Ice Vapor Goddess

Chapter 41 read aloud
Xiren smiled: "The best that is within human power? What I see is your soldiers abusing the people at the gates and maliciously collecting taxes. The administrators you appointed are the same old lords, now in a different place, continuing to abuse the workers under their command."

"Five- or six-story buildings are left vacant, yet people are crammed into tiny 20-square-meter rooms on the third floor. Some people even have their heating cut off because of their unwavering faith in God."

But Renn remained expressionless, instead revealing a hint of disdain, and slammed his hand on the table: "Please invite them over."

Xiren frowned, feeling a sense of unease.

Soon, the soldiers outside brought two people into the broadcasting room.

One was Oliver, who was blocking Celen at the door, and the other was Tess, whom I had met that day.

Xilun's expression changed drastically.

Renn observed the other person's expression and asked slowly, "You mean these two?"

“Oliver, once my personal guard, a regular knight, maliciously blocked people from entering outside the west gate and accepted bribes. He has already been flogged twenty times and then demoted to a coal miner,” Renn said solemnly. “Bishop Siron, can you answer me in the name of God, is this the person you are talking about?”

Xiren saw the gold pound brand on his hand, a punishment he had inflicted himself.

He took a deep breath: "Yes."

“Then he has received the punishment he deserved,” Ryan said.

He then turned to another person: "Tess, a milkmaid living in the seventh section of the third basement level, accused Sir Taylor, the dairy manager, of assault and his wife of maliciously scalding her hands with boiling disinfectant."

Tess stood there silently with her head down. The wounds on her hands had inexplicably healed, and her skin was as fair and tender as that of a noble lady.

Siren sat there silently as he watched Sir Taylor, the manager of the dairy farm, walk into the broadcasting room in a morning suit.

"Ah—ladies and gentlemen, good day, I am Sir Wade Taylor. Forgive me for the difficulty in giving you a full account of the origins of this ancient surname, for while your ancestors were still tilling the fields in the mud, my ancestors were already deciding which counties were better for hunting."

"Here's a joke: a couple of years ago, a commoner member of parliament questioned the legitimacy of my title, and guess what? When the royal archivist produced the original investiture decree written in ancient language, that gentleman's great-grandfather—excuse me, I can never remember the genealogies of these emerging families—was reportedly performing fire-eating at a market in the north!"

"Four hundred years..."

"Taylor!" Ryan tapped the table in annoyance.

"Ah—I apologize, Your Excellency, please forgive my rudeness. Because of the overly long family genealogy, it always takes me a long time to make new friends understand the heavy bloodline responsibility that this surname carries—"

"Is it you, Tess... or Miss Tesser? Accusing me—of a gentleman coveting your body?"

He stood arrogantly in front of the girl, tapping his cane on the ground with a sound of discontent, which made the girl tremble every time she heard it.

“Enough, Renn.” Siren’s eyes were filled with rage. “You are hurting her a second time.”

“No, not enough, Bishop.” Taylor turned his head, revealing a reserved smile, as every nobleman is trained from childhood. “Although I deny such accusations, out of noble manners, I must still apologize to this girl—because our overly refined manners often attract the fantasies of these farm girls.” He gently took Tess’s hands in his. “Oh, child, I am very sorry. If your dream lover is a gentleman as noble and elegant as myself, you may be permanently disappointed. My wife and I have a good relationship. She is an excellent descendant of the D’Urbervilles and shares my noble blood.”

He slipped a gold pound into Tess's hand and then released her thin, bruised hands.

Tess is crying.

“That’s enough, Taylor.” Ryan frowned. “You can go now. We’ll compensate this girl with ten months’ wages later.”

Siron's face was as cold as the eternal snow outside. At this moment, he desperately wished that God truly existed or granted him enough power: "Tell me, Ryan Hoffman, what do the people mean to you?"

Ryan scoffed: "It means survival, it means hope, it means labor and work, it means the cornerstone of Speyside."

Xilun pulled out a thick stack of papers from his pocket and began to read them aloud.

"Ronan, a steelworker, works in temperatures of 50°C. He has 11 burns, 4 ulcers, a hernia, and pneumoconiosis. He works 16 hours a day and is constantly beaten and verbally abused by his supervisor. His meals consist only of black bread and potatoes, and his weekly wage is 6 shillings."

"Mello, a washerwoman, whose hands are constantly soaked in highly alkaline soapy water and bleach, has developed skin ulcers, arthritis, and respiratory problems, and her spine is bent. She earns only one shilling a week."

“Esther arrived in Speyside relatively well-off, with three cows and ten chickens, wanting to buy land here. She paid £3 for consultation, £5 for lawyers, £2 for stamp duty, £3 for title search and copying, £2 for deed registration, and a £10 deposit—a deposit for ten years, plus a hefty £1 per year in rent.”

"When the lawyer came to ask me about the amount of tithe I was entitled to, he subtly reminded me that she still had two chickens that she hadn't sold. I waived her tax, and in the end, this wealthy farmer sold all her possessions, leaving her with only two chickens and a small plot of land for which she had paid a ten-year deposit."

Siren read for a full eleven minutes, until Ryan's face darkened.

“The church investigated 761 households, and apart from the powerful families living on the fifth and sixth basement levels, not a single household was happy, nor did the governor’s men care about them.”

"Ever since I..."

“Bishop Siron,” Raine interrupted him sharply, the legendary knight’s imposing presence making Siron almost breathless. “You can speak of the problems of Speyer, pity their suffering, but hasn’t it always been this way? In the face of the apocalypse, I still maintained their daily lives; they did not lose their jobs, nor did they lose their families.”

"Yes, you can stand on the moral high ground to satirize and criticize me, but have you ever thought that only those who are not in power are truly innocent, because you don't have to bear responsibility, so you are spotless? But when you sit in this position, how innocent can you really be?"

"Or are you saying that once you become governor, you can directly stop the snowstorm, enrich the people, and bring down heaven?!"

Xilun's face turned red, and the air around him seemed to freeze under the pressure of the legend, but he still managed to squeeze out a voice from his throat: "At least I will not sit on the governor's throne without seeing the suffering within a hundred meters."

"Even if it's just a regular black crow, people are more willing to believe someone who has shaken hands with them than someone sitting in a high tower."

"If they want to find me, they only need to walk twenty meters along a garden path lit up with lights, but if they want to find you, they have to cross a luxurious corridor guarded by thirty guards."

　Another chapter! Don't wait any longer (kneeling). Reading during the new book period is very important. Three chapters tomorrow too.
　　
　
(End of this chapter)