves rustled down.

She unclenched her hand and studied her palm. She remembered that her hands had been covered in wounds when she fought the Eight-Tailed Fox, but now there wasn't a single scar. Moreover, she could feel boundless strength within her. Her hearing and reflexes had improved considerably, and more importantly, her body felt much lighter.

To test her theory, Xu Zhiqiu looked at the tree before her and let out a breath. She sprang up, planted both feet against its trunk, then stepped on empty air and leaped onto the tree's trunk.

Her legs were still a little numb from being motionless for so long. Xu Zhiqiu jumped down from the trunk and continued exercising.

She stretched her legs, pressing back and forth a good twenty or thirty times before she felt ready.

The sounds of a bustling crowd drifted over from nearby. Xu Zhiqiu looked down at her tattered clothes. She would have to enter the town and buy new clothes and equipment before going anywhere else.

With her plan settled, Xu Zhiqiu headed toward the castle gate.

Standing before the gate, she looked at the three large characters overhead and murmured, "Inuyama Castle."

That sounds familiar. Is this Naraku's castle?

Dressed in rags, Xu Zhiqiu walked inside with an indifferent expression under the gate guards' scrutiny. On the streets of this ancient island nation, there was little food for sale and rather more ordinary merchandise. Quite a few beggars sat along the streets asking for alms.

Wherever she went, that great collective known as the Beggar Gang was never absent. Just as Xu Zhiqiu was debating whether to join them, something happened.

Several mounted men suddenly rode in through the gate. Holding weapons and wearing stern expressions, they announced, "The lord and young lord have returned! Everyone ahead, move aside!"

At the rider's loud command, the people walking down the middle gradually moved to the sides, leaving the center of the road clear.

Xu Zhiqiu stood before a stall selling woven bamboo goods, her arms folded across her chest as she watched the carriage enter through the gate.

The stall owner pinched his nose and looked at Xu Zhiqiu beside him with utter disgust. "Where did this beggar come from? Go find somewhere cool to loiter..."

When Xu Zhiqiu turned to look at him, the owner caught sight of her fair, flawless cheeks, tinged with pink, and his gaze was instantly drawn to her. Then he abruptly lowered his head. Are beggars this beautiful these days?

As the carriage passed them, the person inside reached out with slender fingers and drew aside the curtain, revealing an elegant, handsome face, pale with frailty, and eyes touched by faint sorrow.

He looked outside and saw that familiar face. The gentle expression he had so carefully maintained nearly slipped, and he let the curtain fall.

The lord seated beside him noticed the shift in his son's emotions and asked, "Inuyasha, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, Father." At that moment, Naraku was posing as the lord's son, Inuyasha.