plumnovel #196 - How about the church?
#196 - How about the church?
“Clang!”
The thumb-sized pebble struck Gibson's iron helmet, producing a crisp ringing sound, and Gibson immediately felt his head buzzing.
He straightened his helmet and looked angrily in the direction of the throw, only to see several eleven or twelve-year-old children perched on a rooftop, grinning at him.
“You are from wh…” Standing beside the sentry post at the bridgehead, Gibson was about to berate them when one of the children wound up his arm and threw something at him.
He never imagined that they would dare to throw stones at him while he was looking right at them.
Before he could recover from his surprise, an egg-sized stone was rapidly becoming clearer.
A sharp, piercing pain came from the bridge of his nose, and Gibson jerked backward, releasing his hook spear, covering his nose, and tears welled up in his eyes from the stinging pain in his nasal cavity.
“Captain Gibson? Are you alright?”
“Whose kids are these!”
Covering his bleeding nose with his head down, Gibson pointed in the direction of the children: “Catch them for me.”
Around him, seven or eight night watch guards immediately raised their hook spears and ran towards the building, while the boys on the roof shouted, “Pied Piper! Go to hell!” and scattered in all directions like startled birds.
The night watch guards separated and ran after different boys, but they couldn't run more than a few steps.
The people on the street, laborers, craftsmen, or ordinary citizens, acted like walls, pushing against the night watch guards with their shoulders and bodies.
The guards squeezed through the crowd, unable to move forward, and some were even tripped by beggars and vagrants on the roadside.
They ended up with bruised faces and swollen noses, but they could only watch helplessly as the boys who threw the stones climbed up and down the rooftops, eventually disappearing into the sunset.
The guards immediately turned around and shouted, “What are you doing?”
“The children are just being mischievous, just playing around.”
“Hey, why are you arguing with children? Right?”
Passersby openly sided with the children, some even blatantly blocking the guards' path.
Stuffing his bleeding nose with a handkerchief, Gibson walked to the front of the crowd: “What exactly do you want to do?”
“Not doing anything.” A laborer blocking Gibson's path spread his hands. “I'm just walking normally. Why are you stopping me and bumping your chest into my shoulder?”
“You son of a goat!” Gibson, his face flushed, grabbed the laborer's collar. “Want to die?”
“Oh, oh, oh, people shouldn't forget their hometown and relatives.” An old beggar sitting in the sun said sarcastically, “Some people have been drinking the water of Thousand River Valley since they were little, eating the rice fruit grown by the people of Thousand River Valley, but they want to beat the people of Thousand River Valley.”
As the old man spoke, some citizens and laborers gathered around, not directly attacking, but staring at Gibson with strange expressions.
In the stern and cold gazes, Gibson swallowed and subconsciously let go of his hand.
But after reacting, he immediately became enraged and raised the hook spear in his hand, pointing it at the crowd: “Want to rebel? What? Are you Short Hairs?”
It would have been better if he hadn't said that, but saying that stirred up a hornet's nest, and even passersby stopped in their tracks.
“I wish I were a Short Hair!”
“Short Hairs are all heroes, and they even said they would avenge the children of our Thousand River Valley!”
“If it weren't for the Holy Grandson, I wouldn't know where my nephew went. What's wrong with Short Hairs? Do the night watch guards have something to be proud of?”
“Aren't Short Hairs good people? Wasn't our Juanuo such a good person? Wasn't he burned to death by that pimp?”
“Look, they used to secretly kill our children to make wine, and now they're doing it openly.”
Seeing the surrounding crowd growing thicker and thicker, with countless index fingers pointing fiercely at Gibson, the other guards behind him gathered back-to-back around him, and some companions were even tugging at his hem, signaling him to let it go.
Gibson was completely confused. He remembered that before, not to mention those children daring to throw things at him, they wouldn't even dare to get close.
Whenever he went to chase someone, they would obediently make way, not to mention scolding him face-to-face, they wouldn't dare to say a word even if he knocked them down.
What exactly is going on?
“Run, run, the armored soldiers are coming.”
The boy who had just thrown stones at Gibson actually returned to the roof, shouting at the stalled crowd below, and then disappeared again into the layers of eaves.
Hearing this news, the passersby scattered in confusion, still afraid, only able to bully these night watch guards who had no extraordinary powers.
The night watch guards didn't dare to stop them, and couldn't stop them anyway, only able to be pushed and squeezed in the fleeing crowd.
Even while fleeing the scene, they had to rub hard against the night watch guards, and someone even pretended to stretch and gave Gibson's nose a hard elbow.
As Gibson squatted on the ground, covering his nose in pain, the crowd had completely dispersed.
The guards were disheveled, their clothes in disarray, and their hair and bodies were covered in rotten vegetable leaves and rotten eggs. They stood there in a mess, without their former prestige.
Standing up, Gibson wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes with a handkerchief. He didn't know if his tears were from pain or fear.
“Glug-glug—”
Wheels rolled over the ground and wooden planks, and several carriages drove from the bridgehead.
The wooden bridge groaned with decay, and Gibson quickly retreated to the side of the road.
On the bridge, a team of armored soldiers and three extraordinary knights escorted two freight carriages loaded with a dozen prisoners to be transported to the quarry outside the city as coolies.
Their hands were tied with ropes, their hair was disheveled, their faces were covered in dirt, and their mouths were bruised. They swayed back and forth as the carriages moved.
These people were all citizens and laborers, and even low-ranking priests, who had rushed to Feiliu Fort Church the day before yesterday to block the road and demand an explanation.
These people were all judged by the Church and the Empire as "Short Hairs."
But unlike in the past, the people on the roadside cheered for the prisoners in the carriages, even throwing bread, cheese, and cabbage at them so they could eat on the road.
The prisoners, like triumphant heroes, raised their tied hands and waved to the sides of the road to thank them, as if they were heroes going on an expedition.
Faced with this scene, the knight's face was full of annoyance, but he couldn't explode, because he knew that even if he ordered the armored soldiers to disperse the crowd, it wouldn't be of much use.
These armored soldiers were also from Thousand River Valley. Letting them disperse the crowd would only give the crowd a chance to rush up and release the prisoners.
Standing behind the cheering crowd, Mitzam in black clothes wore a hood and said nothing.
Has the situation fermented to this point in just over ten days?
After the Blue Blood incident broke out, although he quickly blocked the news, he couldn't completely block the river, and many vagrants and merchants still spread the news.
This news was originally just doubtful and was regarded as a rumor by many people.
But news came five days ago that another Blue Blood orphanage had been discovered in Blackwood Township, a city in North Mande County, and hundreds of Blue Blood orphans had been rescued.
Compared to the gentle nature of the people in the Thousand River Valley Plain, the mountain people, who retained the irritable character of the original Cush descendants, directly burned down the local church.
The priests of the Blue Blood orphanage were publicly ground into slag on a millstone by the mountain people, and some mountain people even took cups to drink it on the spot.
Then the restless Grand Duchess Moriya took the opportunity to take over Blackwood Township, which originally belonged to the sphere of influence of the Church, and issued a document questioning:
“What's wrong with this Church? It's always the believers who suffer. I can't help but wonder, this must be a problem with the Church system!”
Under the instigation of the Grand Duchess and the fueling of the Huannuo believers everywhere, the scene that had just occurred was everywhere in Thousand River Valley.
Just yesterday in Rapid Stream City, a bishop was attacked while going out, stripped naked, and hung naked at the entrance of a brothel.
The situation was better in the four plains counties. Because the news in rural areas was blocked, it hadn't spread yet. Although it had gradually spread in urban areas, it was only a matter of humiliation and they didn't dare to go too far.
The situation in the five mountain counties was not right. The bishops didn't even dare to leave the church gates. Even if they did, they had to bring at least two squads of soldiers, otherwise they would be attacked at every turn.
Mitzam even heard that a bishop in a mountain county was swarmed and stabbed to death by a group of beggars while traveling to other parishes, just because it was rumored that he “had Blue Blood wine in his house.”
The reason why the old bishop exposed his whereabouts was because local priests in Thousand River Valley tipped off the beggars and vagrants, arranging everything clearly for the old bishop.
What a coincidence, three things broke out together.
Mitzam sighed and walked towards the depths of the alley.