Chapter 440: The Evil God Festival - The Boathouse

The other chosen sacrifice, who had been excited to be chosen, was dumbfounded at the sight of the scene.

The old servant indifferently held the other two unresponsive children down and bowed to the offerings in the shrine: "Pay your respects to your predecessors who broke the jade for the Bei Yuan family."

The two children came out of the shrine in a trance, their shoulders shaking.

It didn't seem quite the same as the privileged human life they had imagined.

The old servant seemed not to see the sudden change of expression in the two children's faces as he bowed his body and continued to walk with small, quick steps: "The residence of the adults of the sacrifice is in Bei Yuan, the highest part of the house."

"That place is also the closest to the shrine, the biggest shrine in Luming that you will see every morning as soon as you get up, and the place where you will be sacrificed."

"The shrine contains the beautiful body of the evil lord, which we cannot disturb often, and is only open to the public during the hottest and coldest times of the year, in winter and summer, when the prefecture holds a grand festival of the evil god."

"Funya and the sacrifices kept in the great houses go to the shrine to worship the evil lord, but the evil lord lives in a shrine, and only the tears of a sufficiently painful sacrifice can make him open his eyes and wake up."

"Don't go up to the mountain on weekdays, Lord Evil is sleeping and doesn't like to be nagged, the doors of the shrine are always locked and there is no need for daily prayers."

Bai Liu's eyes twitched: "The shrine is locked, so in whose hands is the key to the shrine? Is it in the hands of Lord Bei Yuan?"

The old servant's footsteps lurched and he gave Bai Liu a sidelong glance: "Yes."

"The key to the shrine will be in the hands of the highest tax payer each year, the year before it was in the Gifune family, this year it is the Bei Yuan family."

The old servant led Bai Liu and the others to an isolated, high loft, bending down and raising his hand in respect: "This is the residence of the lords of sacrifice."

"While I understand that the offerings are new to the Bei Yuan family and are curious about this place, it is late in the day and I would kindly advise you not to wander around."

The old servant raised his head slightly, showing his old, cloudy eyes, "The house of Bei Yuan is very dangerous after nightfall, and if the sacrificial lords themselves die in vain at the hands of some spirits, their bodies will not even enter the shrine of Bei Yuan."

Bai Liu noticed that Mrs. Cang and the other two children had turned pale with fear and immediately shouted in response, "Yes!"

The old servant's eyes flicked to Bai Liu: " Where is Lord Bai six?"

Bai Liu slowly lowered her eyes and spoke in a submissive tone, "I will make a good offering to the evil gods here."

Slightly satisfied, the old servant withdrew his gaze, bent over, pulled the door closed and bowed away, "We will help bring your Lordships' things from the boathouse in a moment, so please get an early night's rest."

Within ten minutes of Bai Liu and his family moving into the loft, the hesitant and uncommunicative maid brought in Bai Liu's luggage.

Aota's eyes lit up at the sight of the little black cat in its cage, and when he opened it he tried to give it a hug, but the little black cat wriggled out from under the cage, gave a high-pitched mike and ran towards Bai Liu, who was sitting by the attic window.

Bai Liu strokes the two cats gathered at his feet with the back of his two-fingered hand, and his eyes drift from the open window through the fading darkness of the night to the Luming shrine deep in the jungle.

Aota walked over to Bai six and asked in a low voice, "Is Lord Bai six's lover the evil god who lives in that shrine?"

"It's not living." Bai Liu withdrew his gaze, his eyes dropping to the well-behaved Little Bai cat rubbing his hands in his arms, "It's trapped in that shrine."

"So I'm going to go and bring him out."

"...... Just now you asked for the key to the shrine." Aota swallowed nervously, " Bai six are you going to steal the key after nightfall?"

Bai Liu gave a flattened hmm.

Aota instantly tensed up, "But that old servant said that Bei Yuan's house is haunted by spirits at night, and Bai six you don't know where the key is in Bei Yuan's house, that's too much of a risk!"

"There are ways around all of this." Bai Liu raised his eyes to look at Aota, "As long as you're willing to help me, Aota."

Mrs. Cang was dumbfounded, "How am I going to help you?"

Bai Liu: "Find out about Beiyuan Xiaokui here."

After nightfall, the courtyard of Bei Yuan's house is dark, the grass and trees reflecting an unsettling darkness on the veranda, the stone fireplace by the rocky rockery works around the clock, flickering with a faint, ghostly fire, and the air is steaming with a sticky, hot, humid vapour.

Running out into the night, Aota ran down the corridor as fast as he could, not daring to look up at the scene around him, quickly mumbling in his mind what Bai Liu had given him to do -

-- Beiyuan Xiaokui, one of the Bei Yuan family's offerings, and her brother were both bought by the Bei Yuan family during the first year of the evil god festival.

And last year Beiyuan Xiaokui's brother was sacrificed.

This brother was intentionally raised by the Bei Yuan family, carrying more than a year and close to two years' worth of pain, and the one-time sacrifice for his wish grew the Bei Yuan family into the number one family in Luming County, which shows how painful Xiaokui's brother's life was in the Bei Yuan family during those two years.

Not to mention the value to the Bei Yuan family of Xiaokui, who has carried three years of pain on her back, this is definitely one of the Bei Yuan family's most weighty offerings, so it's no wonder she was caught and returned after escaping.

Bai Liu lifted his eyes and looked levelly at Aota: "The key to the shrine should be on Beiyuan Xiaokui, or on Beiyuan Xiaokui's brother."

Aota was stunned and filled with confusion, "Eh?! Isn't the key to the shrine a very valuable thing? Why would the Bei Yuan family put the key on the body of the sacrifice?!"

"Because they are the ones who are closest to the gods." Bai Liu looked at Aota, "This is a family that deluded themselves into getting closer and closer to the gods, they built their mansion where they could look up to the dwelling of the gods, they built the attic we live in to overlook the shrine, they have an extreme yearning and worship of the evil gods, then the odds are that the key to holding the gods will also be placed on the people of the Bei Yuan family who are closest to the gods, which that is, on the sacrifice."

Cang too still some hesitation: "But even if it is put on the sacrifice, why Bai six so sure Xiaokui and his brother? The Bei Yuan family has more than a few sacrifices ......"

"Yes, there are more than a few." Bai Liu's tone is calm, "but the two siblings are the ones who have contributed the most to the Bei Yuan family and are the most memorable."

"If I'm not mistaken, Beiyuan Xiaokui and her brother would have been the first pair of [retainers] and [sacrifices] in the Bei Yuan family."

"They were the first pair to walk into the shrine representing the Bei Yuan family."

Aota can't even forget the goose bumps he got when he heard the judgement Bai six.

He was now walking in the warm night air, flowers were blooming and water was flowing in the courtyard to his right, and he took a deep breath, as rich and warm as the fragrance could be, but Cang Tai felt that the fragrance was like something raised by the resentment of the sacrifice in its howling agony, warm and warm on the surface but cold and biting in reality.

Bai six says that Beiyuan Xiaokui, the noblest and most valuable offering, with a three-year period of painful maturation, must have lived in the highest and closest attic of the Bei Yuan family.

After running twice around the place where they lived on various excuses, Aota finally saw a particularly tall loft built opposite the one they were living in.

There is only one room in this attic, like a beacon with empty wooden shelves below, and only a long flight of steps leading down from the attic door, the entrance to which is guarded by two servants.

Cang Tai stole herself away into the grass and looked at the two guards, then tilted her head to look at the wooden loft with its closed doors and windows, lavishly built and surrounded by piles of flowers.

Beiyuan Xiaokui lives there.

"It's almost like a place where a princess lives." Aota whispered in a bit of a trance, "But it's really just a sacrifice ......"

Having said that, Aota crouched down in the grass and began to wait patiently.

After nightfall, the servants would have left the guardhouse, as there were spirits roaming the courtyard, and would have returned to their own quarters, or stayed close by in the side room to watch over Xiaokui.

Sure enough, within a few moments, the two servants climbed up into the attic and went to sleep in the side room, one left and one right.

With a long sigh of relief, Aota dived through the grass, hanging on to the back of the ladder, gritting his teeth and climbing up ladder by ladder, before carefully grabbing the gap in the sill and knocking gently.

" Xiaokui ." Aota inquired very softly against the window, "I'm Aota, are you there?"

After a long, long time, long enough for Aoi-tae to think that Xiaokui would not open the window, the window slowly opened from the inside and Xiaokui, dressed in a close-fitting shirt, her face haggard and pale, appeared at the window, her tone indifferent: "What are you doing here? Is it some new trick of the Bei Yuan family to coax me to run away and then catch me back and make me suffer even more?"

Before he could say anything, Beiyuan Xiaokui was about to shut the window again indifferently. In his haste, he forcibly rolled over and barged into Xiaokui's apartment, shaking his head as he explained, "No, I was chosen by the Bei Yuan family as a retainer."

"I'm here because my Lord of the Sacrifice, the Bai six, wants the key to the shrine."

Aota looked eagerly at Xiaokui and folded her arms, "He said you would help me, do you have the key?"

Xiaokui: "Bai six, why did he ask you to come to me for the key to the shrine?"

Aota scratched his head and thought before choosing to tell the truth: "He said that the evil god-sama at the shrine was his lover and that he was going to take the other man and elope."

Although Bai Liu did not say it so directly, that's pretty much what it means in Cang Tai's case.

Xiaokui Her face changed and was stunned, she clapped the ground as if she had really heard something very funny and laughed so hard that tears came out of her eyes, "Take the evil god to elope ...... hahahahaha!"

This frightened Mrs. Aoi so much that she knelt down and covered Xiaokui's mouth: "Stop laughing! If you invite the maids over later, you'll be in trouble!"

"It won't happen." Xiaokui lazily lay on her back on the ground, her eyes out of focus as she stared at the attic ceiling and muttered, "I often laugh like this in the middle of the night in a psychotic way, they won't care."

"They just need to make sure I'm alive and I'm in pain, that's all."

Again, Mrs. Cang looked complicated and full of doubts, "What were you laughing at?"

"Laugh Bai six made up a random lie and you believe it." Xiaokui lazily lifted a hand to wipe the tears from the corner of his own eyes, "There's no way he and the evil god could have been lovers, let alone taken the evil god and eloped."

Pale too was not convinced and he retorted, "But when Lord Bai six talks about evil gods, I think he's serious!"

"Seriously ......" Xiaokui whispered in a daze, "My brother is a very serious man too, he once said he would take me away from this place too."

Cthulhu paused, and after a moment's hesitation he asked, "Are you and your brother, too, a pair of sacrifices and attendants?"

Xiaokui closed her eyes, "Yeah."

"I am the sacrifice and he is the squire."

"My brother, who is three years younger than me, is so ignorant of these things that he cannot understand the meaning covered by many of them, so it is also hard to be in pain, even if he is tortured and beaten and covered in blood by the Bei Yuan family, he breaks into tears again when he sees me a little later, hugs me and calls out to my sister and pampers me."

"He only understands pain, not suffering."

Tears slipped from the corners of Xiaokui's tightly closed eyes and her voice became hoarse: "But I saw him like that and I was scared and I was in constant pain."

"Even when tortured in the same way, my pain was far greater than his, as if that which he did not understand had been transferred to me, so that I had been the sacrifice."

"I thought it would go on like this and then when the day came that I was sacrificed, he would be banished from the Bei Yuan family and probably go back to the boathouse to live in a cage, then even then I thought it would be better than staying in the Bei Yuan family as a sacrifice."

"Because he's always been brought up in such an environment, I know that even caged, he can live a happy and joyful life without suffering because that's the world he's known since he was a little kid and he doesn't understand anything."

"He thinks that's the way the world is supposed to be, that's how cruel the world is supposed to be."

"But one day." Xiaokui opened his hollow eyes, "The Bei Yuan family sent a teacher to my brother and me."

"They began to teach us what the real world was like."

"Every day, every day, we look at many people who have had much happier lives than us, thousands, hundreds of millions, who from birth would have had a pair of loving parents, would have had great friends, studied normally, grown up, had people who loved them, married each other, had children, and then continued to live so happily in the world. "

"Those teachers would tell us that this was the normal life, the life that most people lived, that we were deviants, that we were living an abnormal, lowly life that had to be tortured to survive."

"Then the Bei Yuan family taught us this while torturing us more and more."

"Like telling us today that mothers and fathers love their children, and tomorrow inviting our parents to see us being tortured and then giving them lots and lots of money."

"We were told today that we can all play with our favourite critters, and as soon as I got up tomorrow morning I saw the sunny doll hanging outside my window change from a doll to my puppy."

"The sun was so strong that my little dog hung under the eaves with his tongue out and the collar he wore around his neck had little flowers I had sewn for him, and flies surrounded him."

"As my brother and I broke down and cried while putting the puppy's body down." Xiaokui sheds numb tears, "My brother he finally understood."

"The world is not so cruel, it's just cruel to us."

"He said to me, sister, I must take you away from this place."

"He began to torture himself more and more, he must become more miserable than me, he wanted to become a sacrifice, he would come to me when he was going crazy from the torture, crying as he did so, saying, "Sister, if I make one sacrifice, we can live a normal life."

"We will surely live happily ever after, and the Lord of Evil will surely see our suffering."

"As soon as I have sacrificed my pain to Him and completed one sacrifice, let us run and escape this place."

"He cried and told me that we escaped to all those places we'd seen in books and on TV, that we could have lots of puppies without being hung and without mum and dad watching us being held down in a dog bowl every day while being whipped and fed dog food."

"Sister, there must exist someone who loves us very much, we suffer so much just so we can meet those happy things in the future, there must be hope."

Xiaokui took a deep, shaky breath: "I know those teachers teach us this so that we can have hope."

"Only with hope can the pain from torture last, and we will not kill ourselves so easily; we will endure for that hope to exist always, always, until the day of sacrifice."

"My brother he really became a sacrifice, and I became his squire."

"On the day he was sent to the shrine for sacrifice, I repeatedly confirmed to the Bei Yuan family that all it took was one painful sacrifice for the Bei Yuan family and my brother would receive a large sum of money and that they would not restrict my brother's movements and that he could indeed leave Luming County at any time."

"I watched him walk into the shrine and then there was the sound of the shrine loosening from inside and people around me were so excited that the evil lord had opened his eyes and stepped down from the shrine, I was so excited too."

"Then my brother walked out of the shrine with his head bowed and his hands shaking."

Xiaokui turned her head and looked at Aota with tearful, dead eyes, but the corners of her mouth were smiling, recklessly, her voice hoarse.

"He looked up at me with a completely blank stare, his hands were as cold as a corpse, his speech was completely incoherent, and his mouth was dripping with saliva, but I managed to piece together what he was trying to tell me through years of understanding with him the things."

"He said, sister, that it was a trick, a lie."

"If the suffering of the sacrifice does not move the Lord of Evil, the Lord of Evil will not open his eyes and come down from the shrine to grant one's wish, and the sacrifice will not leave the place."

"If the pain of the sacrifice could move the evil lord and the evil lord opened his eyes, the sacrifice would go mad and we would commit suicide just by looking into the silver-blue eyes of the evil lord."

"We can't get away."

Xiaokui burst out laughing maniacally as she burst into tears, "And then my brother, after he came back, hung himself outside my roof."

"- like a sunny doll."

"You tell me." Xiaokui wriggled up from the ground, propping her arms up, her messy hair sliding down the side of her bloodless face as she laughed twice nervously, "The evil god who can't even look-"

" How did Bai six fall in love with Him and become lovers with Him?"