Tianjin people will never lose SAN

Chapter 588: Simple Folk Customs (6k+)

"It seems like someone is coming."

Lin Brown heard the sound of footsteps approaching and quickly reminded.

The strange village in front of the beast's belly was trumpet-shaped, wide outside and narrow inside. The bronze gate that looked like the Gate of No Source was located under the innermost part of the mountain. There were many protruding irregular boulders on both sides of the gate. Shi Weitian and his companions quickly hid behind the boulders.

A minute later, villagers came towards the bronze gate in groups of three or five, holding torches.

There was no natural light in the belly of the beast. Even with the lighting of torches, the area around the gate was still shrouded in shadow. Liu Yonglu wanted to stick his head out to take a peek, but felt it was not safe, so he took out his shroud cloak from his backpack and put it on his head.

Millie Tang tugged at Liu Yonglu's sleeve, pointed at her head, and the two of them went in together.

The villagers in the village did not move away when they reached the village entrance. There was still a distance of about 20 meters from the gate. They seemed to be full of awe for the big iron gate, and many of them would secretly glance in the direction of the gate from time to time.

These villagers included both men and women, young and old. The men wore brown woolen clothes commonly worn by farmers, and wide-leg trousers with the cuffs tied with ropes. The women wore loose linen skirts, and many older housewives even wore aprons over their skirts.

The villagers mostly gathered together in family units, numbering several hundred people, and most of them held torches or a sharpened stick in their hands.

Wooden sticks? What are they doing with them? No wonder the fences in the village are broken. It turns out these people have other uses for them.

Most of the villagers had arrived and automatically made way for a path in the middle of the crowd. Five or six people walked along this path to the front of the crowd.

The middle-aged man in the lead wore a black top hat and had a full beard on his face, but his beard was neatly groomed and obviously trimmed every day.

The few people following behind him were all dressed similarly, wearing white cowl-collared shirts with exquisite embroidery on the collars, black tunics, and their expressions were meticulous.

It seemed that these people were the leaders of the village. When the villagers saw them, they consciously shut their mouths and waited for them to speak.

"Everyone, today is the arbitration day. If you have anything to say, please speak up one by one according to your position. After you have finished speaking, please step back."

The man in the top hat spoke lazily, but with a sense of majesty. The young man standing in the front of the crowd took off his wide-brimmed hat and saluted:
"Sir Charlie, my sheep have been sick these past two days. They spend most of the day huddled in the sheepfold in a sickly state. Occasionally, they become extremely excited, jumping up and down, and almost hit my wife a few times."

The young man's wife, who had her hair tied up with a cloth strip, pulled her husband's sleeve nervously. After the husband finished speaking, he added:

"Sir Charles, this morning I went to milk the goat as usual, but when I squeezed it into the bucket, I found that it was not goat milk, but... a faint blood."

After the wife finished speaking, the surrounding villagers suddenly became noisy and whispered to each other. Panic seemed to be spreading.

"Can anyone help Juan?"

The leader named Charlie still had no expression on his face. His voice was not loud, but it instantly overwhelmed the other villagers. It seemed that everyone respected the leaders and would consciously lower their voices whenever they spoke.

"I can give it a try. This situation may be caused by the devil, or it may be caused by an illness. I have some herbs that cured my old dog Lotta before. Who knows, they may be able to cure Juan's goat this time."

A bald, strong old man took off his farmer's hat and said in a deep voice.

"Okay, let's try it, I hope everything goes well."

Charlie nodded and gestured for invitation. The young man named Juan and his wife retreated to the back of the crowd. They did not leave as if they had something else to do.

Millie Tang inside the cloak frowned and remained silent.

She was thinking about a key question: where did all these people come from? At first, Mili Tang thought that these people were also crew members swallowed by sea monsters, but what kind of ship would carry dogs and goats?
Where did these people get the wood to build their houses and the clothes they wore?

These people are definitely not the same as me. Where did they come from?

"Sir Charlie, there is a problem with my crops. The wheat ears have not grown up. They seem to be sick. If this continues, we will probably have nothing to eat but the planks of the house in a few days."

An old farmer said tremblingly, his eyes wandering around below his feet, not daring to look directly at Charlie.

This was also an obvious problem in Millie Tang's eyes. Although there was land in the beast's belly, without sunlight, it would be strange if crops could grow there. At most, they could grow some mushrooms in this place.

But judging from the tone of their voices, their IQs are normal, and they have basic logic and thinking abilities, but... I don't know why, but there's an indescribable weirdness.

"Old Jonigo, I have two bags of potatoes. If you don't mind, you can take them and eat them first."

Before Charlie could speak, a man in a black robe behind him nodded in response.

"Oh, thank you, Hernando, thank you. Your family is large, but mine is small, so we don't need two bags, just one is enough.

It won't be long before we're out of here, right?

There will be plenty of food and prey outside, and these will be minor problems, and no one will starve anymore."

The old farmer quickly put on his hat and retreated to the end of the team. He also held a thin wooden stick in his hand.

"Mi Li'er, why are these people... so weird?"

Liu Yonglu muttered softly.

Like Millie Tang, he also discovered something unusual in the village, but from the current situation, the folk customs in the village are still relatively simple. If something happens to someone's family, even non-relatives will come forward to help, and it feels like they can communicate.

Several black-robed leaders stood at the front of the team and handled more than a dozen difficult cases one after another. In most cases, the villagers were facing difficulties in their lives.

However, every time, without waiting for the person in charge to speak, other villagers would step forward to help solve the problem.

Only very few arbitrations involve friction and conflict between villagers. At this time, the person in charge will let both sides state the facts first, and then make a judgment himself.

"boom!"

Just when Liu Yonglu thought that the gathering before him was just an ordinary discussion among the villagers, the ground suddenly shook violently, and the people of Shi Weitian had to lean against huge rocks for support.

However, the villagers in the open space in front of the village were shaken all over the place, and many of those with poor physical strength sat directly on the ground.

The whole process lasted three or four minutes, but Liu Yonglu did not hear the villagers' panicked exclamations. Looking around, many people still had happy expressions on their faces, and all their eyes were fixed on the bronze gate.

Not long after, with a teeth-grinding "creaking" sound, the bronze door opened from the inside out. Liu Yonglu had no idea that the door would suddenly open, so he quickly retracted his head behind the boulder.

"Mi Li'er, how about we take this opportunity to go in and take a look?"

Liu Yonglu had no idea how to open the bronze door. Moreover, even if he knew how to open the door, it would be impossible for him to sneak in without being noticed. Such a loud noise would definitely attract the attention of the villagers.

Good opportunities are hard to come by. Now that I’m close and in my half-spiritual invisible state, it’s just the right time to slip in!
"First... take a look."

Millie Tang was actually a little tempted, but the situation in the village was still unclear, and it might be dangerous to rush into the gate rashly.

Liu Yonglu actually had no idea, but since his good wife said so, he decided to wait and see.

Liu Yonglu poked his head out from behind the stone again and glanced behind the door. In his field of vision, he could see countless incorporeal, translucent shells circling behind the door.

Liu Yonglu didn't know whether these things really existed in the real world. The world under the shroud was a semi-spiritual world, and those floating existences were vague. Liu Yonglu inexplicably got goose bumps all over his body.

He sensed a strong sense of malice from behind the gate.

……

On the other side of the brass door, in the dark underground palace, more than a dozen figures were coming and going, busy with their work.

These people include men, women, young and old, of all genders and ages, but more than a dozen of them have one thing in common, that is, they have a face on the ridge of their neck. The face is like a small tumor of flesh, which can show expressions and can speak.

"Gama, is it really okay to leave Mu outside alone?"

The person asking the question was a bald middle-aged man in his forties or fifties, but the voice belonged to a young woman in her twenties who was weaving a dream catcher with dried herbs in her hands.

"Why? How about you go outside and keep watch too? Are you too tired from the work these past two days?"

Gama replied sarcastically.

“I don’t have that kind of bad taste. The Initial Realm is not a place that normal people like to stay.

Besides, there is nothing wrong with the current job. We are devout preachers of the Mother Goddess. Everything we do now is to accumulate strength for the revival of the Mother Goddess. Don't forget, in the dozens of times before, we have never achieved this level today.

The results were hard-won, and I must cherish them. ”

The person who was speaking was called Xi, a great sage in the secular world thousands of years ago. It was she who led the preparation of the forbidden mass that used the stone slab to awaken the Source of the Sourceless.

The stone slab is sleeping somewhere in the underground palace, waiting for the intersection of the celestial spheres. Then a dozen preachers of the Virgin Mary on earth will use the forbidden mass to summon the stone slab, and then let the awakened Virgin Mary regain control of the stone slab and regain her lost self-consciousness.

"The Initial Realm" is the name given to the village outside the gate by these preachers on earth. The reason why the awakening of the Virgin Mary made a breakthrough this time was that they got a piece of stone fragment from Kurt in advance.

In the more than forty restarts before, these preachers on earth had never completed this step at all. In their memories, they always rushed to the Lost Sea and watched with their own eyes that the Virgin Mary fell into a deep sleep again under the siege of other gods.

As for how civilization was restarted and how the first inhabitants of the world came about, these people have no idea at all.

This time, by entering the underground palace with the help of the stone fragments, these preachers on earth who had no source of origin finally understood that every time the Virgin Mary woke up, her divine instinct would unconsciously create the first batch of creatures, not only humans, but also various animals.

Most of the food and clothes of the residents of the initial world come from the scenes in the oil paintings.

After a few days, the Virgin Mary will wake up again. If the fusion fails, the world will enter reincarnation again, and the residents of the initial world will be taken out of this space by the power of the gods to welcome a new round of restart.

At first, these preachers on earth stayed in the initial world and prepared traps to deal with Saint Baran. Because their physical conditions were too special, they used the power of the Virgin Mary to occupy the bodies of more than a dozen villagers.

But after waiting for a week... I found out that Liu Yonglu didn’t come!

These people were getting a little restless. They couldn't just stay in the village and wait every day. They had to prepare for the subsequent forbidden mass, so they sent one person to stay among the villagers to continue monitoring, and the others retreated back to the underground palace.

"Gamma, don't you want to stay in the Initial Realm?"

Xi finished weaving the dream catcher in her hand and put it aside.

"really."

Gama's answer was brief. He closed the ancient book containing the spell in his hand, looked up at the torch on the stone pillar, and said meaningfully:

"Each of us has witnessed the destruction and rise of countless civilizations over the past hundreds or thousands of years, and has seen a lot of people of all kinds. But... among so many countries and so many villages, if I had to choose, the place I least want to stay is the Initial Realm."

"Tell me in detail why. See if we think differently."

Xi sneered and agreed.

"From the perspective of gods, good and evil are very difficult to judge. Although I am not a god, this is my guess.

The people in the initial world cannot be said to be evil, nor can we say that their personalities are extreme or crazy.

But it’s that kind of ignorance that makes me uncomfortable.”

Gamma sighed.

"Ignorance... this word describes it well."

The true face behind Xi looked leisurely into the darkness in the distance. She seemed to be able to see through the darkness, through the door that had just closed, and finally into the hearts of the villagers outside the door.

……

"Welcome, fellow freshmen."

Behind the Qingmen Gate, four or five people walked out slowly. The one in front was a family. They looked like fruit vendors in the market, pushing a cart filled with apples and pears.

The peddler was in his twenties, followed by his wife who was carrying a bamboo basket covered with a handkerchief. No one knew what food was inside the basket.

The little girl, about seven or eight years old, was a little scared. She clenched her mother's wrist tightly with her little hands, her eyes full of fear and curiosity about the unknown world.

Behind the peddler's family was a gray-haired old lady and a boy of about fourteen or fifteen years old.

These two people seemed to have nothing to do with the peddler's family. The old lady was walking slowly at the back with a cane. The boy looked like a painter, with a lot of white paint stuck on his dirty linen shirt.

"Hello, we were just... on the street, and suddenly..."

The more the vendor tried to recall his previous experience, the more his head hurt. He put down his cart and covered his forehead.

"Don't worry my friend, it's normal to feel a little dizzy, it happens to all of us at first.

As for why we came here, it may be an unexpected accident or it may be a miracle sent by God. We can discuss these slowly.

The most important thing now is that you need to find a place to rest quickly, especially the children, they must be exhausted.

Don't worry, we have a lot of houses here, including newly built empty houses, which are big enough for your family to live in comfortably. As for food, Raymondo has already prepared strawberry pie for you, and the bath water will be ready soon.

Esteban, Pedro, you two take this lovely family to the big house in the east, quickly."

Charlie came over enthusiastically to greet them, and spoke like a machine gun. Not only was his tone enthusiastic, but his wording was also very polite. The peddler and his family were flattered.

The two young men called by Charlie took the cart from the peddler, and the peddler and his family happily followed the two into the village.

"What's your name, young man?"

After arranging the arrangements for the family of three, Charlie turned his head to the boy covered in paint.

"Ramiro, sir."

The boy took off his hat and saluted. He was a little nervous, and his hair was wet with sweat and stuck to his forehead.

"Painter? How's your skill?"

Unlike the eagerness and familiarity just now, Charlie's questions this time were very brief.

"I'm just an apprentice. Before that, I was... I was... Anyway, I worked for a painter."

The boy, like the vendor, got a splitting headache whenever he thought about the past.

"Apprentice? Well, I believe you should have some skills. However, you have seen the situation here. Painters are not as good as potters and masons. This is not necessary.

But I think you are a child who can endure hardships. Go ahead. There are still many empty shacks in the village. Find a place to live by yourself. If someone asks you to paint, they will definitely give you a meal. "

Charlie first belittled the boy and then praised him. He belittled the boy as worthless in the first part, but the last sentence gave him a little hope of survival.

The young man was very grateful and he went through the crowd to find a shack by himself.

"What about you? What's your name?"

Charlie turned his gaze to the gray-haired old lady again. Although he tried his best to maintain his tone, Liu Yonglu could still hear that Charlie was somewhat impatient when he said this.

"Juana."

The old lady responded dryly.

"What will it do?"

"I... can sew and mend, but... my eyesight is not good. Why is there no sun in this place? I want to go back to where there is sun!"

The old lady was alone and helpless, and the person talking to her had a cold tone. She was frightened for a moment and began to sob softly.

"We can't go back. We are the descendants chosen by the gods. After that..."

Charlie obviously had his own explanation, but looking at the old lady in front of him with her head down and wiping away tears, he was too lazy to waste his words:
"Go in first, and find a place to sleep and food. You have to figure it out yourself. As you can see, the village is not rich."

The old lady was speechless. She lowered her head, leaned on her cane, and walked unsteadily towards the village.

After the old lady walked away, Charlie straightened his clothes, looked at his black-robed companions, and said to the villagers:

“Everyone, everyone, the two most important things have been done.

If you encounter any difficulties, let's come together at the same time and place tomorrow to discuss it. Since we are all blessed by the gods, we will definitely be able to find a solution.

There will definitely be new companions joining us at this time tomorrow. Well, Tom, don't pout. I guess you want to eat an apple."

The villagers standing below burst into laughter.

"Don't worry, I promise to give it to the two of you later. You better watch it carefully this time, don't let your sister snatch it away like yesterday."

Little Tom's father laughed and ruffled his son's messy hair with his big hands.

"One last thing, after that everyone can leave.

Ladies and gentlemen, although we are people blessed by God, there are still demons lurking around us, coveting our beautiful life.

These are the original sins we have committed, and we should not blame God.

What we need to do is to find out the demons lurking around us, so that we can ensure the healthy growth of wheat ears and squeeze warm and delicious goat milk from goats. "

The villagers' eyes sparkled at Charlie's inflammatory words, and even the children clapped excitedly.

"The day before yesterday I heard that some idle guys were stealing food in the east of the village.

This is not how we should be. It is an encroachment and betrayal of virtue.

They must have been bewitched by the devil and blinded their eyes! We need to help them and find out where the devil is lurking and what means it uses to control them."

After Charlie finished speaking, the crowd automatically made way for him, and three or four children and two old men slowly walked from the village to the front of the crowd.

These men had no chains or ropes on their hands, but they neither ran away nor resisted. They just walked over on their own.

"I hope you can repent for the sins you have committed."

Charlie said nothing more. He walked straight into the crowd and took a wooden stick from a villager.

The villagers began to walk up to the group of "sinners" one by one and inserted wooden sticks into the soil under their feet. Two wooden sticks inserted into the ground formed a cross shape.

Countless crosses surrounded these people in the center.

"Little Tiger!"

When one of the boys turned his head, Liu Yonglu could see his appearance clearly. His face was pale, and he had black hair and black pupils. Wasn't this the Xiaohu he was looking for?
The only thing that was different from Xiaohu was his eyes. They were not as lifeless as before, but timid, and he looked like he was about to cry.

There was a little girl sitting next to Xiaohu, and it was Ling'er.

Liu Yonglu's blood suddenly rushed up and he stood up. He put on his cloak and wanted to go out to save people. Fortunately, Millie Tang was quick-witted and grabbed Liu Yonglu.

Millie Tang was also anxious, but she still maintained the necessary rationality. The village in front of her was full of evil, and if she rashly ran over to rescue Xiaohu and Ling'er, she would definitely have a conflict with the villagers.

At this time, she already had a vague idea in her mind. She planned to wait for the villagers to return home and then discuss it carefully with Richie.

Millie Tang tightly grasped Liu Yonglu's palm and tightened her nails. The pain gradually diluted Liu Yonglu's anger and impatience. Fortunately, no one noticed them because they were wearing cloaks at this time. Liu Yonglu gritted his teeth and hid behind the boulder again.

The villagers built a fence with wooden sticks and left the village entrance laughing. At this time, only the six trapped "sinners" were left in front of the gate.

There were suddenly fewer torches, and the entire area fell into darkness again.

Shi Weitian and his companions carefully left the bronze gate area and returned to the beach where they first landed.

"Mi Li'er, I have to go save Xiao Hu and Ling'er. You guys stay here to support me. If things don't work, call the Dog Riding Rabbit over. I'll fire the BK."

Liu Yonglu wished he could kill Charlie and his men.

"Ricky, I understand how you feel. Don't worry. I have a way that will allow us to sneak into the village quietly, rescue Xiaohu and Ling'er, and also find out what is going on in this strange village."

(End of this chapter)