Beiyuan leaned on Bai Liu's shoulder, controlled his crying, and took two deep breaths: "...I won't keep you any longer. You have to rest for a while and go to the Luming Shrine on the mountain to practice dancing."

After saying this, Beiyuan knelt down and took two steps back, lowered his head, folded his hands in front of his forehead, and slowly bowed down, his voice trembling slightly:

"Bai Liu, if you are really the successor of the evil god, and if your dance can really reach the evil god, then I beg you to choose Xiao Kui as the sacrifice this time!"

"I can still hold on for another two years, but Xiaokui can't hold on any longer."

Kitahara's voice was a little choked, and then he quickly raised his hand to wipe the tears from the corners of his eyes, bowed to Bailiu, picked up the hem of his clothes, took off the "Notice of Hard Training in the Hard Room" posted on the inside of the door, closed the door of the Japanese-style room, and walked away with a sad back.

Bai Liu stopped looking at the door that closed when Beiyuan left, and his gaze slowly moved to the picture of the waves facing him.

In horror games, especially Japanese horror games, the decorations in the narrow interiors usually have clues to follow, especially in this innermost room, where the inner wall does not connect to the outer Japanese-style room.

Bai Liu stood up and reached out to touch the shrine-like ship that was thrown up by the waves in the wave picture. His fingertips carefully examined the decoration of the ship inch by inch, and finally stopped at the reverse cross flag on the ship that was half covered.

He placed his fingertip on this spot and paused, then took down the painting and found the spot on the wall where the mark had been made.

Bai Liu looked calmly and put his fingers against the wall, pressing down hard.

A dent quickly appeared on the wall, and then the place where the painting was bound flipped over, changing from a flat wall surface to a built-in shrine the size of a picture frame.

In the middle of the shrine is a delicately carved mahogany statue.

This statue is quite old. The mahogany on its knees and shoulders has turned black from being wiped so carefully. It is wearing a hunting robe that is similar in style to Bai Liu's, but more complicated and exquisite if you look closely.

The clear, long hem of the hunting robe falls to the statue's slender ankles, which are casually crossed. The ankles are carved with chains that have been painted with gold powder and then faded. The feet are stepping on the rippling sea surface.

The statue of the deity is sitting in a relaxed posture on the raised eaves of the worship hall, with its head slightly lowered. It is holding a book with unclear carvings in its hands, as if it is reading attentively. A hand-woven knotted rope, which looks like a hemp rope, is wrapped around its forehead, and a piece of soft, floating white rice paper is passed through the rope, covering its face.

Two words were written on the rice paper with a brush - "No Wish".

Further ahead, there is an incense burner that is slowly rising in the shrine. With the slight breeze in the Japanese-style room, the rice paper covering the face of the statue and the smoke rising straight from the incense burner are swaying slightly, and a clear and pleasant sandalwood scent is spreading.

Bai Liu's gaze stopped on the wooden book in the statue's hand and paused slightly.

The pages of this book are torn, and have textures that look like they were roughly torn apart by hand and then glued together.

In Bai Liu's memory, there is a book that matches this texture. The book is called "Slender Man Murder Record".

When Xie Ta was sunk into the pond, Bai Liu put the book in Xie Ta's arms. The book must have floated away with Xie Ta...

But now it appears in the hands of this statue, and in connection with the theme of this copy...

This statue is most likely Sheta, one of the old evil gods in the game.

Bai Liu took a step forward without hesitation and reached out to uncover the protective rice paper covering the statue.

At the moment when Bai Liu was pulling up the Xuan paper on the statue's face, the picture of waves that Bai Liu had taken down and placed on the ground suddenly made a loud sound of waves. A strong sea breeze blew out from inside, blowing Bai Liu's hunting robe and covering his eyes.

Raging storms and violent waves burst out of the painting, instantly sweeping away the white willow standing in front of the shrine and pulling it into the painting.

After the storm subsided, the painting on the ground was hung on the wall at some point. Except for the large ship in the picture of the waves which disappeared at some point, everything returned to normal. The sudden strong wind, waves and rainstorm disappeared without a trace.

The room was empty except for the wooden sign "禦船白六" hanging outside the Japanese-style room door and the lingering sandalwood scent.

[System prompt: Player Bai Liu triggers the main storyline (Old Evil God Spirit Sacrifice) collection branch]

Amidst a violent dizziness that could make a person feel dizzy, Bai Liu slowly opened his eyes.

Before his eyes was a pitch-black cabin, and he could vaguely see the outlines of people lying on the floor and sleeping on it. In his ears were the sounds of people vomiting due to seasickness and the hysterical sobbing of some children.

“I want to go back!!!”

"I want to stay in the welfare home! I don't want to come here!!"

"The people who bought us are all lunatics who abuse children! Let us off the boat!!"

Bai Liu looked at his hands, which had become thinner and shorter than before. He lowered his head to look at his body, which was also shorter than before. He could stretch his legs even when sleeping on such a narrow boat bed.

Judging from his height, he should be only sixteen or seventeen years old.

Bai Liu moved his body and found that his hands and feet were tied together tightly and restrained to the bed legs. His body rose and fell violently with the waves and the boat, but he could not move at all.

A flash of lightning split the night sky, and the light shone into the cabin. Bai Liu finally saw clearly what kind of environment he was in.

The three narrow beds in the cabin were densely packed with children with pale faces, ranging in age from a few years old to seventeen or eighteen years old. Like him, these children had their hands bound together and tied to one side of the bed. Some of them huddled together and cried quietly, some had numb faces and were motionless, and some were vomiting due to seasickness.

For example, the one sleeping behind Bai Liu.

"Grr!!" The other person kept vomiting, and then coughed and wheezed. He probably didn't eat anything, as he didn't vomit anything specifically, but from the sound, he seemed to be so weak that he was about to die.

"If you are seasick, you'd better not think about escaping." Bai Liu said in a faint voice, "Even if you escape from here, you can't escape from the sea. No matter where you go on the sea, you have to take a boat."

The man behind Bai Liu who was struggling carefully and vigorously stopped. After a long pause, he said hoarsely, "My name is Cang Tai. What's your name?"

"Bai Liu." Bai Liu replied.

The other party was a little surprised: "Are you the Bai Liu they are talking about?"

Bai Liu paused: "Do you know me?"

"I can't say we know each other." Sota hesitated, "...You are the most famous kid here. We have all talked about you."

"My business?" Bai Liuwei raised his head slightly, "Did I do anything that you all need to discuss in this environment?"

Cang Tai paused, then spoke again in a low voice, "They said you killed a child named Shetta in the Ai Xin Welfare Home and pushed her into the pond. Is that true?"

Bai Liu was silent, and when he spoke, his tone was completely dull: "As one of the protagonists of this story, can I have the honor of knowing the whole story of this legend?"

"You didn't kill anyone? Are they talking nonsense?" Cang Tai shrank, leaned close to Bai Liu's ear, and whispered to him, "The version I heard is this. They said that you were a very strange child when you were in the Ai Xin Welfare Home. You liked to play with all kinds of weird things since you were a child, and you even killed many small animals with your playing."

Bai Liu asked back: "For example?"

Sota began to recall: "Cats, bunnies, hamsters, and the like. They said you would peel off the skin of small animals and put them in the cutest pages of various fairy tales, usually the page where everyone was happy in the fairy tale."

"When these children open the book and happily read the last page, the bloody animal fur will fall out, scaring the children to scream and run around the house, and you will be smiling with your head tilted beside them."

Bai Liu paused subtly, and a certain point in his memory that had been covered up was touched, and suddenly a strange yet familiar memory emerged.

It seemed that a long time ago, when he and Shetta were cleaning the library, they did talk about whether they should play a prank on other people in the orphanage, but in the end Shetta calmly stopped them.

Shetta looked at him with her silver-blue eyes and asked softly, "You wouldn't do that."

"Why can't I?" Bai Liu glanced at him and asked back.

Xie Ta was silent for a moment, then said, "Because I've seen Bai Liu do this before."

"You are not that Bai Liu."

"Is there another Bai Liu in this world besides me?" Bai Liurao approached Xie Ta with interest, "You don't seem to like this Bai Liu very much."

Shetta lowered her eyes: "There is no like or dislike."

"He and I are in a naturally competitive relationship designed to exist. He is born to pursue desires. He wants to madly absorb energy from all the powerful people, things, and even monsters he sees, and convert it into money or other valuable things."

Bai Liu's comment: "It sounds just like me."

Sheta raised her eyes and said, "You are different."

"He will... me, but you won't."

Bai Liu could only remember the lip shapes of the middle word Xieta said, because the ball outside suddenly hit the window, cracking it and covering up Xieta's voice.

When Bai Liu asked again afterwards, Xie Ta looked away, said it was nothing, and did not answer him any more.

Sota continued, "Then what you did became more and more outrageous. At that time, you were particularly concerned about a child named Shetta in the orphanage. She was also a very strange child who liked to quietly look at all kinds of horror drawings by herself."

"You would often observe him and follow him, but Shetta seemed to ignore you and never cared about anything you did."

"One time you went around the church to look for Shetta. Shetta often read a book alone there. Shetta was there that day too. You stood quietly behind Shetta for a long time. Shetta seemed to be reading a long and thin book..."

Sota suddenly got stuck: "What did they say? A very long book title..."

Bai Liu added calmly, "Slender Man Murder Record."

"Yes, yes, yes! That's the name!" Sota continued excitedly and smoothly, "They said you killed Shetta that night and brought back a blood-stained copy of Slender Man. You sat by the bed, humming a tune, and seemed to have read the book happily all night, which scared the people next to you."

"And then one of the people you live with has the nerve to ask you if you really killed Sheita."

When Sota said this, he swallowed nervously: "You looked up at him with a smile, your face was covered in blood, and said yes, I killed him."

"The kid broke down and asked, 'Why did you kill Sheta? He didn't do anything to hurt you!'"

"And then you said..." Sota's voice became trembling, "You said..."

"——[Because I also wanted to read the book "Slender Man", I stood behind Shetta and waited for a long time, waiting for him to turn around and invite me to read the book with him]."

"[Unfortunately he didn't, it seemed like he couldn't see me standing behind him waiting for him to turn around]."

"You smiled regretfully, spread your hands and said - [There is no other way, I have to kill him and then invite his corpse to be viewed with me.]"