Nowadays, penicillin and other antibiotics have not yet been invented. Once you get syphilis, gonorrhea and other diseases, you basically have to wait for death.

"Not really."

Gua Shengxiu shook his head.

"She is in love with her lover."

"Ah, in my heart..."

Qingden was speechless.

In the heart - this word can have two meanings in Japanese. One is a couple committing suicide together; the other is a collective suicide of two or more people.

Because of the low social status of wandering girls, they are influenced by the world's customs and marry wandering girls... Especially the behavior of good men marrying wandering girls is an unbearable taboo in the eyes of the general public.

At most, you can take a wandering girl as a concubine, but you must never marry her as a wife, otherwise you will definitely suffer ridicule and contempt from the people around you.

Worldly prejudices and the pain of not being able to love have caused endless incidents in the hearts of wandering girls and their lovers.

The cemetery is so large that no matter which direction you look, you can never see the end of it.

In order to find Baiju, Qingdeng, led by Gua Shengxiu, visited every location in the cemetery.

On the way, Gua Shengxiu sighed heavily, and then slowly said to Qingdeng:

"Alas... this matter has to start from what happened to another girl half a year ago..."

"Half a year ago, Kazuka, the popular figure in Suzuya, fell in love with a ronin from the Sendai clan."

"Although they love each other, they cannot be together because of the huge identity gap."

"They couldn't bear the pain of separation... and finally met together in the hearts of Akiye Mountain under the constant light."

Mount Akihabara is always illuminated - a famous landmark of Yoshiwara. Follow the road that runs through the center of Yoshiwara...that is, follow Nakano Town to the end, and you can see this huge lantern dedicated to Akihabara Gongen.

"In the hearts of wandering girls and lovers - this is not a strange thing."

"However... Misuzuya is one of the top restaurants in Yoshiwara, and Fenghua is the most popular restaurant in the store and has a very high reputation."

"Her relationship with her lover has attracted the attention of many novelists."

"The novelists gathered like cats smelling fishy smell, selectively deleted, exaggerated the facts, and adapted the hearts of Fenghua and the ronin into an extremely sad love story."

"That ronin is a handsome guy with a tall figure and a handsome face..."

"Why, that ronin is the holder of Beichen's Itto-ryu, Xu Jieden, and he once helped Fenghua fight off unscrupulous prostitutes..."

"Why is Fenghua a beauty whose appearance is not inferior to that of the 'most beautiful woman in Edo', Chiba Sauna..."

"They're all just farts, and none of them are right."

"Although there are many mistakes and omissions, people in the market can't help but like this kind of tragedy where a handsome guy with extraordinary talents falls in love with a beautiful woman, but they can't be together due to various reasons."

"After hearing this story that was seriously inconsistent with reality, many female tourists began to imitate it."

"In the six months since Fenghua's death, there have been frequent incidents of people imitating Fenghua's death under the constant light of Mount Akiba - Hongmei is one of the imitators."

Speaking of this, Gua Shengxiu sighed again.

Qingdeng listened quietly to the end.

This is the so-called "Werther effect"... Qingdeng thought to himself.

The Werther effect is the phenomenon of suicide imitation.

In 1774, the great German writer Goethe published a novel called "The Sorrows of Young Werther". The novel tells the story of a young man who committed suicide after falling out of love. After the novel was published, it caused a great sensation, not only making Goethe famous in the world.

It made a big noise in Europe and triggered a trend of imitating Werther's suicide throughout Europe, hence the name "Werther effect".

From the perspective of human ethics, this kind of behavior of two people dying for love together is undesirable.

But when discussing the pros and cons of something, you cannot divorce yourself from the overall context.

Ayoto is not a scholar who specializes in Yoshiwara culture. His understanding of the tragic lives of Yoshiwara wandering girls is limited to hearsay.

However, in less than an hour from the first time he stepped into Yoshiwara tonight to now, Qingnobo has experienced the difficulties of wandering girls in various details.

For those wandering girls who are tortured by the pain of reality and are on the verge of collapse, committing suicide with the man they like may be a way to redeem themselves.

Qingdeng knew that he did not have the ability to judge the rights and wrongs of Fenghua, Hongmei and other poor girls, so he did not say a word.

…

About three minutes later, Qingdeng and Gua Shengxiu visited every corner of the cemetery.

Qingdeng didn't know Baiju's appearance, so he could only rely on Gua Shengxiu to identify him.

Although I occasionally saw several men and women who came to offer sacrifices, according to Gua Shengxiu, none of them were Baiju.

"Bai Ju is very short, probably about the same height as me" - Gua Shengxiu said.

He is about the same height as Granny Guasheng...then this appearance feature is quite obvious. Qingdeng thought to himself.

I don’t know whether it’s because her bones and muscles have atrophied due to old age, or because she is so short to begin with. Gua Shengxiu’s height is only just over 1.4 meters tall...

The combination of the height of just over 1.4 meters and the slender figure with no flesh from head to toe made Gu Shengxiu feel like "Look! They are giants and dwarves" when he stood on the tall Qingdeng.

!” The beauty of it.

"It seems that Bai Ju is not here."

Qingdeng Road.

Gua Shengxiu nodded seriously.

"Well, yes... let's go to the next place."

…

…

The two returned to the bustling street.

At this time, Qingdeng suddenly heard an angry shout from behind him:

"That's enough! Bai Ling! How many times do you need me to tell you before you understand? Stop doing such stupid things!"

Because the shout was very loud and resonant, Qingdeng couldn't help but turn his head and look back.

A middle-aged man in luxurious clothes, holding his face flushed, gritted his teeth and scolded a beautiful girl dressed as a wanderer in the street.

The girl who was scolded so badly was about 18 years old. She lowered her head and stared straight at the ground in front of her toes with her big beautiful eyes, expressionless and silent.

"Ah, it turns out to be Bai Ling..."

Gua Shengxiu also turned her head when she heard the noise, and when she saw who the person being scolded was, she smiled bitterly.

"She must have stolen something again."

"Stealing again?" Qingdeng raised his eyebrows, "Is that girl a habitual criminal who likes to steal?"

"no."

Gua Shengxiu shook his head and showed a dumbfounded expression.

"How to say it well..."

"To put it simply: 10 days ago, there was a theft at Akane's house...that is, the Younu house where Bai Ling belongs."

"In order to catch the thief, the boss of Akane's house called the Sanchai samurai from the training camp."

"Among the officials who came to investigate, there was a young man who was particularly handsome - Bai Ling fell in love with him at first sight."

"Because unransomed wandering girls are not allowed to leave Yoshihara, so in order to see the young man again, Bai Ling frequently steals things deliberately in the hope that his sweetheart will return to Yoshihara to investigate the case."

"However, Bai Ling really has no talent for stealing. She will be caught every time she tries to steal something."

"Thanks to Bai Ling's boss, he is a kind person with a good heart and did not pursue Bai Ling's incorrigible behavior."

"If it were someone else, I'm afraid they would have beaten this silly girl to death just because she stole the store's property over and over again just to meet someone."

After Qingdeng heard this, he shrank his neck:

"Is she trying to imitate 'Ah Qi from the Eight Hundred Houses'..."

Shichi of the Eight Hundred Houses - a famous allusion from the Edo period.

In the second year of Tenwa (1682), a fire broke out in Edo that reduced more than half of the urban area to scorched earth.

Qi, the daughter of a vegetable shop owner, and her family fled to Kichijoji Temple to escape the fire, and she fell in love with the abbot's boy at first sight. After the fire, Qi returned to her place of residence, so that she could meet her sweetheart, she set fires everywhere in the hope of being able to escape again. Kichijoji. Although it did not cause a major disaster, arson was a serious crime, so Qi was still sentenced to death at the stake.

Later, because Ah Qi's story spread widely, the "Tianhe Fire" that allowed Ah Qi to meet the later servant was also commonly known as the "Ah Qi Fire".

Gua Shengxiu heard Qingdeng's murmur and said bitterly:

"Sigh... If it's just stealing, that's all. Just don't do anything stupid like Ah Qi..."

…

…

Aoto and Hide Kuwa are speeding through the streets of Yoshiwara.

A moment——
To be continued...