Chapter 29 - A Fatal Dose

A Fatal Dose is Saiyuki's twenty-ninth chapter.

Summary
At Hoto Castle, Yaone finds Lirin gazing up at Rasetsunyo's stone pillar. Lirin asks Yaone if Rasetsunyo was nice and if she would like her, stating that her own mother, Gyokumen Koushu, hates her. Yaone reassures Lirin that both herself and Kougaiji love Lirin regardless of blood relations, and Lirin cheerfully replies that she loves them, too.

Meanwhile, at the desert yokai's lair, Sanzo wakes up to find himself lying on a bed. He realizes that his whole body is paralyzed and wonders if he has been drugged. Lian Li, the leader of the desert yokai, enters the room. Just barely able to move his mouth, Sanzo asks where Goku, Gojyo, and Hakkai are. Lian Li replies that they are being received in another room and goes on to tell Sanzo that she ate the previous sanzo priest who entered the desert. Sanzo asks for what reason Lian Li is seeking ageless immortality. Lian Li replies that all women wish to remain forever young and beautiful. Sanzo tells her she is wasting her time trying, because even thick makeup can't hide her age. Angry, Lian Li slaps Sanzo across the face. But Sanzo continues to goad her.

Elsewhere in the desert lair, Goku, Gojyo, and Hakkai are locked in a cell, unable to escape. A swarm of scorpions begin to crawl into the cell.

Back in the other room, as Lian Li continues to hit Sanzo, Sanzo remembers the moments before Koumyou Sanzo's death, when he had inferred the title of sanzo upon him. Koumyou's last words were to tell him to be strong. Sanzo thinks to himself that any time anyone has ever called him "Sanzo" it is like a warning and a reminder to his weak self. Lian Li pulls Sanzo up by the hair and tells him he is just an ordinary human and merely food to her. Taking Lian Li by surprise, Sanzo punches her and knocks her to the floor. He explains that the physical beating knocked the drugs out of his system. Sanzo says that since a sanzo priest is just an ordinary human, they are capable of killing. Lian Li exclaims that she can not be killed since she has eaten a sanzo priest, but Sanzo rejects this as nonsense and replies that since a sanzo is just an ordinary human, her claims of immortality are ridiculous. Sanzo shoots Lian Li in the shoulder. As Lian Li screams in fear and pain, Sanzo continues to deliver non-fatal gunshots to her body.

Goku, Gojyo, and Hakkai burst into the room and tell Sanzo to stop. Gojyo says that what Sanzo is doing is torture and is not like Sanzo. Sanzo asks what is like him. Goku walks up and kicks Sanzo in the shin. He sternly tells Sanzo to "call me a stupid monkey and hit me with your fan. That is the Sanzo I know." Having snapped back to his senses, Sanzo asks Lian Li where the sutras belonging to himself and the eaten sanzo are. Lian Li replies that the eaten sanzo's sutra is lying around the castle somewhere, and that Sanzo's is in the dresser behind him. When Sanzo turns towards the dresser, Lian Li attacks, elongating sharp claws to stab them through Sanzo's back. As Sanzo falls unconscious, Lian Li reveals that her claws contain a fatal dose of scorpion venom.

In the desert above the lair, Kougaiji and Dokugakuji have arrived in search of the sutra. They find an exhausted Jeep lying in the hot sand, and realize that the Sanzo-ikkou are here.