Bizarre Honkai, a Wife-Chasing Crematorium

"I actually fell asleep last night. I hope nothing unexpected happened."

Li Mo straightened his clothes, walked to the east-facing window, and opened it completely.

Coming down from the shrine, the villagers did not raise chickens. Only a few courtyards did, likely because outsiders were told to by their elders when they came to Yae Village.

In this way, the idea about the rules of the festival could be easily verified.

"My body is fine. The reason for yesterday's fatigue is unknown."

Li Mo jumped down from the second-floor window and came to the first floor. Because it was early morning, there were few people in the village.

Grandma Chiyo and little Chiyo had not woken up. Yesterday's events had delayed too much of their rest time and caused them great mental stress.

He was used to it, but little Chiyo and Grandma Chiyo would not think so.

The courtyard was a mess. The peach orchard had been gnawed beyond recognition, with broken trunks, damaged branches and leaves, and debris all over the ground.

The threshold was also gnawed away. Li Mo could easily leave without feeling any hindrance.

"The threshold must be repaired today, otherwise, something will enter the house at night. But this is their business. What I need to do now is to figure out the festival."

Li Mo walked out of the courtyard and observed the situation in Yae Village.

The stalls on the roadside had returned to their original appearance, and the tables and chairs were no longer neatly arranged.

There were no footsteps, and the temperature in the village had risen significantly.

"It's best not to have too much contact with the villagers these three days. It's too dangerous at night, and contact during the day is inevitable."

"To verify my conjecture, I can only do it in the early morning when everyone is still asleep."

Li Mo looked up at the sky. It was gloomy and not yet bright.

But having left the nightlife of the modern city, people in the countryside generally went to bed early and got up even earlier. Some even got up before dawn to start a fire and cook.

So there was not much time left for him.

Li Mo quickly leaped to the courtyard where the rooster crowing originated. The layout was relatively simple, but it still had a high threshold, and two peach trees were planted at the entrance.

After a few rounds, it was all the same.

As for the natives' residences, Li Mo did not dare to enter easily. Last time, he was almost assimilated because he had accidentally entered the sheep pen.

The rooster crowing became more and more sonorous, clearly fighting against the awakening of some rule.

Li Mo walked towards the shrine.

Since he couldn't find anything unusual in the village, he might be able to find some clues at the shrine.

What's more, Kallen was still at the shrine.

What would happen to a living person who spent a night at the shrine? This was also an answer Li Mo needed to get.

When Li Mo had just reached the bottom of the stairs leading to the shrine, he saw a familiar person.

"Mo-kun? Good morning."

Yae Sakura was sweeping the fallen leaves on the steps with a broom. She smiled and greeted Li Mo when she saw him.

Li Mo nodded and asked, "You are more diligent than I imagined."

"Because there are many things to do. After cleaning the steps, I have to go to the mountain to gather herbs for Rin. Her forehead was very hot last night. I want to gather some heat-dispelling herbs to make soup for her."

Yae Sakura explained as she quickly swept the fallen leaves to the sides of the steps with the broom.

Li Mo stood there without moving. After a moment's hesitation, he said to Yae Sakura, "I know a little about medicine. As a thank you for saving my life yesterday, I can make Rin better."

Saving his life?

Of course, it was a lie. Li Mo just wanted to check on Yae Rin's condition and verify if she posed a potential threat.

Yae Sakura was very special. Yae Guji was suspected of being able to transform into a ghost, so Yae Rin probably wasn't much better.

"Really!"

"But Mo-kun, don't you only know how to kill people?"

"Ugh... I'm sorry! I don't know why I said something like that. Please forgive my rudeness!"

Yae Sakura's expression changed back and forth, from the excitement of hearing that Rin could be saved, to the subconscious rebuttal of Li Mo's life-saving in her memory, and then to the shame of her own rude words.

Her expressions were so rich...

Li Mo couldn't help but sigh.

It was hard to imagine that Yae Sakura, with such fiery emotions, would be a ghost powerful enough to manipulate the cursed blade, Crimson-Dyed Sakura.

Li Mo had a premonition that if that blade cut open his head, he might not even be able to restart.

Because the ghost sheep that was killed had not been successfully restarted, it was easily torn apart and devoured by the fierce ghost on Crimson-Dyed Sakura.

Li Mo stepped forward and reminded her, "There's no time to lose. Lead the way."

Yae Sakura glanced at the fallen leaves around her.

"But... if I don't clean this place up during the day... forget it, Rin is more important!"

After only a second of hesitation, Yae Sakura threw the broom aside and climbed the steps with light steps, looking back at Li Mo from time to time to see if he was following closely behind.

On the way, the two of them chatted about some unimportant things.

Yae Sakura: "Mo-kun has good stamina. Although I've been used to walking the stairs since I was a child, I still feel a little tired."

Li Mo's straightforward reply: "My stamina is indeed very good."

Yae Sakura: "Has Mo-kun eaten? Why don't you stay at the shrine after seeing Rin and I'll make you breakfast? Kallen should be getting up soon too. She slept very soundly."

Li Mo: "What's for breakfast? Pork from the butcher at the foot of the mountain?"

Yae Sakura: "Mmm... Rin doesn't like to eat that. I rarely buy food from the foot of the mountain. Most of the ingredients are personally picked or grown by me, so please rest assured, Mo-kun, it won't harm your body."

Li Mo: "I've already eaten on my way here. You can just make it for Kallen."

During the conversation, Li Mo became more certain.

Yae Sakura was completely a living person.

And she was not like the ghosts in Room 303 who deceived their own cognition and made themselves think they were living people, exhibiting the characteristics of living people.

She was a very ordinary twelve-year-old girl.

The strange changes in the sheep pen that night, and her loss of control, were most likely due to Crimson-Dyed Sakura.

In the original work, Sakura Blizzard was a spiritual blade once enshrined in the Yae Shrine. When Yae Sakura was controlled by the Will of the Honkai, she killed innocent humans and was thus polluted into the cursed blade, Crimson-Dyed Sakura.

Crimson-Dyed Sakura was bloodthirsty, while Sakura Blizzard was protective.

This happened to correspond to Yae Sakura's two states.

But there was one thing Li Mo didn't understand...

Why had Yae Sakura not paid any price?

After being separated from Crimson-Dyed Sakura, she did not have any characteristics of being polluted.

Logically, the use of a bizarre object would inevitably require a price of varying degrees, the most basic of which was pollution.

This included Li Mo himself. Every time he used the Bizarre pistol, he would release a trace of pollution.

But for special reasons, Li Mo didn't need to consider this pollution.

Then what about Yae Sakura? The fact that she could kill ghosts was definitely not something an ordinary person could bear.

And...

Li Mo glanced over. Yae Sakura's shoulder was wrapped in a bandage, which meant that the physical damage caused by the Bizarre pistol existed.

No matter how small the power of a bullet, it was still a bullet. Physical damage was inevitable.

But the damage was indeed very low. Only by hitting a vital point could it be fatal.

Also, Rin seemed to be very repulsed by the villagers.

This could be inferred from Yae Sakura's mention of her refusal to eat the food provided by the villagers at the foot of the mountain, and her unwillingness to be carried out by Yae Sakura during the festival.

Of course, it was also possible that Rin was just a child with a withdrawn and introverted personality.

Soon, Yae Sakura led Li Mo into the shrine.

Li Mo subconsciously sensed the aura of the surrounding environment, but there was no feedback.

He took out the thermometer, and the temperature dropped when they walked under the blooming cherry blossom tree.

There was no active aggression, so he had to put it aside for the time being.

"Does Mo-kun like to see cherry blossoms?"

Yae Sakura asked curiously when she saw Li Mo staring at the cherry blossom tree in the center of the shrine.

Li Mo replied calmly, "It's alright. This cherry blossom tree is very big. It must be very old."

With that, Li Mo turned to look at Yae Sakura, waiting for an answer.

The completeness of a Bizarre Thing was inseparable from the time of its pollution. Although it was not necessarily completely proportional, any Bizarre Thing over five hundred years old should not be underestimated.

Xiao Yun, Nuwa, and Fuxi... had already given the best answer.

Five hundred years of pollution was the limit for a human to maintain their sanity. After that, their will would gradually disintegrate, and they would eventually lose all humanity.

He said this just to understand the pollution time of the cherry blossom tree. If he could get the story behind it, it would be best, so that he could more accurately assess its danger level.

Yae Sakura clearly didn't think that much.

She stood there, thinking for a while, "Since the year I was born, this cherry blossom tree has always been very beautiful. According to my father, the cherry blossom tree was planted by the founder on the day Yae Village was established. As for how long Yae Village has been around... everyone in the village has many guesses, but there is no actual evidence to prove it."

"Eight hundred years, two thousand years, three thousand years. These are the most widely accepted answers."

Li Mo raised a question, "From a generally rational point of view, if a village has a history of several hundred years or more, then there must be traces and evidence left behind, even if it's just a tattered piece of clothing, a roll of rotten bamboo slips... Also, since the Yae Shrine is a feature of Yae Village, isn't there a special document to record these things? Or it can be passed down orally, for example, which generation of miko are you?"

Yae Sakura stood there, her small pink and white hands kneading her hair back and forth, thinking and thinking.

It seemed to be the case.

But something was wrong.

"I don't know. Father never said. There should be inheritances and records, in the main keep. But that's already a forbidden area. No one is allowed to enter, unless they become the Guji," Yae Sakura said frankly.

"Is that so," Li Mo said thoughtfully. For some reason, he suddenly said, "I think this tree was planted fifty thousand years ago."

"Fifty thousand years?" Yae Sakura tilted her head and looked at Li Mo with confusion.

Fifty thousand years, even without natural or man-made disasters, it was impossible, right?

No matter how long-lived a tree was, it couldn't live that long.

Most trees only lived for a few hundred years. A few could live for thousands of years, but it was rare for one to exist for more than ten thousand years.

Excluding all sorts of accidents, a cherry blossom tree could live for at most a thousand years.

Fifty thousand years... the span was too large. No one would believe it even if he said it.

The two of them tacitly did not argue too much on this topic.

"Mo-kun, we're here. Rin is inside, and she should still be asleep. Do you need to prepare anything? Whether it's herbs or silver needles, I can get them for you now," Yae Sakura led Li Mo to the door and asked carefully.

Li Mo waved his hand, "No need, I brought my own 'herbs'."

This time, Li Mo was not lying. He had really brought herbs.

He himself was the herb.

Yae Sakura glanced at Li Mo's empty hands and said hesitantly, "But..."

"You can say it if you don't believe me."

"I believe Mo-kun!" Yae Sakura nodded repeatedly.

According to the current trend, the doctors in the village were at their wits' end. She could only get up early and go to bed late to pick herbs to alleviate Rin's pain, which was treating the symptoms but not the root cause.

No, she wasn't even treating the symptoms, just alleviating the pain of illness.

The biggest effect of those herbs was only to suppress the pain.

Therefore, Yae Sakura would definitely not let go of any hope of saving her sister.

"By the way, Mo-kun..."

"What, is there anything else?"

"That... uh, can I go in with you and see how you treat her? I want to learn. If someone in the village gets sick in the future, maybe I can help them."

Yae Sakura lowered her head and asked shyly.

She didn't dare to look Li Mo in the eye now. She kept biting her lips, and she didn't know where to put her hands, so she could only clench her miko outfit.

When you ask for help, you become humble.

Li Mo replied casually, "They won't get sick."

Because they were already terminally ill.

"You can just wait for the good news outside. I don't like people standing by and disturbing me when I'm treating patients. I mean anyone."

With that, Li Mo turned and walked into Rin's room, leaving Yae Sakura to guard the door.

"Anyone" was just a cover. The purpose was to keep Yae Sakura from letting ghosts in, especially that Yae Guji.

Outside the door, Yae Sakura didn't understand what Li Mo meant by "they won't get sick," but she understood the second half of the sentence, which was not to let anyone in.

If Li Mo got angry and washed his hands of Rin, she would really be beyond saving.

Thinking of this, Yae Sakura pulled herself together and stood at the door, waiting quietly.

At the same time, it was dawn.

The steps at the foot of the shrine mountain had not been cleaned, and the filthy leaves paved a dark road.

Humans had two hands, two legs.

Humans walked upright.

An animal walking on all fours stepped on the bamboo leaves, one step at a time, towards the shrine.

————

In the room, Li Mo smelled a rich fragrance of cherry blossoms as soon as he came in.

It was very rich, as if he had climbed up a cherry blossom tree.

But Yae Rin's room was a short distance from the cherry blossom tree. Li Mo looked around and found that there were cherry blossom decorations hanging on the wall.

"Is the fragrance due to these decorations?"

"Forget it, let's get down to business first."

Li Mo turned his gaze to the sleeping Yae Rin. She was as peaceful as a corpse that had been dead for a long time.

In the original work, it was around this time that Rin's illness had reached its final stage, and she was chosen by Yae Guji to be a sacrifice.

Li Mo calmly took out the thermometer and measured Rin's body up and down.

If the thermometer didn't show anything, it meant that Rin had a normal illness. Even if it was a terminal illness, a mouthful of blood could heal her.

But if a Bizarre aura was detected, then he would need to treat the symptoms.

At the right atrium, the temperature displayed by the thermometer dropped significantly.

Li Mo took out a small knife and pierced the flesh near his heart, slowly moving it until his chest was cut open—