GHG: Chapter 148 Part 2

Dangerous Heretics Handling Bureau

Bai Liu had never been an obedient child. A few minutes after the dean took Xie Ta away, he secretly and carefully entered the church through the broken window covered by the curtain. Bai Liu hid behind the curtain, curling up in a small ball as he watched Xie Ta and the dean standing underneath the statue.

Xie Ta was dressed in pure white clothes and held a flickering white candle in his hand. He stood barefoot in front of the statue, his head raised and his eyes closed as he recited a prayer without hesitation.

The dean was standing next to Xie Ta, holding a whip and looking at him coldly.

After reciting the prayer, the dean stepped forward and stared at him. “Next is the baptism. However, today you had the idea of betraying God and running away. It means today’s baptism must be thorough to completely cleanse your body of evil and filth!”

Xie Ta lowered his eyes. “It can’t be washed clean.”

“I am evil itself that can’t be confronted,” he said softly.

The dean froze for a moment before her expression became more serious.

She snatched the candle from Xie Ta’s hand and pressed Xie Ta into the baptismal pool. She held the candle and smiled cruelly and proudly, as if she had finally defeated a demon she had feared for a long time. There was a sense of madness that remained in her.

The dean sighed with relief and looked at Xie Ta who was submerged in the water. She raised the candle and placed it flat near the baptismal pool, declaring coldly, “You can only get out when the candle finishes burning, do you understand?”

The wax fell drop by drop into the clear water. They condensed into small white flowers like sacrificial flowers, suspending directly above Xie Ta who was lying at the bottom of the pool with closed eyes.

The baptismal pool was like a coffin that was too small for him. It firmly and twistedly bound him.

The thing that no one realized was that the statue of a god facing the baptismal pool moved slightly. The expression on the face of the pure white marble statue changed to a very human-like accusation, as if accusing the child in the baptismal pool for not behaving and wanting to escape the shelter of God.

[You are an evil thing, a fallen god. You can’t leave the imprisonment of the gods. You shouldn’t be tempted by a child who has been bewitched by you and thinks of fleeing.]

The statue condemned in a cold tone. [Tawil, you know very well that the child is seduced by your evil. He isn’t the new believer you are looking for.]

Underwater, Tawil’s eyelids moved.

[No, I don’t think of him as my new believer.]

The statue asked coldly: [Then what do you think of that child? He has seen your eyes and he isn’t far from madness.]

[You should kill him or he will become an evil monster like you and destroy the world. You know, everything you have polluted will have consequences.]

Tawil’s fingers placed on top of his chest moved slightly. [He… I want to read with him forever.]

[You know that isn’t possible. Tawil, kill him, kill this child you have tainted!] God commanded.

[I can’t do it.] Tawil calmly refused. [You can kill me but I can’t kill him.]

The expression of the statue became angry. […You are exiled here but you still dare to disobey God’s order. You deserve to be punished and sleep forever!]

It opened its hand directly above Tawil. The water at the bottom of the baptismal pool became heavy, viscous and icy, like flowing ice turning into spikes in Tawil’s body. This made him frown but he soon relaxed his expression.

Under the water, Xie Ta curled up and the hand that had held Bai Liu’s hand shook. Then his trembling eyelids stopped moving.

The temperature of Bai Liu’s hand remained in his palm but it gradually dissipated in the cold water as his breathing stopped.

His fingers clenched tightly, trying to keep the temperature. Then they loosened and Xie Ta’s body floated in the water.

“X-Xie Ta?” The dean stepped back in a panic. Then she checked under Xie Ta’s nose for breathing. She was so shocked that she dropped the candle in her hand and stepped on it in a panic. The light of the candle was extinguished and this also extinguished the only light in the church.

“It’s over.” The dean sank to the ground in a daze. She pulled at her hair madly while speaking to herself in disbelief, “Isn’t he a monster? He had his blood drawn so many times and he didn’t die. He has been baptized so many times without dying. Why did he drown this time?”

“It has only been a few minutes! The candle isn’t even all burned out!” The dean’s expression became even more horrified. She kept shaking her head, as if Xie Ta would come alive as long as she didn’t admit it. “No, it is impossible, impossible!”

“He is dead. What am I going to do?!” The dean collapsed to her knees in front of the baptismal pool.

She never imagined that the death of this child would bring her such deadly fear.

The dean looked down at Xie Ta’s flawless face in the baptismal and murmured to herself, “…I drowned Xie Ta myself and that group will drain my blood. I must find other children to replace him!”

Bai Liu hid behind the curtain and watched the dean roar hysterically with no emotion on his face.

There was a strange firmness that made Bai Liu wait and see. Xie Ta said he was a monster and that he wouldn’t die. Yes, he must be pretending to be dead to fool the idiot dean.

Once the dean was gone, Bai Liu would go over and Xie Ta would get up from the baptismal pool, showing him a rare smile. Perhaps Bai Liu would push back the already wet hair, stare intently into those silver-blue eyes and ask Xie Ta how he came up.

Imagining these scenes made Bai Liu’s heartbeat accelerate.

The dean didn’t dare let the investors know that she had killed Xie Ta. She moved Xie Ta’s body from the baptismal pool and surreptitiously carried him out the back door of the church. She tied rocks to Xie Ta’s hands and feet and threw him into the small lake behind the church. It was the lake connected to a river outside.

After a few circulations, Xie Ta’s body would flow into the river and from the river, into the sea.

However, Bai Liu wouldn’t let Xie Ta go that far.

Bai Liu silently followed as the dean got rid of the corpse and didn’t make a sound. The dean looked like she had gone crazy. If he appeared now, the hysterical dean probably wouldn’t mind disposing of another child.

After she fled in a hurry, Bai Liu came out. He buried his face in the small lake full of emerald green duckweed and dived to the bottom. He reached out to Xie Ta at the bottom of the lake as he was gradually sinking into the sediment.

The lake was very deep and green. Xie Ta sank down quickly.

The black, muddy sand was like a creature that swallowed human corpses. It soon crawled over Xie Ta’s body, greedily trying to drag him into hell.

Bai Liu resisted the desire to cough as the dirty lake water poured into his mouth, nose and ears. He gritted his teeth and grasped Xie Ta being swallowed by the sand, pulling with his strength until he ran out of air. Bai Liu felt that his brain was going to burn up due to the lack of oxygen.

Even so, he finally pulled Xie Ta out. Bai Liu ripped off the heavy stones and rope binding Xie Ta’s body and carried him upstream.

They reached the shore and Bai Liu lay on the ground, staring up at the starry sky as he gasped for breath. There was duckweed hanging on his face and his body was all wet. The cicadas cried in the grass around him and it was a very embarrassing scene.

Nevertheless, Bai Liu didn’t know the reason but he snorted with joy. He kicked Xie Ta, who was lying quietly on the ground with eyes closed, not waking up. “How did you know that I was going to take you away? What if I worked for those adults to earn money to spend on myself?”

Bai Liu was a bit uncomfortable as he looked at Xie Ta with a casual smile on his face. “Aren’t you a bit too presumptuous, Xie Ta?”

Xie Ta’s face was covered with duckweed and he still hadn’t woken up. Bai Liu first sat up. Then he changed to a squatting position and looked down at the motionless Xie Ta. He reached out to touch the hair that was stuck to Xie Ta’s forehead because it was wet.

This person was really beautiful.

Bai Liu’s fingers slid down Xie Ta’s slender eyelashes that were dripping water, across the tip of his straight nose, the incredibly white lips and finally on the  beautiful silver-blue eyes that seemed to have only been shown to him.

“XIe Ta.” Bai Liu’s voice was very soft. He bent down and placed his ear against Xie Ta’s chest, his eyes wide open. “If you don’t wake up, I will give you artificial respiration and I’ll bite you to death.”

There was no heartbeat, no breathing and no body temperature. There were no signs that Xie Ta would wake up.

“I’m serious.” Bai Liu buried his face into Xie Ta’s chest, his fists clenching so tightly that his fingers turned white.

Bai Liu could smell the familiar, thick smell of blood mixed with the smell of water. It was a breath that was close to death.

Bai Liu hugged Xie Ta’s shoulders tighter and closed his arms tightly to hold Xie Ta. The water dripping from both their bodies merged together.

“I don’t think you are presumptuous,” Bai Liu said softly while leaning his head against Xie Ta’s shoulder.

His forehead rested against Xie Ta’s heart. He lowered his head and blinked slowly, drops of water falling from his eyelashes.

Xie Ta’s head rested on Bai Liu’s shoulder without any strength. He didn’t answer Bai Liu’s call and his eyes still didn’t open. Only the cold water on his hair fell onto Bai Liu’s clothes, reminding Bai Liu that he did exist.

They hugged each other and their fingers interlocked together. Bai Liu leaned against Xie Ta’s shoulder, his voice calm and quiet with no fluctuations. 

“Didn’t you say that you are a monster? Come back to life like a monster and I’ll admit you are a monster.”

“If you are like this, it makes me feel terrible, Xie Ta.”

A drop of water slipped from Xie Ta’s eyelashes, like a tear hitting the back of Bai Liu’s hand.

Proofreader: Purichan