The innkeeper who fought like a demon. Sun Erniang ran a roadside tavern with her husband, but hospitality wasn't the business - murder was. She'd drug travelers, kill them in their sleep, and sell their flesh as meat buns to the next unsuspecting customers. Her nickname "Female Yaksha" compared her to the man-eating demons of Buddhist hell, and she earned it. When the Liangshan heroes discovered her operation, they didn't execute her - they recruited her. The 108 needed someone who could kill without hesitation.

Kuniyoshi captures her in the midst of brutal combat - she's thrown her opponent from his black horse and now wrestles him into the snow, rope in hand to bind him. Snow falls around them in thick flakes, but she's focused, powerful, completely in control. Her ornate robes in greens, golds, and reds whip around her as she subdues the man, her expression fierce and determined. The black horse rears behind them, but the fight is already decided - her opponent is going down, and that rope will finish what her strength started.

This is from Kuniyoshi's legendary 1827 Suikoden series, and Sun Erniang is one of only three women among the 108 heroes. Kuniyoshi doesn't soften her - he shows her overpowering a mounted warrior in a snowstorm, proving she belongs among the greatest fighters. She's not redeemed. She's just redirected, her capacity for violence now serving the outlaw cause.

This is Sun Erniang (孫二娘), the "Female Yaksha" (母夜叉); known in Japan as Boyasha Sonjirō (母夜叉孫二娘), from the series Tsūzoku suikoden gōketsu hiyakuhachinin no hitori (通俗水滸伝豪傑百八人之一個, One of the 108 famous Water Margin heroes) 1827.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳, 1798-1861)