Chapter 442: Evil God Ritual - The Boathouse

The moonlight shines on the surface of the pond where the goldfish swim, creating a scaly, broken light.

The silhouette of two people reflecting on the glistening water, reading a book together in close proximity, the curling night breeze dispersing their soft conversations, the only sound to be heard in the silence is the flow of water and the chirping of birds.

"How did this book get torn up?"

"A child from the orphanage I was at tore it up and threw it in the pond, but I really liked it, so I picked it up and glued it back together."

"Why did he tear up your book?"

"I don't know, maybe he doesn't like me, or my books, after all no one likes a monster that won't die."

Xie Ta says this in a light, natural voice, as if she doesn't think it's anything.

Bai Liu's voice paused for a moment, "How did you get here?"

Xie Ta lowered her eyelashes: "The kid who tore up my book cut me up and pushed me into the water, I drifted with the current for a long, long time and slowly assembled myself back, and by the time I was conscious, I was in this shrine."

"Have you ever thought about ......" Bai Liu turned his head sideways, looking at the side of Xie Ta's face, "leaving here?"

Xie Ta turned her head and looked Bai Liu in the eye: "I can't leave."

He opened his arms slightly, and in the reflection of the moonlight Bai Liu saw for a moment the millions of silver threads that were wrapped around Xie Ta's body, tangled in the air from all sides of the shrine, tied around his wrists, ankles, limbs and torso, tightly strangling him.

"This is the puppet strings that the gods have tied to me." Xie Ta said in a flat tone, "Because I have not fulfilled God's expectations of me, I am here to be refined until I can become a competent evil god."

Bai Liu looks at Xie Ta: "A qualified evil god?"

Xie Ta turned her head, her eyes calmly looking at the goldfish swimming in the pond: "A vessel for all desires, strong from the pain of human sacrifice, capable of turning the world upside down into an evil game."

"I couldn't do it, so I was banished."

Bai Liu's eyes deepened: "Banished from what?"

Xie Ta was quiet for a moment: "I don't remember."

"All I remember is that I was covered in a white cloth and couldn't move, and then a man would visit me every day and ask me if I would like to be an evil god."

"Each time I answered no, he would trim and carve my face and body with implements through the white cloth, then leave and come back the next day and ask me again until he sighed one day and said to me, you can never have a soul in my hands, you need to go through the experience, and so I was banished."

Bai Liu asks, "Why don't you want to be an evil god?"

Xie Ta paused: "Because I can't understand it."

"Every sacrifice that comes here to the shrine to see me, that opens my eyes from my slumber, possesses the desire for extreme pain."

"They came up to me, pushed aside my sleeping shrine, looked up at me with obscure eyes, knelt before me and prayed to me with tears, or cursed and pushed me hard to force me to fulfil their desires."

"But I don't have the power to grant people's wishes, only the true evil gods do."

"If the pain of these sacrifices is of high enough quality to meet God's requirements, God will be satisfied to grant the wishes of these painful sacrifices, while transferring their pain, desires and memories to me, so that I can feel the pain these sacrifices have experienced all over again."

"God has always said to me that pain makes the soul more worthy and that I need pain to carve it up."

Looking down at the carefree goldfish swimming in the pond, Xie Ta reached out with his fingertips and tapped the surface of the water, the ripples rippled out and the goldfish scattered as he continued.

"But no matter how much human suffering and desire I received, I was like an inferior funnel, never able to hold it or use it to become an evil god."

"Human desire or pain, I cannot understand it, and the one who carved me says I clearly have the most evil and powerful body in the world, but am only a failed vessel, unable to hold any evil."

"He said it was because I had no soul, and that pain was worthless to a soulless monster."

"I don't understand why people have desires and suffer, nor do I understand that even though they suffer like this, they continue to pray to the evil gods who torment them to fulfil their desires."

"Obviously just give up."

Xie Ta turned his head to me, he put his hand gently on the back of Bai Liu's hand, gazed at him earnestly and asked in a low voice: " Bai Liu came to me and awakened me, can you tell me what desire you have that must be fulfilled no matter how painful it is?"

"Can you tell me why you won't give up this desire?"

Bai Liu slightly avoids Xie Ta's gaze as he drops his eyes and draws back his hand, his fingers curling as he gives a very soft mumble.

Xie Ta leans forward and looks intently into Bai Liu's eyes with pure curiosity: "Why won't Bai Liu give up this desire no matter how painful it is?"

Bai Liu paused, his tone shallow: "Probably because the pain from giving up this person is more intense than the pain from giving up getting this person."

Xie Ta was quiet.

Slowly he sat up straighter, then withdrew his hand from Bai Liu's hand and distanced himself from him, narrowing his brow as he looked at the reflection of his wobbling bare feet on the sink, the chains on them rattling as he did so.

Xie Ta asks rhetorically, in a very soft voice: "Bai Liu's desire, did it turn out to be a person?"

"It's rare that just because of one person it can be so painful to the point that it wakes me up."

Xie Ta lowered her eyes, "Can you describe to me the pain you feel because of this man, what kind of pain would make you come and pray to the evil gods?"

Bai Liu also lowered his head as he looked at Xie Ta's swaying reflection on the water and turned his face slightly sideways, his tone calm: "Probably painful enough to be an evil god."

Xie Ta's eyes widened slightly and he turned his head to see Bai Liu's face, only to find Bai Liu standing up on his knees and saying indifferently, "It's getting light, I have to go. He turned around and was about to leave.

"Please wait!" Xie Ta reached out to grab Bai Liu who had turned to leave.

But the moment Xie Ta reached out his hand, countless threads surged, overlapping his wrist and tugging tautly, stopping the moment Xie Ta's fingertips touched the fluttering hem of Bai Liu's shirt.

Xie Ta's fingertips were stretched to white, but he still gently and firmly clutched the hem of Bai Liu's shirt and tugged it, tilting his head back to look at Bai Liu, his tone light: "Will you come back tomorrow?"

Bai Liu stopped in his tracks to leave, he didn't look back: "Do you want me to come?"

Xie Ta's long eyelashes trembled slightly: "Yes."

Bai Liu's tone was flat: "I'll be here tomorrow night, then."

The moment Bai Liu pushed open the door of the shrine and disappeared from Xie Ta's sight, Xie Ta, who was pulled by the puppet silk, felt a heavy wave of sleepiness and slowly collapsed onto the wooden corridor, his books scattered on the floor.

This was the first time he had seen a sacrifice that had woken him up by walking into a shrine.

The sacrifice called Bai Liu looked into his eyes, looked him flat in the eyes, obviously with so much desire and pain, but did not go mad with these things, and kept looking at him so calmly, without a ripple, as the horrible evil god.

--That look was full of feelings he didn't understand.

He would love to see it again.

Xie Ta leaned against the old wooden board, he looked in the direction Bai Liu had left and slowly closed his eyes.

Bai Liu came down the hill with his night light, returned to the shrine and put away the key, then returned to the attic where he lived, and when he pushed open the door there was a frightened Aota, whose eyes lit up when he saw that it was Bai Liu, and slapped his chest and said, "You're back at last! It's almost dawn!"

Then Cang Tai worriedly told Bai Liu what Xiaokui had said to him, and Bai Liu nodded - much as he had expected.

"Then won't we be tortured like this during the day too?" Aota was already starting to feel his bones ache with anxiety as he thought about all the scenarios Xiaokui had spoken of.

"You're a squire, don't worry too much." Bai Liu said as he unzipped his tunic and piled it next to his pillow, eyes closed as he prepared for sleep, "It should be the sacrifice that they mainly torture."

There were a lot of words on his lips, but in the end none came out, just a long, quiet sigh.

It was clear that he was about to be tormented by those perverted Bei Yuan family members, but he was still able to fall asleep so naturally and quickly.

He, as a squire, didn't even sleep last night.

Lord Bai six as a sacrifice has a good heart ......

"Oh yeah, I'm going to break into the shrine tomorrow night and steal the key." Bai Liu closed his eyes and suddenly spoke, "The black dog spirits over at the shrine recognize their owners, I need something that smells like Xiaokui, did you steal Xiaokui's clothes and bring them back?"

Cang Tai slapped his head and said with a start, "I almost forgot, I brought it back!"

Then when Aota reacted, he was shocked, "What! You're going to steal the key to the shrine at the back of the hill tomorrow night!"

"Hmm." Bai Liu snorted lazily and rolled over to sleep, "He's stuck in there and can't leave, so that'll have to do for now."

Bai Liu fell asleep rather quickly, leaving a frightened Aoi-tae on the sidelines frantic and nervous, biting her hand in fantasy.

Second night.

The bandages were being applied to Bai Liu's shoulders, and blood was seeping out as soon as they were applied. How can they lynch you like this right out of the gate!"

Bai Liu looked unhindered as he put on his coat after wrapping the straps and stood up, "I'm off."

Although he was able to cut Liu Jiayi's panel to heal the wound, in this current situation, healing it easily would not be a good thing for a sacrifice.

Mrs Cang knelt worriedly at Bai Liu's feet, " Bai six Sir, you came back last night and slept for just a short while, and during the day you were ...... taken in by Bei Yuan's family, are you still going tonight?"

"Go." Bai Liu is concise.

One hour later.

Xiaokui, bored and lying by the window, is naked, and her back, like Bai Liu's, is covered with many knife cuts, still fresh, but exposed to the air and untreated.

She was staring at the window with one hand on her jaw, lost in thought, when the light at the end of her eyes suddenly caught something and Xiaokui's eyes suddenly froze as she saw a small, dark light once again on the road to the shrine at the top of the hill.

"Again?!" Xiaokui was again shocked and frowning, "Does this guy really not want to die, he was only tortured during the day and then he goes again at night?!"

Bai Liu pushed open the door of the shrine, following the path of yesterday one level inside and then pushing open the door of the shrine.

The moon was clean and Xie Ta was still sitting in the same position looking back at him, and Bai Liu stepped onto the old wooden planks laid on the veranda and a wave of dizziness came over him.

The loss of blood from his wounds, the chase and tug of war with the black dog, and the rush to the shrine had left Bai Liu slightly dizzy at the moment, and he braced himself against the pillar at the entrance to steady his somewhat shaken body.

Xie Ta instantly sensed that something was wrong with Bai Liu and frowned as he stepped forward to help Bai Liu, who was leaning forward.

A small, delicate dress with cherry blossoms embroidered on the chest floats slowly out of Bai Liu's sleeves and swirls to the ground.

Xie Ta and Bai Liu moved their eyes over at the same time.

--This is the Xiaokui clothing that Bai Liu used to fool the black dog's spirits, which Cang Tai stole from Xiaokui's attic in a panic.

This is a women's lining.

He slowly withdrew his hand and tucked it inside his sleeve, looking down at the dress, and in a Buming tone, "...... is this the clothing of Bai Liu who cannot restrain his desire?"

"You carry it with you?"

Bai Liu: "......"