Everyone's eyes lit up at Kazami Yuuka's practical suggestion.
After all, according to the overall strategic plan, the Gensokyo delegation was preparing to construct a permanent dimensional bridge here, allowing any youkai who wished to explore Terra to freely travel back and forth between the two realms.
The anchor point on Gensokyo's side had already been finalized at the entrance of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, situated right along the shores of the Misty Lake.
There was a very deliberate reason for picking that precise location.
Mainly, it sat within convenient walking distance of the Hakurei Shrine, while the Youkai Mountain loomed right next door and Yukari Yakumo's boundary domain was anchored nearby. If any foolish entity ever dared to march over and attempt to seize, occupy, or sabotage the portal, they would first have to ask that ancient boundary hag Yukari and the ancient elders of Youkai Mountain if their heads were hard enough to take the hit.
Furthermore, although Reimu Hakurei was notorious for her lazy, indifferent attitude, that was merely her daily demeanor; whenever actual duty called, her execution was brutally thorough and meticulous.
Most importantly, as a shrine maiden utterly unburdened by conventional morals, she never bothered reasoning with troublemakers when executing her duties. Disliking long, drawn-out confrontations, she always favored decisive, instantaneous victories—blasting an offender directly in the face with Fantasy Nature followed by a devastating Yin-Yang Orb was her standard operating procedure.
Now that a dimensional gateway was finally being established to flush those overly energetic, troublesome Gensokyo youkai into another world to burn off their excess vigor and make her daily life easier, anyone who dared to tamper with the portal was, in her eyes, no different from a thief trying to steal money directly out of the Hakurei Shrine's donation box—a complete bastard who deserved to be utterly "exterminated" on the spot.
It was precisely because of these heavy layers of absolute security that Remilia possessed the confidence to anchor the portal on her home turf.
The real headache, therefore, lay in selecting the anchor location on Terra's side.
Because constructing the dimensional bridge required both Remilia and Flandre to remain physically present at the anchor site to align the spatial coordinates, Flandre wouldn't be able to wander off too far until the portal fully stabilized.
Once the gateway officially activated, youkai would be crossing over continuously, making it an extraordinarily bad idea to construct the bridge inside the heavily populated urban center of Lungmen.
After all, with so many mortals packed into Lungmen's core districts, no one could guarantee that some arrogant local gang or corrupt official wouldn't suddenly develop a power trip and attempt to bully the newly arrived visitors, regardless of how terrifying those visitors actually were.
Provoking ordinary people was one thing, but if someone foolishly provoked those Gensokyo youkai, those ancient entities wouldn't give a single damn about mortal laws. Beating an offender into a bloody pulp was the absolute bare minimum response; reverting to their true monstrous forms and chewing the agitator to pieces on the pavement was entirely normal behavior for them.
Under such circumstances, the youkai community would never judge such an act as unjustified murder. No matter how peaceful or civilized the youkai of Gensokyo appeared on the surface, they were still wild, supernatural predators at their core.
According to the ancient covenants of Gensokyo, they were strictly forbidden from actively hunting peaceful mortals or lower-tier spirits without cause, but if an ignorant fool strutted up and insulted them to their faces, getting slaughtered on the spot was considered natural justice. You could hardly expect a sovereign, centuries-old great youkai to stay calm and debate ethics when a mortal spat insults at them. Wouldn't that mean their hundreds or thousands of years of cultivation had been completely wasted?
However, such a bloody spectacle would undeniably violate Lungmen's strict public security laws. That, in turn, would place Flandre in a deeply uncomfortable position with the local authorities.
Since Flandre intended to settle in Lungmen long-term, maintaining harmonious, respectful relationships with the local administration was an essential priority. As her older sister, Remilia naturally had to calculate the probability of such diplomatic disasters occurring and engineer a way to avoid them entirely.
If the portal were placed in Flower Village (Hanamura), that potential trouble could be drastically mitigated.
Although Flower Village technically fell within Lungmen's broader territorial boundary, it was situated a comfortable distance away from the dense residential sectors. When youkai crossed over through the portal, unless they specifically set out with the explicit intention of visiting the city, they wouldn't wander into Lungmen at all. That alone would eliminate ninety percent of potential friction.
As for whether Flower Village might see occasional foot traffic from curious tourists, or if some foolish outsider might provoke a passing youkai and end up dead in the countryside... well, that possibility certainly existed.
However, as the old saying went, it was far enough away from the urban center; as long as Flandre refused to claim responsibility, those rogue youkai had nothing to do with her or the Scarlet Devil Mansion.
Because of the physical distance, even if the Guard Department eventually deduced the culprit's identity, by the time the LGD dispatched a tactical squad out to the rural fields, the offending youkai would have long since vanished into the vast wilderness of Terra.
Besides, with Kazami Yuuka personally holding down the fort at Flower Village, even the most reckless youkai crossing over from Gensokyo wouldn't dare cause the slightest commotion within her line of sight.
As for the possibility of those visitors running off to other distant Terran cities to cause trouble—while not impossible, the solution was simple: they could easily form a dedicated, internal pursuit squad to hunt down and subdue any rogue youkai who broke the rules.
In any case, most youkai in Gensokyo were bored out of their minds all day long; giving them a constructive, high-stakes task like hunting down fugitive youkai would keep them from constantly plotting new grand incidents back home.
As long as every crossing entity was thoroughly briefed at the threshold—making it crystal clear that this world was not a playground for unchecked violence, and that causing major incidents would not only bring down an official pursuit squad, but one likely led by a bored, merciless great youkai—they would naturally behave themselves.
And where would one find a supply of bored great youkai willing to join such a pursuit squad?
There was no need to worry on that front; Gensokyo had an endless surplus of powerful, underworked entities fitting that exact description. If a call for volunteers went out to track down troublemakers in another world, the line of eager sign-ups would stretch all the way from the Hakurei Shrine down to the foot of the mountain. After all, compared to causing an incident back home and getting smashed in the face by Reimu's Yin-Yang Orb, hunting down rogue youkai in an unexplored realm was infinitely more rewarding and entertaining.
"That location works quite well," Remilia noted thoughtfully. "However, constructing and stabilizing the permanent portal will take roughly two to three months! Can Flandre really remain stationed in Flower Village for that entire duration?"
"Under normal circumstances, of course not," Patchouli interjected, adjusting her spectacles with a calm, analytical expression. "However, we have Lady Kazami Yuuka with us this time, do we not? We only need a simple, staged botanical phenomenon to cause Flower Village to burst into full, radiant bloom during the dead of winter, providing an entirely legitimate public reason for an extended stay."
Hearing Patchouli's breakdown, everyone turned their eyes toward Kazami Yuuka.
Yuuka offered a crisp, graceful nod, signaling that she had zero objections. In truth, even if Patchouli hadn't brought it up, Yuuka would have done so herself—a Flower Village devoid of vibrant blossoms was an unacceptable eyesore in her eyes. As for whether a rural village blooming continuously across all four seasons would strike the local mortals as impossibly bizarre, that was entirely beyond her concern.
As they ate and drank, the delegation smoothly finalized every detail of their upcoming operational roadmap.
Meanwhile, across the table, the Three Heroes of Lungmen remained completely out cold, slumping side by side over the polished mahogany surface. They had absolutely no idea what high-level interdimensional arrangements the Gensokyo group had discussed after knocking them flat with legendary spirits.
As the banquet drew to a close, Flandre looked at the three unconscious officers slumping against the tableware and couldn't help but scratch her cap in mild exasperation.
Pulling out her smartphone, she dialed Lady Fumizuki's private number.
The call connected quickly, and Fumizuki's gentle, refined voice drifted through the speaker: "Little Flandre? Is something wrong, calling me at such a late hour?"
Flandre hesitated for a few brief seconds before speaking up cautiously: "Sister Ch'en, Sister Hoshiguma, and Sister Beatrice are all totally drunk... Can you help arrange a car to pick them up?"
"Hmm?"
Fumizuki blinked in mild surprise on the other end. She knew Chen Huijie's disciplined character inside and out; Ch'en was hardly the type to indulge in heavy drinking, let alone get herself incapacitated. Furthermore, Hoshiguma's legendary alcohol tolerance was famous across the entire Guard Department. Adding Swire to the mix, for all three to be knocked completely unconscious at the same time... what kind of intense situation had unfolded at that dinner table?
Though thoroughly puzzled, Fumizuki quickly noted down the restaurant's address and assured Flandre that she would personally arrange immediate transport.
Barely ten minutes later, a sleek, dark SUV pulled smoothly to a halt directly outside the restaurant's main entryway. The rear door clicked open, and Lady Fumizuki stepped out into the night air.
"How on earth did..."
Fumizuki froze mid-sentence.
The urgent questions she had prepared regarding Ch'en and Hoshiguma instantly caught in her throat as her eyes landed on the small, regal figure standing right beside Flandre—a young girl who looked strikingly similar to Flandre in height and frame, complete with a pair of prominent, dark bat wings resting behind her shoulders.