Chapter 447: Evil God Ritual - The Boathouse

The teacher was shaken in place for a moment, and managed to regain his wits: "This is the end of today's lesson."

"You have an important thing to do these days, apart from your lessons." The teacher looked at all the sacrifices and the expression on his face returned to normal, "The summer festival is coming up, and before you are sent up to the shrine, the sacrifice adults will go to the boathouse once to test your pain."

"But the lords of sacrifice need not worry too much about the results of this test."

Sensei smiled kindly, "I don't think any of you will be able to reach the pain level except for Xiaokui-sama, after all it's only the Summer Festival, you won't be ripe until at least the Winter Festival."

"The sacrificial lords may now leave." The teacher turned his head to Xiaokui, and the smile on his face became meaningful, "But Lord Xiaokui will stay a little longer."

"With the amount of pain you're in, you'll be fully ready for the offering table this summer festival."

"But to maximise your suffering, over the next few days, we will be doing some extra special coaching so that your suffering can be exchanged for the desire to maximise the value of the Bei Yuan family."

The teacher stands in front of Xiaokui with a wry smile on her face, looking down on Xiaokui with a condescending look.

" Lord Xiaokui is sixteen years old, isn't he? And old enough to fall in love, now that you know what a good love looks like."

"Then it's time to taste the painful side of love, too."

"Tomorrow we will gather a group of [princes], and Xiaokui-sama will be able to choose the person you choose to fall in love with as [princess-sama]."

The teacher smiled, "They're all very nice [Prince-sama]."

"These [princely lords] are handsome, but dying of cold, squires selected by the Bei Yuan family from the boathouse."

" The Bei Yuan family saved them from the cage and told them that it was because of the kindness of Lord Xiaokui that they had saved them, so they all looked up to you."

"They love you naturally, just like the Shiba Inu dogs that Lord Xiaokui used to love, and you can easily get their love and loyalty from them if you just reach out."

"Of course you can also not choose these [princes]." The teacher leaned down close to Xiaokui's ear and smiled kindly twice, "Then we will get rid of these [Prince-sama] who love you just like we got rid of the cats and dogs you didn't want on the ship."

"I hope [Princess-sama] is not so cruel."

The light in the eyes of Xiaokui, who had just stood up, disappeared inch by inch, and she lowered her head, her tone as hushed as if she had fallen into a well: "Yes, teacher."

"I will choose a [princely lord] well."

That evening.

Xiaokui slumped vacantly on the edge of the windowsill, her long hair sliding down her shoulders.

A sunny doll hangs under the eaves of the attic where her brother and dog once hung, swaying back and forth in the night, and high up in the attic window where even the moonlight does not penetrate, dark as a towering coffin.

A little shimmering light appears in the darkness of the mountains.

Xiaokui shifted her eyes for a moment, the otherwise frozen features of her face suddenly moving as she grunted, "There you go again."

Bai Liu walks with a lantern on the mountain path, approaching the top of the hill.

Xiaokui moved a little, she fell onto her hands, folded them and looked at Bai Liu in a trance, muttering, "...... this guy actually lasted until now ...... "

"Love, is it really so magical?"

Bai Liu walked up to the entrance of the shrine and a sound soon came from inside.

The voice was slightly eager, but still as clear and clean as ever: "...... I've been waiting for a long time and thought you wouldn't come tonight."

"So it's just late."

"Did something happen?" Xie Ta inquired softly, "Was the offering lesson late, or did the day's lesson leave you injured and the walk up the hill slow?"

Bai Liu, who was standing outside the door, remained silent.

Xie Ta's breath caught in his throat and his blood flowed rapidly as he approached the door quickly, and he looked down at his hand, which was bleeding from the threads he had placed on the valve.

"Today, Bai Liu still won't come in and see me or say a word to me, will he?"

Xie Ta continued towards the door, his hand clutching the edge of the wooden door, the silk threads on his wrist and ankle contracting and sinking into his snow-white skin, and suddenly the blood flowed, a gruesome shape that cut very close to the tone of his voice as if he were gossiping.

"The silk threads are growing on me."

"The gods told me that it was the pain of the people turned into chains in me, and the more sacrifices I received and the more pain I had felt, the more the pain of those sacrifices would become threads that wrapped around me."

"It's so strange." Xie Ta sounded puzzled, "I haven't received a single sacrifice of pain lately, and yet I'm getting more and more silk threads on my body."

"Whose pain is it that these threads, in the end, are turned into?"

Xie Ta looked down at the silk threads wrapped around his body, then raised his eyes to the wooden door: "Is it Bai Liu's pain?"

"But I have clearly never seen Bai Liu since then, nor has Bai Liu offered your pain as a sacrifice to me, and these threads should not have been turned into your pain."

The translucent threads were created one by one out of thin air and woven into a sharp web that cut into Xie Ta's face, blood flowing down his jaw from the wound.

"...... And whose pain are these threads, if not Bai Liu's?"

Xie Ta's brow furrowed lightly as he raised his hand to cover his heart, "Why do these threads only wind around me when you appear?"

Why was it that only the wounds inflicted on him by these threads caused his heart to feel extra pain?

Bai Liu still did not speak.

A light drizzle fell in the woods and the rain pattered.

In the mist and rain, Xie Ta hears Bai Liu's footsteps as he turns to leave, and he can't help but take another step forward.

The moment Xie Ta took that step, as if in response to the sound, countless transparent threads flew out from all directions and tied themselves to Xie Ta's limbs and torso.

As Bai Liu's footsteps move further and further away, the threads on Xie Ta's body grow, almost turning him into a translucent cocoon with only his eyes showing.

Blood dripped from every wound on his body, instantly staining the floor.

Xie Ta looks down at the threads - they appear in dense clusters whenever Bai Liu appears or leaves, trapping him here.

But the gods had clearly said that the threads would not be generated until he felt the exact pain from the sacrifice.

So what exactly are these filaments ......

The sound of Bai Liu's footsteps disappeared completely in the jungle, and Xie Ta stood in a daze, staring at the wooden door with a momentary look of disbelief.

...... This time Bai Liu left, and he didn't sleep through it.

He was still awake, the threads had not disappeared and he was the only one present in the whole shrine.

Xie Ta lowered his eyelashes slowly as he looked at the bloodstained silk threads on his body, nothing on his face.

--Keeps him sober, keeps him bruised all over ......

It is from his own [pain].

On the penultimate rainy night as the summer festival was approaching, the moment the sacrifice left, for the first time, the desireless God developed [pain].

So the dense [pain] kept God sleepless, trapped Him in place, and kept Him at the door, unwilling to leave.

The god persistently pulls the [pain] from his body closer to the wooden door where the sacrifice leaves, and so day after day, the god is awake, persistently waiting in deepening pain for the short arrival of the sacrifice on the next night.

-- as if the gods were offering their own [pain] as a sacrifice.