Chapter 444: Evil God Festival - Boathouse

Bai Liu sidled his head, his eyes shifted down to avoid Sheta's gaze, and he stood up very quickly, his tone calm: "It's getting light, I have to go back."

"Then ...... " Sheta tilted his head quietly, his silver-blue eyes reflecting both the dull moon in the sky and Bai Liu standing at the edge of the cloister , inquiring in a very soft tone, "Will you be back tomorrow? "

Bai Liu was quiet, he didn't ask [So do you want me to come] today as he did yesterday, but Sheta, as if she knew that Bai Liu wanted to ask this question, answered naturally: "I want you to come tomorrow."

The light in his eyes floated, reflecting the clouds of first light, "I want you to come day after day."

"So I can see you every day."

Bai Liu's breathing broke for a beat, his fingers curled up at his side, and when he spoke again it was in a tone so flat that it seemed like a stranger: "Why do you see me every day?"

"I'm just a common sacrifice."

"There is no need for the High Evil One to see me day in and day out, and then waste so much emotion and curiosity on a common sacrifice like me."

Sheta looked intently at Bai Liu: "That's if you're just an ordinary sacrifice."

"Then why did you steal the key and come up to see me the night before?"

"Obviously we'll see it at the Evil God Festival in a few months, won't we?"

Bai Liu for a meal.

Sheta suddenly smiled, he lowered his fluttering eyelashes to Bai Liu's right hand which was slightly curled behind his back, then Sheta lifted his left hand and slipped his long fingers into the gap between Bai Liu's clasped fingers, then slowly took Bai Liu's hand in his hands with his fingers intertwined.

"Obviously it was you who awakened me with pain, and who wanted to come to see me, but in the end it was I, an evil god who knows nothing, who had to tell you why I wanted to see you day after day."

"I'm just an inferior, substandard mirror."

Sheta raised her eyes and looked at Bai Liu with one eye: "Naturally, why Bai Liu wants to see me, is why I want to see Bai Liu."

"Can I wait for you tomorrow night?"

Bai Liu's lips pursed into a straight line, he clenched Sheta's cold fingers in his hand for a second, but quickly loosened them again, and with his head down quickly walked towards the exit of the shrine, leaving behind only a sentence of little emotion:

"I won't be here tomorrow night, so you don't have to wait."

Sheta's hand was released and she fell onto the back porch.

The wind blew up the big tree in the middle of the courtyard, and the fallen leaves fell down in a flurry, making ripples on the pond, Sheta stood up, his whole body was enveloped in a light, cicada-like, thin, and wide coat that was blown up, and his eyes were separated by the veil, the fallen leaves, the wind, and the morning color, so hazy that he could not be seen clearly at all, and he could only see the smile that was gradually fading from Sheta's face and the pale lips as if it was a few years old.

Bai Liu heard the sound of chains moving behind him, and he heard the chains on Sheta's feet dragging across the floor, then tensing and making the vibrating sound of being pulled.

Sheta was walking behind him, not making a single footstep.

Bai Liu didn't turn around, he just stopped in his tracks, with the cold warmth of Sheta's fingertips still in his hand, he closed his eyes and took two deep breaths, and opened his mouth to ask, "What did you want to say to me when you caught up with me?"

"I don't understand." Sheta whispered, "I sensed you wanted to see me."

"But why not come?"

Sheta paused, "Are you angry?"

"I'm not angry." Bai Liu was quiet for a few seconds after he said it, "But I'm certainly not very pleasant."

"It is true that I will use every means and trick in the book to see someone because I want to see them, but if that person is only willing to see me because I want to see them, I will feel that I am not getting an equal return for my efforts."

"Because it's not an equal trade."

Bai Liu drops his eyes, "You're just refracting my feelings for you."

Sheta asked softly, "And what constitutes an equal trade?"

Bai Liu finally turned slowly, gazing into Sheta's clean eyes, not a trace of emotion on his face:

"I need you to want to see me yourself."

"If one day the Evil God-sama himself develops the feelings to see me, I will naturally come to see you."

After saying that, Bai Liu lifted the lantern that was placed at the doorway and slightly owed a bow to Sheta, who was halted in place, "Good morning Evil God-sama, I still have to practise the lesson of sacrifice, so I will leave first."

Xiao Kui, who was propped up yawning by the attic window, looked at Bai Liu, who was carrying a lantern down the mountain road, and raised his eyebrows slightly, "It's so early today."

Bai Liu returned to the attic where he lived, he gently put down the lantern, undressed and lay down on the tatami mat.

Although the movement was very gentle, it still woke up Cangta who was beside him, he looked at Bai Liu who was staring straight up at the ceiling with a pair of emotionless pitch-black eyes in horror, rubbed his arm, and cautiously called out, "...... Bai Liu-sama? "

"Are you in a ...... not so good mood?"

Bai Liu hmmmed faintly, "Sort of."

Cangta peeked over a bit curiously, "Why? Didn't we just meet the evil lord?"

But clearly yesterday Bai Liu-sama was in an obviously good mood after returning from meeting the Evil God-sama.

"Because I hate it when people like me because I like them." Bai Liu's tone was flat, "That kind of affection is cheap, not as solid as a transaction, the same as affection for a dog."

Cangta shocked: "What do you mean by giving the same affection to the dog! Dogs are cute! I just love dogs!"

Bai Liu, lying on the tatami mat, swept Cangta a sidelong glance, "Then why do you like dogs?"

Cangta was very confused, "Of course it's because the dog is cute!"

"No." Bai Liu withdrew his eyes, "People love animals because they presuppose that they love them, so they choose animals they can easily dispose of if they don't, like dogs, like cats, like rabbits."

"Because these animals have no resistance to humans, they face the only two ways to be domesticated and abandoned."

Cangta's pupils quake and she stammers a bit, "No, it's not like that, is it!?"

"So what if you get a dog that doesn't love you?" Bai Liu continued lightly, "What would you do if the other dog bit you every day, showed its teeth to you, and seriously injured you and your family many times?"

Cangta begins to falter, he opens his mouth to say something but in the end not a word comes out.

...... He probably would have actually given it away or even killed the dog.

"That's why humans choose safe pets to love; it's essentially a quest for low risk and high return yield." Bai Liu said softly.

"But it's not all like that!" Cangta struggled to retort, "There's that natural love of their personalities in my fondness for dogs, too!"

Bai Liu swept Cangta a glance, "So in the same situation, there are two pets, a dog with a snake-like temperament and a lizard with a highly poisonous, dog-like personality, who do you choose?"

Cangta stammered, "...... dogs."

Bai Liu rhetorically asks, without skipping a beat, "What if you could choose neither?"

Cangta immediately snaps, "I would choose neither!"

Bai Liu looked up at the ceiling, "But I chose the lizard with the poison."

Cangta was very shocked, "? Why, isn't it possible to choose neither?!"

"Yeah, I didn't want to choose either." Bai Liu slowly rested his scarred arm over his eyes before exhaling slowly and opening his mouth in a very calm tone, "But I fell in love with that lizard, so I really wanted to keep him."

Cangta's persistent pupils quake, and he takes a few steps backward in almost panic before swallowing nervously, "Master Bai Liu, are you in love with a lizard, a lizard?!"

Oblivious to Cangta's reaction, Bai Liu continued, "But this lizard doesn't know he's human, so there's no way he can give me the same share of, well, human affection."

"I'm probably the only human in the world who would keep such a lizard that could poison everyone just by looking at it."

"He just knew that I was the only human who would come forward to approach him, to touch him, who would be with him forever, so he would come forward to touch me, to embrace me, to be nice to me, like a person would feel pity and fondness for a dog who comes to lick his hand."

"God should also feel this emotion towards the more weak."

Bai Liu's breathing became extremely slow: "But he doesn't yet understand what this means to me."

"It's really hard for me to admit that ...... I would love ......"

Bai Liu's chest suddenly rose and fell as he spoke, and he clenched his hand over his eyes, clenching it into a fist so hard that his fingertips turned white, taking two deep breaths then going quiet.

After a long, long time, Bai Liu did not speak, and when Cangta thought Bai Liu had fallen asleep with his arm over his eyes, he suddenly heard a hoarse sentence coming from Bai Liu's side:

"This is really the most unfair deal I've ever made."

Bai Liu gave a very shallow laugh, "I would actually love God like a dog."