CH-024

The man collapsed and fell unconscious because of low bl00d sugar.

Initially, Shu Li gave him some water and found that his spirits began to improve a bit and he could sit up, only then remembering that the man said he had been traveling all night and likely hadn’t eaten anything. Thus, he used maltose to brew sugar water, feeding him to continue drinking, and incidentally took some bread to satisfy his hunger.

As he took the sugar water, Shu Li noticed the black robe’s cuff slip down, revealing old scars on the back of the hand and wrist, looking like they had been slashed by some sharp tools, with marks of repeated healing.

This reminded Shu Li of how Elder Jacob had once suggested he learn from a certain ascetic by tempering his body to forge his will, thereby attracting the masses of believers to witness his steadfastness to the Church.

Shu Li quietly shifted his gaze away.

After the ascetic finished a cup of sugar water, Shu Li poured a full cup of water boiled from the kettle, allowing him to drink slowly.

Elder Jacob was also helping look after him on the side, as only he recognized who the other party was.

As for the others, especially the children, each one was like a chirping little sparrow, surrounding Shu Li throughout the process, curiously discussing Father Simeon of the Stone Fence Church before them.

Although they didn’t say anything impolite, it truly interfered with a person’s rest.

“The gentleman opposite needs to rest, go out and play by yourselves.”

Shu Li somewhat helplessly shooed the children away.

Even though they scattered in a swarm, they didn’t forget to look back at his reaction with smiling faces, as if Shu Li were actively playing some game with them.

It was truly a bit rowdy.

Yet this scene of the children looking back appeared like sparkling, translucent colored jewel candies rolling into the mortal world.

This was truly a peculiar feeling.

Shu Li stood dazed for a moment, then thought to himself that they surely just had too few things to play with.

Once there were fewer people in the room, even though Father Simeon was weak, his voice became clearer. Of course, this might also be because once it was quiet, he was willing to speak.

“Thank you, I feel much better now.”

Shu Li observed Father Simeon, who was wrapped tightly in the black robe, and had a few things he wanted to say, but he suppressed the words and asked directly: “I heard you were looking for me for something?”

Before Father Simeon spoke, he unconsciously glanced toward Elder Jacob, seemingly considering whether it was suitable for an outsider to hear.

Shu Li looked straight ahead and said: “Elder Jacob is a trustworthy person. Some matters, if you tell him, are the same as telling me.”

Because Shu Li was very worried that the other party would ask about Church-related matters; he was truly devoid of experience, and even the content of the mass was learned at the last minute. During that first mass, he had even thought that if he couldn’t remember it, he would just talk nonsense.

Fortunately, there hadn’t been many opportunities to perform.

Lately, with plenty of free time, when Shu Li was bored, he would flip through the Bible and memorize it carefully; he had already memorized the entire book thoroughly.

When bored, he would even discuss thoughts on some stories with others, which he found quite interesting.

Hearing Shu Li’s words, Elder Jacob looked at Shu Li’s back, overwhelmed by the favor, his heart instantly filled with warmth.

Father Simeon’s gaze drifted for a moment before he spoke: “To tell the truth…”

He clenched his fist as if to drum up enough courage, saying: “I have come to beg Father Alis for help.”

Shu Li waited quietly for him to continue, as he was not accustomed to, nor did he like, easily agreeing to others’ requests.

He generally waited for the other party to finish before expressing an opinion.

However, since Shu Li didn’t speak, Father Simeon didn’t follow up either, as if the sound had been muted. Thus, he spoke, saying: “Please, go on.”

The person opposite felt an immediate sense of relief upon hearing this voice and said: “I actually thought about going to Carson City to ask superior clergy for support. However, I don’t have much money on me, and I’m afraid they wouldn’t agree to send personnel out.” After he finished speaking, Shu Li noticed he had been clutching that bag of small potatoes the entire time.

Clearly, this bag of small potatoes was his entire fortune.

Shu Li subconsciously looked at Elder Jacob and asked softly: “Does requesting assistance from superior clergy actually require money?”

In Shu Li’s mind, this was equivalent to being unable to handle a thorny task and needing to hand it over to a superior. Within the same system, it should be free of charge.

Where is there an employee who pays out of pocket for a superior?

Furthermore, the teachings all tell clergy to assist believers for free.

How is it that payment is required between clergy?

Seeing that Shu Li didn’t understand, Elder Jacob quickly explained: “From the standpoint of doctrine, assisting believers is the responsibility of clergy. However, from the actual operation of the Church, this kind of internal support still requires the local clergy to provide for costs, such as food, lodging, and transportation. If a ritual is to be held, it also requires providing sufficient ritual supplies.”

Oh, oh.

Shu Li understood.

It was a bit like chain restaurants calling on each other for staff. Employees go on business trips under the management of headquarters, enjoying the food, lodging, and basic subsidies provided by the store requesting help.

Father Simeon had walked to the Savoy Parish on his own two legs; he feared the clergy in Carson City might not necessarily be willing to walk to his church with him.

At least they’d have to rent a carriage?

How much does it cost to rent a carriage?

Seeing Father Simeon’s expression grow increasingly embarrassed during his conversation with Elder Jacob, Shu Li said with some regret: “Apologies, I’ve only recently become the church priest and don’t understand many affairs and rules, so I asked in the middle. Please continue. Even if I can’t necessarily offer a lot of help, what I can do, I will do my best.”

After all, they were neighbors; perhaps one day Shu Li would also need help from the neighboring church?

Hearing that Shu Li didn’t directly refuse, Father Simeon felt a slight sigh of relief in his heart. He quickly tensed his face again, and his voice lowered accordingly: “What I say next might make you afraid—a devil has appeared in our parish.”

The air solidified for an instant because of this pause.

The moment Elder Jacob heard “devil,” his back tensed, and his hair stood on end. His gaze subconsciously flickered toward Shu Li.

He saw that their Lord Alis’s cool eyes remained as still as an ancient well; it seemed nothing could affect his conviction and faith.

Jacob’s heart shook, and a spontaneous sense of respect flowed continuously.

While Father Simeon spoke, he also secretly kept a close eye on Shu Li, his fingertips unconsciously tightening, and even his breathing lightened without him realizing it, for fear of seeing a trace of recoil on the other’s face.

But Shu Li just listened quietly, his features as calm as water.

The hanging stone in Father Simeon’s heart dropped half an inch, and an indescribable sense of stability quietly spread along with it. “Father Alis is truly amazing!”

“?”

The atheist Shu Li felt a momentary flash of confusion at the mysterious praise—what was the logic between those two sentences of Father Simeon’s…?

But he didn’t dwell on it, asking solemnly: “Has someone died mysteriously?”

“No, none of that!” Father Simeon waved his hand.

“…”

If there was no psychopathic killer, then it was even less worth calling terrifying.

Shu Li thought to himself and continued to let Father Simeon explain the whole matter.

“It’s like this. People have come to my church to confess.”

“They said the children in their families were originally very quiet and good when sleeping at night, but in the middle of the night for the past few days, the children suddenly started crying for no reason. No matter how they are comforted, the crying cannot be stopped.”

Father Simeon’s voice lowered, as if recalling something terrifying. “The most unsettling thing is that some children said a strange bell was ringing at night. But the fact is, no one would ring a bell in the middle of the night. If a bell were truly rung, others would hear it too. The children themselves still insist they are not lying.”

Elder Jacob’s face turned pale instantly. “That’s too terrifying! It’s the devil’s bell—!”

Finding resonance, Father Simeon immediately looked at Elder Jacob and said in a hurry: “I know I am not good at purification rituals and have never done such a thing. That’s why I wanted to go to Carson City to seek support from superior clergy. On the way here, I heard Father Alis has the divine power to purify devils…”

Being named, Shu Li was stunned for a moment.

How did he not know he had the divine power to purify devils?

A sense of absurdity couldn’t help but rise from his heart.

However, very quickly, he remembered how he had played the role of a mystic before, claiming to have purified the couple held hostage by Doctor Matthew, and he felt a wave of helplessness and a bitter smile.

Sigh, digging a hole for myself.

Shu Li couldn’t help but sigh in his heart: “…”

Seeing that Shu Li didn’t say a word, the confidence in Father Simeon’s heart slowly dissipated, and the expectation on his face turned into trepidation. “As expected, even Father Alis finds it very thorny, right?”

That wasn’t entirely it.

Actually, it was both hard and not hard.

Because hearing Father Simeon describe it like that, excluding factors like night terrors, sleepwalking, pathological lying, and the desire to attract the attention of elders in the house, it was very likely because the children heard high-frequency sounds in the middle of the night, and such sounds cannot be heard by adults.

This is considered a very common situation in modern society.

If someone is doing construction around the residence in the middle of the night, those heavy machines often produce high-frequency noise, affecting children in a resting state.

Shu Li understood this principle, but he didn’t know how to efficiently find the specific sound source.

One reason was that he himself simply couldn’t hear that kind of high-frequency sound.

The second reason was that the children said they heard a bell.

One must know that the sound emitted by a bell is usually low-frequency; it’s very rare for it to emit a high-frequency sound.

This special situation was baffling.

Was it infrasound caused by the aging of the bell body itself, or a sound accidentally produced by resonance with some object or structure in the surrounding environment?

To figure this out would likely require a lot of time and energy.

Shu Li wasn’t in a hurry to reach a conclusion, continuing to ask: “Did this situation appear suddenly this time?”

“Yes.”

Shu Li continued to confirm: “How many children heard it? Which families do these children come from? What are their approximate age groups?”

Father Simeon was very serious in his work.

Although he hadn’t visited every single household to investigate the situation, he had stayed on watch at night to listen to the crying inside other people’s houses.

“Our town has a total of 64 households, with a population of about 340 people, and there are 87 children under the age of 14. I’m not sure how many children heard the sound because those who are older, such as children over 4 years old, haven’t cried, but among the children who said they heard the bell, some are over 11 years old. I heard from their families that while eating, the children suddenly asked why the bell was ringing while they were sleeping at night, saying they were startled awake.”

Father Simeon spoke in great detail, but once you associated it with him crouching at the corners of other people’s walls at night, it still felt somewhat eerie.

Shu Li asked again: “Then can you draw a map of your parish? And then mark the bell and the families who heard the bell on it; can you draw a rough one?”

Father Simeon fell silent instantly: “…”

After a good while, just as Shu Li felt he was making things difficult for Father Simeon and was about to say he’d give up on drawing the map, the person opposite spoke: “Apologies, I cannot draw.”

Not “don’t know how,” but “cannot.”

His voice became dry, and he even leaned back as if to keep a distance from Shu Li.

Father Simeon’s right hand also unconsciously gripped the cuff of his left sleeve, hiding his hand where others couldn’t see.

Shu Li’s gaze was drawn to this movement—

The fingers revealed under the black robe’s cuff were thicker than an ordinary person’s, the knuckles were red, and the nails were trimmed extremely short, almost pinched into the flesh, showing a trace of bl00d. There were fine cracks on the nail surfaces, and the edge of the right thumb was still scabbed with fresh bl00d.

Clearly, he had a habit of biting his nails.

It was just that he didn’t want to be seen, so he would perform secondary trimming, trying to make them as smooth as possible, even to the point where they could bleed.

This reminded Shu Li of many cases of self-harm.

Some people like to bite themselves, and nail-biting is also a manifestation.

Shu Li’s eyes flickered, but he said nothing: “…”

Noticing that Shu Li was looking at his fingers, Father Simeon immediately tucked his other hand into his sleeve as well, as if to hide his secrets from being seen.

Father Simeon tried to divert Father Alis’s attention, asking: “So, does Father Alis not have a solution either?”

“I only have a method to treat the symptoms, not the root cause.”

Generally speaking, Shu Li still preferred to solve things a bit more elegantly, so it was difficult.

Shu Li was a bit of a headache about this.

But the spirits of both Father Simeon and Elder Jacob had already been roused.

“Father Alis truly lives up to his reputation!”

“As expected of Lord Alis, he knows everything!”

Shu Li was choked by the excessive emotional value they provided—there was no need for such exaggeration. He paused for a moment before finding his voice again, saying: “Since the problem lies with the bell, then the simplest method is to destroy the bell.”

This was a terrible method.

It was like being unable to solve a Rubik’s cube and choosing to take the whole cube apart to reassemble it.

Shu Li was still thinking that after all, this bell was an important artifact of a public place, and the townspeople likely wouldn’t agree easily.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt his idea was a bit embarrassing.

But not long after his words fell, Father Simeon clapped his hands and exclaimed: “That’s too brilliant!”

Elder Jacob was also very excited. “Yes! It’s a bell possessed by a devil. As long as it’s explained clearly to the townspeople that there is a problem with the bell, that it will disturb children and inevitably bring misfortune over time, the townspeople will surely take it down immediately! As expected of Lord Alis, just sitting here, he solved a massive problem with just a few words.”

Elder Jacob looked at Shu Li: “Lord Alis, why are you so excellent?”

Is this not “killing with praise”?

Elder Jacob, are you being excessively doting?

Shu Li felt like his ears were about to burn.

Before he could react, his hand suddenly felt heavy; somehow, a bag of small potatoes was stuffed into it. Father Simeon said: “Father Alis, I will surely keep your help in my heart. I’m going back to Stonehollow right now!”

Shu Li was stunned for a moment, seeing him about to leave in a rush, only reacting in the next second. “Wait, don’t be in such a hurry to leave.”

Father Simeon stopped in confusion and asked: “Is something wrong?”

“Sheriff Rayleigh found an herbalist to come over for you…”

“No need.” Father Simeon refused immediately.

Father Alis looked at him, “Can you listen to a word or two of mine?”

Father Simeon met Alis’s gaze that saw through everything; even if it was as calm as a silent mirror, it mercilessly reflected the most disgraceful secret in the deepest part of his heart.

Consequently, he suddenly froze on the spot.

In the next second, he felt all the wounds on his body start to heat up in response, his entire body burning fiercely.

Run?

Father Simeon wanted to run, yet he didn’t dare to put up a resistance.

Because he felt guilty.

He was afraid that as soon as he made an uncalled-for move, Father Alis would make his secret public.

His heart beat rapidly.

And he almost didn’t dare to look into those eyes that saw through everything.

In fact, the injuries on his body were not the result of asceticism, but caused by his self-harm.

It was for atonement and also for seeking some kind of end.

If it weren’t for the Church’s explicit regulation that “believers cannot commit suicide,” Father Simeon would not have allowed this execution to carry on without end.

At this moment, Father Simeon did not notice that he was unconsciously clenching his teeth, and his breathing began to change.

Clearly, some words had stimulated him.

Shu Li actually didn’t want to say much.

He spoke as if to soothe him: “Listen to me finish first; it’s okay if you don’t use the herbalist. But if you want to go back, we have an ox cart here. I hope you can use it; don’t walk back on foot this time. If you truly want to solve the problem of your town’s residents as quickly as possible, please accept my suggestion. That is what I wanted to say.”

Father Alis paused and used a gentler tone, asking: “Is that okay?”

Father Simeon noticed he had overreacted, his fingertips couldn’t help but tremble slightly, as if he were suppressing some impulse or emotion in his heart, yet he couldn’t help but feel guilty for the excessive emotion just now.

Because he didn’t want anyone to see his pain and vulnerability.

He also didn’t want anyone’s concern, because he felt he didn’t deserve it.

Finally, he still responded in a low voice: “…Thank you, Father Alis.”

Father Simeon found that he seemed unable to refuse Alis every time.

Although the other party agreed, Shu Li still clearly felt Father Simeon’s internal resistance.

Compared to when they first met, the psychological distance between Father Simeon and himself had suddenly grown much further.

This was actually a very normal manifestation.

Thus, Shu Li quickly turned the page on this matter, having Elder Jacob arrange the ox cart while he changed the subject, saying: “Since it hasn’t come yet, would Father Simeon like to go take a look at my backyard? I’ve planted a patch of land.”

Father Simeon didn’t speak to agree, nor did he refuse; he just silently followed Shu Li’s footsteps.

Elder Jacob noticed that Simeon’s reaction was suddenly somewhat abnormal.

It was right when he heard that an herbalist would be coming over that he was clearly not quite right.

Elder Jacob keenly perceived a certain secret and fragile emotion in Father Simeon, yet he couldn’t name the reason.

It even made the old man feel that if he were to ask him “Are you okay? Is everything alright?” right now, it would make this ascetic, who possessed a steel-like resilience and feared neither hardship nor pain, shatter instantly.

“I wonder what Father Alis saw in Father Simeon…”

Elder Jacob thought to himself.

Shu Li clearly felt that Father Simeon’s state was still very wrong.

In fact, Father Simeon had very obvious signs of self-harm from his clothing—he would subconsciously tend to cover body parts, tightly. Especially in this season that was nearing summer, when the weather wasn’t cold, he still wore an airtight black robe. In addition, there was the scent of bl00d from new wounds on him.

He was very resistant to anyone noticing his abnormality.

In fact, let alone that self-harm in adults is not easy to handle, even for self-harming behavior in children, Professor Nock, the Chair of the Harvard Psychology Department, once said that “wanting to root out the dangerous behaviors children are doing is actually very unrealistic.” Under normal circumstances, unless it is endangering life or death, it is not recommended to forcefully uncover a child’s secret.

It causes a stress response.

Just like Father Simeon’s current situation—even walking through the fields that were bursting with new life, it was like he was about to head to a battlefield.

Shu Li felt he had to get Father Simeon out of his previous state, so he fell silent for a while and said: “By the way, have you heard?”

Out of necessity, Shu Li began to gossip.

Father Simeon was still stiffly adjusting his state, asking: “What?”

“I heard that the Duke of the Northern Territories will marry the daughter of the Patriarch.”

Actually, Shu Li didn’t expect this gossip to turn the other’s mood around, but surprisingly, Father Simeon took it in.

“Really?” he asked.

As expected, everyone loves gossip, don’t they!

Shu Li was about to respond, but as he turned his head, his gaze caught the figure of Leslie.

At this moment, the thin figure of the novel’s protagonist stood in place; it was as if a slight breeze blowing over could blow him into powder.

Shu Li: “…”

Finished.