Chapter 440: Evil God Festival - Boathouse

The other chosen sacrifices were excited to be chosen, but suddenly they were dumbfounded by the sight. Bai Liu, however, calmly pulled the dumbfounded Cangta into the room and bowed slightly to the dead sacrifices of the Kitahara family.

The old servant looked indifferent as he held down the other two unresponsive children to bow and salute these offerings within the shrine, "Honor your predecessors who shattered the jade for the Kitahara family."

The two children walked out of the shrine in a trance, their shoulders shaking.

It didn't seem quite the same as the cushy human life they had imagined.

As if he didn't see the sudden change in the two children's complexion, the old servant bowed his body and continued to take small, quick steps forward, "The residence of the sacrificial adults is in the highest part of the Kitahara family."

"That place is also the closest to the shrine, the largest shrine in Kagome that you'll see every morning when you wake up, and the place where you'll be sacrificed."

"Inside the shrine is the beautiful body of the evil god-sama, we can't disturb it very often, the shrine is only open to the public during the hottest and coldest times of the winter and summer seasons of the year, when the prefecture holds a grand festival of the evil god."

"The boathouses and the sacrifices kept in the great families go to the shrines to pay their respects to the Lord of Evil, but the Lord of Evil lives in a shrine, and only the tears of a sufficiently distressed sacrifice can open his eyes and wake him up."

"Don't run to the mountains on weekday offerings adults, the Evil God-sama is in slumber and doesn't like to be nagged, the shrine doors are always locked, no need to do daily prayers."

Bai Liu's eyes twitched, "The shrine is locked, so in whose hands is the key to the shrine? Is it in the hands of Lord Kitahara?"

The old servant's footsteps lurched as he squinted at Bai Liu: "Yes."

"The key to the shrine will be in the hands of the person who pays the highest taxes each year, the year before last it was in the Gobune family, this year it's the Kitahara family."

The old servant brought Bai Liu and the others to a more remote and high attic, bending down and raising his hand to respectfully make way, "This is the residence of the Lords of the Sacrifice."

"While I understand that the Lords of the Sacrifice are curious about this place having just arrived at the North Plains home, it is now late in the day and Friendly advises that your Lordships should not wander about."

The old servant raised his head slightly, revealing a pair of old and cloudy eyes, "The Kitahara family is very dangerous after nightfall, if you, the Lords of the Sacrifice, die by the hands of any spirits, your bodies will not even be able to enter the Kitahara family's shrine."

Bai Liu, noticing that Cangta and the other two children were white with fear, immediately responded with a loud, "Yes!"

The old servant's eyes turned to Bai Liu, "Where is Lord Bai Liu?"

Bai Liu slowly lowered her eyes, her tone submissive, "I will make good offerings to the Evil Lord here."

The old servant withdrew his gaze with slight satisfaction and bent down, pulling the door closed and bowing to leave, "In a moment, we will help bring your Lordships' belongings from the boathouse, so please take an early rest."

The people of the Kitahara family move very fast, say a while is a while, Bai Liu they stayed in this attic in less than ten minutes, hesitant and few words of the maid Bai Liu their luggage moved in.

Cangta's eyes lit up when she saw the little black cat in the cage, and when she opened it, she wanted to hug her, but the little black cat wiggled its butt out from underneath the cage, and with a high-pitched mike, ran towards Bai Liu, who was sitting by the window in the attic.

Bai Liu used the back of his two-fingered hand to gently stroke the two cats gathered at his feet, and his eyes traveled from the pushed-open window, through the dimming darkness of the night, and landed on the Kagome Shrine deep in the jungle.

Cangta walked up to Bai Liu and asked in a low voice, "Is Bai Liu's lover the evil god who lives in that shrine?"

"Not living." Bai Liu withdrew his gaze, his eyes dropping to the well-behaved white cat rubbing his hands in his arms, "It's being trapped in that shrine."

"So I'm going to bring him out."

"...... Just now you asked for the key to the shrine." Cangta gulps nervously, "Bai Liu are you going to steal the key after nightfall?"

Bai Liu hmmm'd plaintively.

Cangta instantly tightened, "But that old servant said that the Kitahara's would have a grudge at night, and Bai Liu, you don't know where the key is in the Kitahara's, so that's too much of a risk!"

"There are ways around all of this." Bai Liu glances up at Cangta, "As long as, Cangta, you are willing to help me."

Cangta was dumbfounded, "How can I help you?"

Bai Liu: "Find out Kitahara Xiao Kui here."

After nightfall, the courtyard of the Kitahara family was dark, the grass and trees reflected dark shadows of uncertainty on the veranda, and the stone furnace beside the rockery worked day and night, flickering with a faint, ghostly fire, and the air was steaming with a sticky, hot and humid vapor.

Cangta, who ran out in the darkness of the night, lowered his head and ran as fast as he could down the corridor, not daring to look up at the surrounding scenery, quickly reciting in his mind what Bai Liu had told him--

--Kitahara Xiao Kui As one of the Kitahara family's sacrifices, she and her brother were both bought in by the Kitahara family the first year they carried out the Evil God Festival.

And last year Kitahara Xiao Kui's brother was sacrificed.

This younger brother was intentionally raised by the Kitahara family, carrying more than a year close to two years share of the pain, a one-time sacrifice in exchange for the desire to directly allow the Kitahara family to develop into the No. 1 in Kagome Prefecture, it is enough to see how painful Xiao Kui's younger brother in the Kitahara family in the past two years.

That's not to mention how valuable Xiao Kui, who had been carrying three years of pain on her body, was to the Kitahara family. It was definitely one of the most substantial offerings of the Kitahara family, so it was no wonder that she was recaptured even after escaping.

Bai Liu lifted his eyelids and leveled his eyes at Cangta : "The key to the shrine should be on Kitahara Xiao Kui, or Kitahara Xiao Kui's brother."

Cangta froze, full of confusion, "Eh? Isn't the key to the shrine something valuable? Why would the Kitahara family put the key on the body of an offering?!"

"Because they are the closest to God." Bai Liu looked at Cangta, "This is a family that deludes itself that it is getting closer and closer to the god, they built their mansion in a place where they can look up to the god's abode, they built the attic we live in so that it can look down on the shrine, and they have an extreme yearning and worship of the evil god, then the odds are that the key to shutting the god off will also be placed on the people of the Kitahara family who are the closest to the god, the on the sacrifices."

Cangta is still a bit hesitant, "But even if it's placed on the sacrifices, why is Bai Liu so sure about Xiao Kui and his brother? The Kitahara family has more than a few sacrifices ......"

"It's more than these few." Bai Liu's tone was calm, "But when it comes to the ones who have contributed the most to the Kitahara family, the most monumental ones are the two siblings."

"If I'm not mistaken, Kitahara Xiao Kui and her brother should be the first pair of [retainers] and [sacrifices] of the Kitahara family."

"They are the first pair of sacrifices to walk into the shrine representing the Kitahara family."

Cangta still can't forget the goosebumps he felt when he heard Bai Liu's judgment.

He was walking in the warm night air now, the flowers blooming and the water flowing in the courtyard to his right, and he took a deep breath, and the aroma was rich and warm, but Cangta felt it was like something raised by the grievances of the sacrifices as they howled in agony, warm on the surface but chilling to the bone.

Bai Liu says that Kitahara Xiao Kui, as the most noble and valuable offering with three years of agonizing ripeness, must have lived in the attic of the Kitahara family, the highest and closest to the gods.

Cangta ran twice around the place where they lived using various excuses, and finally saw an exceptionally well-built loft across from the one they were living in.

There was only one room in this attic, and it was like a beacon with empty wooden frames below it, except for a long flight of steps leading down from the attic door, the entrance to which was guarded by two servants.

Cangta secreted herself in the grass and trees, looking at the two guards, then up at the wooden loft with its closed doors and windows, lavishly built and surrounded by piles of flowers.

Xiao Kui Kitahara lives there.

"It's almost like a place where a princess lives." Cangta whispers somewhat trance-like, "But it's really just a sacrifice ......"

Having said that, Cangta crouched down in the bushes and began to wait patiently.

After nightfall, these servants would have left the guardhouse because there were spirits roaming the courtyard, and they would have returned to where they lived, or stayed nearby in a side room to guard Xiao Kui.

Sure enough, in no time at all, the two servants climbed up into the attic and went into the side room to sleep, one on each side.

Cangta breathed a long sigh of relief as he dived through the grass and hung on to the back of the steps, gritting his teeth as he climbed them one rung at a time, then carefully grasped the crack in the window sill and knocked gently.

"Xiao Kui." Cangta inquired very softly as she pressed herself against the window, "This is Cangta, are you there?"

After a long, long time, so long that Cangta thought Xiao Kui would not open the window, the window slowly opened from the inside, and Xiao Kui, wearing a close-fitting shirt, her face gaunt and pale, appeared at the window, her tone cold, "What are you doing here? Is it some new trick the Kitahara family is playing to coax me to escape and capture me back, then make me suffer even more?"

Cangta was stunned, and before he could say anything, Kitahara Xiao Kui was about to indifferently slam the window shut again, and in a rush, he forcefully rolled over and barged into Xiao Kui's apartment, shaking his head while explaining, "No, I'm a retainer who was chosen by the Kitahara family."

"I'm here because my Lord Sacrifice, known as Bai Liu, wants the key to the shrine."

Cangta looked eagerly at Xiao Kui and pleaded with her hands together, "He said you'd help me, do you have the key?"

Xiao Kui said quietly, "Bai Liu, why did he ask you to come to me for the key to the shrine?"

Cangta scratches his head and thinks about it but chooses to be truthful to Gao, "He said that the evil god-sama in the shrine is his lover and he's going to elope with the other side."

Although Bai Liu didn't put it that directly, that's pretty much what it means here at Cangta.

Xiao Kui's face changed and was stunned again, as if she had really heard something very funny she slapped the ground and laughed so hard that tears came out of her eyes, "Elope with the Evil God ...... hahahaha, hahahaha!"

Cangta was so frightened that she knelt down and covered Xiao Kui's mouth, "Don't laugh! You'll be in trouble if you invite the servants over!"

"It won't." Xiao Kui lazily lies on the ground on his back, his eyes out of focus as he stares at the ceiling of the attic, muttering, "I often laugh like this nervously in the middle of the night, they won't care."

"They just need to make sure I'm alive and I'm in pain, that's all."

Cangta was again looking complicated and full of doubts, "What were you just laughing at?"

"Laughing Bai Liu made up a random lie and you believed it." Xiao Kui lazily raised her hand to wipe the tears from the corner of her eyes, "There's no way he and the Evil God are lovers, let alone eloping with the Evil God."

Cangta is unconvinced, retorting, "But when Lord Bai Liu talks about evil gods, I think he's serious!"

"Seriously ......" Xiao Kui whispered out of nowhere, "My brother is also a very serious person, he once said he would take me away from this place too."

Cangta paused, and after a moment's hesitation, he managed to ask, "Are you and your brother, too, a pair of sacrifices and squires?"

Xiao Kui closed her eyes, "Uh-huh."

"I'm the sacrifice, he's the squire."

"My brother is three years younger than me, he is ignorant of these things, unable to understand the significance covered by many things, so it's also hard for him to get up in pain, even after being tortured by the Kitahara family and beaten to the point where he's covered in blood, but after a while when he sees me he breaks down again and hugs me and calls out to me as his sister, pampering himself with me."

"He only understands pain, not suffering."

Tears slipped from the corners of Xiao Kui's tightly closed eyes, and her voice became hoarse, "But I look at him like that, and I'm scared, and I'm in pain all the time."

"Even when I was tortured in the same way, I suffered far more than he did, as if that pain he didn't understand was transferred to me, so I was always the sacrifice."

"I thought it would go on like this, and then when the day came that I was sacrificed, he would be banished from the Kitahara family, and would probably return to the boathouse to live in a caged life, and then even then I thought it would be better than staying with the Kitahara family as a sacrifice."

"Because he's been raised in this environment, I know that even caged, he can live a happy, joyful life and not be in pain, because that's the world he's recognized since he was a little kid up until now, and he doesn't know anything about it."

"He thinks this is the way the world is supposed to be, that the world is supposed to be so cruel."

"But one day." Xiao Kui opened her empty eyes, "The Kitahara family sent teachers to my brother and me."

"They are beginning to teach us what the real world is like."

"Every day, every single day, we have to look at a lot of people who are living a much happier life than we are, thousands, hundreds of millions, who will have a pair of loving parents from birth, who will have great friends, study normally, grow up, have people who love them, get married to each other, have children, and then continue to live so happily ever after in this world. "

"Those teachers would tell us that this was the normal life, the life that most people lead, that we were deviants, that we were living an abnormal, lowly, life where we had to be tortured to survive."

"And then the Kitahara's taught us this while intensifying their torture."

"Like telling us today that moms and dads love their children, and then tomorrow inviting our parents to come see us get tortured and then giving them lots and lots of money."

"Today we were told that we could all play with our favorite critters, and tomorrow morning when I woke up, I saw the Sunny Day doll hanging outside my window change from a doll to my puppy."

"The sun was so high, my puppy was hanging from the eaves, his tongue out, the collar around his neck had little flowers I had sewn for him, and flies surrounded him."

"When my brother and I broke down and cried while putting the puppy's body down." Xiao Kui numbly wept, "My brother he finally understood."

"The world isn't so cruel, it's just cruel to us."

"He said to me, Sister, I must take you away from this place."

"He began to torture himself more and more, he must become more painful than me, he wanted to be a sacrifice, he would come to me when he was being tortured to the point of insanity, and while he was crying he would say, "Sister, if only I make one sacrifice, we can live a normal life."

"We will live happily ever after, and the Evil Lord will be able to see our pain."

"As soon as I have sacrificed my pain to Him, after completing one sacrifice, let's run and escape this place."

"He cried and told me that we escaped to one of those places we read about in books and on TV, and that we could have lots of puppies without being hanged, and that we wouldn't have to be watched by mom and dad every day as we were held down in the dog bowl while being whipped and eating dog food."

"Sister, there must be people who love us very much in existence, we suffer so much just so we can meet those happy things in the future, there must be hope."

Xiao Kui took a deep, shaky breath, "I know those teachers taught us that just so they could give us hope."

"Only if there is hope that the pain from the torture will last long enough for us not to take our own lives so easily, we will endure for the existence of that hope always, always, until the day of the sacrifice."

"My brother he literally became a sacrifice and I became his squire."

"On the day he was sent to the shrine to be sacrificed, I repeatedly confirmed with the people of the Kitahara family that it would only take one painful sacrifice for the Kitahara family for my brother to receive a large sum of money, and that they would not restrict my brother's movements, and that he would indeed be able to leave Kagome Prefecture at any time."

"I watched him walk into the shrine, and then there was the sound of the shrine loosening up from inside, and everyone around me was so excited that the Evil God-sama had opened his eyes and stepped down from the shrine, and I was so excited, too."

"Then my brother walked out of the shrine with his head down and his hands shaking."

Xiao Kui turns around and looks at Cangta with tearful, dead eyes, but the corners of her mouth are smiling, a reckless, hoarse laugh:

"Everyone else in the Kitahara family was rushing towards the shrine to make a wish, but only I stepped forward to help my brother, who was about to fall, and he looked up at me with a completely blank stare, his hands so cold they looked like a corpse, his speech was completely preverbal, and spit dripped from his mouth as soon as he opened it, but I was able to piece together what he was trying to tell me, relying on the years of understanding I'd had with him. "

"He said, Sister, that it was a trick, a lie."

"If the suffering of the sacrifice does not move the Lord of Evil, the Lord of Evil will not open his eyes and step down from the shrine to grant the person's wish, and the sacrifice will not be able to leave here."

"If the pain of the sacrifice impresses the Evil Lord, and the Evil Lord opens his eyes, all the sacrifice has to do is look into the Evil Lord's silver-blue eyes, and we go mad and kill ourselves."

"We can't run away."

Xiao Kui laughed out wildly as she burst into tears, "And then my brother, after he came back hung outside my roof and hung himself."

"-like a sunny day doll."

"You tell me." Xiao Kui wriggled up off the ground, bracing herself on her arms, her messy hair sliding down the side of her bloodless face as she laughed two nervous laughs, "Evil gods who can't even look at-"

"How did Bai Liu fall in love with Him and become lovers with Him?"