Kotaro and his party of three walked slowly in the middle of Yoshihara Avenue, like a fire truck dragging two firefighters. It can be said that they were quite conspicuous.

However, it is precisely because Kotaro's appearance is so special that everyone in Yoshiwara knows that he is the security guard of the confectionery shop, so no store owner bothers Butterfly Ninja at all, leaving her to look around with curiosity.

Occasionally, however, a girl would run out of the nearby wandering girl's house, give Kotaro some snacks and toys, and leave with a few greetings with a smile.

"I didn't expect Kotaro to be so popular among girls in Yoshiwara."

Genichiro said with a smile.

He thought most people would be afraid of Kotaro.

The current situation is probably because when that guy Anayama usually spreads money around Yoshiwara, he often brings this child along to support the scene, making these girls look very familiar with Kotaro.

The Butterfly Ninja noticed that, perhaps because he was closer to "home", Genichiro's smile was not as stiff as usual.

"These sisters are all good people. Every time we meet, they give me a lot of food."

Kotaro couldn't wait to open the food box he had just harvested, bent down, and happily showed the contents to Genichiro and the others: "Ah, these snacks are so beautiful!"

Genichiro took a closer look and saw that they were seven mooncake-like snacks in the shape of human faces.

The human faces on each snack are different and look weird, a bit like the human face sculpture carved by Hawkeye Goff in "Dark Souls", which is just one step away from being unpalatable.

"Why are the snacks made like this?"

"This is Ningyoyaki, a snack unique to Sensoji Temple. It's hard to buy normally."

Seeing the two people looking confused, Butterfly Man said: "The seven types of Ningyo Yaki represent the seven gods of fortune and fortune, so they also represent different blessings. It is very thoughtful for people to give such a gift to Kotaro."

"

As she said that, she explained the connotations and meanings of each of the seven gods to the two of them, causing Kotaro to nod frequently.

Kotaro is just naive, not completely incapable of learning. He almost remembers this little knowledge with stories about gods and ghosts after hearing it once, and plans to share it with others when he gets home.

"Hey, what an amazing snack."

While sighing, he handed Benzaiten's Ningyo-yaki to the Butterfly Ninja. The size of the snack was less than one-tenth of the size of his hand.

"This is the only god among Ningyo-yaki who is a girl. I'll give it to you to eat."

Benzaiten is known as the God of Good Fortune and Freedom, and his expression is relatively festive. Kotaro's blessing is quite obvious, hoping that Butterfly Ninja can smile more.

Butterfly reluctantly showed a smile and accepted it gratefully.

Then, Kotaro handed Koichiro the Daikokuten Ningyo Yaki that could keep him safe, and said with "serious words": "Don't break your hand again, it will hurt so much."

After saying this, he threw Genichiro where he was and was moved. He picked up the cloth bag monk Ningyoyaki that was ninety-nine similar to him and threw it into his mouth. He chewed it twice and swallowed it. His originally dull eyes also brightened.

He stood up and said, "It's filled with red bean paste! It's so delicious."

However, after eating, he seemed to have a great appetite and wanted to continue, but in the end he hesitated for a while, then closed the food box and held it in his hands.

"There are so many more, why don't you eat them? No one is trying to grab them from you."

When Genichiro ate the snacks with blessings, he felt warm in his heart and felt that they tasted good.

"Well...Kuroro is learning...what kind of English he is learning recently. This Bishamonten that makes people smart is left to him."

Kotaro counted them one by one with his fingers.

"Shou old man leaves it to the old woman, Ebisu leaves it to my eldest brother, and blessings, prosperity and longevity...well, I'll give blessings, prosperity and longevity to Sister Warabiji. She is also very good to me, and she even drools when she looks at me sometimes..."

【Kuroro is learning English?】

This was something Genichiro didn't expect.

However, there are more and more people in the store, and Kuro doesn't have to do everything himself. Naturally, he has more free time. It's normal to want to learn something new.

"Why, does Miss Warabi-hime often come to the store?"

Genichiro asked.

The belt given to him by Warabihime played an important role in rescuing the koi Murata this time. It is not an exaggeration to say that it brought him luck.

If he jumped off the mountain without that belt, even Butterfly Kanae and Immortal River would have no confidence, let alone him.

However, the strange thing is that even though Fernhime has given them a lot of things and often made suggestions to the snack shop, this woman's name has never appeared in the old hunter's notebook.

But if Warabihime is a pseudonym, then there are no other female names in the notebook that Genichiro doesn't recognize.

【What a mysterious guy.】

"Sister Fernhime goes to chat with Kuro every few days."

Kotaro bit his fingers and recalled.

"But she always comes here just before closing time. She must be working very hard."

Genichiro nodded when he heard this, not surprised.

He knew clearly that Warabihime's position in Kyogokuya was that of a geisha, not a wandering girl, and she was currently learning skills. She probably trained in poetry, music, and dance during the day, so she only had time at night.

[That guy doesn’t have any affection for me at all.]

[Did she hear me calling her stupid a few times? 】

Giving him a parting gift was probably because the other party was doing it for Kuro's sake.

[Hey, I almost misunderstood, I thought...]

[Kuroro, this guy, is very lucky.]

Genichiro thought about it and revealed his half-moon eyes.

There were some things he didn't say, and he didn't really care, but he was still a little unconvinced.

In this way, the three of them continued on the road, and Genichiro also acted as an unqualified tour guide, introducing the buildings on both sides of the avenue to Butterfly Ninja.

Yoshihara said it's not too big.

In a place of 27,000 square meters, there are less than 10,000 people living there, so the composition is quite complicated.

There are more than 200 women's houses here, but not every house can have oirans and geishas.

Therefore, according to the size and grade, it can be divided into big view, medium view and small view.

Close to the outskirts of Youguo, there are a bunch of longhouses, called corner shops, which are not even considered mainstream.

Genichiro pointed to the huge cage-like rooms on both sides of the road and said: "Ordinary yuyas sit there from 12 noon, waiting for customers to choose, until four in the afternoon. After the customers have the favorite yuya, they go

After drinking and drinking tea in the teahouse, and spending a certain amount of money, the waiter in the teahouse will guide the guests to meet the wandering girls in the evening. After this, almost fifteen yen will be spent. If the time is delayed overnight

, the cost will naturally be higher.”

Fifteen yen is almost a year's pay for an Army recruit.

In other words, the income of a soldier who has been training for a whole year is only a few hours of business as a wandering girl here.

With such high profits, it's no wonder Yoshihara can maintain such a prosperous appearance.

But it’s unclear how much money the owners of the girls’ houses will give them.

When the three of them passed by a large family, Kotaro enthusiastically greeted the acquaintances in the cage.

However, the butterfly ninja had a stiff expression and did not dare to look directly at the women sitting in the cage-like display window, displayed like merchandise on the shelves.

Putting people in cages for people to admire is just like monkeys in a zoo, isn't it?

Although those girls were all wearing heavy make-up, Butterfly Ren glanced out of the corner of his eye and could see that there were quite a few people inside, but they were similar to her age, but they looked like they were used to this kind of life.

Some of them have snobbery and ambition in their eyes, and they can't wait to get ahead.

But some people have dull eyes and are insensitive. They just want not to be beaten or scolded today, meet a gentler guest, and spend the day safely.

But according to Warabihime, regardless of whether they like this life or not, most of the girls will not live past the age of twenty-five.

What awaits them is that most of them contracted serious diseases at a young age, broke the rules and were killed or committed suicide. In the end, they became one of the thousands of withered bones in Jingxian Temple behind, disappearing in this world insignificantly, causing even the slightest disturbance.

Can't get up.

Even if an oiran is old and beautiful, if there is no benefactor to redeem her life, her fate will not be much better, and she will be left to teach the younger generations the skills to please the guests.

The more he learns about their lives, the more absurd the Butterfly Ninja realizes

——It turns out that there is a more unfortunate job in the world than being a ghost hunter.

Although the Demon Slayer is also a profession where it is easy to die young, most of the members' family members died at the hands of ghosts, so they have experienced fear, hatred and pain since childhood.

But at least, their way of existence has not been distorted in this way.

They firmly believe that their work can protect humans from harm, so although killing ghosts is very dangerous, few team members will feel despair.

But most of the girls in these cages are dying slowly.

At this moment, Butterfly Ninja understood for the first time what her sister had said to her.

"Xiao Ren, the most fundamental misfortune in the world is not the disaster of encountering a ghost. It is the lack of hope at all."

"So people like us who have goals to work towards should be even more happy."

At that time, she didn’t believe that there could be anything more unfortunate than losing a family member to a ghost.

But when she met Shanahu and the girls who were sold here by their parents for various reasons, she realized that the pain of being abandoned and sacrificed by their loved ones was even greater than having their loved ones taken away.
To be continued...