Chapter 435: The Evil God Festival - The Boathouse

After the imperial ship left, silence returned to the cabin, only the occasional sobbing of a child in fear and the clueless barking of small dogs and cats could be heard.

Cang Tai, who had been given a small black cat, remained silent behind Bai Liu for a long time before he spoke in a difficult voice, asking in a trembling voice: "Bai Liu, can you see Xiaokui? How is she?"

Bai Liu used the faint light to look down at Xiaokui, who was lying on the bed with her head in her hands, tugging at the bandages on her wrists, stroking the head of the kitten that had been given to her, her voice hoarse and faint: "Good kitten, so good."

"[Xiaokui] is so good."

Aota heard Xiaokui's voice, and he was silent for a long moment, looking almost inexpressibly at the little black cat in his arms, his hands trembling and unclenching.

The little black cat raised its head in confusion, looked at the boy who was not holding him close and gave a small mimic.

Cthulhu turned his head ruthlessly, his eyes closing as he breathed heavily.

...... Turns out that's why they get cats for these offerings.

It is the dream of almost all children to have a small animal with the same name as theirs and who is also incredibly close to them.

But it can't be that, it would be too ...... painful.

This frightened him a hundred times more than making Aota do hard labour.

As she watched the two Xiaokui kittens and the Shiba Inu die, Aota, who was cowering on the bed, shivered as she listened to Xiaokui's heartbreaking screams and covered her ears to stop listening.

The scream was so harsh that Aota almost thought it wasn't the animal that had died, but Xiaokui herself.

He doesn't want to be the next Xiaokui, so it's best that he doesn't get attached to the pets he's handing out, and it's best to separate them now.

The next wave hit again, lurching the cabin and sending everyone sliding off to the side, and the little black cat, unable to hold on to anything with its paws, yelped in panic as it slid down the bed.

Aota, who had looked away, turned his head in subconscious panic, "Aota!"

With one reach, he gathered the little black cat into his arms again and held it close.

By the time Aota reacted to what he had done, he froze and looked at the little black cat with his hands firmly in his arms, tears falling unbidden.

...... Why this is so.

Although it was only the first time they met, he really couldn't stand by and watch [Aota] go to his death.

In the darkened cabin, many small children cried and clung to their pets the moment the waves hit, sobbing and calling them by the same name as themselves.

In the vast ocean, on a painful journey with no certainty ahead, these children, soon to be sacrificed to the evil gods, try to get some kind of supportive warmth from the small animal that is soft and close to them, or tamed out by humans to give them affection at their first meeting.

"You won't be able to let go of the pets they hand out." The child lying in front of him, the one called Bai six spoke in a flat tone, "You won't be able to let go before you know it has the same name as you."

Aota hugged the little black cat and asked, sobbing, "Why?"

Bai Liu went on calmly, "Like you, he is an animal cub used by adults, an individual adrift alone on this ocean after being given up for sale, an apparatus to be soon tortured to increase the pain."

"By all accounts, you are all kindred spirits who share a common destiny."

"In the human world you should never have met a kind so friendly to yourself, all the kind you have met, or rather humans, are brutalising you, otherwise you wouldn't have been trafficked to this ship, and in these conditions you have met a [kind] that has been carefully selected and must like you, and you share a name, it is hard not to move on to this animal cub. "

Bai Liu turned his head slightly sideways and lifted his eyes to look behind him at the baffled Aota: "- in other words, the cat in your hand is now no longer a cat, it is another you, another Aota."

"You can't do it to watch it die, just like you can't do it to watch yourself die."

Aota looked straight into Bai Liu's dark eyes, he suddenly remembered the rumours and shuddered, opening his mouth as if to ask something, but eventually fell silent.

Bai Liu spoke calmly, "Are you now asking why [I] in the orphanage would abuse an animal if one would empathise with another animal in the same predicament, yes?"

It was a long time before Mrs. Cang hesitantly glanced at Little Bai, who was cowering in Bai Liu's arms, belly flopped over, and explained, "I don't actually think you did this, but I just thought Buming Bai, I mean if, if there was such a person as you rumored to be, why would he do it? "

Bai Liu spoke after a long pause, "An important point in the empathy determination is empathy."

"The first thing is to feel that the other person has the same emotions as you, for example, you and the black cat in your arms both feel pain, awe, fear, etc. when they are in the same predicament, and this is when you feel that it is your kind, and then you empathise and then reach empathy."

"But if a person is subjected to any kind of event that produces different emotions from those around him, or even animals, and the emotions are not the same he has no way to empathise and naturally cannot empathise."

"With no commonality of emotion, he will not feel like himself and those around him, and there is no sense of pain when one mutilates something that is not like him."

"He was raised in an orphanage, just like us." Aoi-tae arched towards Bai Liu and asked in heartfelt disbelief, "Why is he not able to feel the same emotions as us? Is it because his brain is different from ours?"

"I personally don't think so." Bai Liu's tone was light, "Because many people in their right mind are also capable of empathy before they are capable of exploiting others."

"For example, just now, Lord Gifune, who is supposed to be the prefect of Luming County as Xiaokui calls him, sounded like a nice guy before and should be nice to Xiaokui, but now he also has a complete lack of empathy for Xiaokui and doesn't treat Xiaokui as a living person at all, but as a sacrifice. "

Mrs. Aoi asked softly in a daze, "...... right, why is that?"

"I think it's because of desire." Bai Liu went on to explain in a flat tone, "When one desires too much, the first thing that arises when one sees any living thing is not a sense of likeness, but exploitation."

"Extreme desire can make people imagine that they are in a giant social food chain and that other people are in the same food chain as them, and then they will only have two judgements about those around them, those who can exploit them, and those they can exploit."

"All they can exploit are lowly animals like kittens and puppies, and all they can exploit is the Most High God."

"In their world, where the weak are strong and the fittest survive, where human nature is evil and where people inherently eat their kind below the food chain to increase their assets and value, they take for granted that empathy is a sign of weakness because beasts do not empathise with their prey."

Asuka asked weakly in return, "But we're human, we're not beasts."

Bai Liu paused, "One can be reduced from human to beast, even monster, when one stays in the food chain of self-lust for too long."

"Only humans who desire are cannibalistic."

Cang Tai fell into a kind of creepy daze as he drifted off to repeat Bai Liu's words, "Cannibalism ......?"

Xiaokui's two nervous, disoriented giggles came from the bunk, and she murmured, "Xiaokui, Cat, that's a good girl."

The sea finally stopped and the boat with Bai Liu's boatload of offerings docked in Luming County's harbour on a sunny afternoon.

Standing in the harbour fully dressed, with a bamboo cane in his hand, he gazed down at the sacrificial offerings, heads bowed, feet floating and faces weakly lined up as they came down from the hold.

The sacrifices are made by children as young as fifteen years old, just starting out and still a little ignorant, which is Luming County's favourite age for sacrifices.

Bai Liu is considered big in there, almost seventeen, and normally there shouldn't be any offerings this big because it's not easy to temper, but he's small and thin and his face looks like he's only about fifteen, which is why he was sold over here without any problems.

All of these sacrificial doors that had weathered the storm clung to the little creatures in their arms with death, some of the children were still weak themselves, but none cared, pouncing single-mindedly on the equally weak little creatures in their arms.

They repeatedly checked the puppies' and kittens' paws, pressing their faces against their bellies to feel if they were breathing, while tears poured down their faces, but they didn't dare to utter a word or ask for help, just kept their heads down and cried silently.

The imperial ship nodded in satisfaction at the tearful offerings and gave a sideways nod, "Go and help them heal their pets to their boathouse."

Bai Liu glanced around with the back of his eyes and saw that many of the children, even if they were afraid of this Gifune because of the Xiaokui incident, had their eyes light up at this command.

A few other small children whispered, "Thank you, Lord Gosho."

At fifteen, the age when the concept of right and wrong is still unformed, many children look like they have grown up in a cramped and dysfunctional environment, and presumably have a lack of awareness of the world.

It's really too good to be true.

The royal boat eased up: "I am very pleased with you children, all of you are good children, loving animals, friendly and compassionate to your friends and family, and full of affection."

"I know you were very scared to see me lecturing Xiaokui on the boat, but what I have to say here is that Xiaokui is a bad boy!"

Mikifune's face sank sharply as he gripped his cane and pounded it on the ground, "She doesn't like small animals, she failed the ritual test several years before, she injured her own squire and dog and escaped from us, she's a very bad girl!"

"Naturally we are not very kind to children who are bad like this, so I hope you will not learn from Xiaokui and strive to be a good boy, we will be very nice to you."

All the children turned their heads to Xiaokui, who stood motionless amidst the offerings, as if she had not noticed the repulsive and wary way the children looked at her, still standing there numbly, holding her cat.

Mikifune withdrew his gaze from Xiaokui and fell back on the group of sacrificial children who looked up at him with their heads tilted.

"The place where you are staying is called the Boathouse, on a coast not far from here, and it is a very beautiful place to get up every day and see the sea."

"But there is one small thing you need to do before you reach the boathouse."

Gosho said, "I need you to become good friends two by two, and then one of you to be the attendant of the other, and the other to be the proper sacrifice."

His eyes became dark and unsettling.

"Children who become Positive Offerings, you will have access to the best of everything in Luming County, food, clothing, travel, education, even the best treatment for your pets, and no one will ever dare to hurt them again."

"We will choose for you to be your foster parents from the most prestigious families in Luming County, you are the noblest beings in Luming County, above all commoners, and if you succeed in providing a round of sacrificial suffering at the Evil Rite, after that you will enjoy it all forever. "

All the children could not help but have a vision in their eyes.

"But the child who becomes a squire." Mifune's tone became sad, "Just a squire."

"-and as you have lived before, you are just a, at any moment, discarded squire."

"If your best friends ever don't like you or don't need you anymore." Mikifune smiled kindly, "We'll just send you back."

"But will leave your pets here."