Chapter 368: Fishing Holes

"At midnight, the Lord sent an angel to appear in a dream with radiant light, commanding him to build a holy church here. Ober felt doubt and dared not agree.

"On the second night, the angel came again, speaking as before. He merely called it a coincidence and still did not believe.

"By the third night, the angel touched his forehead with a finger; he woke instantly, feeling pain, and upon touching it found a hole. Thus he knew the will was clear and dared not delay."

Lei Mengde turned the book, showing the illustrated picture to the slightly distracted girl opposite him; the richly colored and exquisite drawing indeed drew her attention back.

"On the day the church was built, a clear spring gushed forth; those who drank were healed of wounds and sickness—this is the story of Bishop Ober building the Spring Mountain Church.

"Until today, Ober has returned his soul to Heaven for over two hundred years, yet Spring Mountain remains one of the most popular destinations for pilgrims. Every brother heading to the Shengcheng, if conditions allow, considers taking a slight detour to seek a portion of the spring water."

"Have you been there?" The girl looked up; this action made Lei Mengde realize she seemed taller than he remembered, sitting almost eye-to-eye, nearly reaching his eyebrows.

"Oh, certainly not. Usually only the most outstanding have the chance to be recommended for advanced study in the Shengcheng; that is a very distant place." Speaking of it, there was no regret; he knew those people were the top of their cohort and might have the chance to receive a bishop's double-peaked mitre.

"In our cohort... was it Green? But he ultimately chose the Inquisition; many regretted it for him."

"Why? Is the Inquisition not good?"

"No, the Lord's servants are all equal; it is just that some people can maximize their talents only in suitable positions."

"Then why not give everyone equal talents?"

Telling stories to children has this trouble: they always have endless questions, some of which are not easy to answer.

But as a trained monk, Lei Mengde had his own set of mature responses.

"Because a body cannot be composed of a single limb. Can the eye say to the hand, 'I have no need of you'? Nor can the head say to the foot, 'I have no need of you.'

"The Lord makes all things rest in their proper offices; His will cannot be presumptuously guessed. His profound wisdom cannot be understood by mortals; simply obey the arrangement."

Yvonne nodded as if understanding, handed the book back, and asked, "The next one?"

Lei Mengde glanced out the window; the first ray of dawn had already crested the mountain peak, illuminating the ridge of the monastery's highest roof. The rising and falling sounds of prayer gradually vanished, replaced by the rumbling of empty stomachs.

It was late; it was now breakfast time.

"I'm afraid we must continue tomorrow. Eating on time and cherishing food are also part of the Tianfu Sect's teachings."

The prayer hall doors were tightly closed; no one had left yet. Everyone waited for him to announce the end of morning prayer so they could head to the dining hall as quickly as possible without being impolite.

Unfortunately, the person who should have appeared here never showed up.

Lei Mengde helplessly waved his hand, signaling them to disperse; soon only two people remained in the hall.

"Where is your tutor? Is your body still unwell?"

"Oh, not at all. Mr. Kraft has recovered very well." Yvonne blinked; on her face one could see the carelessness inherited from her tutor.

"He said there was no need to wait for him; he would come after finishing the ward rounds over there."

"Then where is he?"

"Probably doing ward rounds?"

The first time Lei Mengde saw Kraft this morning was in the corridor near the ward; he was carrying a medicine change kit, walking with hurried steps. When asked whether he would attend morning prayer, he merely replied casually; Yvonne strongly doubted whether he had truly heard what she was saying.

"Just two patients to check for so long?"

"I don't know. He just drilled a hole in someone's head yesterday; maybe pouring in revelations or enlightening the spirit inside takes more time?"

"Raise your hand, resist my strength, then switch to the other hand... yes, very good, you can relax now. Upper limb muscle strength is also normal."

Kraft pulled the blanket back over Dominic. The patient's overall condition was good; the neurological examination showed no obvious abnormalities, only that his mental state had shifted from yesterday's agitation to listlessness, lying there gloomily, very fitting for a patient.

"Now I will ask you some questions; please answer based on intuition without thinking too much.

"What year is it now? What season is it?

"Do you know where this is? Why are you here?

"If the thumb is one and the index finger is two, then what number is the ring finger?

"You took seventeen silver coins to buy food; you spent two on vegetables and four on meat. How many are left?"

Although he didn't quite understand the point, Dominic answered one by one, hesitating only when asked about time and place; finally he gave a date from a few days ago and felt he was still in some small church.

According to Field, this was the second settlement church they had passed; there, Dominic's headache symptoms began to become more obvious and frequent.

However, the patient's memory of subsequent events was fragmented, like a puzzle missing key pieces, unable to be logically connected into a complete whole. He even seemed unconcerned about what had happened, appearing low and pessimistic.

"Perhaps it is a bit forcing, but we really need you to try your best to recall now. What might you have discovered then? If speaking is difficult, try drawing it based on feeling."

Kraft helped him sit up, handing him a drawing board and charcoal sticks.

The hand, fixed by splints so only the thumb and index finger could move, picked up a charcoal stick, landed on the drawing board, and moved almost without hesitation; charcoal rubbed against the rough paper surface, making a rustling sound like insects fleeing before a rainstorm.

A circle, then another smaller one, rotating inward layer by layer until the very center formed a completely pitch-black, lightless point. The gaze was involuntarily drawn and frozen, as if the soul was flowing away along the line connecting the pupil and the vortex center.

Kraft frowned and moved the drawing board away.

Dominic's wrist still rotated, leaving broken, rotating arc traces on the bedding until Field grabbed that hand and pulled the charcoal stick from between his fingers.

He worriedly helped his companion lie down again; it seemed the surgery only controlled the condition rather than completely curing it.

"So this is the vortex you mentioned before?" Kraft held the drawing board, examining it back and forth.

Just now, he vaguely felt something had existed, between Dominic's gaze and brushstrokes, appearing at some indescribable angle; it did not seem to exist on the material plane, yet was disturbed by interruptions on the material plane.

His spiritual senses suddenly spread out, sweeping and patrolling the room, catching only a faint, barely-there trace that vanished in an instant.

The general direction was undoubtedly on Dominic himself, but upon further investigation, there was no residue left.

The feeling was so familiar that he could be quite certain he had been disturbed by it as well.

It did not seem like Dominic's own alienation; rather, it felt as if something was exerting influence on the mortal world through him.

This recalls a widely circulated but never verified legend from the North:

During the long winter, beneath the frozen sea surface, the shimmer of fish scales still hid as schools swam; fishermen, following experience, would chisel fishing holes in the ice.

But it is said that from a certain era, an existence with consciousness was born in the deep sea. Through those fishing holes—those circular fissures chiseled by human greed—it quietly gazed upward.

At first, only a very few fishermen claimed their wrists were seized by "some power," suddenly yanked violently beneath the ice. People joked it was accidents caused by drunkenness, distraction, or ice cracking. But rumors of disappearances occurred every year, leaving only unclaimed fishing gear and claw marks on the edges of the ice holes.

The scholars scoffed at this, after all, every winter in the north, countless people fall through the ice after drinking and go missing. To claim that creature truly exists, it would have to appear simultaneously at fishing grounds hundreds of nautical miles apart.

This obviously defies common sense.

Yet in the port taverns, another story circulated: it was an entity as long as the coastline, lying in the deep, dark trenches at the edge of the continent, its countless tentacles reaching toward the fishing holes that had been noticed due to being too old or too wide in diameter, seizing every wrist that was too greedy.

(End of this chapter)