Bai Liu was brought by the little servant to a townhouse on the coast.

The building is only one story high and very wide. It has a pointed roof made of wood and thatch. Sunny dolls and wind chimes are hung under the eaves. At the bottom is a hollow partition made of wood and stone that separates it from the ground. When you lower your head, you can see pitch black and feel the dampness on your face, as if something strange will crawl out from underneath at any time.

The raised stones were covered with moss, and the wooden frame was black and rotten. The moment Bai Liu walked on it, he felt the floor shake, and it was obvious that it was very old.

Walking into the house, there is a whole row of rooms that are built like the hot spring inns that Bai Liu has seen in real life. They are separated by partition doors made of pine wood and shoji paper. In the upper right corner of each room is a niche for placing wooden signs. Inside is a black lacquered pine sign indicating the purpose of the room, such as "So-and-so's room", "Kitchen", or "Living room".

Bai Liu walked along the corridor and could clearly hear the miserable cries and crazy laughter coming from the rooms. Through the paper door, she could vaguely see the shadows of the people inside. Some of them were sitting on the ground with their clothes half undressed, some were banging their heads against the ground, or some were laughing as they untied a belt from their clothes, tied it into a noose, put it around their necks, and prayed to themselves:

"It would be better if I died. Lord Evil God, please choose me as a sacrifice. I want to die this year."

Soon, three or four figures entered the room to stop those who were mutilating or committing suicide. The cries and laughter of these people mixed together nervously, and the sobbing and crying became miserable:

"Isn't my suffering enough? Why didn't the evil god choose me?"

The young attendant led Bai Liu and walked quickly along the corridor with his head down. When he saw that Bai Liu had not caught up, he turned his head and saw that Bai Liu was looking at the Japanese-style room next to him. So he moved his eyes over there and the smile on his face became forced:

"Oh yes, Bai Liu, you may not know this, but now there are three or four people responsible for training and guarding each sacrifice. When you were here, there was only one person. Later, more and more sacrifices collapsed, and the town added more people to guard the sacrifices. It became much more difficult for everyone to escape and seek death."

"The sacrificial children living here all...sympathize with you." The little attendant said this in an unclear tone, "You have been chosen as the heir of the evil god, and you can no longer be a sacrifice."

After saying that, the little attendant lowered his head and continued walking forward: "Come with me, you don't have much time to rest, don't look at them."

After passing through a long and winding corridor, the little servant finally led Bai Liu to a very old room. On the wooden sign next to the room was written [Kitahara Sota]. The little servant tiptoed to take down the wooden sign and replaced it with a new one.

Bai Liu looked at the wooden sign that had been replaced and turned into [禦船白六].

"This is the name tag you left in the boathouse when you were offering sacrifice. I've kept it and used it today." Kitahara Sota muttered as he opened the door. A huge dampness rushed over him. "This is my room. You want to rest here. I'll change the room to your name tag."

This is a very damp and narrow room. There is a narrow tatami in the middle of the floor. On the tatami is a set of old bedding for one person. There is a wooden tray about half a meter away from the bed. There are unwashed oil stains on it. It should be a wooden mat for eating. Facing the tatami is a small mahogany desk about forty to fifty centimeters high.

On the wall next to the desk hung a colorful Ukiyo-e-style painting of waves. In the center of the waves was a shrine-like ship floating. The flag hanging on the mast of the ship was shaking in the sea breeze and was only half covered, but Bai Liu still recognized at a glance that it was an inverted cross flag.

Kitahara Sota was still nagging: "If you want to occupy a Japanese-style room here to rest, you must hang a wooden sign with your name outside, otherwise the supervisor of the boat house will treat you as a sacrifice for the name outside. If you are unlucky, this child happens to be on duty to practice in the hard room, and you will be dragged to the hard room to practice..."

As he was speaking, he suddenly paused, his eyes fixed on the inside of the paper door he had pushed open. His face instantly lost all color and turned pale, as if he had seen something unbelievable.

Bai Liu followed Kitahara Sota's line of sight and found a piece of paper taped to the inside of the paper door - [Because the sacrifice Kitahara Aoi's hard training has reached the standard, today the Kitahara clan's hard training will be handed over to the sacrifice Kitahara Sota. 】

"Xiao Kui... you have reached the training standard." Kitahara Sota reached out and took off the notice that notified him to go to the bitter room for training. His hands were shaking so badly that even his voice was shaking. "I only went to train for half a day yesterday. Do I have to go again today..."

"Practice in the bitter room." Bai Liu knelt on the ground and looked up at Kitahara Sota. "What is it?"

"Oh, right, when you were the sacrifice, there was no hardship room for training." Kitahara Sota knelt behind Bai Liu naturally. He straightened his back, raised his hand and gently untied the rope around Bai Liu's ear with his fingers. His tone and movements were as light as his voice. "After you were caught and escaped, the boathouse was tidied up and it became a regular hardship room for training."

The dark cloth rope fluttered to the ground, and Bai Liu's long hair slanted down to her waist.

It was then that Bai Liu realized that her hair was not half-long like others, but was tied up inwards to be only half-long length.

"It has been five years since you left the boathouse and became the heir of the evil god. The heir of the evil god is responsible for the god's sacrifice. The body and skin belong to the god, and you are not allowed to trim your hair at will. I didn't realize that your hair has grown so long..." Beiyuan ran his fingers through Bai Liu's long hair, muttering to himself in a daze, "It's even longer than Xiao Kui's..."

Bai Liu turned his eyes to look at Beiyuan who was kneeling behind him: "Although Beiyuan Xiaokui has the same last name as you, she is not your sister."

"No, Bai Liu, you've been away from the boathouse for too long. You even forgot where our last name came from." Beiyuan shook his head in amusement. He took a wooden comb from under the pillow and knelt behind Bai Liu to comb his hair. "The last names of us sacrifices have nothing to do with ourselves."

"Don't move." Kitahara Sota gently held down Bai Liu who wanted to turn her head, and carefully combed her hair. "If you comb it sideways, Lord Yusen will punish you when he sees you."

"I haven't forgotten." Bai Liu looked straight ahead and said calmly, "This surname is the surname of the person who chose our town, right?"

"My last name is Yuchuan, and I was probably the sacrifice of Yuchuan. You and Xiaokui both have the last name Beiyuan, which proves that you were both sacrifices of a person with the last name Beiyuan, and these two people with the last name Beiyuan should be from the same clan."

Kitahara stopped combing his hair in the middle. He paused for a very long time before continuing combing and humming softly.

"But you are no longer Byakuroku Uefun. You were not successfully sacrificed, and you became the successor of the evil god. You are no longer a sacrifice, so the name Uefun was removed from you."

Beiyuan lowered his eyes, combed his eyes along the drooping eyelids and all the way to the ground, and said in a light but firm tone:

"You are the one chosen by the Evil God. You should not have any marks other than those of the Evil God on you. The name Yuchuan is not worthy of you."

Beiyuan picked up a string, hooked a strand from Bai Liu's left and right temples with his little fingers, and let it hang loosely beside her ears. He tied the end with a string, and finally merged the two strands into one in the center of the back of her head and let it hang on Bai Liu's sacrificial robe.

Bai Liu raised her eyes slightly and turned her head to look at Bei Yuan. Her hair, with the string clipped on it, slid down Bai Liu's cheeks and curled up into a strand on her shoulders.

His eyelashes were long and his pupils were dark. When he raised his eyes, the gold powder on the waves in the painting behind Kitahara was reflected in the dark Japanese-style room, as if it was gleaming like fish scales. Bai Liu asked softly, "Is it tied up?"

Beiyuan stared at Bai Liu in a daze, then suddenly laughed: "You are so beautiful, Bai Liu. No wonder the gods chose you from among our pile of sacrifices to be his successor."

As he laughed, Beiyuan began to cry as if he couldn't control himself. His eyelashes were covered with tears. He leaned his forehead against Bai Liu's shoulder to prevent his tears from wetting his ritual robe. He leaned forward and hugged Bai Liu's shoulders tightly, sobbing:

“…God ​​is so cruel.”

"Why should we let the most beautiful child among us live in such pain and be deprived of the qualification to be a sacrifice?"

"For us, this world has only one bitter chamber, but for you, it is a bitter chamber everywhere."