Not counting Anne who escaped along the way, there were a total of fourteen true believers, eight men, five women, and one dwarf boy.
Chen Yi squatted down in another cell quietly, as if to prevent the cells from colluding with each other, there were several empty cells in the prison cell.
There were seven men inside, and the dim light fell at their feet. They were in ragged clothes, thin, and looked either determined or panicked.
"I'm a clerk, here to register you." Chen Yi said.
The man with the shaved monk's head walked to the cell door.
"Are you the leader?"
"I am literate," the monk said. He raised his hand and pointed at the prisoners sitting around the cell. "We are all the godson of Father Christopher."
"Okay, let's register your name first." Chen Yi put the linen paper on the ground and unscrewed the ink bottle. "What's your name and where are you from?"
"Miru Allens, from the Holy Land."
"People from Silver Cana?" The name of the holy land is Silver Cana.
"Yes." The monk replied in the affirmative.
Then, Chen Yi wrote down his information one by one, and wrote down blasphemy as usual.
"We have not blasphemed the false god, and neither has the priest." The monk argued calmly: "He just hopes that the man can ascend to heaven."
"I just register."
"I just want to tell the truth." The monk said.
Chen Yi said: "Call the next one for me."
Then the monk called another prisoner over, who looked up and down at the linen paper with sad and cowardly eyes.
"Monk, are we really going to be burned at the stake?!" His voice trembled, panic jumping up and down in his Adam's apple.
The monk nodded and said: "...If we really die like this, angels will lead us back. The priest did nothing wrong, and neither did we."
"Oh, for the priest." The man with hollow cheeks murmured, turning to look at Chen Yi, "Can you help me write my son's name again. I try to remember that God will take good care of him."
Chen Yi nodded wordlessly.
"Mikhail, his name is Mikhail."
Chen Yi followed his words and wrote them all over the paper in real Arabic.
The man stared at it several times, carefully rubbing the words with his dry fingers.
"And you?"
"Me? I'm not important."
"I want to register your name."
The man was stunned for a moment and then said: "Just like the priest, Christopher, just like the priest, he gave my name."
"Go back," the monk said.
With the cooperation of the monks, Chen Yi registered their names and regions one by one, briefly described their figures, unified them on the charges, and wrote down blasphemy.
As they said, they are all the godchildren of the priest, their Christian names were given by the priest, and they were all baptized by him as children.
A few meters away, in the third and last cell, there were women and dwarf boys. Chen Yi squatted down as before. Before he could speak, a seventeen-year-old girl came up.
She asked: "Dear Mr. Clerk, can you write a letter for me?"
"Write a letter?"
"Yes, I am a nun in a convent and a painter. I hope you can write a letter to my brother." She paused, and Chen Yi saw her eyes were red, obviously she had cried.
Not only her, she was still sobbing slightly inside.
"Okay, let's register you first. What's your name?"
"Alina, I only have a Christian name," she said.
"It's a very good name, just like your behavior." Chen Yi said.
Her name means "noble".
"Thank you for your praise, may our Lord bless you," Alina paused and added smartly: "I think you are not a pagan, and you can speak Keshi."
Chen Yi nodded, "I can also speak Yawen."
He immediately asked: "What do you want to write? I can help you write it down now."
"Thank you, now." She smiled quietly.
Chen Yi took out a knife, sharpened the quill, dipped it in ink, spread out a brand new piece of linen paper, and signaled to Alina that she could start.
"Dear Burd,"
She got stuck.
Chen Yi looked up and saw her lips trembling, but she couldn't utter a word.
After a long time, she finally said: "There is no shortage of oil paint in the Holy Land. I settled down and finally met Father Christopher, your and my godfather. After I got there, I wanted a quiet environment to paint. The people in the monastery were very nice and they had free space. A guest room for my painting studio..."
She rambled on, and if she made a mistake, she apologized profusely and pondered for a moment before continuing.
"That day I went out to collect news. On the street I mentioned to you, an old man passed away. He was sitting there quietly. His family didn't find out until night. They were a poor family and they couldn't even prepare a coffin. Come on, just like we did before.”
At this point, Chen Yi realized that she was talking about mass.
"He passed away silently on the street without any warning. The priest accidentally saw him, so he stood at the door from a distance and silently chanted sutras for a day. Later, the family was really too poor and approached the priest. Just like before We are the same."
Elena recounted all this long and calmly, and at the end of the letter, she left a paragraph for her brother.
"In my short life, many things were very short. I painted stars, silent mountains, weeping nymphs in the lake, and religious paintings of saints weeping... .They were all too short-lived. So later I tried to draw eternal death. So there were a lot more strange problems.
I still remember telling my priest when I was a child that everything dies, even our Lord eventually dies and is no more, forever.
This stumped the priest, and I asked a profound question. You see, I will always be smarter than you.
Later, the priest said to me:
'You are alive and loved by everyone,
How can you say that God is not here? '
I have painted many things that have passed away...
Now it's my turn to die,
May you marry a good girl. "
After saying what she had thought about for a long time, Alina burst into tears and smiled firmly at herself.
Chen Yi could only tell her that he would send it out for her.
"Thank you, may the Lord bless you." She said.
Chen Yi asked her to let others come too.
Elena called the dwarf boy over first.
"Hello, sir." The dwarf boy greeted politely.
Chen Yi couldn't see fear between his brows.
"Aren't you afraid?"
"What are you afraid of? Afraid of fire... torture?" The dwarf boy struggled to say the difficult words, and then he puffed up his chest, "I'm not afraid."
"Why?" Chen Yi glanced around the cell. No woman came to look after the boy. "Where are your parents?"
"Dead." The dwarf boy said.
Across the cell door, Alina approached Chen Yi and said, "His parents died fighting to protect the Holy Land a long time ago."
Chen Yi nodded, and so did his uncle.
"They are angels," the dwarf boy added.
"An angel?"
The dwarf nodded and showed off: "I used to have an unborn sister. My mother couldn't give birth to her, and I couldn't see her. Then my father told me that she was an angel and had flown away."
Chen Yi remained silent.
In an era when medicine was underdeveloped, difficult childbirth was not uncommon. If a baby died during childbirth, people around him would comfort the parents, saying that the child was an angel and flew away after birth.
Is this child comparing his parents to his sister?
"I can also become an angel." The dwarf boy said seriously.
Chen Yi didn't ask any more questions. Through Alina, he silently wrote down the dwarf boy's name, origin, and crime.
It was almost dusk, and Chen Yi accidentally caught a glimpse of the sky through the window.
In the deep blue sky in late autumn, the orange cotton-like clouds are so beautiful, as if a child had grown wings and flew into the sky and painted them with crayons.
Boom.
The church bell rang, the solemn broken bell.
Under pagan rule, the bell could not be repaired.
Wow.
Turn around hastily.
Chen Yi saw the true believers. They all knelt down on the ground in unison. One by one, they kissed the icon pendant on their necks. Their eyes were gently closed, and their faces were filled with tranquil sadness.
“We are all children of the Lord, and every birth is like being left behind by the Lord.
Because we are the Lord’s children,
Therefore, it is the first thing to cast away, but the last thing to save..."
As they prayed in unison, something burst out of life in their thin bodies.
That is faith.
