Enki sends Rakushun to Ryuu to investigate why Youma are appearing there. While there, Rakushun meets Shoukei, who attempts to shift blame to him for stealing items from the palace at Kyou. The court does not believe her story and knows that she is the thief, but it nevertheless accepts the items as a bribe and allows her to go. Ironically, Shoukei's double-cross allows Rakushun to complete his mission since the corrupt nature of the court shows that Ryuu is in decline. Kingdom of Hou inhabitants The following characters reside in the Kingdom of Hou: Chuutatsu was the reigning king of Hou. He had his kingdom as an overly strict law enforcement. When his laws did not improve the lives of his people, the king mistakenly believed that even harsher laws were required and continued to enact increasingly harsher laws each time his laws failed. This resulted in 600,000 of his people being executed. He was later killed by Gekkei. Shoukei was the sheltered princess of Hou, until her father Chuutatsu's government was overthrown due to his overly strict enforcement of the law. Three Hundred Thousand of his people were executed during his reign. When her father is assassinated, her mother and the Kirin of Hou are killed before her; Shoukei is spared because she had been unaware of her father's actions. Her name is removed from the register of Immortals and she is stripped of her royal name; as a commoner, Shoukei can only use her given name, . Revoked of her status as a member of Hou's royal family, Shoukei is forced to live anonymously as a peasant without any luxuries and is displeased with the drastic changes in her life. To comfort herself, she enjoys singing a song about a doll from her time as the Princess of Hou, until she decides that she was nothing more than a doll herself when she was a princess. She becomes jealous of Youko, the new Queen of Kei, whose rise in status coincides with Shoukei's own fall in fortunes. Shoukei is eventually forced to flee from Hou when her identity as the former Princess of Hou is discovered by impoverished townspeople who have been angry about her father's cruel deeds during his reign, and they try to execute her themselves. She briefly serves the queen of Kyou, Shushou, but she is treated very severely if not downright cruelly, because