The Kitahara family's residence was on a mountain. The group climbed a long mountain path, or rather a staircase, before they could barely see the magnificent building hidden in the dense jungle.

The huge eaves were looming in the secluded and dense forest. If you looked up hard, you could see another slightly smaller but more dignified and neatly built wooden building with flying eaves and layers of mahogany torii behind the Kitahara family's higher ground.

"The one closer to us is the Kitahara family's address." Yufune looked up at the building with overhanging eaves behind the torii, gathered up his clothes, and bowed respectfully. "The one higher up is the residence of the evil god, the Shikaku Shrine."

The offerings and attendants also bowed and saluted, imitating the movements of the boat.

Going further up, there was a neat rock path that meandered to the main gate of the Kitahara family. Beside the gate stood two stone lanterns. Bai Liu took a quick look with his spare light and found that the stone lanterns were very new, looking no more than a year old. The heads of the lanterns were carved into the shape of a simple-looking Shiba Inu with its tongue sticking out.

Yusen knocked on the door of the Kitahara family.

The door slowly opened, and an old servant with gray hair and a steady posture poked his head out. He exchanged glances with Yuchuan who was knocking on the door, then glanced at the offerings following Yuchuan, lowered his head and retracted his gaze, bent down and opened the door: "Master Yuchuan, the master has been waiting for you for a long time, please come in."

Yuchuan snorted with an ambiguous "hmm" and walked in without looking around.

Bai Liu followed the boat in and saw an elegant and luxurious Japanese garden scene, with rugged rocks standing on both sides.

The clear spring water gurgles on these rocks, looking lively and interesting. The spring water should be brought from the mountain, but in this season, the spring water on the mountain should have been frozen and would not flow. However, the Kitahara family actually used a stone stove to heat the pipes for the spring water, forcing the spring water to flow steaming on the artificial rocks and plants in this cold weather.

Bai Liu took a quick look at these stone stoves, which were used to heat spring water, maintain the beauty of the courtyard and blend into the courtyard. He made a rough estimate in his mind and felt that there should be nearly a hundred of them.

Seeing this, Cang Tai couldn't help but lean over to whisper in Bai Liu's ear: "So many servants and animals almost froze to death in the rain last night. Even if one third of these stone stoves were used, they wouldn't have ended up like that..."

The old servant at the side heard Cang Tai's mumbling. He turned his head, looked down at Cang Tai, and said:

"As new offerings and servants, you should work hard to be chosen by the elders of the Kitahara family and enjoy the beautiful gardens made of these stone stoves, instead of sympathizing with those inferior animals who are unable to even see these stone stoves and are self-degrading and raised in cages."

"The stone stove is for those who can endure the pain, offer sacrifices to the evil god, and bring more valuable sacrifices to Luming County to watch, not for the servants to keep warm."

"Here in Luming County, these servants who are not suffering enough and can only live in cages are animals that cannot produce more value, and they should not consume any resources to live."

Frightened by the old servant's eyes, Cang Tai shrank his head, lowered his head, replied "yes" with a trembling voice, and stopped talking.

The old servant withdrew his gaze indifferently, bent down, and walked forward in quick steps. He walked to the front of the team and led the sacrifices through one solid wooden corridor after another.

By turning your head, you can see the scene in the courtyard, the gurgling spring water, the singing of birds and the fragrance of flowers in the courtyard, the bamboo shoots hitting the stone jar one by one, and the petals falling from it flow out and merge into the lake in the courtyard, which looks pleasant, fresh and elegant.

Everyone kept praising the exquisiteness and beauty of the courtyard. Whether they were offerings or servants, one could see from their eyes that they all had a yearning for this place.

Cang Tai, who was walking at the end, lowered his head and clenched the umbrella in his hand tightly. He felt an indescribable feeling of depression and gloom in his heart. He secretly raised his head and glanced at Bai Liu, who was walking beside him with a calm expression, his eyes were dazed.

Hakuroku also wants to be chosen by the Kitahara family... Is he the same as these sacrifices?

Would he... agree with what the old servant said?

"If you have anything to ask, just ask directly." Bai Liu looked ahead and spoke calmly, "You've been staring at me for more than ten minutes."

"I'm sorry!" Cang Tai lowered his head in panic, then slowly raised it again and asked softly, "Bai Liu, do you also think that what the old servant said just now is right?"

"Is it more important for the stone stove to be used for offerings to be admired than for keeping the servants warm?"

Bai Liu replied: "Whether a person's words are right or wrong depends on the other person's standpoint."

"From the perspective of those who are now the sacrifices, from the perspective of the Kitahara family's servants, from the perspective of those who are at the top of the food chain and who exploit others, they naturally think they are right."

"The stone stove is used to keep the servants warm, but they get nothing from it. But they can see it and benefit from it every day."

Sota summoned up his courage and said, "What about Bai Liu's perspective? Do you also think they are right?"

Bai Liu turned his head and looked at Sou Tai calmly. That look made Sou Tai hold his breath involuntarily, and the umbrella in his hand was clenched so tightly that his palm turned white.

"No," he replied calmly, "I don't think they are right."

Sou Tai let out a long breath and widened his eyes: "But Bai Liu is also a sacrifice and a vested interest now. Why doesn't he think they are right?"

Bai Liu looked at him, her pupils dark and her eyes wavering, her hair scattered in the wind and covering her eyes: "At the top of the food chain built by these people, there is an old evil god who should have robbed everyone."

"But because he chose not to exploit these people, he is now being tortured and exploited by everyone."

"That old evil god, that person is my lover."

Sota was completely stunned.

Bai Liu retracted his gaze and looked at the old man walking in front of the offerings. There was no emotion in his tone when he spoke:

"I'm here to deal with the people who are taking advantage of him and to take away the food web that's built into him."

"Then I will tell him." Bai Liu paused, "No matter what happened later, his original choice was not wrong."

For some reason, Sou Tai's eyes felt a little hot. He had a lot to say and a lot of questions to ask. In the end, he just hummed heavily and agreed with a tearful tone, "You and the evil god are both right."

"The offerings over there." Yu Chuan, who was walking in front, turned back impatiently and urged, "What are you chatting about? Hurry up! We have to go to the living room to choose the offerings!"

"Okay!" Cang Tai hurriedly pulled Bai Liu and ran, "We're here!"

The reception hall of the Kitahara family is also very large. As soon as you enter the door, you will see a very open view. Because it is so large, it even looks a bit like the main venue of a dojo. The ground is covered with soft silk. In the front are several servants kneeling behind a low table. In the middle sits a man with a traditional goldfish hairstyle, with his hair shaved and combed into a bun at the back of his head and the center of his forehead shaved bald.

This man had slanted eyebrows and a strong body, like a man in his forties or fifties, but wrinkles appeared around his eyes, forehead, and chin, and he looked as old as if he was in his sixties. His expression was tense and gloomy.

He lowered his head to glance at the album of sacrificial offerings placed in front of him, flipped through it casually, then raised his head and glanced sinisterly over the offerings kneeling in front of him, then stopped at Bai Liu who walked in last.

"There's a kid named Bai Liu, right?" He asked in a deep voice, "Raise your head so I can see."

Bai Liu slowly raised his head and looked at the other person straight in the eye.

The head of the Beiyuan family nodded with satisfaction: "He has a distinctive appearance and strong will. He can be trained for a long time."

"We want the child, and his attendants too."

In the end, Kitahara chose Hakuryu and another sacrifice, and left their attendants behind. Soon, servants came forward and presented them with new wooden plaques that read [Kitahara Hakuroku] and [Kitahara Sota].

The head of the family stood up and glanced at them: "Since you are the sacrifice of the Kitahara family, you will stay in the Kitahara family from now on."

"I will send someone to the houseboat to get your pets and luggage. Let them take you to familiarize you with the environment first, so that you know where you can go and where you can't go, and you know how to stay in the Kitahara family, enjoy everything the Kitahara family has to offer, and what you need to do for the Kitahara family."

As he spoke, the head of the Beiyuan family looked up and nodded to the old servant who led the way in: "You can take them to familiarize themselves with the place."

The old servant nodded respectfully, turned to Bai Liu and the others and said, "My lords, please come over here."

"First of all, congratulations to everyone. From now on, you will live in this house of the family that makes people happy and pays the most taxes."

The servant's footsteps were quick and fragmentary, as fast as a swimming snake as he passed through the wooden corridor shrouded in the shade of the trees. On the corridor were broken red maple leaves that had just fallen less than half an hour ago. They trembled under the servant's footsteps, fluttered and fell into the water pavilion beside the corridor, and drifted out of the house.

The water vapor floated in the air warmly and sultry, but it didn't make people feel pleasant at all when it stuck to their skin in such cold weather.

It's a beautiful, bright, eerie, dark place.

"In the Kitahara family, the sacrificial masters are the highest existence. The reason why the Kitahara family has been able to develop to its current scale is due to the great dedication of generations of sacrificial masters to us. Without their suffering, there would be no beautiful courtyard of the Kitahara family today."

"So the first thing anyone who enters the Kitahara family must do is to pay homage to these sacrifices that have endured untold suffering for the growth and prosperity of the Kitahara family."

The old servant stopped in front of a beautifully built room. He clasped his hands together, bowed, and then reached out and pushed open the door of the room.

When Sota saw the situation in the room, he couldn't help but gasp.

There was a huge wooden frame in the room with flying eaves on both sides, decorated like a shrine. Dozens of shrines were placed on the frame from high to low, and each shrine contained a black-and-white photo. The people in these black-and-white photos looked like children in their teens or even a few years old.

The old servant folded his hands and stepped aside, his eyelids drooping. "These are the sacrifices that the Kitahara family bought over the past three years, but they didn't hold on to the end and committed suicide out of pain. They are enshrined here."

"If you had not persisted and committed suicide, you would have been enshrined here."

"Please come in and pay your respects to them, my lords."