Chapter 450: The Evil God Festival - Boathouse

Meanwhile, the Kitahara family.

Xiao Kui took off his gorgeous clothes with a face full of numbness, and the servant next to him lowered his head and softly advised, "Lord Xiao Kui, you have already picked out your own [Lord Wang Zi]."

"If you run away before the summer festival, you know what will happen to your [Wang Zi-sama], don't you?"

Xiao Kui looks out the window at the sunny doll hanging from the eaves, and gives a lowered-eyed hmmm.

The maid folded her hands in front of her, bowed and stepped back, Xiao Kui stood in the center of the room as if frozen for a long, long time, and then turned her head on the window, motionless, staring out at the shrine.

It is now nighttime, but Bai Liu has not yet returned, and is said to have been detained at the boathouse by the Gobo, and the head of the Kitahara family is furious, and the entire Kitahara family is preparing to go out to the Gobo family to negotiate the detention of the offering.

So there goes her nightly pleasure - watching Bai Liu go to the shrine.

After staring at that shrine for a long time, Xiao Kui yawned a bit wearily, feeling bored, and was about to withdraw his gaze and go to sleep when he saw the door of that shrine suddenly pushed open a bit.

Xiao Kui eyed the door, which had been pushed open a little, with suspicion, and then looked around to make sure she didn't see Bai Liu, before her heart skipped a beat.

If she hadn't been watching every day, every day, she'd hardly have noticed the slight gap in the door.

This evil god who lives in a shrine, in the absence of a painful sacrifice, the evil god awakens?

Xiao Kui pushed the window open and looked left and right, and when she was sure that only the attic to her left contained a servant who was already asleep, she rolled over and skillfully climbed down the side of the attic.

The Kitahara's would have up to an hour to negotiate with the Gobune's, and during that time the Kitahara's would be relatively empty, Xiao Kui thought calmly, so as long as she was back before then, she shouldn't be noticed.

Even though she had been captured, she was, after all, also an offering from the Kitahara family who had successfully escaped once, and she thought she was familiar with doing this kind of thing without going out of the gates just to make a trip to the shrine to see what was going on.

Xiao Kui hangs suspended below the loft and wobbles twice, landing with a steady jump before running in the direction of the shrine.

Behind her in the attic, the servant she thought was slumbering was silently pushing open the window and watching her run toward the shrine.

This servant had a corded phone in his hand and was approaching the receiver, reporting in a low voice, "Kitahara Xiao Kui is approaching the shrine, following the same path of action as Kitahara Bai Liu has been following these past few months."

"Family Master, there are still two days to go before the Summer Festival, in these four months we have already determined that the sacrifice Kitahara Bai Liu has the qualifications to awaken the Evil God, will it be possible to delegate the path of escape that has already been arranged to these two sacrifices after testing Kitahara Xiao Kui tonight to see if they can awaken the Evil God?"

"Delegate it." A hoarse, middle-aged man's voice came over the receiver, the head of the Kitahara family, "We can't cede the number one spot to the Gosun family."

"We've been accompanying these two sacrifices for a little over half a year, it's time for them to pay the price called [pain] for the gift of the Kitahara family."

"Yes." The servant replied quickly, squinting at the [Sacrifice Raising Program] form hanging on the back of his door and respectfully requesting, "I'll check with you again."

"Our parenting plan for Xiao Kui Kitahara is [educating cognitive bias] as well as [exodus twice]."

"Last year in the [Exodus Program] guided by the Gosun family, we had to let Kitahara Xiao Kui go on the run and spend two months adrift outside, and during that time the Gosun family had their own people reach out to her, but because we didn't want to let Kitahara Xiao Kui be under the control of the Gosun family, we forcibly recalled her after we got our first place in tax payments again this year. Kitahara Xiao Kui."

"After the recall, we cultivated her with [Educational Cognitive Bias], torturing her while teaching her all the best things in the world to make her think that the outside world is all wonderful, and to stimulate her desire for another exodus."

"During the night, we will arrange an escape path for Kitahara Xiao Kui and place a certain [good person] from Kitahara's family in that path to help her in her exodus together and to capture her heart completely."

"At the Winter Festival in half a year's time, we'll have this [good person] betray the Kitahara Xiao Kui by hand-tying her up and sending her back to the Kitahara family, and instantly, she'll be the perfect painful sacrifice."

The head of the Kitahara family laughed hoarsely, "A wish made with her must be quite perfect."

The servant hesitated for a moment, then looked at the [Sacrifice Raising Program] and continued reading:

"Sacrifice Kitahara Bai Liu, who managed to steal the shrine key on the first day of his arrival at the Kitahara house, went to the shrine and awakened the evil god, was a ripe sacrifice from the start."

"For example, torturing him in the shrine, forcing him to ask for help and pray to the evil god, but the evil god did not come out to save him, and in this way making him turn his back on his faith for the purpose of making the pain deepen."

"But we soon realized that Kitahara Bai Liu was not a devout □□□ disciple." The servant was quite confused, "...... Through these six months of teaching and observation, we realized that rather than Kitahara Bai Liu's daily visits to the shrine being due to his belief in an evil god, it was more in, in ...... "

The Kitahara family head dumbly picked up the second half of the sentence, "--is tempering the Evil God, so that the Evil God will in turn suffer for him and believe in him."

The servant nodded, "Yes, so we don't have a particularly good breeding program for Bai Liu, we're just going through the motions and preparing to drop him into the [Escape Program], and we'll see how it turns out in six months."

"Tsk." The head of the Kitahara family narrowed his eyes, "It's just a pity that we don't have a tool like the Gobunshi family that can measure pain, or else we wouldn't have had to wait half a year to see the results."

"The two key props for cultivating the sacrifices, the balance and the boathouse, are held in the hands of the Gobunshi family, and we can't open the shrine explicitly at a non-sacrificial node, so we can only see if the sacrifices have the credentials to awaken the Evil God by observing them from a distance outside the shrine."

The servant sighs tersely, "Even so, we lost quite a few people during our observations because of the alienating effects of the evil god on those who saw him."

"However, judging by the way the Gobunshi's snatched Bai Liu tonight." The Kitahara family head's let out a sort of dull, dry laugh, "Bai Liu should be quite the painful sacrifice."

The servant hesitated, "Then, Master of the House, since Bai Liu is already in so much pain, do you still want to delegate the escape path to Bai Liu?"

"Release." The North Plains family head spoke in a somber tone, "The current North Plains family can't compete with the Imperial Funnels family, not releasing it will only allow the Imperial Funnels family to take it by force, let Bai Liu go out first, and wait until the second half of the year, when the North Plains family is in full control of Lumine Prefecture before tying him back in."

"Yes." The servant nodded obediently, "Then I'll immediately arrange for someone to receive their escape."

Hilltop, Shrine.

Xiao Kui darted upwards carrying a gas lamp, she looked in a trance at the huge shrine that stood on top of the mountain, the hot, humid night wind blowing past the side of her face.

Is that what Bai Liu, who ...... walks here every night, feels like?

By the time she stood before the massive shrine doors, Xiao Kui regretted her impulsiveness on some rare occasions.

The sides of the shrine had been erected with brackets and knotted ropes, lanterns were hung one on top of the other, and the area around the shrine had been carefully cleaned.

The summer festival was two days away, the shrine was about to open to the public, all the decorations and cleanup had begun, which meant that the vicinity of the shrine was being watched and set up, and she was taking a bit of a risk coming here now.

But come what may, it's late at night and she doesn't see the caretaker ......

Xiao Kui took a deep breath and stepped onto the last rung of the ladder.

A very light voice came from the door, "Who?"

Is that the voice of an evil god?

Xiao Kui was startled to hear it, and she began to be so nervous again that her heart beat wildly, but at the same time there was an inexplicable hatred rising up in her--

- - The one who lives here is the evil god who killed her brother.

"You're waiting for Bai Liu, aren't you?" Xiao Kui asked calmly.

The voices inside quieted, Xiao Kui heard the sound of chains moving towards the door, a strong smell of blood wafted through the crack, the other's voice grew lighter and more ethereal, asking Xiao Kui with a kind of sincerity, "Yes, I waited for him for a day."

"Usually he'd be here by this time, but today, for some reason, he never came."

"Do you know what happened to Bai Liu?"

Kitahara Xiao Kui clutched the handle of the gas lamp she carried in her hand as she slowly inhaled and exhaled, then suddenly and inexplicably smiled, "You don't have to wait."

"Bai Liu won't see you again."

The voice in the shrine paused for a moment, becoming flatter when it spoke again, "Why?"

"Do you know what our offering's latest lesson is?" Xiao Kui laughed harshly, "It's 'Love' oh."

"We told the love story Rapunzel yesterday, and today we'll let the offerings pick their favorite [Lord Wang Zi] from the handsome young men around them and experience the beauty of love."

"Bai Liu also chose his own [Admiral Wang Zi] oh."

The voices in the shrine went completely silent.

Xiao Kui waited outside for a while, a thrill of revenge in her chest, but at the same time an inexplicable suffocation.

It was like the suffocating feeling that the only bit of light she had seen in this twisted and shadowy Kitahara home, in this Kagome Prefecture that fed on misery, the only bit of the dark forest that Bai Liu's portable gas lamps had brought was going to be extinguished in front of her eyes.

Cangta's sparkling eyes flashed in front of Xiao Kui, he looked seriously at Xiao Kui, said:

[Bai Liu-sama and Evil God-sama must be in true love, a relationship as beautiful as the ones in fairy tales.]

Xiao Kui gritted his teeth, "What, are you giving up?"

The moment those words fell from her lips, the shrine door in front of her was pushed open by a pale, slender hand, and under the thin moonlight, the evil god, whose face and body were bloodstained, struggled to push through the half-door and walked to the entrance of the shrine, and with all her might she reached out with her fingers and pushed the door a little bit open, and appeared in front of the stupefied Kitahara Xiao Kui who watched in disbelief.

With His eyes closed and His delicate face stained with blood, He held onto the door frame, His body being dragged towards the shrine by countless threads, His chest rising and falling slightly as He spoke with a wheezing voice, "Has the selection of Bai Liu 【Master Wang Zi】 ended?"

"Can you please ask Bai Liu to return to the original Wang Zi, add me, and choose again?"

Sheta's tightly closed eyelashes quivered slightly, a very thin layer of red on her face, "Even though I'm not young, I'm supposed to be handsome too."

Kitahara Xiao Kui was so shocked by Sheta's appearance that she couldn't say a word, she was about to say something when she suddenly jerked her head to look at the grass that scurried over there, "Who?"

A figure came slowly out of the bushes.

Kitahara Xiao Kui froze again.

That was a woman with a long and elated figure, her looks were three or four times similar to Kitahara Xiao Kui, her body was bruised and battered, it was obvious that she had suffered a lot of injuries before arriving here, she looked at Kitahara Xiao Kui covering her mouth and shedding tears: ''Finally, I see you, Xiao Kui!"''

Xiao Kui Kitahara whispered in a trance, "...... Sister."

It was Xiao Kui, the eldest of the four siblings.

After Xiao Kui and her younger brother Jiro were sold, the older sister broke with her family and was driven out of Kagome Prefecture, marrying in a small seaside county far away from here, and Xiao Kui Kitahara has not been seen for a long time.

"I didn't agree with my parents selling you and Jiro in the first place, but I couldn't say anything, and I was kicked out of Kagome Prefecture and not allowed to come back." Without saying a word, Kitahara Xiao Kui's older sister grabbed Kitahara Xiao Kui's hand and said eagerly, "I came here especially while the summer festival was going on, and the guards everywhere in Kagome Prefecture are lax at this time of year."

She half crouched down and held Xiao Kui's shoulders, looking at the other side thirstily, "Run with sister, leave this hell together!"

Kitahara Xiao Kui looked blankly at her big sister's outstretched hand, a visible wavering in her eyes.

She slowly lifted her hand and placed it in the palm of her big sister's hand.