savior epic

Chapter 49 Why We Believe
Anne was taken back.

The pagans found Manuel's church. At that time, he happened to be debating the scriptures outside, and Anne happened to think that her uncle had returned.

Annie, who was recognized, was not lucky again. She was dragged and pulled out of the church with her hands bound. The monk who rushed to stop her was pushed to the ground, her head was smashed, and the dripping blood stained the tiles of the church. She was frightened. The terrified girl forgot to cry, she stared dryly, her feet were soft in her cloth shoes, she was dragged into the prison almost with her knees dragging on the ground, so that the inmates finally saw her trouser legs were frayed. Miserable.

Opening the prison gate, Annie fell into the arms of her panicked mother. At this moment, she finally shed tears in a hoarse voice belatedly.

The prisoners and the heretics stared at each other with almost the same hatred.

And when Chen Yi came to the prison, she could hear lonely crying in the corridor.

"The girl who escaped was caught and brought back." Said Xi Sen and Chen Yi, who had been guarding the prison.

Chen Yi lost her mind for a moment when she heard the words, and asked, "Is her name Annie?"

"Yes, you have to register again. What a lovely girl, even if she is a true believer." Xisen held the pity of a bystander and said, "It can only be said that I was troubled by that priest."

Chen Yi didn't speak, she squatted down silently, rummaged through the cabinet for red and black ink, quill pen, and linen paper, holding the rough paper between her fingers.

Xi Sen thought that he was about to go to register, so he pushed open the door, but saw him sitting at the wooden table late, and the objects he picked out just now were quietly put aside.

The jailer had no choice but to walk out of the warden's room resentfully, and closed the door behind him.

Chen Yi sat there for a long time.

The church bell rang, low and dull, and through a few walls, the sound of prayers that came as promised could still be heard.

The bright golden afterglow was dim, and the night was tired. Standing by the wooden framed window, you could see pale gray clouds. The town lighted up gradually, bored and sticky like sweat. Chen Yi breathed heavily, picking Pick up the quill.

The fire in the lampshade was as thin as copper wire and smelled of rust.

Chen Yi held the lamp and carried those objects, and pushed open the door of the corridor, the women's hoarse sobbing could be heard more clearly.

Walking slowly to the front of the cell, when the women saw the oil lamp, they stared at him vigilantly like a conditioned reflex.

Chen Yi squatted down and saw Annie nestled in the woman's arms. She half-closed her eyes tiredly, her eye sockets were flushed, she was tired from crying. Her mother, a thin woman, was holding her hand and holding her hand next to her ear. , praying to the icon around her neck.

Alina moved her knees and crawled over, "Mr. Clerk, you want to."

"I want to register for Annie." Despite being unreasonable, Chen Yi said slowly.

"Mr. Clerk, can you do it tomorrow? Annie is very tired." Alina asked, it was almost night, her eyes were blurred, and the contours of her cheekbones were faintly visible.

Chen Yi looked inside, their thin bodies were leaning against the wall weakly, they were listlessly silent, just scanning themselves with their eyes.

After a long life as a prisoner, the true believers in the cell had no food to eat, and it was normal for them to be thin. Breakfast and dinner were just cereal. Even so, their daily prayers were still as brilliant as the candlelight of the Holy Silver Cathedral.

Annie raised her eyelids, she saw Chen Yi, and rubbed her eyes, "Sir, I'm still coming in." She said in a weak voice.

The girl pulled away from her mother's arms, hugged her mother's forehead and kissed her, whispered something in her ear, and the woman led her to the prison door.

"Mr. Document, thank you for helping me Anne." The woman then said a word of blessing to Chen Yi.

Annie sat on the ground, raised her face shyly and smiled at Chen Yi, she turned her head and asked Alina, "Sister Alina, do you want to register?"

Alina nodded.

The girl sat up straight, Chen Yi unscrewed the ink bottle, and spread the linen paper on the floor.

Her mother told about Annie's situation one by one. She was not born out of wedlock, but was born of a certain knight in the Holy Land. When the pagans captured the Holy Land, her father boarded the boat to the Sola Empire early and fled to the south. To serve Sora's sage, this is a foregone conclusion, I learned from the letter sent by the empire.

Chen Yi recorded these truthfully.

"...she's only seven years old, and she hasn't even been in a monastery for long...," her mother said, weeping. "Lord, how can you have the heart to let such a child suffer."

Annie listened, wiped away the tears on her mother's cheekbones sensiblely, kissed her cheek, and whispered about the angels her mother had told her about, those people with white robes and clean and white wings.
Alina next to them had tears in her eyes, and she closed her eyelids in prayer.

The entire prison cell fell into a long and powerless sorrow. The kissed icon pendant and clasped hands were not so much a prayer as a silent interrogation of the gods.

Chen Yi had nothing to say and got up silently.

Holding the oil lamp, he walked through the long corridor.

"child."

Chen Yi turned her head.

Christopher sat in front of the prison door, with an old face, and his eyebrows seemed to be more curved than yesterday.

Chen Yi walked over, knelt down, and Christopher forced out a warm smile.

"Father, I have realized my old saying." Chen Yi said.

"Yes, I can feel that it has a deeper connection with you." Christopher said gently, "In such a short time, child, you are getting closer to God, no doubt, you are under His care, and this is His will. "

Chen Yi touched her temples, and cleared up the doubts in her heart.

"Father, tell me to comprehend the ancient sayings of the Zhen-A language family from the perspective of divinity." After a pause, Chen Yi asked her own question, "My ancient sayings are 'fraud', so in the name of the Lord, in the name of God Is it divine to instigate and deceive? I still don’t understand what divinity is.”

Christopher was slightly absent-minded, lowered his head slightly, and pondered for a long time.

In the corridor, pious bursts of soft prayers sounded, long and weeping.

Let the children go to the stake. Is that also the will of the Lord?No one said so, but Chen Yi seemed to be able to hear the questioning in the prayers of the true believers, a kind of questioning based on thought.

Chen Yi waited quietly for the priest's answer.

"Have you read my memory? The day the Holy Land fell." After a while, Christopher said.

Chen Yi shook her head and said, "The ceremony failed, maybe some link was not done properly."

"This is also a common thing." Christopher said.

The priest lowered his head, pondered for a long time inexplicably, and said slowly: "You know, many things are beyond your control. I was also wandering and confused."

He rubbed the icon on his neck, "If you have read my memory, you will see that your uncle, Raymond, told me not to let the holy image fall into the hands of others, and my best friend, Bishop Kaloyan, also You have warned me that when everything is in trouble, the only way to die is to die. Only in this way can we go to the kingdom of heaven."

Although for an unbeliever like Chen Yi, it takes only a moment to convert, but he can still understand the meaning of the kingdom of heaven to the world.

"You will also see how I put the sacred things of the gods with both hands. Those devout believers cursed me for being in this situation. I deserved it at that time. Because I caused the holy things to fall into the hands of others.

I used to be confused, maybe not once, but now.

But... I thought, why did I believe in the Lord?

And why did the Lord make me believe? "

Christopher asked gently, he was not asking Chen Yi, nor himself, but the answer to the question he had heard before, the interrogation in the voice of prayer.

"When I was just a monk, I embarked on a pilgrimage with my benefactor.

It was really a distant past. Before going ashore, we encountered storms, monsters, and hidden reefs. After we went ashore, we encountered miserly profiteers, a life of living in the open, and collapsed mountain roads. Dangers and sufferings always emerged one after another.

I think every day, how far is the holy land, how far is the kingdom of heaven?

Long and difficult journeys are tiresome.

And one day, I saw my teacher, on a difficult journey, praying Mass for a pagan old man who died in his sleep.

I ask him why.

You know, the Pope said that saving a heretic is not saving a person, and killing a heretic is not a murder. '

He says,

'No different, my child, no different.

If only the body is doing the pilgrimage, that is meaningless. '

I asked him what the point of the pilgrimage was.

He said to me,

The good that the world does is the Lord's kingdom of heaven

Therefore, salvation is the greatest meaning. '"

Speaking of this, Christopher's eyes under the vicissitudes of life became hazy.

The flame flickered in the oil lamp.

"I hesitated about that Mass, I hesitated, and now I'm down, day and night I regret it inadvertently.

Even if the past is like smoke, time has changed,

But the actions of the past can still shake the heart. "

The priest's voice was soft and trembling.

The fingertips with wrinkled skin were trembling.

"You know, God is there.

The meaning of salvation is there. "

Chen Yi was speechless and could only sit quietly.In the dark prison, the slight sound of prayer stopped at some point.

There has never been a more peaceful time than this moment.

Christopher gently held up the icon and pressed it tightly to his forehead.

The large monk's robe, its folds sank, fell silent.

"They won't die. I will go to the Holy Land." After a long time, the priest suddenly said, "I will confess my sins. The only one who should be sacrificed is me. I will be burned to death."

Chen Yi looked at him in surprise.

Christopher's face was calm, as if he had made a decision long ago.

"I will sign that line myself, and I will tell those heathens that I have blasphemed their gods.

So, I plead guilty.

I condemn myself. "

Chen Yi was stunned, not knowing what to say for a while.

After a while, Chen Yi said subconsciously: "Father, you are undoubtedly denying the faith and condemning the Lord."

Christopher smiled and didn't speak.

He kissed the icon in his hand.

In order to save, he condemned his Lord.

For the sake of faith, he denies his faith.

As he said before,

Now Christopher says, "Yes, so, only He knows how much I love Him."

(End of this chapter)