Chapter 448: The Evil God Festival - The Boathouse

Next day.

Bai Liu's group was taken to the boathouse for testing, but Xiaokui was left at Bei Yuan's house.

Bai Liu is still being received by the imperial boat at the boathouse.

The man had grown gloomy and old again after months of absence, his head shrunken, his face wrinkled like old skin, looking at Bai Liu with the eyes of some kind of deep-sea fish, a murky hunting look in them.

The offering standing next to Bai Liu was neat and tidy, wearing clothes of great value, but the same could not be said of the attendant.

Except for those chosen by the clan like Aota, the squires left behind in the boathouse were all dishevelled, skinny and stinking of fowl, their eyes vacant, their heads bowed as they followed the offerings, like walking corpses.

"Come here." Mifune beckoned, his tone grim, "I hope your suffering satisfies us before it satisfies the gods."

Bai Liu followed the imperial boat with downcast eyes, and after a few turns entered a spacious and gloomy Japanese room.

In the centre of the interior are two hollowed-out tiles on the floor, with an arrangement of mountain stones emerging from beneath the floor, topped by a small but elaborate balance, and a red wooden tray on a stone platform on which about a dozen gilt, translucent silk threads are placed.

Bai Liu glanced at the threads and saw that they were of a similar size and material to those tied to Xie Ta's body.

All the offerings and attendants stand in several rows in front of this mountain rock, heads bowed.

"These are the instruments used to test your pain for the past six months, the Hoowolf Scales and the Threads of Pain." Mifune stood with his hands behind his back next to the scales, tilting his chin slightly to look askance at everyone, "These threads are condensed from the pain of the previous successful sacrificial masters, and with the permission of the Supreme God of Dreams, we have carefully stripped these threads from the bodies of the evil gods in the shrine to test your [pain] levels."

"You will place your right hand on one side of the scales and on the other side we will place the thread of pain."

"The Hoewolf Scales can detect the pain in your hearts, and if the pain in your hearts is heavier than the threads, the scales will fall to your side, and of course, if your pain is lighter than these threads of pain, the scales will fall to the other side."

"According to our previous experience, a sacrifice that can weigh as much as a silk thread in pain is a qualified sacrifice that can be offered."

The imperial boat swept all the offerings with a sidelong glance, "There is no order to the testing, who wants to go first."

There was a palpable unease on the faces of the offerings, and after a moment of slight commotion from below, one of the offerings took a deep breath and raised his hand, saying shakily, "I ...... come."

Mikifune waved his hand and a servant bowed next to him and moved the scales under the mountain rock, holding the sterling silver tweezers discreetly in his silk-gloved hand and a painful silk thread in his right hand, which he placed on the left end of the scales with the lower end of his right hand supported by his left.

The balance instantly fell to the left, the bottom of the plate hitting the base with a crunching sound.

Cang-tae was staggered and whispered in Bai Liu's ear, "This silk thread looks so heavy."

The sacrifice looked at the thread, as if relieved to think that he could easily press the scales to his side, and then he shook his right hand and placed it on the right-hand plate of the scales.

The scales don't move at all.

The face of this sacrifice went white instantly.

It was obvious that he began to press his hand hard against the plate, but even when the sacrifice was so hard that his face turned red, the hands of the scales did not turn at all, as if nothing had been placed on the right plate at all.

The imperial ship frowned angrily, "Not a single heavy grunt of pain, punk!"

With that he kicked it, and the offering was kicked straight into two rolls, hitting the door and falling to the floor, and the imperial ship turned its head to the servants without even looking, "Where is the squire who served him? Tell his attendant to come and inspect!"

The servant knelt and bowed his head, "Yes, Lord Gosho."

Soon the squire of this offering was brought up, a squire who was almost too tortured to react to the sound of a human voice, and was held down by a servant who placed his hand on the right plate of the scales.

When his hand was placed on the scales, the hands wavered very slightly and deflected two frames to the right.

The imperial ship's expression instantly stretched, "Nice, two frames, two-fifths of a silk thread in pain."

He looked over at the dull, dirty-faced squire and nodded in satisfaction, "From this day onwards, you are the Lord of the Offerings."

"And the sacrifice you serve becomes your attendant."

The last bit of blood faded from the face of the sacrificial victim who had been kicked aside at the words of Mifune, and he flung himself around Mifune's thigh, breaking down and crying, trying to put his hand on the scales again, "Mifune, please let me try again Mifune!"

The imperial boat was familiar: "Take him to the cage and lock him up with his pets."

The maid bowed her head, "Yes."

Two servants dragged the crying offering down.

Shortly afterwards the servants returned, one on his knees reporting to Mifune, "Shortly after we put him in the cage, he suddenly went mad and cried out and strangled his kitten, then kowtowed and begged us to test him again, Lord Mifune, do we need to test him again?"

The imperial ship shook its head indifferently, "Let him suffer for a while longer."

"The next sacrifice."

The sacrifices were shocked by this brutal start, one by one the ones that went up for testing looked paler than the other, the ones that barely passed came down hijacked and then disoriented, and Aota heard several of the sacrifices muttering to themselves about what to do, what they had to do to make themselves more miserable and so on.

Dozens of offerings were tested and none of them deflected more than three frames when the hand of the offering was placed on the scales.

The imperial ship's face grew unpleasant and the gaze he gave to the sacrifice grew unkind: "Not even one sacrifice that can reach a single pain, it seems that we are too good for you."

The offerings trembled with fear and none dared to look up at the face of the imperial boat.

It wasn't until that crazy offering from the Bei Yuan family went up that things took a turn for the worse.

The moment the insane sacrifice placed his hand on the scales under the guidance of his attendant, the hands of the scales "snapped" all the way around and hit the last cell on the right.

Mikifune's eyes twitched as he looked towards this offering, "Whose offering is this?"

The maid replied respectfully, "It's from Bei Yuan's house."

Mikifune's eyes clouded over for a moment as he sneered and said rather grimly, " The Bei Yuan family has always had a knack for torturing sacrifices."

"Release the silk thread again, and I'll see just how much of a painful sacrifice the Bei Yuan family has raised in the last six months."

The servant took small steps forward and added another filament to the left pan of the balance with tweezers.

The needle of the balance wavered a little, two frames to the left, but it was still three frames short of the centre line."

"It's actually heavier than two ......" Mikifune's face was so dark it could almost drip, "Add more!"

The maid added another one.

The needle of the scale veered to the second compartment on the right, and the servant looked up at the imperial boat with a slightly surprised look on his face, "My lord, this offering has two and a half roots of pain, perfectly adequate for the offering table at the summer festival."

Mikifune let out a dark oh and looked sideways at the other offerings, "Where is the other Bei Yuan family offering?"

The maid removed the two silk threads and looked to Bai Liu who was standing in the last row: "It seems to be that one."

Mikifune raised his chin, "You come up here."

Mrs. Aoi swallowed nervously as he watched Bai Liu calmly rise and step forward, curling his pale, thin knuckled fingers apart and placing them on the right-hand plate of the scale.

The balance, with only one wire in place, spun instantly, and the hand did not stop after hitting the last frame on the right, but hit the entire bottom of the dial directly with a taut crunching sound.

The scales, which had just been pressed and pressed with all their strength by many of the offerings, did not budge at all, but now Bai Liu put his hand on them with a light touch, as if they could not bear it, and the wire and the cross-frame of the scales shook.

The imperial ship turned its head sharply to look at God Xiang's unusually coloured Bai Liu and ordered in a deep voice, "Add the line."

The servant answered quickly and then carefully, one by one, added lines to the left pan of the balance.

One, two ...... ten sticks.

By the time the eleventh was added and the needle of the balance still hit the bottom right, the expressions of everyone in the room changed.

The sacrifices looked blankly at Bai Liu sitting at the right end of the scales, the maids' hands began to tremble as they added threads, Mifune stared in death at the seemingly unexceptional sacrifice, and Aota stared in awe and dismay at the silk threads gradually piling up in the left tray.

"Seventeen of them." The servant looked incredulously at Bai Liu and then back at the gosho, "...... Gosho-sama, we ran out of the silk threads we brought over."

Without moving his eyes from his own on Bai Liu at all, Gifune waved his hand, "Go get it from the Gifune family's warehouse."

His gaze obscured, "There's plenty more there, bring it all over."

The servant bowed his head and knelt, "Yes!"

Ten minutes later, servants running in small steps entered the peace room carrying a dozen or so very heavy-looking boxes each, which were then arranged in order and lined up in a row.

These heavy-looking wooden boxes contain only a few strands of silk, but together, a dozen of them are not a small amount.

With a wave of his hand, Mikifune said, "Add it all together."

The servants placed the boxes of silk thread in batches, but the left pan of the scales, which was the size of a man's palm, was instantly piled high with mountains of silk thread.

As the last bar of the last box was added, the scales were pressed until the bent cross-frame creaked as if overwhelmed. The imperial boat finally raised its hand and shouted stop.

With shaking hands, the maids pulled a small white towel from their lapels and wiped the sweat from the corners of their foreheads, their dazed eyes moving slowly from the hands of the scales, which still struck the bottom right, to the face of Bai Liu, who looked so calm that nothing could be seen in his eyes, a look of uncontrollable fear slowly creeping into them.

These were almost all the threads they had picked off the body of the evil god.

When a person's level of suffering is equal to what God endures and has not gone mad ......

This man must, must do terrible things!

A look of excitement bordering on the morbid appeared on the face of Mikifune as he stepped forward and lifted Bai Liu's face with his fan, surveying him as carefully as if he were an antique treasure of great value, asking in a hoarse voice as he did so, "...... What is your name. "

Bai Liu gazed at the imperial boat without a ripple in his gaze: " Bei Yuan Bai six ."

Mifune snorted contemptuously the moment he heard the surname: " Bei Yuan is not a good surname."

He leaned down and gazed into Bai Liu's pupils with a certain greed magnified in his eyes.

"You're such a painful sacrifice, I think you'd be better called Mikoto."