Chapter 442: Evil God Festival - Boathouse

The moonlight reflected on the surface of the pool where the goldfish were swimming, creating a fish-scaled, broken light.

The silhouettes of two people reflected in the rippling water, close together to read a book, the slightly curling night wind blowing away the soft conversation between the two people, the only thing that can be heard in the silence is the flow of the spring and the song of the birds.

"Why is this book torn?"

"It was torn up and thrown in the pond by a little kid at an orphanage I was at, but I really liked the book, so I picked it up and glued it back together."

"Why did he tear up your book?"

"I don't know, maybe he doesn't like me or my books, after all no one likes a monster that won't die."

Sheta said it in a light, natural voice, as if she didn't think it mattered.

Bai Liu's voice paused, "How did you get here?"

Sheta lowered her eyelashes, "The kid who tore up my book cut me up and pushed me into the water, and I drifted with the current for a long, long time, and slowly assembled back up again, and by the time I was conscious, I was in this shrine."

"Have you ever thought about ......" Bai Liu sidled his head, looking at the side of Sheta's face, "leaving here?"

Sheta turned over to look Bai Liu flat in the eye, "I can't leave."

He opened his arms slightly, and through the reflection of the moonlight, Bai Liu saw for a moment the millions of silver threads that were wrapped around Sheta's body, streaming with color, coming from the four sides of the shrine, tying themselves around Sheta's wrists, ankles, limbs, and torso, and tightly strangling him.

"This is the puppet strings that God has tied around me." Sheta said in a flat tone, "Because I have not fulfilled God's expectations of me, I am here to be honed until I can become a competent evil god."

Bai Liu stares at Sheta: "A qualified evil god?"

Sheta turned her head, her eyes calm and serene as she watched the goldfish swimming in the pond, "Able to be a vessel for all men's desires, able to become powerful because of the pain that comes from human sacrifice, able to turn the world upside down into a wicked game."

"I couldn't do it, so I was banished."

Bai Liu's eyes deepened, "Banished from what?"

Sheta was quiet for a moment, "I don't remember."

"All I remember is that I was covered in a white cloth and couldn't move, and then a man would visit me every day and ask me if I wanted to be an evil god."

"Each time I answered no, he would trim and carve my face and body with implements through the white cloth, then leave and come back the next day to ask me again, until he sighed one day and said to me, you can never have a soul in my hands, you need to go on a journey, and so I was banished."

Bai Liu asks, "Why don't you want to be an evil god?"

Sheta paused, "Because I can't understand it."

"Every sacrifice that comes to see me here at the Shrine, that can open my eyes from slumber, possesses the desire for extreme pain."

"They come up to me, push aside my sleeping shrine, look up at me with obscure, lightless eyes, kneel before me in tears and supplicate me, or curse and shove me so hard that they force me to fulfill their desires."

"But I don't have the power to grant people's wishes, only true evil gods do."

"If the pain of these sacrifices is of sufficiently high quality to meet God's requirements, God will satisfactorily fulfill the desires of these pain sacrifices while transferring their pain, desires, and memories to me, so that I can physically feel once again the pain that these sacrifices have experienced."

"God has always said to me that pain makes the soul more valuable and that I need to be sculpted by pain."

Sheta looked down at the carefree swimming goldfish in the pond, he reached out and tapped the water with his fingertips, the ripples cascaded and the goldfish swam away in all directions as he continued:

"But no matter how many people's pains and desires I received, I was like an inferior funnel, never able to take on or utilize them to become an evil god."

"Human desire or pain, I can't understand it, and the one who carved me said that I clearly had the most evil and powerful body in the world, but was just a failed vessel that couldn't hold any evil."

"He said it was because I had no soul, and that for a monster without a soul, pain is worthless."

"I don't understand why people have desires and suffer, nor do I understand that even though they suffer like this, they continue to pray to the evil gods who torment them to fulfill their desires."

"Obviously just give up."

Sheta turned to me, and he placed his hand gently on the back of Bai Liu's, gazing at him earnestly and inquiring in a low voice, "Bai Liu has come to me and awakened me; may you tell me what desire you have that must be fulfilled no matter how painful it may be?"

"Can you tell me why you won't give up this desire?"

Bai Liu avoids Sheta's gaze slightly as he drops his eyes and draws back his hand, fingers curling as he hmms very softly.

Sheta leaned forward and looked intently into Bai Liu's eyes filled with pure curiosity, "Why would Bai Liu not give up this desire no matter how much pain he was in?"

Bai Liu paused, his tone light: "Maybe it's because the pain that comes from giving up this person is stronger than the pain that comes from giving up getting this person."

Sheta a quiet one.

Slowly he sat up straight, then withdrew his hand from the back of Bai Liu's hand and pulled away from him, narrowing his brow to look at the reflection of his own swaying bare feet on the sink, the chains on which he had shaken them with a lingering sound.

Sheta asks rhetorically, in a very soft voice, "Is Bai Liu's desire to turn out to be a person?"

"It's rare that just one person can be so painful to the point of awakening me."

Sheta lowered her eyes, "Can you describe to me the pain that you have created because of this person, what kind of pain would cause you to come and pray with an evil god?"

Bai Liu also lowered his head as he looked at Sheta's bobbing reflection on the water, and slightly sidestepped his face, his tone calm, "It's probably painful enough to become an evil god."

Sheta's eyes widened slightly, and he turned his head violently to see Bai Liu's appearance, but he realized that Bai Liu stood up with his knees, and said faintly, "It's going to be light soon, I have to go." He turned around and was about to leave. He turned around and was about to leave.

"Please wait!" Sheta reached out her hand to try to grab Bai Liu, who had turned to leave.

But the moment Sheta reaches out, a myriad of threads surge and overlap around his wrist, tautly pulling, stopping the moment Sheta's fingertips touch the hem of Bai Liu's fluttering coat.

Sheta's fingertips were pulled until they turned white, but he still clutched the hem of Bai Liu's shirt very gently and firmly and tugged on it, he tilted his head and looked at Bai Liu, his tone was very soft: "Will you come back tomorrow?"

Bai Liu halted his departure, he didn't look back, "Do you wish me to come?"

Sheta's long eyelashes quivered slightly, "Uh-huh."

Bai Liu's tone was flat, "I'll be here tomorrow night then."

When Bai Liu pushed open the door of the shrine and disappeared from Sheta's sight, Sheta, who was held by the puppet silk, felt a strong drowsiness, he slowly collapsed on the wooden corridor, the books were scattered on the ground, Sheta tried hard to open his eyes to look at Bai Liu's back for a few moments, but he was controlled by the puppet silk and had to fall into a deep sleep.

It was the first time he'd seen a sacrifice that woke him up just by walking into a shrine.

This sacrifice named Bai Liu looked into his eyes, looking him flatly in the eyes, obviously having so many desires and pains, but not going crazy from those things, always looking at him, the horrible evil god, so calmly and without waves.

--The eyes were full of feelings he didn't understand.

He'd love to see it again.

Sheta leaned against the old wooden planks as he looked in the direction Bai Liu had left and slowly closed his eyes.

Bai Liu carried the night light down the mountain, went back to the shrine and put the key away, then went back to the attic where he lived, and as soon as he pushed open the door, there was Cangta, who was so scared that he jumped up, his eyes lit up when he saw that it was Bai Liu, and he let out a breath of relief by patting his chest and said, "You're back at last! It's almost dawn!"

Then Cangta worriedly told Bai Liu what Xiao Kui had told him, and Bai Liu nodded - it was pretty much what he had expected.

"Then won't we be tortured like this during the day?" Cangta was already starting to feel her bones ache with anxiety as she thought of all the scenarios Xiao Kui was talking about under her breath.

"You're a squire, don't worry too much." Bai Liu said as he unzipped his tunic and piled it next to his pillow, his eyes closed as he prepared to sleep, "It should be the sacrifices they're mainly torturing."

Cangta looked helplessly at Bai Liu who was fast asleep, there were a lot of words that she wanted to say but in the end not a single word came out, she just let out a long and quiet sigh.

It was obvious that he was about to be severely tortured and agonized by those perverted Kitahara family members, and he was still able to fall asleep so naturally and quickly.

He didn't even sleep last night as a squire.

As a sacrifice, Bai Liu's master has a really good heart ......

"Right, tomorrow night I'm going to break into the shrine once more to steal the key." Bai Liu closed his eyes and suddenly opened his mouth, "The black dog spirits over at the shrine recognize their masters, I need something that smells like Xiao Kui, have you stolen Xiao Kui's clothes and brought them back?"

Cangta shot to her head and snapped, "I almost forgot, I brought it back!"

Then when Cangta reacted, she exclaimed, "What! You're going to steal the key to the shrine in the back of the hill tomorrow night!"

"Uh-huh." Bai Liu snorted lazily and rolled over to sleep, "He's trapped in there and can't leave, so that'll have to do for now."

Bai Liu was fast asleep, leaving a terrified Cangta frantically tensing up and biting her hand to fantasize.

Night two.

Cangta was wrapping a bandage around Bai Liu's shoulder, and as soon as the bandage was wrapped, blood seeped out, so Cangta looked worried and scared, and her voice even sounded like she was crying, "The Kitahara family has really gone too far! How could they lynch you guys right off the bat!"

Bai Liu looked unperturbed as he put on his coat after wrapping the straps and stood up, "I'm off."

While he could cut Liu Jiayi's panels to heal his wounds, in this current situation, healing wounds easily was not a good thing for an offering.

Cangta worriedly knelt at Bai Liu s feet, "Master Bai Liu, you came back last night and slept for just a short while, and during the day you were ...... attacked by the North Plains family again Do you still want to go tonight?"

"Go." Bai Liu was succinct.

An hour later.

Xiao Kui, who was boredly lying on her back by the window, had no clothes on, and her back, like Bai Liu's, was covered with many knife cuts, still fresh, but casually exposed to the air and untreated by her.

She was staring out the window with one hand propped up on her jaw, lost in thought, when the tail of her eye suddenly swept over something, and Xiao Kui's eyes suddenly froze as she saw a small, dim light once again on the path leading to the hilltop shrine.

"Again?!" Xiao Kui was stunned and frowning again, "This guy really doesn't want to die, he was only tortured during the day, and then he goes again at night?!"

Bai Liu pushed open the door to the shrine and followed yesterday's path one floor at a time into the interior, then pushed open the door to the shrine.

As the moonlight cleansed, and Sheta remained in the same position, looking back at him, Bai Liu stepped onto the old wooden planks that lined the corridor, and a wave of dizziness washed over him.

The loss of blood from the wound and the chase and tug of war with the black dog spirit, as well as the haste to run to the shrine made Bai Liu slightly dizzy at this moment, he braced himself against the pillar at the entrance to stabilize his somewhat shaky body.

Sheta instantly realized that something was wrong with Bai Liu, he frowned and came forward, just to reach out to help Bai Liu who was leaning forward.

A small, delicately styled dress with cherry blossoms embroidered on the chest floats slowly out of Bai Liu's sleeves and twirls to the ground.

Sheta and Bai Liu moved their eyes over at the same time.

--This is the Xiao Kui clothing that Cangta stole in a panic from Xiao Kui's attic and that Bai Liu used to fool the black dog spirits.

This is a women's liner.

Sheta's movements as he prepared to hold Bai Liu gave way, and he slowly withdrew his hand and tucked it inside the cuff, looking down at the garment in an uncertain tone, "...... Is this the clothing of a man whose desires Bai Liu was unable to restrain?"

"You carry it with you?"

Bai Liu: "......"