Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 284: Is this a statue of a sinner?
It was reasonable and economical to buy tickets to enter the scenic area. The only downside was that it made Linger's already tight wallet even worse. Fortunately, the international status of the Kingdom of Brittany was high, and the currency value was strong enough. After converting it into Leisenburg's own currency, he could save a lot of money.

The idea of ​​careful budgeting made Ling Ge suddenly return to the days when he was still in Linville City, and he went to Uncle Moretti's bakery on time every weekend to buy the bread distributed during the seven-day ceremony. But that was in the past, and it seemed that it would never come back. Today is December 12st. Starting from tomorrow, January 31st, 1856, there will be no Tianxin Church in the world. If you still want to find out about the deeds of a taciturn pastor in the past, you may have to ask the nearby residents in detail. But can they remember such a distant event?
For all those who are eager to survive in this world, what happened two months ago is far enough away and long enough. If anything is away from their lives for more than two months, it will immediately evaporate and disappear without a trace like snowflakes under the sun. This cannot be blamed on their bad memory, but because the world requires people to bear too many and too heavy things, so they have to give up something in order to move forward.

With a sudden and indescribable feeling, Linger handed the coin to the ticket seller at the entrance of the scenic spot, waiting to get the ticket from him. However, the ticket seller did not rush to collect the money, but asked first: "Excuse me, guests, I would like to ask, is there anyone among you named David?"

"what?"

Alice asked curiously, "Why? Do I have to register my name when I buy a ticket to visit?"

With such standardized management, you must be rated as a 5A scenic spot, and then write a few soft articles in the newspaper to brag about how rigorous the constitutional government of Leisenburg is, using scientific management methods to build scenic spots, showing great wisdom in the details, and then rising to the credibility of the government and the basic quality of the people. In comparison, the management of scenic spots in my Kingdom of Brittany is too loose. Tourists trample on the lawn, litter, and beat small animals, but they even urinate and defecate everywhere! With such low quality of the people, does this country still have a future? This must be a system problem...

The golden-haired maid couldn't help but fall into deep thought.

It’s actually not that complicated.

"This is a rule that has been passed down from a long time ago." The ticket seller, who is a local, patiently explained, "It is said that there was a clear rule as early as the Avignon period that people named David were not allowed to enter or leave the village, and they were not even allowed to get close. Later, when the Avignon village was rebuilt into the city of Avignon and the former village site became today's scenic spot, some citizens who valued tradition insisted and even appealed to the city government. In order to calm the situation and respect customs, the mayor at the time still retained similar rules."

Is there such a thing?

He was just asking casually to complete his task, so he didn't have the time to find out the names of the guests. After all, it was just an old rule from hundreds of years ago. People nowadays don't take it seriously, let alone delve into the meaning behind it.

The ticket seller seemed not to have heard the hidden meaning of Alice's words. He nodded, took the money, handed the tickets to them, and said, "Well, I wish you all a pleasant trip."

So, if you want us to give you money, it's impossible.

"That is to say," Alice raised her eyebrows slightly after knowing the reason, "if there is indeed someone named David among us, he cannot enter the Windmill Village ruins for a tour?"

Entering the windmill village from the gate of the scenic area, which was the Avignon village before the 12th century AD, the first thing you see is a straight stone road. It seems that it was built later, because the construction technology is obviously more advanced. The flat square stones fit together tightly, and the potholes caused by raindrops show that it has at least a hundred years of history. On both sides of the road are planted the most common summer cherry trees in the area. This tree only blooms in summer and is often considered by botanists to belong to the same family as the local primrose, or it can be considered an enlarged version of the primrose. Therefore, it does not have the majesty and height of evergreen trees, but is delicate and small, quite interesting.

Princess Beman sighed for the umpteenth time: "Humans are truly horrible creatures."

The conductor gave a subtle smile: "In principle, that's right."

This time, even Shemi nodded in agreement.

In principle, it is true... Such a familiar statement, Alice almost thought that she had not traveled through time and was still in the original world. Considering that continuing to delve into this topic would easily trigger an irresistible force of harmony, she quickly shook her head, threw all these thoughts out of her mind, and spread her hands to the ticket seller: "That's a pity, there is no one named David among us, so."

After listening to this, everyone said that they had learned a lot. They thought that the regional discrimination of the Renwitin people had reached the top of the human discrimination chain, but they didn't expect that the path they had taken had already been taken by the people of Avignon seven hundred years ago, and they even surpassed them: they no longer practiced low-end regional discrimination, but have started high-end name discrimination!

Whether it was the corners of the stone path or the branches of the cherry trees, they were covered with snow that had not been swept away. The gray and miserable color revealed a bit of the coldness of deep winter. There were few other tourists, only the sound of a group of people's footsteps echoing in the empty space.

Alice couldn't stand the quiet atmosphere, so she took the initiative to find a topic to talk about. The most suitable topic at this moment was, of course, the strange rule that the ticket seller had just mentioned.

"So, why is there such a rule?" She held her head with both hands, walked arrogantly, and said casually: "People named David cannot enter the village. This is naked discrimination." Metien guessed: "Maybe it's because there was a man named David in the past who offended the villagers of Avignon, so they are very angry and don't let these people enter the village?"

"Isn't this just taking out your anger?" Alice pouted. "Besides, there are so many people named David in the world. Can the villagers stop them all?"

"Then I guess there must be an evil wizard who cursed the villagers here, making them hate people named David!" Shemi also joined the discussion with great interest.

But Alice felt that her guess was even less reliable than Metien's: "How bored a magician must be to do such a thing? Would you do it if it were you? I wouldn't do it anyway."

Not necessarily.

Everyone thought about it silently.

"It may just be an absurd rumor, just like outsiders often regard the Moryas as demons that bring disaster." Saint Shallia said softly: "Humans like to use alarmist statements to stimulate emotions, rather than rational thinking. At this time, the more absurd and illogical the statement is, the more convincing it will be."

Olvera did not guess, but had a subtle reverie, and murmured: "There must be a deep, complex, twisted and sad story hidden in it, just like the curious Victoria and the soul-losing Porta, or the fanatical Hiltitus and Miss Hulica who pursues her dream..."

The names she mentioned were probably names of people in the novel, but Linger had never heard of any of them, and he was not interested in commenting on them. Because the young people knew very well that their guesses were wrong, and the real answer was right in front of them.

After walking forward for a few more minutes, we came to the end of the stone path, where we could see another statue. It was of a young shepherd in his twenties. He was dressed simply or crudely, holding a whip to drive the sheep, and wearing a paper mask on his face, revealing only a pair of bronze eyes.

He turned his back to the village, as if he wanted to leave, then raised his head and looked back at his hometown, the land where he grew up. The emotions revealed in his cold, metallic eyes were vividly expressed by the sculptor's hands, showing nostalgia, reluctance, guilt and sadness. If you feel it carefully, you can also feel the anger and hatred burning in his heart. A few lambs with soft fur surrounded him, licking their owner's trouser legs, but they couldn't make him look down.

Perhaps it was because the sculptor's skills were too superb, the lifelike lamb made the lamb led by Saint Xia Liya mistakenly think it saw its own kind. It hurriedly moved forward to lick it, only to find that it was cold metal. It immediately let out a cry of grievance, which also made Alice laugh out loud with glee.

"There are statues here too?" Olvera tilted her head curiously: "Also, the mask on his face..."

The shepherd I saw at the market outside the city was wearing the same mask.

"David the Sinner."

The young man's voice sounded faintly, telling everyone the story of the statue: "Didn't I tell you the story of the wind and this land before? There used to be an invisible wind belt surrounding the old village of Avignon, bringing it a warm climate, abundant rainfall and abundant wind power, which led to the development of the local windmill industry. Later, due to unknown reasons, this wind belt suddenly disappeared. There are many hypotheses about its disappearance in geography and climatology, but the local legend believes that it was due to people's disrespect that angered the magnificent storm, causing it to leave this land and never favor the people here again."

"So, with the unanimous agreement of the villagers of Avignon at that time, the sinner who blasphemed the Great Wind was expelled from the village and banned from setting foot on this land again for the rest of his life. Even people with the same name were implicated and were hostile and driven away by the people of Avignon and later Avignon."

"The name of the criminal is——"

"David."

　Give me some meow
　　
　
(End of this chapter)