Goddess Wanhua Mirror

As a result, many villagers who had firmly supported the village chief's expulsion changed their minds on the spot. Even Old Rom himself was hesitating. He knew very well how important a blacksmith was to the village.

As long as this guy is a real craftsman, then using the surplus food in the village to keep him, this business is indeed a good deal for the village!

End of this chapter

Because of the craftsmanship of the blacksmith, Old Roma finally agreed to accept this group of refugees to join Pine Tree Village.The village will provide them with some food, but these are not free, but loaned to them by the village, and they need to make an IOU for the blacksmith and others to sign on it.

In order to write the IOU, the old Roma specially called the literate Lude, hoping that he could help write the IOU.Lu De was not very willing at first, and after confirming repeatedly that this old guy with a lot of thieves did not want to lend usury, he nodded in agreement.

In front of both parties, Lu De wrote an IOU for borrowing grain on a piece of papyrus, which stated that Pine Tree Village would provide food for these newly joined refugees until the first crop was harvested next year, while the refugees would have to Add five cents interest when repaying, that is, pay 5% more.

To be honest, the interest rate is not too high, and the refugees also know that there is never a free lunch in this world, so one by one obediently pressed their fingerprints on the IOU.

Lude counted a total of 31 refugees. There were only twelve adults, seven elderly people, and the rest were children. The youngest two were still in their infancy. Maybe they were hungry. My son kept crying.

The blacksmith was the leader of the group, his name was Bank, and his body was indeed that of a strong worker, with a very stocky build.When the other party came up to press his fingerprints, Lu De secretly observed the other party. The man's hands were thick with calluses, and the back of his hands was full of scars from burns. He had a red face that could only be baked by working in front of the stove all year round.

While Lude was observing each other, Blacksmith Bank was also observing Lude.He found that the old man with white beard and hair in front of him turned out to be a priest, and he was a little surprised when he heard others call him "Master Priest".

Logically speaking, the last time a religious person at the level of a priest should set up a temple in a small town, or a large village with a permanent population of several thousand, will soon be upgraded to a town.And the Songshu Village in front of me has only a few hundred villagers, and it is somewhat unreasonable that there are temples and priests.

But Bank knew that he had just arrived, and seeing that the priest's status in the village was not low, and the surrounding villagers respected him very much, so in line with the principle of "don't ask if you don't know", the blacksmith threw away his doubts. Going to the side, he obediently pressed his fingerprint on the IOU.

At this time, Lu De saw four children following the blacksmith. The oldest one was estimated to be sixteen or seventeen years old, and he called the blacksmith a master. The four boys are all about seven or eight years old, and the youngest is a girl, about three to four years old.

The reason why Lude noticed these children was because he found that the youngest girl was probably sick, her face was flushed and she was not energetic, and she was always coughing.

This frightened Lu De, whose soul came from the 21st century of the earth. When he was in junior high school, he happened to encounter "SARS", so he had a relatively intuitive understanding of the horror of infectious diseases.

And the world he lives in now is far inferior to the earth in terms of sanitation and routine medical care.In case this little loli has some particularly serious infectious disease, the whole Songshu Village may suffer along with it.

"Mr. Bank, is this little girl your daughter?"

"Yes, my lord, her name is Nina. Do you have any questions?"

"She doesn't look well, is she sick?"

"Ah...it's okay, the child is young, and he caught a cold on the way here, so I don't need to bother you."

Seeing the blacksmith subconsciously blocking the child behind him, as if he was carefully guarding against himself, Lude couldn't help complaining in his heart, I'm not those copper smelters, why are you so afraid.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm a priest, and I know herbalism in addition to divine arts. And the goddess I believe in is the God of Medicine. As his believer, I can't turn a blind eye to those who are suffering from illness."

Despite Luther's persuasion, Bank still refused to allow him to see a doctor for his daughter Nina.It wasn't until Lu De said that he would not charge money, and that he could help him to say a few words in front of the village chief and let him take care of these refugees, that the other party reluctantly agreed, and the expression was still not very willing.

The little girl Nina was timid, she seemed a little afraid of strangers, and kept hiding behind her father Bank. Fortunately, Lude's old man's appearance was created by referring to the image of the famous "Melee Mage" Gandalf. He has kind eyebrows and kind eyes, and he is very friendly when he smiles.

Lu De first tested his temperature with the back of his hand against his forehead, and then checked his pupils and tongue coating. He preliminarily judged that it was a common cold like a cold, and the symptoms he showed were not very serious.However, the child's lung function does not seem to be very good, and his breathing is not very smooth, accompanied by a severe cough.

According to Bank, the little guy has been feeling unwell for almost five days, and no one else in the company has experienced similar symptoms, but her lungs are not very good since she was young, and it is considered an old problem.

So Lu De first appeased the blacksmith and told him that his daughter Nina was not seriously ill. He would go back and prescribe some medicine, and just remember to take the medicine on time.

Then Lu De approached the village head who was thinking about where to build the blacksmith shop, and expressed that he was worried that these foreign refugees would bring evil spirits that could cause diseases to the village, and hoped to perform a "exorcism" ceremony for them first.The specific method is to bathe these refugees.

"Can taking a bath exorcise evil spirits?"

"Well! Bathing does have the effect of exorcising evil spirits. Brother, you must know that the evil spirits of diseases like to find those who are weak, because these evil spirits are just like human villains, they also like to bully the weak and fear the strong. People who don't pay attention to hygiene Because the surface of the skin is covered with dirt, it will cover up the anger in the body, making the evil spirits mistakenly think that they are weak, and then possess them. These refugees are so dirty and have traveled such a long way. Exorcising evil spirits before those ghosts start to make trouble is good for them and the village. You have to believe me, I am a priest!"

Lu De's remarks are well-founded and convincing!

He also reminded the village head that it is best to arrange these refugees to live collectively in the northwest corner of the village (downwind).Because after completing the exorcism ceremony, some evil spirits may not have been eliminated, but left the host and fled around.Let these refugees live in the northwest, hoping to take advantage of the rising sun in the east to drive away these fleeing evil spirits, lest they stay in the village and find others.

The village chief who was persuaded by the scene immediately ordered the villagers to boil hot water quickly, and the refugees were all puzzled when they heard that the village would force them to bathe and perform an exorcism ceremony.But since he was living under the fence and waiting to eat the relief food in the village, no one dared to speak out against it, so it was considered as going to the countryside to do as the Romans did.

End of this chapter

With the concerted efforts of almost all the villagers in Songshu Village, they quickly boiled enough boiling water to shed hair for ten pigs.The refugees were also divided into several groups according to age, gender and physical condition to take a bath in different places.

As for the dirty clothes these people changed, some of them were too tattered to be directly incinerated, while others that were not bad were all soaked in the water basin, and they were washed by themselves after the refugees got out of the shower.

For this reason, Songshu Village provided the refugees with dozens of sets of clean clothes. Of course, these were not free, so another IOU was added.

In fact, the villagers were not very happy to take care of these refugees at the beginning. They boiled bath water for them and cleaned their clothes, just like serving a noble lord.Some people even think that since these outsiders have evil possessions, they should all be driven away, leaving the blacksmith's family at most.

Regarding these gossips, Lu De directly dropped a sentence.

"The goddess will not bless those cold-blooded people who have no compassion!"

After this tossing, the refugees who had been busy with travel and dust all changed their appearance, so clean and tidy that they didn't even know themselves.Then Lude and Aina appeared on the stage, with Aina holding a basin of clear water, and Lude holding a freshly picked branch, dipped in water and sprinkled it on the foreheads of these refugees.

"May the goddess bless you all, and the evil spirits will disperse!"

After a set of exorcising rituals was completed, the refugees finally settled down and had their long-lost warm meal.Although everyone finds the custom of taking a bath to exorcise evil spirits in Songshu Village strange, the feeling after taking a bath is really not bad.

As for the old residents in the village, the words that Lude said about the evil diseases during the day were also heard and remembered by many caring people.

Holding the simple idea of ​​"believing in priests can never be wrong", the villagers were also afraid that they would be haunted by evil spirits, so they spontaneously changed some old habits. They would boil hot water and take a bath every three to five days, and pay attention to personal hygiene on weekdays .This gradually became a local custom and has been handed down.

Due to taking in a group of refugees, the village's original plan to sell surplus grain for money was forced to be cancelled.But fortunately, the village finally had a blacksmith, and the blacksmith promised to give them two years of work for nothing, and the villagers got some compensation for their sense of loss.

In order to allow the blacksmith Bank to start work as soon as possible, the village head, Old Rom, took his sons to clean up the empty house next to the carpenter's house as quickly as possible, and planned to transform it into a blacksmith's shop.

Old Roma was a shrewd man, with six sons and three daughters in his family.In order to protect his family's power and status in Songshu Village, he made corresponding arrangements for his sons and daughters.The eldest and the second are farming at home, the third and fourth are sent out to serve as soldiers for the lord, the fifth is learning from the carpenter in the village, and all the daughters are married to wealthy households in the village. Just turned 14.

Old Rom originally planned to send this kid to learn from Lude, so that he could become a high-ranking priest in the future, but Lude has no plans to accept apprentices in the village in the short term, so now he is thinking about letting him learn blacksmithing from Bank.

The blacksmith shop was soon in place, the stove was built, and the anvil and pig iron were also sent to the town to buy them, and the tools were all brought by Bank.

After finishing and getting ready, the first task given to Bank by the village was to make ten scythes first, as a test for him to see how good his skills were.

As a result, Banke Xiaolu surprised everyone in the village with his skills, making molds, melting iron to pour them, and then repeatedly forging.Ten scythes were ready in a few days. The villagers tried them out, and they felt that they were better than the ones they bought from the town.

Relying on his solid craftsmanship, Bank became very popular in the village, and his status also rose sharply.But at this time, Lude began to be curious about Bank. It stands to reason that with his good craftsmanship, there is no need to go to the border of the kingdom.Intuition told Lu De that this is a man with a story!

Taking advantage of the opportunity to see a doctor for Bank's daughter Nina, Lude had a lot of contact with this taciturn blacksmith during this time.His daughter's cold did recover quickly, but her lung problem still persisted. It seemed to be a genetic disease that made Nina weak.

Lu De was worried at first whether it might be contagious tuberculosis, but later learned that the little girl had been living with her family, eating and living with her family, but never infected her father and two older brothers, so tuberculosis The possibility is temporarily ruled out.At this time, Lu De only regretted that he was a cop in his previous life, not a real doctor, so he was not sure what the disease was.

Every time Lude and Aina came over, they could see Bank blacksmithing. They just nodded at Lude's arrival, and they didn't intend to communicate at all.On the contrary, his apprentice, Buddy, is a very talkative young man, and he can often be seen walking around the village, helping his master deliver the farm tools he has laid to each house.

However, according to Buddy himself, he has not been a Bank apprentice for a long time, less than a month.

Buddy is an orphan. His parents were killed by bandits, but he was able to escape from the butcher's knife because of his parents' cover. Later, he met Bank's refugee team and joined them voluntarily. master.

Buddy is not very clear about his master's past, he only knows that Bank once had a wife, but later died of a serious illness, so Bank left the sad place where he once lived with his three children.These things were not said by Bank himself, but what Buddy and the master's children found out during the chat.

On this day, Lude came to the blacksmith shop again, but this time he did not come to treat Nina, but to ask Bank to help him make some metal parts.Thanks to the frequent visits, he and Bank's family are already acquainted, but compared to him, the old man, the lively and lovely Aina is obviously more popular with children.

Especially Bank's apprentice Buddy, Lude found that this kid seemed to be interested in his own nun.At first glance, the two are indeed about the same age. Buddy is seventeen this year, and Aina claims to be sixteen. They are both in the Mood for Love.And there is no rule in this world that religious people cannot take marriage leave, so the young man is quite active.

If it were an ordinary village girl, with Buddy's conditions, it would be easy to win.The young man is not only young, but also very strong, sweet-talking and a promising blacksmith apprentice, so not long after he came to the village, he was followed by many girls.

It's a pity that this silly boy chose the wrong target for the attack and set his sights on Aina, who looked a little silly. No matter how he showed his favor, Aina just remained unmoved. What's for dinner?

After Lude came over, he found that the village chief, Old Rom, was also there. As soon as he entered the house, he heard the other party asking Bank a very unusual question.

"Bank, can you forge weapons?"

"What do you want weapons for, village chief?"

Hearing the village chief's request, Bank looked puzzled, and Buddy next to him and Lude who had just entered the house also looked at him with a little surprise.Lu Dexin said that he had heard that the folk customs on the border were tough, but he never thought that the village head, who usually looks upright, would have such a crooked idea, and wanted to lead the villagers to do some "side jobs" in winter.

Seeing the different expressions of the people present, Old Rom knew that these people must be thinking wrong, so he hurriedly explained.

"No, it's not what you think. It's like this. I received a letter from my third boy this morning. He is not a soldier at the lord's, saying that a group of bandits have recently appeared in the Earl of Lumley. , taking advantage of the black hands in every village in autumn, and several villages have already suffered, I thought about making preparations early. You all know that although there are many people in our village, none of them have serious weapons. Bandits are coming, we can't count on the lord's knights and city guards, we have to rely on ourselves!"

The meaning of old Roma is very simple. The location of Pine Tree Village is good. There are plains suitable for farming around this place, and it is also the confluence of two big rivers. The only problem is that it is too far away from the town. In a day and a half, if bandits came, even if a fire was fired for help, the guards in the town would not be able to arrive in time, let alone they might not come.

Therefore, in order to plan for a rainy day, Old Rom hopes to build a batch of handy weapons in advance, preferably long spears that are suitable for novices and can be used in battle. Bank only needs to build the tip of the gun, and the carpenter next door will be responsible for the stick of the gun body.

After listening to the village chief's narration, Bank nodded, saying that he can make gun points, as well as other conventional weapons.But the problem now is that the iron ingots have been almost consumed by helping the villagers make new farm tools before, and the village’s own iron ore has not started to be mined at all. Bank is a blacksmith, but he can’t conjure iron ingots out of thin air Come.

Old Rom immediately said that he would solve the problem of iron ingots. Tomorrow, he would send someone to take a cart of grain to the town to change the iron, and he would be back the next night. fix it.

After explaining the matter, Old Rom got up and prepared to go to the carpenter's house next door, while Buddy left in a hurry because he still had some goods to deliver. There were only Lud and Bank left in the blacksmith's shop, and the atmosphere suddenly became tense. The sudden silence became a little awkward.

"Well, Mr. Bank, I want you to help me build something."

As Lude said, he took out a few pieces of papyrus from his pocket and handed it over. There were sketches of parts drawn by him on it.Bank took a look, and his expression suddenly became a little subtle.

"My lord, what is this?"

"A mechanism, I call it a pulley! How? Can it be done?"

"Yes, yes, but you heard it just now, I have to help the village..."

"Ah, I'm not in a hurry, you just help the village chief first."

"……OK then."

Putting away the parts drawings given by Lude, Bank continued to work on the iron. Lude could only turn his head and leave when he saw this. As soon as he went out, he saw Aina running towards him from the entrance of the village. shouted furiously.

"Master! Something is wrong!"

End of this chapter

Regardless of her image as a goddess and the gazes of others, Aina ran all the way to Lude, but she was out of breath and couldn't say a complete sentence for a long time.

Seeing this, Lu De told her not to be in a hurry, and wait until her breathing calmed down.As a result, when the other party finally recovered, Lu De was stunned as soon as he opened his mouth.

"Master, it's bad! Our temple is haunted!"

"What's the trouble?"

"Haunted!"

"..."

Aina's words caused Lude to show a very subtle expression. Regardless of whether it is really haunted or not, even if there are ghosts, you are still a real goddess. You are a bit weak, but you are not so scared by ghosts. Virtue, right?

Since they are not sure what happened for the time being, and both of them are in the village right now, there are so many people around, Lude immediately dragged Aina, and had to go back to the temple before talking.

But when Aina saw that Luther was going to take her back to the "haunted" temple, Lai stayed put and refused to leave, stubborn like a Shiba Inu having a temper.

There was no other way, Lu De could only take her to the drying yard in the village, where there was usually no one at night, and asked her what happened?

It turned out that the "ghosts" that Aina mentioned were some voices that suddenly appeared in her ears, because she could only hear someone talking, but she couldn't see anyone around her, so she was very frightened by this good-for-nothing goddess.

Lu Dexin said that he had lived in that temple for less than half a year. Except for the occasional movement of the cabinet blocking the underground secret door in the storage room, he had never encountered any other unusual supernatural events.

So Lude asked some more details, what was she doing before and after the incident, and what did the invisible ghost say in her ear?Aina said after thinking about it carefully for a moment.

"I had nothing to do at the time, so I grabbed Faith to eat in the temple, but I suddenly heard that voice, like an old lady, asking me to bless her grandson with health and longevity. I don't even know who the ghost is. , how to bless her grandson!"

"..."

After listening to Aina's description about before and after the haunting, Lu De had vaguely guessed a possibility in his heart.In order to prove that his guess was right, Lude asked Aina to wait for him at the same spot for a while, he went around the village, and soon brought back some fresh "faith".

"Here, you eat this first, and then tell me, has the ghost whispering in your ear appeared? What did they say this time?"

After receiving the faith from Lude, Aina swallowed it without thinking, and after only a few seconds, her expression suddenly became extremely shocked.

"Ghost, ghost appeared again!"

"Don't panic, first listen to what the ghost has to say."

"This time it's a little girl's voice. Listen...it sounds a little familiar. She said that her breasts are bigger than children of the same age, which troubles her. I hope I can help her make her breasts smaller. Really. No, it’s okay not to grow so fast.”

"Well, did you hear it more clearly this time than before?"

"It seems...it's really clearer."

Under Luther's test, Aina ate three beliefs successively, and each time she could hear different voices. Without exception, they all asked for her, hoping that Aina could help her.And Lude basically figured it out, the voice that Aina heard was not a ghost, but the prayers of believers.

Lude went around the village before, found a few believers and villagers, and asked them if they had any wishes for the goddess to help them realize, and then induced them to pray on the spot, and the resulting belief was captured by him on the spot.

This kind of belief produced by prayer is different from those general beliefs produced by high-pitched emotional fluctuations. It contains messages inside, which will bring the wishes of the prayers to the gods they believe in.The former Aina may not be able to hear these prayers because she was not strong enough.

Like the first ball of faith that Aina ate just now, the contributor is a little girl named Nasi in the village. She is only 13 years old this year. Drinking goat's milk leads to an advantage over other children in body development, and almost all of them are concentrated on the chest.

This troubled the little girl, because the children in the same village laughed at her as a cow baby and a monster with big tits, which made her feel very inferior.Lu De just wanted to say, child, you are still young, after a few more years, those brats who laughed at you before will definitely regret it and explode in place, and there is no time to lick it!

After figuring out what was going on, Aina finally felt relieved, while Lude felt that this was a good sign, indicating that her goddess was indeed growing steadily and had begun to possess some extraordinary power.

The two then prepared to return to the temple, but after walking not far, they happened to meet Buddy, the blacksmith's apprentice.