Malice Hearts Yin Book 1 Part 1

Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

We left the tea house having gotten all the information possible from the madam unless she had conveniently forgotten to mention something else of importance.

"We should first go to the Dreaming Peony." I declared. "It seems to be the most straightforward method. Fujiwara, you can pretend to be a client so as not to make Chen Lau suspicious."

Kenpachiro gave me a horrified look. "No! That establishment has the reputation to be crawling with vernal disease! It is said that getting spit on by one of his girls is enough to have one suffer from yangmei. I would most rather not have my handsome face eaten away. I'd sooner become a eunuch!"

"You've certainty never had a problem tempting fate before by laying in bed with ill-advised women. What's stopping you now?" I wasn't being snide, just honest.

"There's a difference between plunging your hand into a pot of water and sticking it in a fire."

".....?"

"H-he means that the w-water has a chance of b-being hot or cold, but t-that fire will always b-be hot." Hibiki explained to me with a little laugh.

I grumbled under my breath, a curse. I hated when he did this. It was bad enough that he was always referencing books and poems, but he also loved to use these little idioms. Whenever I failed to understand one of them and needed it explained to me Kenpachiro would look at me as though I were a halfwit. I thought that the really stupid thing was not just saying outright what he meant.

"That's.... w-weird though, isn't it? T-the woman at the tea h-house spoke of how Cold Child w-was terrified of being scarred by s-smallpox and yet it stays in a p-place ripe with yangmei?"

Yangmei, plum blossom sores—one of the many diseases associated with sexual indulges. It was a frightening sickness that got its name from the reddish bumps that were the first signs. Eventually, it ate away at the body, disfiguring the face. How anyone could take the risk of such a terrible fate just to indulge in carnal satisfaction was beyond my comprehension.

"It is perplexing, but we'll just have to ask him why directly. Well, for now, let's leave investigating the Dreaming Peony as a last measure. We can go about asking some men around here about Cold Child. They are the most likely to have been victims of his powers."

"That sounds like a monumental waste of time. We already got more than enough information from dear Tea Madam, and anything told to us by men of that particular nature would be extremely biased." Kenpachiro rejected my plan, turning up his hawkish nose in disdain as we strolled the streets. I kept looking around for children, but they were a surprisingly common sight here in the red-light district. Most were running errands or delivering food to houses, but some stood with older prostitutes, likely learning the 'trade'.

"It likes to critique the courtesans. How about we give it somethin' interestin' to remark on?"

"I refuse!" Haruka declared loudly. "I'm not about to parade myself around like a piece of merchandise! Commander, you better not give that order to me, because I'll stick one of my poisoned dartsss up your assss if you even so much asss think about it!"

"I would not consider it. You might be our only female, but there's no way we would fool even a child into thinking that you're a courtesan."

She puffed her cheeks out, displeased. "You don't need to say it like that."

"It was not an insult, just a simple fact. Unless there is a brothel out there catering to men with weird tastes, no one is going to believe that a woman with scales is a courtesan."