CH-005

The Savoy Parish welcomed a new priest for the first time in over twenty years.

People were neither surprised nor repulsed by this event; after all, the family of Elder Jacob had been handling the simple affairs of the parish all along. The people of the town hadn’t quite forgotten that there was a church here.

Similarly, they didn’t believe the new priest would change their lives.

To them, he was perhaps more like an outsider, and it was uncertain how long he could stay.

After all, a church without the support of believers is hard-pressed to maintain its livelihood. Even Jacob’s family had to work as carpenters on weekdays just to barely cover the household expenses.

What would the priest do in the future?

Teach school?

Or work as a pharmacist?

Would anyone be willing to give them money?

The last question made everyone involved in the discussion laugh.

“I don’t have that much spare cash.”

“The Church is much richer than us; it’s more like we support them, and they support us.”

“Exactly. I heard from a distant relative that some churches are so rich they own the farmland of the entire town, and their sacred vessels are made of gold.”

“I not only have no money, I can’t even be bothered to give them my time.”

Amidst these mocking and jesting voices, the priest from the metropolis finally appeared before the public.

The town wasn’t large, and it wasn’t a developed district, so the flow of people wasn’t frequent. Thus, as long as a fresh face arrived, it always left an impression. Not to mention, this person arrived accompanied by the town’s constable.

The black-haired youth wore neat civilian clothes and had a refined, humble attitude, though he was on the thinner side. Judging by his light, worn suitcase, this youth wasn’t wealthy either. When he walked, he didn’t constantly look around. Some people only saw his profile and remembered his pale face, which looked as if it were carved from ice and snow.

Some people unconsciously noticed his rare eye color.

When discussing appearance, eye color has always been a great topic.

This is because some people’s eye color shifts with the light, which is a common occurrence. Sometimes blue eyes look green, and under certain light, some people’s eyes reveal a rare violet hue. Others have heterochromia, though it’s rare and requires a close look to notice.

Some said Father Alis’s eyes were a cold gray; others insisted they were a deep blue, like the color of the sky losing the sun as night falls; still others said they were like the moment of early dawn, when the sky is stained with a layer of grayish-purple, like a rosy mist permeating the boundary of daybreak.

However, no one actually ran up to him to stare closely at his eyes; they only watched from afar, as if trying to discern whether he was a friend or an enemy, making no move to approach him.

After Father Alis had been in the parish for over ten days, he lived in peace with the residents, and everyone gradually began to lower their guard.

But unexpectedly, during the first mass held at the church, Father Alis took the initiative to clear the Duke’s child of a criminal charge.

This struck a nerve with the residents.

It wasn’t necessarily because everyone truly believed Leslie was a murderer.

It was just that someone was inciting emotions at the time, and everyone’s voices grew a bit louder.

More often than not, they simply loathed the Duke’s child.

This loathing coexisted with fear.

The entire town knew he was a demon who brought misfortune.

He had caused the death of the most precious person to the whole town, and even his father regarded him as a burden.

They avoided him at all costs. Even if they sometimes had to yield because of his status, the gaze they leveled at him was always full of disdain, and they were unwilling to even mention his affairs.

And yet, Father Alis actually stood by Leslie’s side.

“They’re in league with each other.”

“The Duke’s family gave money, right? Was it 10 gold coins?”

“Entangled with the people of the Church—isn’t the Duke going to be driven mad with rage?”

“If he didn’t kill the person, he should have said so. If he’s unwilling to speak, you can’t blame others for suspecting Leslie.”

“Leslie looks so sickly and pale, like a ghost. I feel like a draft of death follows him wherever he walks; what bad luck.”

The tavern was noisy with people, and amidst the clinking of glasses, the sound of gossip was densely embedded in the gaps of noise. Whenever the topic looped back to that common enemy, the voices grew more urgent, as if they wanted to spit out all their accumulated resentment.

However, they didn’t notice a small figure outside the tavern, stagnant like a ghost clinging to the wall.

Leslie even let out a hint of a mocking smile due to their discussion, his gaze becoming sharp as a blade. The light in the depths of his eyes was like the shadows of a forest late at night—deep, bottomless.

Before anyone noticed him, Leslie had already left the scene.

Leslie was naturally precocious and possessed a solitary character.

To him, venting emotion was a serious loss of composure, and such loss of composure often brought him humiliation. Therefore, facing malice and mockery, he was numb most of the time, not even taking it to heart.

This lack of resistance sometimes resembled a kind of waiting.

Waiting to see if someone would see his submissiveness and feel pity, ultimately choosing to redeem and heal him.

Or if someone would see his calmness and instead feel boredom and disgust, finally moving to kill him and bury him in the dirt.

Leslie was waiting for an ending that belonged to him.

But currently, there was no ending for him.

Because of Alis’s assistance, the youth was now mostly suspicious of the new priest’s intentions.

He didn’t believe Father Alis was a purely good person.

This was an intuition that struck him the first moment he made eye contact.

When Leslie first saw Father Alis by the roadside, he felt his soul shrink as if from the cold. When Alis gazed into his eyes, Leslie felt as if icy seawater was being poured into his veins.

He was scrutinizing him, using a judgmental gaze characteristic of Leslie’s father—full of indifference, as if he were being dissectingly peeled open.

Leslie did not fear adults. It was precisely this point that made many adults in the town feel afraid.

He deliberately said the sentence “The inside of the corpse is warm.”

This was an aggressive sentence.

Because Leslie was very clear about what things would make people feel disgusted. And disgust is one of the sources that generate fear.

For example, maggots, spiderwebs, and bloody, mangled organs are typical examples.

Alis, however, remained indifferent to this, instead asking an irrelevant question: “Have you been to school?”

Leslie: “…”

It was as if he were competing with Leslie to see who could drive the other crazier.

Leslie felt as if every quill on his body was about to stand up.

The more he looked, the more suspicious he felt this person’s behavior was.

Reasonably speaking, as a newly appointed priest, he should have headed directly to the church.

Yet he unhurriedly circled the town before finally pretending to be lost and asking the constable for directions. His so-called “destination”—the church—was precisely the place he had passed at the beginning.

The Savoy Parish had gone years without a priest, commonly known as a Father.

Now, an outsider happened to arrive, and one who wasn’t even that proficient in the procedures of mass—it was truly suspicious.

What was most peculiar was that yesterday, when the scene should have dispersed, the constable was temporarily stopped by Father Alis.

“Could you check if there’s a young male living alone in town?” His tone was calm, as if discussing the weather. But the description that followed was so precise it was mind-boggling, as if he were absolutely certain of this person’s existence.

“Sullen personality, doesn’t like to interact with outsiders. Roughly between sixteen and twenty-eight years old. Perhaps the parents are divorced, or he was raised by grandparents, but the relationship isn’t close. He was bullied in school. There should be some old scars on his hands, or marks left by long-term gripping; the joints are thicker than average.”

The constable frowned, staring at him suspiciously: “Are you looking for a relative here? You speak in such detail, yet you don’t even have a name?”

Father Alis smiled and didn’t reply, only saying: “…When you find him, tell him he left something with me.”

He continued: “If he doesn’t understand, tell him—can he currently not use the strength in his ring finger to flex or extend it independently? Only God knows why.”

This little interlude was told to Leslie by the constable.

No one knew what he intended to do.

But Leslie had a guess: he knew everything.

At the morning market the day after the mass, Shu Li sensed the public indignation permeating the town more clearly.

This wasn’t ordinary indifference, but a kind of camaraderie born from a shared enemy.

As soon as he approached the entrance of the bakery, he saw the owner with his head down wiping the counter, deliberately ignoring him.

Entering the general store, the shopkeeper leaned lazily behind the counter; hearing his voice, the man didn’t even raise his head, just casually quoted a price far higher than the daily rate.

Even the old lady selling fruit at the corner subconsciously tightened her apron upon seeing him approach, looking unwilling to trade.

Shu Li looked around. Pedestrians either deliberately lowered their heads and hurried past, or stopped to whisper in discussion at street corners. This was by no means accidental, but a kind of intentionally linked exclusion.

Before he could organize his thoughts, the constable he had met yesterday ran over to talk to him.

He said he had found Shu Li’s relative.

“So fast?” Shu Li was a bit surprised, even forgetting to correct the other’s words.

Surprised as he was, Shu Li ultimately understood that this was because the constable was truly familiar with this place, and combined with the fact that there weren’t that many people, the efficiency was naturally fast.

However, there was one even more surprising thing—

“I found three people,”

the constable signaled the number “3”.

“I wonder which one the Father is looking for?”

The classic “pick one out of three.”

Shu Li: I want them all!