"Brother Chabron, do you know the magic of lighting fire in heavy rain?
"According to custom, uh, please..."
"Burn me to death."
The young priest Chabron could hardly believe his ears, but the sincere plea of the silver-haired boy An Luo echoed in his ears.
“This period is a very important festival for the town.
"Can you please burn me to death? Otherwise the festival will be postponed again.
"After all, I'm not a local, so I'm really embarrassed to cause trouble to everyone in this town."
Although the silver-haired child's eyes were full of fear, they were sincere and firm.
He just stared at Chabron.
Immediately afterwards, the blond young pastor heard someone calling him from behind, it was Aunt Martha:
"Hey, little Chabron, you're here! Even the magical flames summoned by the ritual can hardly keep burning under such rain. If you can find a way to light a fire, everyone will thank you. Just like you showed that night
Divine power heals us the same way.
"After the ceremony was completed, we prepared a new body for little Anluo, which was a scarecrow on the ground.
"Although Xiao Anluo shouldn't remember the past after turning into a straw golem, but you can be friends with him again."
The young priest couldn't believe it, and a bone-chilling chill ran down his spine.
On a night illuminated by the emerald moonlight, no citizen ever stopped him from treating the silver-haired young lady in front of him, An Luo——
It seems that Aunt Martha doesn't think there is any logical contradiction between "letting him use his only healing spell to heal An Luo" and now "burning An Luo to death".
As a visitor from another world, Chabron knew that the more modern method of making scarecrows was invented by the hags in the Fairy Wilderness, which required the infusion of a demonic evil spirit as a source of dark vitality on the other side of death.
The more ancient method is: the priest mobilizes the power of the gods to bind the elemental spirits from the elemental plane like making orthodox golems.
This method, where ordinary people complete the ritual, then burn innocent victims, and use the souls of living people to make straw golems, is unheard of.
The young man looked around with eyes as clear as emeralds, and a dense crowd surrounded them.
Their eyes were as sincere and firm as An Luo's.
The crowd just looked at the little boy tied to the cross.
Some people were praying to unknown beings, some were reciting strange mantras, some were singing, some were talking about something, and some were cheering.
These people include many residents that Chabron knows who originally seemed to be kind-hearted and law-abiding.
John, the old carpenter who was always obedient, stared at the center of the square and An Luo who was tied up in the middle of the square, silently.
The blue-shirted Bohr, who always plays for passers-by in the Wind Song Square, is lowering his head and ignoring the ritual of burning human beings. He is still concentrating on playing his flute.
Sam, the postman who often rides his bicycle through the town, clasped his hands and recited an obscure and mysterious mantra to the center of the square, squeezing out a heavy nasal voice.
The meticulous police officer Follett maintained the order of the crowd while repeatedly supervising and supervising the ignition process.
Mayor Toffler stood in the distance, looking at An Luo on the cross, with one hand on his left chest. His body was wrapped in a bandage.
———————
Bathed in the dawn light, the warm morning breeze twists the white paper again and turns a new page:
“I may never forget that drizzly afternoon in my life——
"They, most of the onlookers, did not make a plea to me like Aunt Martha, but none of them stood up and questioned whether it was against the law to burn a living person at a holiday celebration.
Common customs.
"There was no resistance, no questioning, no questioning, not even any strange or surprised expressions.
"I looked around, hoping to find any look of surprise from anyone, but I couldn't find it.
“They just stand there and do nothing, and they have a power that makes people breathless.
"At that time, I didn't know that this was [3-075] distorting the deep semiotic structure and metaphysical concepts of the order. I had no formal contact with the organization [Pangloss Company] responsible for investigating and containing supernatural threats. But I could sense it.
See the weirdness in it.
"The calmness of everyone and my panic formed a sharp contrast. Every onlooker's enthusiasm was adding to the atmosphere. Silence itself was a kind of collective oppression, declaring all abnormalities as 'normal' -
—
“Human beings’ judgments about the rationality of things are often based on the collective cognition of the group they belong to, and they are more susceptible to interference from the external atmosphere than they think.
“Under the rain curtain, the ‘elephant in the room’ is wandering.
——————————
Under An Luo's sincere gaze, under Aunt Martha's request, and under the pressure of the group atmosphere, Chabron suddenly felt that he had figured it out. Who could refuse such a reasonable request?
Burning An Luo to death was just part of the holiday tradition, and it had nothing to do with Chabron himself. Why should he refuse such a simple task?
Everyone is doing this, so it must be right.
"Okay, let me think about it and see if there is any magic that can light a fire in the rain." The young priest nodded.
Chabron thought about it:
The zero-ring trick [Holy Fire] can summon pure white or golden flames, but they are closer to holy light than fire and are not suitable for igniting objects.
Another zero-ring trick [Thumbunctious] is similar to [Magic Trick]. It can create various small supernatural effects. I don’t know if it will help ignite fires.
[Burning Hand] is particularly suitable for igniting objects, but...
etc!
Wait a moment!
Chabrine wakes up!
He thought of the past world, the blue planet named Earth in the third cantilever solar system of the Milky Way.
He thought of the people he once loved and the people who loved him.
He thought of his former friends and the scene when a chatty man named Duncan argued about whether the sunflowers should be placed in the last row.
He thought of his parents and relatives, and of his crazy girl cousin who always took him around when he was a child.
He thought of the unknown "special work" at home, his mission in his previous life, and the possible reasons for time travel that he suspected but deliberately ignored in his Chinese diary.
The spring and autumn of Rioli have nothing to do with him, especially the sunshine and rain in the windless land.
He is more like a stranger than all strangers.
Why should he care about other people's traditions, customs, and social norms?
---------------
Strange, why was I really there just now?
Seriously thinking about burning an innocent man to death?
