Chapter 342

Returning home from the Black Raven Library, it is already 10:30 in the morning. After confirming the effect of the brand-new miracle, Xia De does not cook at home, but leaves home with Little Mia, who has become interested in the cards, and takes a carriage to the Dawn Cathedral.

When looking for a carriage at St. Deran Square, he already felt the festive atmosphere because of the young priests wearing clerical robes and distributing promotional materials. By the time he approached Dawn Square, the pleasant atmosphere created by the religious festival in this city became even more intense.

Having experienced the Thursday two weeks ago, the City Hall also intends to help the city recover from the pain through large-scale citizen activities, so it provided a lot of help for the Prayer Festival in the summer of 1853.

Centered on the Dawn Cathedral, banners and ribbons are hung in the nearby blocks. I don't know if the City Hall spent the Jin Bang or the Dawn Church took out the banknotes, but the outer walls of the shops on several streets directly connected to Dawn Square are all hung with the holy emblem of the True God 【Mr. Dawn】.

Pigeons fly across the misty sky, and the bustling crowd gathers at the cathedral and the surrounding streets. The lively festival also attracts more small vendors to set up stalls on the roadside, and the City Hall turns a blind eye to this.

The carriage cannot enter the celebration site at all and can only drop Xia De off at the intersection on the edge of the square.

It is almost all people all around, and the sound of hawking can be heard everywhere around the square. The lively atmosphere makes the cat held by Xia De shrink tightly into his arms in fear. Xia De knows Mia is timid, but he didn't expect it to be timid to this extent.

Therefore, he doesn't care about strolling around the square, which is filled with tents, and walks straight into the cathedral.

Although the preparations for the Prayer Festival are very busy, after the festival officially begins, Priest Ao Gu Si becomes more relaxed.

When Xia De sees him, the old priest is in the last row of seats in the side hall of the cathedral, listening to a middle-aged priest preaching.

Usually, even on Sundays, such a side hall of the cathedral can only be half-filled at most, but today it is not only completely filled with believers, but some people even have to stand in the aisle against the wall.

Because he knows Mia is very well-behaved and won't bark randomly, Xia De holds it and stands next to the priest. The priest nods to Xia De, signaling him to listen patiently.

So Xia De stands there for twenty minutes, listening to the preaching he is not very interested in. After that, he walks out with the priest, following the dispersing crowd.

It is lunchtime now, and Priest Ao Gu Si treats Xia De to a meal at the cathedral. During the Prayer Festival, the cathedral's restaurant is open to some invited believers, and the meal is very sumptuous, which is why Xia De brought Mia out, wanting it to eat some good things too.

During the meal, Xia De does not forget to reveal that he recently obtained a potion known as the "Elixir of Life" and wants to ask Priest Ao Gu Si to help identify it. The priest is very interested in this, takes the potion handed over by Xia De at the dining table, but does not identify it in the cathedral:

"I need a few days; I will tell you as soon as there is news."

And after lunch, everything goes according to plan. Outside the cathedral is a lively celebration, while inside the cathedral is a quite serious religious activity.

Xia De is arranged to attend a small prayer meeting, where he prays to 【Mr. Dawn】 together with believers in a room with thick curtains drawn and candles and aromatherapy lit. If this were not a cathedral, this scene would be a standard cult ritual.

Afterward, together with Priest Ao Gu Si and other visitors, he watches the baptism of three three-year-old children selected from families of senior believers. Xia De has already experienced a baptism in the steam age once, and this time it is even more solemn. In addition to high-power gas lamps, steam pipes were brought in to spray steam mist, making the entire venue misty.

This scene is not ridiculous; the solemn and dignified architecture of the cathedral, the colored glass, and the religious murals on the ceiling are perfectly combined with the haziness of the steam mist. This makes the reporters taking pictures on the side very excited and also makes everyone present wet.

Except for Mia, who was hidden in Xia De's clothes.

Xia De only needs to follow Priest Ao Gu Si in the cathedral, and the old priest is in a very good mood today. During a break in the activities, he also takes Xia De to see a new oil painting hanging in the corridor of the cathedral.

The oil painting is quite large, framed in a gilded frame, and is located in the corridor leading from the main hall to the eastern side hall. The colors of the painting are relatively dark, and there is no blank space in the whole painting. People wearing various costumes are gathered in a circle around the picture, and the center of the picture outlines the ground stone bricks with light pen marks. A carriage is parked on the left side of the center of the picture, and there is a beautiful and elegant woman's face in the carriage window, while two people are standing on the right side of the picture.

One person is holding a pistol, and the other is opening their arms to block in front of him.

The person with arms open can almost be considered to be standing in the center of the picture, and is painted by the artist with the most exquisite brushstrokes. Using oil ink and colors, a beam of light seems to shine on the top of this person's head in the oil painting, making them look like they are bathed in holy light. And people watching the oil painting can see at a glance that this is the protagonist in the picture.

"This is..."

Priest Ao Gu Si laughs, causing the wrinkles on his face to pile up; he is really in a very good mood.

Xia De also can't help but show a smile and bends down to check the nameplate of the oil painting. There are two lines of text on the nameplate; the top line records the date the oil painting was hung here, and the bottom line reads:

【The Protected Worldly People - 1853 Prayer Festival Commemoration】

"How is it? This was painted the day before yesterday, specifically hung here before the Prayer Festival. When you didn't come in the morning, there were reporters taking pictures here, and maybe this painting will appear in the newspaper tomorrow."

Priest Ao Gu Si says.

Xia De is not dissatisfied; it is a very good thing that the things he experienced are remembered by others.

He just asks curiously:

"Will this painting always hang here?"

Xia De only remembers that the scene was very noisy at the time, completely lacking the sacred solemnity of this oil painting, nor the feeling that he was about to sacrifice himself for some noble reason.

"It might hang for decades. You don't have to worry; I know you don't want more people to know what you look like, so the face in this painting doesn't look much like you. In addition, Queen Diana has also seen this painting and gave guidance on her appearance in the picture; she is also very satisfied with this painting."

The priest says while nodding, and then asks with a smile:

"Xia De, how do you feel?"

The outsider certainly didn't expect that he would leave a mark in the cathedral of Tobeisike for decades in this way:

"Does the cathedral always find people to paint this kind of oil painting?"

People are coming and going behind them, and the festive atmosphere is infecting everyone. But no one can recognize that the protagonist on the wall is standing here looking up at it.

"Of course, there is only this kind of oil painting when it is worth commemorating. You happened to save the Queen, were seen by many people, and encountered the upcoming Prayer Festival. If it were an ordinary day, and you only saved ordinary people, I'm afraid you would need to be shot eighteen times in the street to..."

The old priest shrugs and doesn't continue. Although it sounds cruel, this is reality.

Xia De's speech is also in the side hall. The church had already prepared the speech draft and requested that he be able to speak without a script if possible. Although the outsider was busy with exams last week and didn't have time to memorize the script, with "her" there, Xia De read it twice, and she was able to repeat it roughly.

Therefore, for the half-hour speech, Xia De just followed the voice in his heart and translated the ancient language she used into modern Delarion common language.

The content of the speech is not fresh; the theme is "God loves the world, God blesses the world." Although the core doctrines of the Five Gods Church are different, they are all religious groups that persuade people to be good, and the methods used when promoting their own churches are similar.

The content of the speech is not very fresh, but the church's writer used extremely high writing skills to make the content fresh. It even combined Xia De's experience on the day he was shot, making the slightly preachy speech content very attention-grabbing.

This kind of person who can write a speech draft, whether in this world or in the outsider's hometown, can be considered a scarce talent, so after the speech, Xia De wants to ask Priest Ao Gu Si to take him to meet the writer.