Chapter 437: Evil God Ritual - Boathouse

"This is where you will be staying from now on." Without turning his head, Mikifune turned away, "Tomorrow morning at seven thirty, you and the offering adults are all to travel together to where some of the largest clan faction families in Luming County are."

"Sort out my appearance dress code, I don't want to see any indecent attire or behaviour."

When the imperial boat had gone, the [squires] stared somewhat dumbfounded at the rusty cages, and soon a man in grey squire's clothes emerged wearily from the boathouse with a bony puppy in his arms, expertly pushing open the cage and getting inside, turning to dump part of a plastic bag of leftovers not wanted by the Lord of the Offerings into the dog's bowl, and eating the other part himself.

The dog got out of the cage, eagerly buried its head in the cage and ate the dirty scraps, retracting its head when it was done, and cuddled up to each other in the narrow cage, where it fell asleep.

Aota almost looked dumbfounded.

Soon, a number of attendants came out of the boathouse, also giving leftovers to their pets and eating the other part themselves, curled up in various positions in their cages and went to sleep to keep each other warm.

Some of the new [squire] children shook their heads in fear and retreated, while others, as if they had already accepted the reality, pushed the cage door open in despair.

These old squires glanced at these new ones and someone spoke up and asked.

"Are you the new squires this year?"

"What is the character of this batch of sacrificial lords?"

None of the other children knew how to answer, so Aota hesitantly replied.

"They're all pretty good characters ......"

A squire with his back to everyone sneered, "How can we tell if the sacrifice is temperamental or not, if it will torment us squires, we will have to wait for the test in six months."

The other squires whispered to him, "He fell from the position of a squire during the first half of this year's examination, because his pain did not compare with his own squire."

"He was topped when his squire killed his own kitten, held the body and cried for a whole week, and managed to get promoted to sacrifice in the test."

"But I think he'll be back for the second half of the year." This squire glanced at the squire at his back, "Because it is said that he and his squire were good friends, and he never let his squire or his squire's cat live in a cage or eat leftovers when he made sacrifices, they all ate and lived with him."

"But his squire seemed soft-tempered, and the first thing he did when he ascended to the sacrifice was to drive him and his dog to live in a cage here."

Aota was a little surprised: "A squire can live with the sacrifice?"

This squire nodded, "You can certainly stay with the Lord of Offerings as long as he wishes, but ......"

"Few sacrificial lords are willing is all."

Aota was a little confused, "Why?"

Before this squire could speak, the squire over there, who was cowering in a cage with his back to everyone, replied in a cold voice: "It is simply disrespectful to the immense suffering one puts in to get a boathouse when the sacrifice has paid so much pain to get one, and to give it to a squire casually."

This squire next to him added in a whisper, "That's what this man's squire told him when he came to power, saying that if he let him easily share a room with himself, he would be completely sorry for the kitten who died at his hands and had him promoted to a sacrifice."

Cthulhu was speechless for a moment; he was surprised that he didn't know what to say.

When this squire saw that Cang Tai was so frightened that her face turned white, he sighed and kindly reassured, "Being a squire is not as terrible as you think, we are the lowest of the squires and there are many who are treated better than us."

"You are supposed to be taken with the Lord of Offerings to the Great Houses tomorrow for them to choose from, and if you are chosen by the Lord of the Great Houses to bear the name of the Great Houses, the Lords of the Great Houses will give you a room to rent in the boathouse, and you will not have to live in a cage."

Mrs. Cang sounded a little confused, "The big family? Why are we being taken to the Great Family to be selected?"

The squire was slightly surprised: "Don't you know the rules of Luming County's evil rituals?"

"The festival of the evil gods here is twice a year, divided into a winter festival and a summer festival, held in August and January each year."

"A month after the end of the Winter Festival, Lord Gosho, the Prefect of Luming County, will begin the process of buying a new round of sacrifices to begin conditioning, and in six months, around June or July, your batch of sacrifices will be semi-mature enough to be offered to the evil gods on the stage at the Evil Festival, and if your pain is up to par by this time, your sacrifice will be a success, and if your pain is up to par, your sacrifice will fail. If the pain is not up to standard, the sacrifice will fail."

This squire recalled, "But from the time the evil sacrifice was carried out until now, less than half a year's worth of sacrifices would have been painfully up to the mark to hit, and more than likely another half year would have had to languish until the winter sacrifice was offered again."

"Generally speaking, the probability of a batch of sacrifices being successfully sacrificed in the winter festival is much higher than in the summer festival, and if there are still sacrifices in the batch that have not yet been successfully sacrificed, they go to the next year's summer festival and continue to be sacrificed."

The squire shrugged his shoulders, "But usually if the sacrifice is not successful in the first year, it will be difficult for this sacrifice to be successful later on."

"Of course it won't work again." The squire whose back was turned to the crowd had a hoarse voice, "Any more intense pain lasting a year and a person is going to go numb."

This squire sighed, "But if such a sacrifice that has lasted a long time of pain could transcend its numbing pain, become more painful, and then be successfully sacrificed in one of the evil god sacrifices, that pain would supposedly make the evil god lord very happy and the quality of the wishes granted would be much higher, so now many great families would intentionally store such sacrifices and would not allow in the first year such a sacrifice on the divine platform."

" The Beiyuan Xiaokui of the Bei Yuan family is this kind of offering."

"Each year, Luming County will distribute the offerings and attendants purchased according to the contributions made to the county in the previous year, and the top eight tax-paying families in the county will be able to select two offerings or attendants of their choice first, in that order."

"And the leftover offerings that were selected were waited until the day before the Evil God Festival as a gift for everyone and distributed randomly to the people at the [Funamiya Night Celebration Festival]."

"Usually these leftover sacrifices are less willful and inferior, not easily sacrificed successfully, and most of them will not be able to support themselves during the subsequent [painful cultivation], and even if the sacrifice is successful, the wishes that can be traded from the evil god lord with that level of pain are not superior wishes, which is why they are not looked upon by the great families. "

This squire looked up at Mrs. Cang, "The family that came first in taxes last year was the Bei Yuan family because their family sacrificed a young boy of a year and a half of painful maturity at last year's winter festival, and I heard it seemed to be the younger brother of Beiyuan Xiaokui, so they managed to make a quality wish last year."

"Exactly what the Bei Yuan family wished for is not clear to those of us who work as retainers, but in any case it was for the Bei Yuan family to expand rapidly within the last year, overtaking the original number one tax-paying family, the Gifune family, to become the current number one family in Luming County."

"You don't want to live in a cage, so think about getting picked up by the eldest of the Bei Yuan family tomorrow."

While the two parties were talking, a group of adults in long tunics came in, the group carried a cage covered with black cloth in their hands and casually tossed it in front of Cang Tai and the others, saying indifferently, "Some of your pets are dead without treatment, some are still alive, pick them out yourself."

Aota scrambled up to the cages, picking them apart one by one, and finally found her dying kitten in a black cloth cage that had been thrown back against a corner.

Instead of receiving any treatment, the little black cat became even weaker, lying in Cangta's arms, unable to mimic, with blood all over its bottom, not knowing whether it had pooped blood or had been bitten by another animal in the same cage.

"[Aota]!" Aota's face went white with fear as she looked at the blood on the little black cat's bottom, and the other's gradually heaving chest, tears falling immediately afterwards, "How could this happen!"

The other children's pets are no better than the little black cat, all out of breath and little in.

For a moment, the whole backyard was filled with the sound of children crying.

The squires lying in the cages looked more or less uncomfortable, and the one who had been talking to Cang Tai and the others earlier poked his head out and instructed them with a look of mixed feelings, "It's going to rain outside today, so you'd better not take the cubs in the cages, they'll freeze to death."

"If you are now on good terms with the Lord of the Sacrifice, go and beg them to take you in."

As if they had found their way, a group of small children lit up.

"Yes, he and I agreed at the beginning that the two of us would be tied together as a pair and I would be his squire first and he would be good to me as a sacrifice, and if he fell from the sacrifice I would be good to him as a sacrifice so we would both get the sacrifice!"

"Me too! I'm going to find her now!"

The children ran towards the front yard as if they had caught a lifeline, clutching their pets.

Hearing these words, the squire's eyes were complicated and he glanced at the squire behind him with a desire to say something.

The squire in the cage behind him with his back turned suddenly gave a nervous laugh, "That's what I told him to do in the first place."

"I said I couldn't last and didn't want to suffer, and he said he'd suffer for me and be a sacrifice in exchange for him sheltering me, and what happened?"

The man, clutching a motionless, already cold dog, laughed hoarsely, brokenly, "My dog froze alive outside, and didn't he open the door for me?"

The children, who had already run away, did not hear this and knocked excitedly on the doors of the offerings.

The offerings pulled open the door, most of them dressed in comfortable yukata, clutching a wooden tub that had obviously just been to the hot springs, radiating heat all over, and the floor in the door was lined with uneaten pots of hot soup and fried lobster, which at first glance was sumptuous.

The pets are dressed in delicate, warm little outfits, lounging on their plush white blankets, stretching out and sleeping soundly.

The squire standing outside the door was unkempt, his clothes in tatters, stinking of rotting food, with petroleum-like muddy water dripping from the edges of his hair from a light rain, while in his arms he clutched a small, shivering, filthy animal with blood dripping down its body.

The moment the door opened, the expressions and movements on the faces of both the offerings inside and the attendants outside the door froze for a few seconds.

--Just a few hours apart and it's like we're already two worlds apart.