Chapter 444: The Evil God Festival - The Boathouse

Bai Liu turned his head sideways, his eyes shifting down to avoid Xie Ta's gaze, and he stood up very quickly, his tone calm: "It's getting light, I'm going back."

"So ...... " Xie Ta tilted his head quietly, his silvery blue eyes reflecting both the dull moon in the sky and Bai six standing on the edge of the veranda, and asked in a soft tone, "Are you coming back tomorrow? "

Bai Liu was quiet, he didn't ask [Do you want me to come] today as he did yesterday, but Xie Ta, as if he knew Bai Liu wanted to ask this question, answered naturally, "I want you to come tomorrow."

The light in his eyes floated, reflecting the early brightening clouds, "I want you to come day after day."

"So that I can see you every day."

Bai Liu's breathing broke for a beat, his fingers curled at his side, and when he spoke again it was in a tone so flat it was like a stranger: "Why do you see me every day?"

"I'm just an ordinary sacrifice."

"There is no need for an evil god on high to see me day after day, and then waste so much affection and curiosity on a common sacrifice like me."

Xie Ta looked intently at Bai Liu: "That is if you are just an ordinary sacrifice."

"Then why did you steal the key and come up to see me the night before?"

"Obviously we'll see it at the Evil God Festival in a few months, won't we?"

Bai Liu.

Xie Ta suddenly smiled, his eyelashes fluttering as he looked at Bai Liu's right hand, which was slightly curled behind his back, before Xie Ta lifted his left hand and slipped his long fingers into the gap between Bai Liu's clasped fingers, then slowly, interlocking his fingers, he took Bai Liu's hand.

"It was you who woke me up with pain to come and see me, but in the end you asked me, an evil god who knows nothing, to tell you why I want to see you day after day."

"I'm just an inferior, substandard mirror."

Xie Ta raised her eyes and looked at Bai Liu with the same eyes: "Naturally, why Bai Liu wants to see me, is why I want to see Bai Liu."

"Can I wait for you tomorrow night?"

Bai Liu's lips pursed into a straight line as he clenched the cold fingers of Xie Ta in his hand for a second, but quickly let go again, bowing his head and quickly walking away from the exit of God Xiang Society, leaving behind only one sentence with little emotion.

"I won't be here tomorrow night, so you don't have to wait."

Xie Ta's hand was released and he fell back onto the veranda.

The wind blew the trees in the middle of the courtyard and the leaves fell in a flurry, sending ripples across the pond.

Bai Liu heard the sound of chains moving behind him. He heard the chains on Xie Ta's feet dragging on the ground and then straightening out with the vibrating sound of someone pulling on them.

Xie Ta was walking behind him without making a sound of footsteps.

Bai Liu didn't turn around, he just stopped in his tracks, the cold temperature of Xie Ta's fingertips still in his hand, he closed his eyes and took two deep breaths and asked, "What did you want to tell me when you came after me?"

"I Buming white." Xie Ta whispered, "I sensed you wanted to come and see me."

"But why not come?"

Xie Ta paused, "Are you angry?"

"I'm not angry." Bai Liu said after a few seconds of silence, "but I'm certainly not very pleasant."

"It's true that I will do everything and anything to see someone because I want to see them, but if that person is only willing to see me because I want to see them, I will feel like I'm not getting an equal return for what I'm giving."

"Because it's not an equal deal."

Bai Liu lowered his eyes, "You're just refracting my feelings for you."

Xie Ta asks softly, "So what is an equal deal?"

Bai Liu finally turned slowly, gazing into Xie Ta's clean eyes, without a trace of emotion on his face.

"I need you to want to see me yourself."

"If one day the Lord of Evil himself develops feelings of wanting to see me, I will naturally come to see you."

Having said that, Bai Liu lifted the lantern that had been placed by the door and bowed slightly to Xie Ta who had stopped dead in his tracks, "Good morning Lord Evil, I have a lesson in sacrifice to practice, so I will leave first."

Xiaokui, propped up and yawning by the attic window, looks at Bai Liu coming down the path with a lantern and raises her eyebrows slightly: "It's early today."

Bai Liu returned to the attic where he lived and gingerly put down the lantern, undressed and lay down on the tatami.

Although the movement was very light, it still woke up Aota who was beside him. He looked in horror at Bai Liu who was staring straight up at the ceiling with emotionless dark eyes, rubbed his arms and called out cautiously, ".... .. Lord Bai six?"

"Are you in a ...... bad mood?"

Bai Liu mumbled lightly, "Sort of."

Aota was a little curious and came over, "Why? Didn't we just meet the evil god-sama?"

But it was clear that Lord Bai six had returned from his meeting with the Lord of Evil yesterday in an apparently good mood.

"Because I hate it when people like me because I like them." Bai Liu's tone was flat, "That kind of affection is cheap and not as solid as a deal, the same as affection given to a dog."

Aoi-tae was shocked: "What do you mean by giving the same affection to the dog! Dogs are cute! I just love dogs!"

Bai Liu, who was lying on the tatami, gave Aota a sidelong glance, "So why do you like dogs?"

Aota was very confused, "Of course it's because the dog is cute!"

"No." Bai Liu withdrew his eyes, "People like animals because they presuppose that they love them, so they choose animals that they can easily get rid of even if they don't, like dogs, like cats, like rabbits."

"Because these animals have no resistance to humans, the only two ways they can face humans are to be domesticated and to be abandoned."

Aota's pupils quaked and he stuttered a little, "No, that's not it!?"

"What if you got a dog that didn't love you?" Bai Liu continued faintly, "What would you do if the other dog bit you every day, showed his teeth to you, and seriously injured you and your family many times?"

Cthulhu began to falter, he opened his mouth to say something, but in the end not a word came out.

...... He probably would have actually sent the dog away, or even beaten it to death.

"That's why humans choose safe pets to love; it's essentially a quest for low risk and high reward returns." Bai Liu says softly.

"But it's not all that!" Aota struggled to retort, "There's that natural fondness for dogs that I have for their personalities too!"

Bai Liu swept Cang Tai, "So in the same situation, with two pets, a dog with a snake like temperament and a lizard with a highly poisonous, dog like personality, who do you choose?"

Pale stammered too: "...... dogs."

Bai Liu asks, without skipping a beat, "What if I could choose neither?"

Aota immediately snapped back, "I would choose neither!"

Bai Liu looked at the ceiling: "But I chose the lizard with the poison."

Aota was very shocked: "?! Why, isn't it possible to choose neither?!"

"Yeah, I didn't want to choose between the two." Bai Liu slowly rested his scarred arm over his eyes before exhaling slowly and speaking in a very calm tone, "But I fell in love with that lizard, so I really wanted to keep him."

Asuka's sustained pupils quaked and he took a few steps backwards in almost panic before swallowing nervously, " Lord Bai six, are you in love with a lizard, a lizard?!"

Bai Liu, oblivious to Aota's reaction, continued, "But this lizard doesn't know he's human, so he has no way of giving me the same share of, well, human affection."

"I'm probably the only human in the world who would keep such a lizard that could poison everyone just by looking at it."

"He just knew that I was the only human who would reach out to him, touch him, and would be with him forever, so he would come and touch me, hug me, and be nice to me, like a person would feel pity and fondness for a dog that came to lick his hand."

"Gods should also feel this emotion towards the much weaker ones."

Bai Liu's breathing becomes extremely slow: "But he's still Buming white about what this means to me."

"It's really hard for me to admit that ...... I would love ......"

Bai Liu's chest suddenly rose and fell as he spoke, and he clenched his hand over his eyes into a fist, hard enough that his fingertips turned white, took two deep breaths then went quiet.

After a long, long time, Bai Liu did not speak, and when Cang Tai thought Bai Liu had fallen asleep with his arm over his eyes, he suddenly heard a somewhat hoarse word from Bai Liu.

"This is really the most unfair deal I've ever made."

Bai Liu gave a very shallow laugh, "I can't believe I'm going to love God like a dog."