Chapter 434: Evil God Festival - Boathouse

Xiao Kui continued in a daze:

"Since then, the prefecture has held a grand Evil God Festival every year, and because the Evil God in the dream demanded pure pain, the prefect and the men of the village met for three days and three nights, and ultimately decided unanimously that only a child's pain was the purest, so the sacrifice offered should be a child."

"In the beginning Kagome Prefecture was not that rich, and the sacrifices for the Evil God Festival were not purchased ...... from outside the country but from children who, like me, were chosen from the village."

Surprised, Cangta asked rhetorically, "You had a mother and a father, and they didn't prevent you from being chosen as a sacrifice?"

"It was my father and mother who offered me and my brother as sacrifices." Xiao Kui's voice became choked, "Because the rule in the prefecture is that the right to make a wish belongs to the family who offered the sacrifice, and if the sacrifice is chosen at the end, the right to make a wish belongs to the family."

"There were four children in our family, I was the oldest, with one sister and two brothers, and my father offered me and one of my brothers as a sacrifice in the hope that the Evil Spirit would choose at least one of the two of us, so that our family could make a wish to the Evil Spirit that we wouldn't have to work so hard to go out to sea every day and catch fish in order to feed the whole family. "

"At that time the poor in almost every household offered their children as sacrifices, and the richer families, who did not wish to sacrifice their offspring, would buy children from the poorer families and use them as their own sacrifices after they had been properly trained."

"Because there is no telling who will be chosen by the evil gods, some families will sell in one of their children as a sacrifice if they have extra children."

"I was sold to the Kitahara family by my father." Xiao Kui sobbed quietly, "My name is now Kitahara Xiao Kui."

Cangta sighs sympathetically, "Sacrifices of an evil god? I don't know which is a bit better compared to hard labor."

"Drudgery?" Xiao Kui slowly turned her head, her wet hair covering her thin, pale face, and locked eyes with Bai Liu, who was leaning against the side of the bed, "You have no idea what it takes to be a sacrifice to an evil god."

"You will be whipped, tortured, and in pain, begging for your life and death."

Cangta sounded puzzled, "But so is the drudgery, as soon as you go over there you have to start getting beaten up and made to do the work."

Xiao Kui laughed twice nervously, "But that's not how making offerings works at first."

"In the beginning, you'll be assigned an extra warm boathouse, an extra cute kitten and puppy, squire friends who are extra nice to you, good food at every meal, and parents who visit you daily."

"- You can't even tell for a moment if you've come over to be a sacrifice or a princess."

Cangta asks confused, "Isn't this great?"

Xiao Kui was just about to open her mouth again when the door to the boathouse was violently pushed open, and she stopped her voice with a shudder in her shoulders.

The wind and rain mixed with a low and thick middle-aged man's voice came in, "It's raining heavily, it's exactly the time when this group of pups who have just been picked up are mentally unstable and insecure, so let's divide the cats and dogs among them first, so that they can cuddle each other through the winds and waves, and familiarize themselves with each other first to nurture their feelings."

Another, slightly thinner male voice echoed, "Yes, Lord Gobune."

The dark cabin was illuminated by a dim oil lamp carried by seven or eight men carrying a large, long, wide, black-clothed cage, from which came the rising and falling, long, thin, shivering cries of animal pups:

"Mee-mee-mee-ooooo!"

"Ow... ow... ow... ...... woof!"

A man placed a gas lamp on the bow of Bai Liu's boat, who was sleeping with his eyes closed, and reached out with a calloused, fish-smelling hand to give him a firm pat.

Bai Liu, pretending to have just woken up, opened his eyes and glanced at the animal in the cage the man was carrying in the dim light.

It was an exceptionally beautiful cat with long white fur and silver-blue eyes.

The cat, looking no more than a few months old, was beautiful, fluffy and warm, with a golden bell tied around its neck and the pupils of its eyes turned round in the light of such a grayish glow, and was sitting upright in its cage lifting up one paw and sticking out its little pink tongue to lick the fur of the other little paw that had gotten a little bit of mud on it, and didn't seem to like the fact that it wasn't tidy enough to meet people.

Seeing Bai Liu looking up at him, the cat slightly tilted its head, its pink nose poked out from the cage, and very characteristic of a pet cat, affectionately and without fear of being born, arched Bai Liu's hand that was tied to the rail of the bed enclosure, and whined and trailed off in a long tail tone.

The man carrying the cage saw the scene, but he gave a wry laugh, "This cat is well-trained, it sticks to people when it sees them and likes them."

"I'm going to let him out later and he's going to burrow into your arms, and if you can't hold him steady in the storm, such a cute little kitty is going to get dropped right out of the bed, alive with its insides."

As he said, the man opened the cage, and as he said, the cat went into Bai Liu's arms as soon as it came out of the cage, and finally squeezed out an indentation that could almost hold it, and pressed it tightly against Bai Liu's chest.

The kitten squinted its eyes at the warmth of Bai Liu's body, purring in its throat, lifting its head to rub against Bai Liu's chin and purring, seeming to love the new master it had just found.

The man saw the cat burrow into Bai Liu's arms and withdrew his gaze in satisfaction, carrying the cage to leave, but then turned back as if remembering something and barked, "These animals all have the same name as their owner."

"So this cat has the same name as you, both Bai Liu."

Bai Liu lowered his eyes to look at the kitten cub who was cowering in his arms for warmth and was about to curl up in a ball and fall asleep quite spontaneously.

The kitten's eyes were already about to close, but it seemed to notice that Bai Liu was looking at it, miked and leaned over to Bai Liu's side, resting its head on Bai Liu's bound wrists, stretching its paws against Bai Liu's palms, purring twice, and licking the tip of Bai Liu's nose.

"Don't give me-!!!" A harsh female voice from Bai Liu's bunk interrupted the kitten's attempt to lick Bai Liu's fur, "I don't want this dog!!!"

The kitten's eyes widened at the sound, and together with Bai Liu, they poked their heads down to look.

Xiao Kui struggled desperately on the bed, her eyes red and snotty, her voice shrill and hysterical as she exited the bed, interspersed with crashing sobs, "Don't give me this dog!!!"

Next to Xiao Kui's bed is a small, round-eyed Shiba Inu, half the height of a man's calf, orange in color, with its ears perked up, looking spirited and alert. It seems to have been startled by Xiao Kui's reaction, but then stood by her leg and didn't go away, hesitating for a moment before coming forward to lick Xiao Kui's tears.

Xiao Kui let out a scream of utter devastation, waving her hands unconsciously, "Get lost! Don't lick me! Don't come near me! Go away!"

"I don't want any more pain! I don't want a dog!"

The little Shiba Inu was struck by Xiao Kui's wildly swinging hands and let out a wailing, wailing, wailing cry of terror as he tried to hide behind the man's feet, which he kicked away indifferently and crashed straight into a bedpost following the momentum of the wave that had thrown up the boat.

The sound of the puppy's bones cracking came clearly, and it only let out a very short, miserable wail before it rolled to the ground, the puppy's head and tail knocked together, its eyes wide open, and it lay motionless on the ground.

Holding her face and howling, Xiao Kui's pupils spread open for a split second as she jerked her head around to look at the motionless Shiba Inu, her face still lingering with the touch of being licked by the little Shiba Inu's tongue, her expression completely blank.

Tears slipped unconsciously from Xiao Kui's wide-open eyes in a steady stream as she tremblingly reached out in the direction of the shiba inu pup's body lying on the ground and muttered, "...... Xiao Kui."

At the sight, the man's original impatient expression loosened, revealing a bit of joy as he stroked his palm and laughed, "Crying!"

"I didn't expect to cry with an offering on board, that's a pretty good start." The man turned his head to the man next to him and waved his hand in command, "Bring a couple more cats and a couple more woodchucks."

Soon the cat and the Shiba Inu were brought over.

The man squatted down, and said in a gentle, gentle voice to Xiao Kui, who was lying on her side on the bed in complete stagnation, "Xiao Kui doesn't like dogs, does she? Then Xiao Kui likes cats and kittens?"

"Don't ......" Xiao Kui's tears kept flowing, her pupils were already lax, her voice was hoarse and dry, but she was still refusing, "... ...I don't want a dog or a cat."

"...... I don't want to see [Xiao Kui] die again for being Xiao Kui's friend."

"Really?" With slight regret, the man grabbed a kitten by the back of its neck from the cage and lifted it in front of Xiao Kui's face, "Is Xiao Kui going to push them away so harshly? You were the child who loved small animals the most out of all the sacrifices in the first place."

"Now that they like you so much, don't you want them to be your friends too?"

The kitten knew nothing of what was happening, it mimicked twice, tremblingly propped up its body and arched Xiao Kui, rubbing up against him intimately, shrinking on Xiao Kui's shoulder and not going away.

Xiao Kui slowly clenched her fists as she did her best to turn her head and feign an indifferent tone, "Even if you kill them in front of me, I won't suffer because of them anymore."

"Then there is no way." The man shook his head sadly and leaned over to whisper in Xiao Kui's ear, "Xiao Kui should know, right, that an animal that has no way to cause you pain is of no value on this ship."

He laughed, pinched the back of the kitten's neck and ripped it out of Xiao Kui's arms, then placed his hand on the thin, two-fingers-can-encircle-it neck of the know-nothing, eyes-ignorant, good-naturedly-mimicking kitten looking up at Xiao Kui, then tightened it violently.

The kitten's original mimicry, which carried the meaning of playful intimacy, became mournful, and it struggled with its four little legs, kicking at the man's hand, trying to jump off from his strong grip, but it was a futile struggle; it was not as big as one of the man's palms.

The cat pup's black and white eyes were pinched and filled with blood, his voice was pinched and shrill and shrill before slowly becoming weak again, his struggling claws dropping.

Xiao Kui, dead set on not turning back, finally failed to hold back when the kitten's last meow came out and jerked her head around to frantically reach for the kitten, "Give it to me!"

The man let go of his hand at the sound of his voice, and the kitten, which had been pinched and softened to the point that only a breath was left in it, fell into Xiao Kui's arms and rubbed against Xiao Kui in a mute voice, as if it had suffered an injustice.

Xiao Kui hugged it tightly with tears in her eyes, "Lord Mifune, I want this kitten, I want this Xiao Kui, please give it to me!"

"I'll agonize over it properly later!"

The man stared at Xiao Kui for a moment and suddenly laughed, "Xiao Kui hasn't been chosen by the Evil God a few times because suffering isn't enough, right?"

Slowly, he reached out from Xiao Kui's arms, and in Xiao Kui's near-blank eyes, he pulled the kitten that was deadpanning on Xiao Kui's shirt, and tenderly stroked it twice, then put his hand back on the kitten's neck. Speaking softly:

"Well, let's make it even more painful, Xiao Kui."

The kitten yelped piteously, and this time Mifune never let go, he clapped his hands together and casually tossed the limp kitten's corpse next to Xiao Kui who was in a trance-like expression, and turned to leave:

"Get Xiao Kui another Shiba Inu to keep her company, crush her if she doesn't want to, and get another cat."

"Change until she can't cry."