When the three Henrys finally returned after several hours delay, Galeva and the young missionary named Aggie, who had been taken care of by Mira and hit his head on the boat, were cleaning the dirt in front of the door and on the roof of the longhouse. snow.
In autumn and winter, this is almost daily life for northern residents all over the world. Their snow shovels are brought with them and brooms are made by themselves from twigs, sticks and twine. The same is true for the brushes used to clear snow from roofs. The low efficiency caused by simple tools makes people very tired from working. In addition, there are other things to do, so the snow removal work that should have been completed early in the morning has been delayed intermittently. It's still being executed.
The three people who worked hard to solve the food problem and returned to the longhouse suddenly felt that their efforts were not worth it when they saw this scene.
This is not to blame the two young people who are still busy at work for their inefficiency, but because there are more than a dozen people in the entire team, but they are the only ones working.
Such things have happened many times in the past three days, especially among the young scholars who account for the vast majority. They always stay in the room with books or notes and pretend to be busy with various things that require labor. Turn a blind eye. Even if you open your mouth to talk to them, these people will use "I have more important things" as the reason, with a look of reluctance on their faces, and they are often very uncooperative in doing things.
"Oh, let the peasants solve everything. In this way, the noble knights with free hands can do more 'important' things, such as praying or fighting." A popular saying in the distant hometown of Rigal. , even across the ocean, they are still followed faithfully by these members of the upper class.
It is not that they cannot work, but they resist working. On the one hand, it is because of lack of exercise and lack of physical strength that makes it easy to feel tired. On the other hand, it may be because of a weird self-esteem.
"I am too important to do these little things that everyone can do." Although they are not stupid enough to say it directly, during these three days of living together, these pampered young ladies have also shown their This attitude.
Especially as the roommate of Luoan girl, the scholar Lisa, who is quite familiar with her, is the only woman in the scholar group. Mira's initially good impression of her became worse and worse in the days after arriving at the cabin.
Ordinarily, long-distance voyages are not easy. From Mira's own point of view, those who can withstand this kind of test should also have a solid heart, but one thing the white-haired girl forgot is - although the Oriental Moon There were strong winds and waves, but except for her, Galeva and Henry, none of the other passengers had much involvement in the affairs of the ship.
Although the voyage itself is still very thrilling, there are enough supplies and second-hand supplies are not in short supply. They just need to stay in the cabin and remember to eat, drink and sleep every day and be careful not to run outside.
The destination of these scholars and missionaries was originally the prosperous capital city in the middle of the Moon Kingdom, where they would connect with local operators at the established strongholds of the empire. Such a sudden change of schedule to enter the wilderness was not at all in their original arrangements.
As a result, not only were food and various supplies in short supply, but they themselves also had to join in the labor force. Many young scholars showed dissatisfaction.
This was especially important for Lisa. She lost her temper the morning after she spent the night in the longhouse. Perhaps it was because she did not put cheese in the pot of soup that night to take care of Lulu, an aborigine. To hold grudges, she obviously has a tendency to attack girls from the Yi tribe in a targeted manner.
Because Lulu was the first to add firewood to the floor heating system, she was naturally responsible for it. However, the aboriginal girl, who is frugal by nature and used to getting up early to work, would not work when the sun was about to rise around four or five in the morning. Add more firewood, and the scholars usually don't get up until eight or nine o'clock. In addition, they are very tired from the arduous trek in the snow the night before. How do these people feel when they lie on the cold floor after the floor heating system fails? It's not comfortable to sleep.
And this became the reason for Lisa's quarrel with her - or one-sided quarrel: she loudly blamed Lulu for not doing her duty in the language of the Moon Country, even though she could not fully understand her. With these words, our Luoan girl still frowned because of her aggressive appearance and protected herself in front of Lulu.
With just this action, Mira didn't even say anything. Lisa, who felt that she had not slept well and suffered a lot of grievances, immediately transferred her dissatisfaction to her and started yelling about why everyone was protecting her. Lulu, she didn't do anything wrong, so why does everyone target her.
Starting from this quarrel, the majority of the scholar group did not do anything to contribute to the team except their own affairs for three days because of the quarrel.
Naturally, they stood on Lisa's side, and they all felt that they were very wronged, because conflicts and quarrels over various trivial matters often occurred - or they refused to move in broad daylight and had to stay in the longhouse. They also had to use precious fuel to maintain floor heating; or they used the strictly distributed collective dry food without authorization, and opened a small stove and unilaterally consumed fuel, food and water.
Anyway, whenever Henry and others in charge of labor go out, these people can always create new problems. Their supplies will be consumed faster than expected, largely due to the extravagance and waste of these people. After asking them to assist with labor several times to no avail, the people responsible for the work and these scholars were completely locked in an awkward cold war.
In this situation where everyone needs to work together to do something, they are lazy and lazy for various reasons. This kind of traveling companion has never been encountered by Mira in the past. Even Miss Margaret, who is theoretically of a higher origin than these people, is just clumsy and does not know how to do these things. That lovely noble lady has mobility that is not inferior to our Roan girl. , she is always curious about everything, even if she is clumsy, she will change through learning later.
Margaret has never done anything like putting on airs and being unwilling to do things, thinking that everything should be centered on herself, except for the somewhat willful task promulgation.
"A full bottle won't slosh, a half-bottle will slosh."
The image of a playboy that people think of in their hearts often has little to do with the top nobles. Top aristocrats like Margaret always come from well-educated families, so it is difficult for them to think of themselves as noble but lazy. On the contrary, it is these people who belong to the middle and upper reaches who like to put on airs the most.
Human psychology is always similar. The more something is lacking in oneself, the more one needs to emphasize it. These people in the middle and upper social classes are better than the upper class. They do not have a well-known family name, so they often have the ambition to make a name for themselves. What this kind of mentality causes is that these young people usually have the mentality of "My existence is to realize my dreams, and everything except my dreams is not worth doing for me" and excessive self-awareness.
When she was on the east coast, she read articles about the older generation criticizing these young people as the "Beat Generation". Mira never thought that she would witness it herself, and that she would actually leave Rigar far away and come to another land. What happened after the mainland.
She felt very tired. The past three days were more tiring than the previous more than a month of sailing.
Henry, Lulu, Mila and Galeva took care of almost everything, from cooking to various repairs and cleaning. Missionaries who are more or less close to the common people and will help with some chores in the church will occasionally help, especially Aiji who was taken care of by the Luoan girl on the ship, but almost all of them are scholars who make up the majority. Enjoy the care of others with peace of mind.
Even in their opinion, Henry and the others did not do enough.
"What's going on, am I dazzled?" Galeva looked at the huge brown bear pulled on the larger sled they made from two sleds, feeling a little dazed.
"It's not dazzling, it's a long story." Mira replied to him, and Henry on the other side began to move the killed giant brown bear into the long house with the help of Galeva and Aggie.
The huge brown bear was pulled in, causing a fuss among the young scholars who were wrapped in blankets and reading by the fire. They came over and talked all kinds of things, but when they smelled the fishy smell After that, everyone started to hide away from his breath.
"Can't we do it outside? We have to sleep here tonight." The complaining voice hid in the crowd of scholars and deliberately shouted it at a loud volume, so that no one knew who spoke. Others were also muttering words like "barbaric mercenaries" in a low voice, which made the young and energetic Galeva's face grow darker and darker.
"Get some branches and wood and measure the size." The sage said, then picked up the ax and started to divide the bear he killed before.
"Ugh." Some of the young scholars who were hiding in the longhouse and didn't know if they were eating well by turning on the small stove again saw this scene and ran to the wooden window first, then vomited to the snow outside, while unloading After removing some of the still-warm bear entrails and letting Lulu get them near the cauldron, the sage and Galeva took the remaining parts outside together with the branches.
The work of skinning and removing meat took a lot of time. When it was finally completed, the old bear's huge fur, which had been bald in many places, was held open with a temporary tree branch frame to prevent it from becoming deformed later. It shrinks and becomes hard when dry.
Bearskin is an excellent thermal insulation product. It was still the middle of winter in Yi Di, so even though they had brought enough warm clothing, it would be better to collect as much as possible in this situation.
Even if you don't use it yourself, you can sell it and exchange it for local money when you meet other people later.
In addition, the firewood transported later was also moved to the longhouse and chopped into small pieces by Henry and Galeva. The fish they caught were peeled and cleaned, and Lulu hung them on the beams directly above the fire, so that the cooking and heating flames would make the salmon into dried fish. Can be used during subsequent trips.
When everything was done, another afternoon passed. The young scholars discussed various things lively, but from time to time they would also add some complaints. As the leader of the team, their mentor did not stop him. This was a bit strange, but not unexpected. Henry's surprise.
This man was planning something, and he thought he was hiding it well, but in fact, the sage was already familiar with this old-fashioned method, so much so that he could roughly guess it by just looking at the other person.
But he said nothing.
At the time of dinner, everyone was a little happy at first, because it was the first time in several days since they arrived at the longhouse that they had fresh meat to eat. But when the hot chunks of bear meat scooped out of the soup bowl finally entered their mouths, most people frowned.
"It turns out bear meat tastes like this." Mira's expression was a little subtle. It's hard to find an analogy between this kind of taste and the food that people often eat - it can't be said to be unpalatable, but it's not so delicious that it will make you gobble it up. Degree.
"No way, it's just an old bear, and it's so hungry that there's no fat left." The sage shrugged and said.
It is not uncommon for people in the north to eat bears as food. Due to the harsh environment, this kind of food that can provide a lot of fat and calories is even a delicacy in some areas.
But this old bear is obviously not like this, because it has almost no oil and water due to its sleepless winter, and those strong muscles are tough and hard, making it very troublesome to chew.
The most important thing is that they don't carry many seasonings. Dry food, bacon and the like don't need to be processed because they are already tasty, so when cooking bear meat, coarse salt is somewhat insufficient.
The correct way to do it is to throw some bacon and the like into the pot and stew it to dilute the salt and make the soup more colorful.
But all these things have been eaten up by scholars in a small way - but even with this, there are still people who have very clearly expressed their dissatisfaction.
That person is Lisa.
She dropped the wooden bowl in her hand and walked towards the firewood pile with a dark face.
"What are you going to do?" Someone among the scholars asked in Laman language, and most people in the longhouse turned their heads.
"Take a bath. I haven't been able to take a bath for so long. I'm finally on land. There's no shortage of firewood and water." She said. There was a bathhouse near the Yi people's settlement. They just needed firewood and water. Fresh water, supplies have not been abundant recently, so they did not do this.
"There are not enough things, so don't do this." Mira said. There was not much fresh water in the big tank outside the house, and it would take some distance to carry the water.
"Are you against me? Didn't you bring a lot of firewood here today?" Lisa, who felt aggrieved, said in an angry tone, and Mira frowned again: "Maybe in the future It will also snow and block the roads, so we need to keep these for warmth, and there is not enough fresh water.”
"If we don't have enough fresh water, we can just burn the snow."
"That's a waste of fuel."
"Dang!" The young scholar lady threw the firewood in her hand to the ground angrily: "Come on, the food you eat is so bad, you can't sleep well, and no one can even take a bath now. ."
She opened her mouth and said this, and the other young scholars also started to shout loudly, taking advantage of Lisa's outstanding behavior.
Mira and Galeva both frowned, and Aggie tried to stop him, but another elderly missionary who was eating quietly next to him reached out to pull him and shook his head.
Lulu, who didn't understand all this, buried her head in eating.
The sage turned his attention to the scholar mentor named Luo Lan - the supreme leader who could theoretically control these young scholars.
The tall and thin middle-aged scholar Luo Lan had a look of helplessness. He had tried to speak several times before when the atmosphere was not right, but he seemed to lack leadership.
He looked like a tutor who was exhausted mentally and physically because of his wanton students, but what Henry knew was that these were all acting skills.
He was testing, using his young and energetic students who could not bear the grievance to create conflicts, and wanted to see what the bottom line of these mercenaries was.
If the two of them are from the empire and have an instinctive surrender to these upper-class society, he will further push forward and make various demands to build a superior-subordinate relationship.
This has nothing to do with issues such as character, but because this is a foreign country, and at this time of turmoil, he must ensure that Henry and Mira, who have the power, will not betray them.
This is the classic thinking mode of those in power, to test how far the other party can compromise, to play with people's hearts, to hit the other party's weaknesses, etc., to make the other party succumb, thus successfully turning Henry and Mira into their loyal subordinates. .
But within these three days, Henry and Mira have clearly shown their unwillingness to give in, especially our Luo An girl. Although she is more familiar with Lisa, she obviously protects the innocent Lu. Lu instead of this acquaintance.
As a result, Luo Lan changed his policy - if he couldn't be tough, he would be soft.
Lisa is a rare female scholar. Because of her rarity, she is obviously well-protected among the empire's scholar community. As a result, she developed this willful personality and seemed to have power. Even her mentor could not convince her that she was the one in charge, but all of this was actually calculated by her mentor.
Lorraine was letting things unfold.
He used the willful Lisa as a tool of temptation, and he showed the image of a peacemaker many times, and even showed his helplessness towards this disciple.
When Henry and Mira were already tired and angry because of Lisa's repeated unreasonable troubles, he made such a gesture, which was tantamount to betraying Lisa and shaping his disciple into a "common enemy" , use this common feeling to close the distance between the two parties and open up their defenses.
After this step, he will probably start to talk about his various missions and all kinds of great things, and carry out brainwashing and manipulation.
Typical psychological tricks used by superiors are very efficient and have a high success rate.
The only drawback this time is.
Henry saw through it all.
