Chapter 439: Evil God Ritual - Boathouse

Bei Yuan's home is on a hill, and the group climbed a long trail, or rather steps, before they could barely see the magnificent building hidden in the dense jungle.

The huge eaves of the house loom large in the dense forest, and as you look up, you can see another, slightly smaller, but more dignified wooden building with flying eaves, and a floor of mahogany bird houses, higher up behind the Bei Yuan house.

"Closer to us is the address of the Bei Yuan family." Gifune looked up at the flying eaves behind the torii, gathered the hem of his garment and bowed respectfully, "Higher up is the residence of the evil god, the Luming Shrine."

The offerings and attendants also bowed in imitation of the movements of the imperial boat.

Further up the path, a regular rocky path leads up to the gate of Bei Yuan's house, where two stone lanterns stand, which Bai Liu glanced at with a resting glance and found to be very new, seemingly only about a year old, with their heads carved in the shape of a simple Shiba Inu with its tongue out.

The imperial boat knocks on the door of Bei Yuan's house.

The door opened slowly and an old, steady servant with white hair poked his head out, glancing at the knocker, then at the offerings that followed him, bowing his head and withdrawing his gaze, he bent down and pulled the door open: "Lord Mifune, the master has been waiting for you for a long time.

Mifune grunts a Buming hint from his nose and walks in without a glance.

Bai Liu followed the imperial boat inside and was greeted by an elegant and extravagant Japanese garden scene with jagged rocks on the left and right sides.

The clear water bubbling on the rocks looks lively and interesting. The water should have been drawn from the mountains, but at this time of year, the springs should have been frozen and would not have flowed, but this Bei Yuan family actually used a stone oven to heat the pipes that draw the water, making the water flow steaming hot in this cold weather on the artificial rocks and grass.

Bai Liu took a brief look at the stone stoves, which were used to heat the water, keep the courtyard looking good and blend in with the courtyard, and made a slight mental estimate that there must be almost a hundred of them.

Seeing this scene, Cang Tai could not resist leaning over and whispering in Bai Liu's ear, "So many retainers and animals nearly froze to death in the rain last night, they would not have been able to do that if even a third of these stone ovens had been distributed down ......"

The old servant who was on the sidelines heard Cangta's crumbling words, he swept his eyes sideways and gave Cangta a condescending look and spoke.

"What you should be thinking about as offerings and attendants who have just arrived here is to work your way up to be chosen by the lord of the House of Bei Yuan to enjoy the beautiful courtyard these stone ovens form, not to pity the self-serving caged inferior animals who are not even capable of seeing these stone ovens."

"The stone furnace is for the viewing of the sacrificial adults who can endure the pain and sacrifice to the evil gods to bring more value to Luming County, not for the squires to keep warm."

"Here in Luming County, these squires who are not suffering enough to live in cages are animals who cannot produce more value and should not consume any resources to live."

Mrs. Cang shrank from the look in the old servant's eyes, lowered her head and answered yes in a trembling voice, and said no more.

The old servant withdrew his gaze indifferently and bent forward with quick broken steps to the front of the procession, leading the offerings through one solid wooden cloister after another.

The view from the courtyard can be seen from the side, with the gurgling spring flowing, the birds and flowers in the courtyard, the bamboo see knocking on the stone jar one by one, and the petals falling from it flowing down and merging in the lake in the courtyard, looking pleasant and refreshingly elegant.

Everyone continued to exclaim at the delicacy and beauty of the courtyard, both the offerings and the attendants, and it was clear from their eyes that they all yearned for this place.

The last person to walk was Aota, who was clutching the umbrella in his hand with his head bowed, a feeling of inexpressible sullenness and gloom in his heart.

Bai six also wants to be chosen by the Bei Yuan family ...... Is he the same as these offerings?

Would he ...... also agree with this old servant?

"If you have anything to ask, you can just say it." Bai Liu looked ahead and spoke calmly, "You've been staring at me for ten minutes now."

"I'm sorry!" Aota bowed her head in panic and slowly raised it again, asking very softly, " Bai six do you think the old servant was right just now too?"

"A stone oven is used for ornamental purposes for the sacrifices, more than for warming the attendants?"

Bai Liu replied, "The rightness or wrongness of each person's words has to be seen from the other person's standpoint."

"From the point of view of these people who are now the sacrifices, from the point of view of the servants of Bei Yuan's family, from the point of view of these people with a vested interest in exploiting others at the top end of the food chain, they naturally feel they are right."

"A stone furnace for the squire to warm them gets them nothing, but put here for viewing, indeed daily is the benefit they can see and get."

Aota plucked up her courage: "What about from the Bai six's point of view? Do you think they're right too?"

Bai Liu turned his head sideways, his eyes glancing serenely at Mrs. Cang, a glance that caused Mrs. Cang to hold her breath, the umbrella in her hand clenched until her palm turned white.

"No." He replied in a faint tone, "I don't think they're right."

A long breath escaped Aota and his eyes widened, "But Bai six is now also a sacrifice and has a vested interest, so why not think they are right?"

Bai Liu looked at him, the pupils of his eyes dark and shifting, the broken hair on his forehead scattered over his eyes in the fine wind: "At the top of the food chain these people have constructed, there is an old evil god who is supposed to exploit everyone."

"But because he chose not to exploit these people, he is now being tortured and exploited by everyone."

"That old evil god, that man is my lover."

Aota was completely frozen.

Bai Liu withdrew his eyes and looked at the old man walking at the front of the offering, speaking without a trace of emotion in his tone.

"I came here to deal with these people who were exploiting and profiting from him and to take away that food web that was structured on him."

"And then I'll tell him." Bai Liu paused, "No matter what happens after that, he wasn't wrong to make the choice in the first place."

Cthulhu's eyes burned a little for some reason, and he had so many things he wanted to say and a belly full of questions he wanted to ask, but in the end he just gave a heavy hmmm and said with forceful agreement in a tone that was tinged with sobs, "Neither the evil gods nor you are wrong."

"The offerings over there." Walking at the front of the line, Mikifune turned back impatiently and urged, "What's all this gossip? Keep up! It's time to go to the parlour to choose the offerings!"

"Yes!" Aota panicked and pulled Bai Liu into a quick run, "We're coming!"

The Bei Yuan family's parlour is also very large, with an extremely open view from the door, and because of its size it even looks a bit like the main hall of a dojo, with a soft silken cloth covering the floor and a few servants sitting on their knees behind a low table in front of them, with a traditional goldfish-ben hairstyle shaved in the back of his head, with the centre of his head shaved.

The man's eyebrows slant into a tight frown, his body is strong like a strong man in his forties or fifties, but the corners of his eyes, forehead and chin are wrinkled, he looks aged like he is in his sixties, and his expression is tense and gloomy.

He glanced down at the picture book of offerings placed in front of him, flipping through it casually, then raised his head and swept his gaze sorrowfully over the offerings sitting on their knees before him, before pausing on Bai Liu, who had walked in at the end.

"There's a kid called Bai six, isn't there?" He spoke in a dark voice, "Lift your head and let me see."

Bai Liu slowly lifted his head to meet the other man's eye level, unbiased.

This Yuan Bei family head nodded with considerable satisfaction, "A good-looking mark, very strong-willed and can be conditioned for a long time."

"Take the boy, and keep his squire with him."

At last Bei Yuan chose Bai Liu and another sacrifice, leaving their attendants behind, and soon a servant came up and offered them new wooden tablets with the inscriptions [Bei Yuan Bai six] and [Beiyuan Cangtai].

The head of the house rose and gave them a glance, "Since you are the Lord of the Bei Yuan family's offerings, you will stay with the Bei Yuan family in the future."

"I'll send someone over to the boathouse to bring your pets and luggage over, and first have someone show you around, know where you can and can't go, as well as what you need to do for the Bei Yuan family by staying there and enjoying everything the Bei Yuan family has to offer you."

With that, the master of the Bei Yuan family tilted his head and nodded to the old servant who had led the way in, "You show them the way to get acquainted."

The old servant nodded respectfully and turned to Bai Liu and the others and said, "Come here, adults."

"First of all, congratulations to all of you, from now on the adults will be living in the mansion of the family that makes people happy and pays taxes first."

The servant's footsteps were small and quick, moving like swimming snakes through the wooden cloisters shrouded in shade, which were lined with broken red maple leaves that had just fallen less than half an hour before, clattering and shaking under the servant's footsteps, and fluttering down into the water pavilion beside the cloisters, drifting outside the house.

The moisture floats warm and muggy in the air, sticking to one's skin in this cold weather, but it is not at all pleasant.

A really pretty and bright, eerie and dreary place.

"In the Bei Yuan family, the sacrificial lords are the supreme being, and the Bei Yuan family has grown to what it is today thanks to the great dedication of generations of sacrificial lords to us, without whose suffering the beautiful grounds of the Bei Yuan family would not be what it is today."

"So the first thing anyone who enters the Bei Yuan family has to do is to sacrifice to these sacrificial adults who have borne supreme suffering for the development and growth of the Bei Yuan family."

The old servant stopped in front of a very well-built room, where he bowed down with his hands clasped together, and then reached out and pushed open the door of the room.

Aota couldn't help but draw a cold breath when he saw what was in the room.

The room was issued with a huge wooden shelf with flying eaves and tails on both sides, made to look like a shrine style attire, and dozens of shrines were placed on the wooden shelf from high to low, each containing black and white photographs of people who appeared to be no more than teenagers, or even a few years old.

The old servant clasped his hands and stepped aside, dropping his eyes, "These are the sacrificial adults who were purchased over by the Bei Yuan family for three years, but did not last until the end, and then committed suicide out of pain, and they are enshrined here."

"If you don't stick around and kill yourselves, you'll be offered up here too."

"Ask the four lords to come in and salute them."