“Ah, you’re worn out again, do you want me to send you back to the night market?” Kimiko supported Lily’s body walking down the stairs.
“I’m fine,” Lily really didn’t want Kimiko to treat her as a girlfriend.
“Oh right, Lily, go to the small room to change, you need to return the undergarments.”
“What!?!?” Lily was taken aback, “This, how about I wash it first then return it?”
Kimiko’s breath was out of sync, “No! I like the warmth1 … ah no, if you carelessly wash, you could destroy the mystic power within, you can break treasured flowerpots when sweeping the floor, you should let me wash them. They were mine to begin with, though I haven’t worn them at all.”
“But……” “What? Little Lily, don’t say you don’t want to return them to me. That’s no good.” “O…ok……”
Lily was quite helpless, she could only return to the room and take off the undergarments stained in her warmth and scent. She was unable to look Kimiko in the eyes as she returned the undergarments.
“Oh right, if you want to buy undergarments, then go to the Fuyutsuki to shop.” After getting the undergarments back, Kimiko was satisfied and advised Lily.
When Lily finally staggered back to the night market, it was already past closing time. The only one left was a little demon sweeping. If anyone saw Lily, wearing a short-skirted black kimono, accompanied by an exhausted look and rumpled hair, returning at dawn, there would be misunderstandings. In truth, Lily was only training. She returned to the inn, took a bath, and went to sleep.
The next few days, Lily obeyed Kimiko and didn’t leave the night markets, she imitated a shut-in. She stayed within the inn and concentrated on refining her physique and studying the notes Kimiko had handed her. She also kept updated on the situation between the Bureau of Divination and the Phantom Thief case.
Reading the notes, Lily suddenly understood. The process of refining a female physique had so many different details. It was far more complicated and mysterious than male physique refining. It wasn’t about training muscles, leg power or strength.
Female physique refining is divided into high level and low level. Kimiko’s notebook didn’t say much about the low level, but the detailed high level training was a type of spirit training, perceiving charming intent. Only by perceiving and understanding the deeper levels of charming intent, could the intent be more effectively merged with the body. But, training with charming intent was not all there was to female physique refining.
Other physique training methods included the path of virginity, the ascetic intent, and the path toward masculinity, the path of gender transition. These paths were casually mentioned in the notes.
The charming intent could be divided into two, the yin-yang path where constant seduction and copulation with males was necessary and the purity path between females. Lily naturally practiced the purity path.
Though she could gain insights into her daily life, it was slow unless she gained an epiphany. But according to Kimiko’s boasts, in this Heian-kyo, the fastest way to understand the purity path was to inspect the Himemiya Sen-no-hana.
The Himemiya Sen-no-hana would be the core of that method, but it needed to be accompanied by a multitude of other methods to provide the greatest effect. Most supplemental methods could be divided into the categories of physical training, medicine, and clothes and accessories.
Physical training was exactly as the name suggested. Using specific feminine methods to increase strength, flexibility, speed, etc, it’s a very basic method but requires persistence and will only show results over long periods of time. Martial dances, sword styles, weapon skills were also categorized into the physical category.
As for medicine, it was split into inner medicine and outer application. For females, this category was indispensable. For example, some lipsticks, rogue, lotions made from various rare materials were all part of the outer application medicines. “To think that cosmetics made of rare treasures would help strengthen the physique, that’s really amazing.” Lily’s eyes were opened to a bigger world.
As for clothing and accessories, the item that had the most effect was the undergarments. The main purpose of outer garments was defensive power, but undergarments were different. Undergarments not only provided defense but provided care, nourishment, and maintenance for a woman’s intimate parts, this care provides great benefits to a woman’s physique refining. Naturally, normal undergarments were unable to provide such benefits, only undergarments made of treasured materials had such capabilities.
There was no need to go into much detail about jewelry2. These are necessary for a woman’s dress up, plenty of powerful treasures was in the form of jewelry. Not only can jewelry add to a woman’s beauty and radiance, but could also aid in physique training.
In addition, the notes detailed how finding a woman proficient with charming intent for a massage would provide benefits. The partner did not have to be a purity path adept, she could be a yin-yang path or an adept on the path of virginity. Each different type provided a different benefit.
The notes also had a line, if an adept engaged in pair training with their lover and studied the Himemiya Sen-no-hana together, then they could refine parts of their body they could not reach if solo, the physiques would become more perfect and complete. There was much information and instruction on pair training…only Lily was too shy and embarrassed to read further on this topic.
The notes also detailed multi-person training having benefits even pair training could not bring…
As for the yin-yang path, the notes described that as simply looking for a male to engage in pair training, on this topic the notes didn’t detail more than a few sentences of logic. Lily naturally was not traveling on the yin-yang path, so she didn’t bother reading.
After that, the notebook detailed different sorts of medical herbs, manufacturing methods for various cosmetics, gathering locations for treasured materials used in the production of treasured undergarments along with a record of famous skilled tailors. The list was truly diverse and complete.
However, concerning female to female pair and multi training, the specific methods weren’t explained, only a few book names were provided. It seems that this wasn’t a well-known method, you’d have to collect books first, and then find a partner.
For pair training, the partner Lily wanted the most was of course, her senior sister. But that was too far in the future, first she had to somehow find a method to awaken her soul. Hopefully, meeting Lady Ayaka would give her some hints. Lily had considered asking Kimiko, though she trusted her, Kimiko was still a fox demon. For senior sister’s safety, Lily did not dare to ask.
Then Lily realized, in truth… she probably couldn’t pair with her senior sister. If one day, senior sister’s soul really awakened, Lily would naturally return her body to her. Lily rarely considered this, because no matter what happened to herself, everything was for senior sister’s benefit. But if she really disappeared one day, who would protect a just awoken senior sister, Lily knew how dangerous and difficult the path here was.
But in regards to the soul and body, wasn’t Kagura capable of placing her soul in the Sakura Parasol, and returning to Nanako’s body whenever she wanted? How this was done, neither Lily nor Kagura know. This was a Takamagahara spell performed by Suzuhiko-hime.
But at least, the possibility existed and gave her hope. Perhaps there were methods out there that Lily had never considered. In short, before senior sister awoke, all these questions were meaningless to worry about.
The current issue was, if Lily wanted to train in pairs… she had to find some other woman.
Sister Uesugi? Sister Shimizu?
“No…no… wasn’t a lover necessary to train in pairs? I’d better train alone…3”
Lily continued to stay put in the night market. She shopped at night, but spent the rest of her time refining her body with charming intent.
Lily’s physical power had increased several times over compared to what it had been since entering Heian-kyo. Currently, even if Lily didn’t use the Tsukiyomi sword style, she could still confidently oppose peak spirit jade, physically specialized blue or red demons.
This night, the inn’s hostess knocked on Lily’s door, “Lady Kagami, have you slept yet?” “Not yet, is there anything wrong?” “There’s a note for you.” “Eh? Please come in.”
The hostess entered and handed over a half crumpled note, “Just now, a raccoon handed this over.”
“Yuuta?” Lily was surprised, how could Yuuta give up an opportunity to enter her room and maybe bump into her changing clothes or something.
Lily asked, “Where is he? Why didn’t he come up with you?”
The hostess shook her head, “He left as soon as he gave me the note.”
Lily felt it extremely strange, she opened her window and looked over the night-market. She felt like she saw a small raccoon running away, but limping a bit, the tail dragging on the floor looking ragged.
“Yuuta…” What happened to Yuuta? That lively perverted raccoon, why didn’t he come to visit her?
Lily read the note, on it said, “Sister samurai, a lord asked me to inform you of the recent news. Due to the intervention of a top authority in Heian-kyo, the recent case between the Bureau of Divination theft and the phantom thief will be closed soon. The Bureau of Criminal Justice has already arrested the phantom thief. It’s a middle-aged serial murderer, he’s already confessed to all the crimes and will be executed soon. It’s rumored that though you didn’t capture the thief in the previous operation, you chased him off and protected the client and other warriors. It’s said that your contribution to the final capture of the thief is not small and that you’ve received praise and commendation from the government. If sister samurai receives an appointment from the government, you can freely receive it and accept.”4
