Chapter 11 Chapter 8 Frontier

Joram had always known that he was as different from the others on the frontier farm as he was from his mother's name, or her touch.Joram seemed to have known this for a long time, but the reason why he was different from others had always puzzled the six-year-old boy. "Why don't you let me play with other children?" Qiao Lang always asked Anya who was watching closely every evening when he could finally leave the cabin and go out for activities alone. "Because you are different from others." Anya always answered him coldly. "Why must I read and write?" Joram would ask sometimes. "Other children don't need to read and write like me."

"Because you are different from other children." Anya would answer him like this. no the same.no the same.no the same.These three characters vaguely took shape in Qiao Lang's little mind, and the scope became larger and larger, just like the other new characters that Anya asked him to practice writing on the slate.It's all because of the difference, so whenever Anya goes out to work, he has to be locked up in the cabin where they live.Also because of the difference, he and Anya could only keep a distance from other serf mages, and never participated in the villagers' small festivals, or gossip about family affairs before going to bed at dusk.

"Why am I different from others?" Joram asked petulantly one day, watching other children in the village play in the muddy streets. "I don't want to be different from other people." "May God forgive you for the stupid things you just said." Anya roared, looking at the children outside the house with contempt. "You are far nobler than these people, just as far away as the moon in the sky and the earth under our feet." Joram looked up at the night sky, where the pale moon hung high, far away from the world, away from the other dimly twinkling stars in the sky.

"But the moon looks so cold and lonely, Anya." Joram noticed this. "That's good, kid. That way nothing can hurt it!" Anya replied.She knelt beside her son and stretched out her arms to hold him tightly in her arms. "Be as lonely as the moon, so that nothing will hurt you!" Well, this is of course one of the reasons, although it is not a very good reason.Joram thought.Being alone every day, he had plenty of time to think wildly, so Qiao Lang opened his eyes wide and stretched out his ears to secretly watch his mother's every move, trying to find out what makes him different from others.Once, he really thought he had found it.

"What do you want, Catalyst Saint?" Before going to work one morning, there was a knock on the door.Anya slammed the door open and asked the person rudely. Father Torpen tried to keep the smile on his lips, but it looked forced, and his lips were pursed. "The sun is rising. Good morning, Anya, may God's blessing accompany you through this day." "Even if it is, it has nothing to do with you at all." Anya retorted. "I'll ask you again, Catalyst Saint, what do you want to do? To make a long story short, I have to go to work in the fields." "I'm here to discuss with you—" the priest began to speak cautiously, but he still succumbed to Anya's icy gaze and forgot all the words he had carefully drafted before.He could only stammer and rush to say: "How old is your——Joran?"

The morning light outside the window was still dim, and the little boy was half asleep and half awake lying on the hammock in the corner, curled up in the patched blanket. "He's six years old." Anya replied arrogantly, as if she was challenging Father Torpen. The priest nodded, trying to regain his composure. "Fortunately, I caught up." He pretended to be humorous, trying to ease the atmosphere. "Six is ​​exactly the age when Joram should start his education. Every day at noon, the other children come to me, you know. Let me...if you will..." His voice became lower and lower, and the smiles and words of the Catalyst Saints slowly disappeared before Anya's cold mocking sneer.

"I will educate him myself, you don't have to worry about it, catalyst saints! After all, he is of noble blood." Father Toben tried to protest, but Anya added angrily: "Joran will receive a proper education in line with his noble status. Instead of being educated with a bunch of commoners with hands full of ham!" After finishing speaking, Anya bumped away the priest who was still standing in front of her blocking the way, and then closed the door of the cabin.The log cabin door is made of tree branches, and like the doors of the other houses on the farm, it was originally designed as a welcoming gesture, but Anya's disheveled, untrimmed door looks like a couple clutching something skull claws.She cast a suspicious glance at the priest, then cast her spells to create a magical protective shield around the cabin, which made her walk to work exhausted every morning instead of floating like other mages.

In the cabin, Joram poked his head carefully out of the blankets.The catalyst saint hadn't left yet, and he could still hear the priest shuffling and stomping outside, and another footstep approaching. "Did you hear that?" said Father Torpen bitterly. "Better stay away from her, and that child," suggested the overseer. "But he should go to school..." "Hmph!" the supervisor snorted. "Because this child can't understand the scriptures? As long as he is ready to work in the fields after the age of eight, I don't care whether he can recite which nine branches of the nine magic sects are."

"If you could talk to her..." "Her? I'd rather chat with the centaur. If you want to find that little boy, you have to get him out of her clutches first." "Perhaps you're right," Father Torpen muttered hastily. "I guess it's probably not a big deal..." The two left. It turns out that this is where he is different from others.Joron thought so.I'm of noble blood, whatever that means. But there must be something different about him from others, there must be.Because when Joram grew up, he found that this so-called difference set him apart from others, including his mother; Qiao Lang could sense this from the way Anya looked at him.He saw fear in her eyes, and though he didn't know why, it frightened him too.Every time Joram wanted to ask why, she always looked away immediately, and then suddenly became very busy.

One thing is that Joram is obviously different from other children, he can only walk on the ground.Although he was isolated in the log cabin every day, he had housework or homework assigned by Anya, but he often stayed in front of the window all day long, watching other children playing outside with envy.Every day at noon, under the supervision of Father Torben, the children stumbled and floated in the sky. With their weird imagination and limited magical skills, they played with things that could be summoned within the scope of adults' permission.What Joram wanted more than anything else was to be able to fly, not to walk on the ground like the lowest class of serf mages, or, according to his mother, the dumbest animals in Simharon: the catalyst saints.

"How do I know I can't do it?" One day, a six-year-old boy asked himself this way. "I never really tried to see if I could do it." The little boy moved away from the window and looked around the walls. The cabin was magically hollowed out from a dead tree, its branches delicately tied in pairs to form a rough roof.High above Joram, a tree branch extended from the ceiling.Qiao Lang diligently dragged a simple work table made of tree stumps to the beams of the branches. He moved another chair, put it on the table, and began to climb up.He looked up, not high enough.He looked around dejectedly, and saw the box of potatoes in the corner.He climbed down and dumped all the potatoes out of the box.Joram lifted up the empty gourd box, and finally put the box on the chair after a lot of effort. He could finally barely touch the crossbar.The gourd box under his feet began to shake, and Joram touched the beam with his fingertips, and then he jumped up, and the gourd box rolled down under the table.Joram climbed up by grabbing the beam, and when he looked down, he found himself a long way from the floor. "It's okay." He said confidently. "Anyway, I will fly in the air like everyone else." Joram took a deep breath and was about to jump down when the magic protective shield outside the house was suddenly released, the door snapped open, and his mother walked in. Anya's horrified eyes shifted from the table to the chairs, the gourd box on the ground, and finally to Qiao Lang who was still clinging to the beam.Qiao Ran stared at Anya with dark eyes, his face was pale and dazed, Anya immediately jumped into the air, flew to the ceiling and grabbed the little boy down. "What do you think you're doing, my little one?" Anya yelled frantically, clutching Joram and landing on the floor. "I just want to fly like them," Joram replied.He pointed outside, struggling in his mother's aching arms. Anya put down the little boy and turned to look at the country boy outside the window. She pursed her lips. "In the future, you must never have the idea of ​​embarrassing me and yourself!" She tried to say in a serious tone.But Anya's tone trembled. She looked at the crude tools that Qiao Lang assembled to achieve her goal, and covered her mouth with trembling hands.Then, with a disgusted expression, she hastily grabbed the chair and flung it into a corner.Anya turned her head to look at Qiao Lang, her face was ashen, and she was about to reprimand him. But she just couldn't say it, she saw in Joram's eyes a question already formed and ready to be asked. But she wasn't ready to answer him yet. Anya turned around without saying a word, and walked out of the cabin. From then on, Anya always took time to go home from time to time, but when the harvest season came, the heavy work made her so busy that she hardly had time to go home for Chinese food. After confirming this, Qiao Lang certainly took the opportunity to try again from the ceiling The feat of jumping up and down.He stood on the edge of the ceiling beams, trying to keep his balance.The little boy jumped down, his little head full of energy, hoping that he would float in the cool autumn air like a griffin, and then slowly land on the ground like leaves falling in the wind... He did land, but instead of falling like a leaf in the wind, he fell heavily on the ground like a stone.The little boy fell so badly that he lifted himself up and felt a sharp pain in his ribs as he inhaled. "What's the matter with my little one?" Anya asked him jokingly that night. "You are so quiet tonight." "I jumped off the roof," replied Joram, looking at her calmly. "I just want to float in the air like everyone else." Anya lowered her face and opened her mouth to reprimand Qiao Lang, but she saw the question in the little boy's eyes again. "And then?" she asked gruffly, and began to pull the thread out of her tattered dress with both hands. "And then I fell to the floor," Joram replied to his mother, who didn't look at him. "I fell so badly, here, you see." He put his hand on his ribs. Anya shrugged. "I hope you've learned your lesson," she said coldly. "You're not like other people, you're not like them. So if you try to imitate other people it will hurt, or other people will hurt you." She was right, I was different from other people.Joram understood now at last.But why?Why am I different from others? That winter, when Joram was six, he thought he had the answer again. Qiao Lang is a handsome and handsome boy.Even the stubborn overseer couldn't help suspending his daily drudgery and staring at Joram every time he was allowed to leave the cabin.Because Joram was always locked in the cabin during the day, his skin looked as white as marble; The double eyebrows add a melancholy, serious and mature temperament to the childish face of the little boy. But Joram's most striking feature was his hair.Thick, luxuriant, shiny black crow-feather-like hair was parted from the middle of his forehead, and both fell on Joram's shoulders, forming two tangled spirals. Unfortunately, Joram's stunning hair became his childhood nightmare.Anya never cut Joram's hair short, and now it was long and thick, and it took hours of painful combing and Anya's relentless effort to get the tangles out.She tried braiding Joram's hair, but in less than a minute his wayward hair broke free from the headband and curled around the little boy's cheeks, bouncing like life on his shoulders. Anya was very proud of her son's beauty, and it was her greatest and only pleasure to comb Joram's hair and keep it tidy.In fact, it's all because Anya has always haughtily kept her distance from her neighbors, making combing her hair a nightly ritual.But for Joram, this was a miserable torture that he had to endure.Every night after a simple dinner and a short exercise time, the little boy had to sit on the bench next to the wooden table, obediently letting Anya comb his shiny and unruly black hair lovingly with magic and fingers. One night Joram finally rebelled. As usual, Joram sat alone at home, looking out the window at the other little boys playing.Their leader: a bright-eyed young boy named Mosiah magically conjures a shining crystal ball.Floating through the air, they stumbled after the crystal ball, their furious romps suspended when several mages returned from the fields.The children surrounded the adults, clinging to their parents and embracing each other, which made Qiao Lang, who was peeking from the side, feel the emptiness and darkness in his heart.Although Anya had always doted on him and never hesitated to hug him, her fierce and suffocating hugs always made him feel scared instead of loving.Sometimes it seemed to Joram that she was trying to squeeze himself into her until they were one. "Mosiah," the boy's father called, grabbing his son who had just greeted him and wanted to get back to the game right away. "You boy, your hair grows like a lion cub," said the father.He rubbed his son's straight blond hair that had long covered his eyes. The father clamped the boy's hair with two fingers, and began to cut the little boy's hair with deft and gentle movements. That night, when Anya called Qiao Ran to sit on the bench and tried to untie the few remaining braids on his head, Qiao Ran suddenly broke away from her grasp and turned to face Anya.His wide-open black eyes looked very serious. "If I had a dad like every other little boy, he'd cut my hair. If I had a dad, I wouldn't be different from everyone else. He wouldn't let you make me different from everyone else. Same!" he said calmly. Without saying a word, Anya waved her hand and slapped Qiao Lang hard. The little boy was knocked to the ground, leaving a bruise on his cheek that was still visible days later.But what happened next left an indelible scar in his heart for the rest of his life. Qiao Lang felt pain and anger, and his mother's face was ashen, and the expression of raging anger buried in her eyes made him even more terrified.He burst into tears. "Don't cry!" Anya pulled the little boy to stand up, inserting her slender hand into Joran's arm amidst the stinging pain. "Don't cry!" she whispered sternly. "Why are you crying!" "Because you hurt me!" Joram muttered accusingly.He covered his sore cheek and looked at Anya sullenly. "You said I hurt you!" Anya sneered. "I just slapped you, and you started crying. Come with me—" She pulled Joran out of the cabin and walked into the simple village.After a tiring day of work, the villagers are going to bed and rest. "Come here, Joram, let me tell you what pain is!" She walked quickly, dragging Joram, who was about to fall, through the muddy street (Anya always walked when she was with him, and this strange behavior had already aroused the attention and suspicion of many mages.) Two The man came to the priest's house at the end of the village.Anya used the remaining magic power after a day's work to blow open the door of the Catalyst Saint's house. Driven by anger, the two rushed into the priest's house. "Anja? What happened?" Father Torpen shouted.He who had been resting beside the bright red flame stood up in horror, and Mam bent over and stood beside the fire, cooking dinner for the Catalyst Saint who had only meager life force and could not take care of three meals by himself.Sausages were sizzling suspended over the fire, and Mam was cooking porridge in a magic ball bubbling by the hearth. "Get out!" Anya ordered the old woman, staring intently at the stunned Catalyst Saints. "You—you'd better do what she says, Mam," said Father Torpen softly.He really wanted to ask the old woman to inform the law enforcement officer to come over immediately, but when he saw Anya's shining eyes and dirty face, he immediately swallowed what he wanted to say.Mam grunted and complained, and brought the sausages on the fire to the table. After narrowing her eyes and looking at Anya and the little boy, she floated out the door with a gesture of exorcism. Anya pursed her lips mockingly, slammed the door shut, and turned to stand in front of the priest.They haven't seen each other since she stopped him from educating Jorang.While working in the fields, she always tried to avoid talking to him.Therefore, he was surprised that he would run into Anya at home.What surprised him even more was that she actually brought Qiao Lang over to visit him. "What's the matter, Anya?" he asked again. "Are you or your child sick?" "Open the teleportation corridor, Catalyst Saint." Anya ordered in the tone of a superior speaking to a lackey, which was in strange contrast to her ragged clothes and muddy face. "I'm going out with my son." "Now? But...but..." Father Toben stammered, feeling as if he was in a fog.This is simply appalling!He absolutely cannot allow such a thing.This woman is crazy!This reminded him suddenly that he was facing a witch alone and defenseless.If her story was to be believed, she was a powerful mage of the tribe of Albanara, and he felt the life force emanating from her like anger. She may have secretly stored up some energy during the day's work.Not much, but probably enough to turn him into something or blow up a whole house.What should he do?delay.Maybe old Mumm would be smart enough to bring the lawman over.The priest tried to remain calm, looking away from his mother to the little boy who was hiding silently behind his mother's ripped skirt. Even though he was terrified in his heart and his thoughts were chaotic, Father Touben's wandering eyes still stayed on Joram.He had never carefully looked at the little boy's appearance. Anya always tried to separate them. Although he had heard rumors about the little boy's handsome appearance, the priest never thought that the truth was beyond his imagination.The little boy's black and blue long hair covered his face with big dark eyes, but apart from the little boy's extraordinary beauty, what attracted the most attention was his pair of shining and fearless big eyes; ——The priest could still see Anya's slap marks on the little boy's face, and there might be tears from the boy's just crying, but there was no trace of fear in Joram's eyes.The priest only saw Joram's very calm expression, as if everything that happened in front of him came from his careful planning. "Hurry up, Catalyst Saint." Anya hissed, stomping on the ground with her bare feet. "I'm not used to waiting on people of low status like you." "Gen-price," Father Torpen stammered.He abruptly moved his eyes away from the strange little boy, and turned to face the mother with crazy eyes.A sense of relief came over him, hiding under the umbrella of canon law. "You've got to pay something, you know that," he continued, his tone increasingly serious, the centuries-old statutes of the Church giving him confidence. "You have to pay part of the power of life, Mrs. Anya, and the little boy too, if you want to take him with you..." The priest thought that this would stop the woman from going crazy.After all, after a day's work, which serf mage still has the energy to pay the prescribed amount of life force so that the catalyst saints can open the teleportation corridor? This didn't dissuade Anya.Perhaps she hesitated a little, but her reaction was beyond Father Torpen's expectation. Hearing Father Torben mentioned the little boy, Anya looked down at Joran blankly, as if she had already forgotten his existence.She pulled her face down and turned her back on the priest.The priest crossed his arms and was about to treat the matter as closed. "I will pay enough life force to keep you parasites alive!" she roared. "But you are not allowed to charge my son any price. I will pay with his part. Come here, my life force is definitely enough! Grab my hand!" Anya reached out to the catalyst saint.The priest's faith was disappearing drop by drop like sap from a wounded tree trunk.He looked blankly at Anya's hand, and finally, for a moment, he ignored her dirty face, crazy eyes, ragged clothes and dark skin like a serf mage.He saw a tall and beautiful woman, she was dressed in noble clothes, and she was used to bossing around other people.Father Toben held the woman's hand unconsciously, and felt a powerful force of life pouring into his body, so strong that he almost couldn't stand up. "You—where do you want to go?" he asked weakly. "border." "Border?" He closed his mouth in shock. Anya's eyebrows furrowed in horror. Father Torpen swallowed, frowning, trying to regain his dignity. "I have to keep the portal open to make sure you two get back," he said sourly. Anya snorted contemptuously. "Then leave the portal open," she roared. "It doesn't matter to me, we're just going there, don't hurry up!" "Okay," muttered the priest. With the power of Anya's life force, the priest immediately opened a crack beside her, leading to one of the many teleportation corridors established by the sages of the Way of Time and Space.The sage family has long been extinct in the world, and the knowledge of building the teleportation corridor has been lost along with them. However, the catalyst saints who have guarded the teleportation corridor for centuries still know how to operate and maintain it. Those who need it collect the necessary life force to activate the teleportation corridor. Anya stepped into the dark crack that appeared in Father Torpen's cozy and warm room, and she and the little boy disappeared.The priest looked thoughtfully at the open portal, and found himself debating whether to close the rift, leaving the mother and child trapped on the other side.He suddenly regained his senses and was shocked by his plan just now. border.He shook his head thoughtfully.It's really strange, why go to that border area where no one lives and no living people stop?
There are no guards at the border, not even one is needed. After passing through the illusory cloud and mist beside the border, you will enter the realm of the afterlife, and stepping into the realm of the afterlife is tantamount to stepping into death. It would be superfluous to watch for an enemy invasion from the afterlife, where there is nothing but the realm of death, from which no one can ever return to Simharon. The first paragraph of the holy book clearly stated: "With our magic and all the creatures created by magic, we escaped from the world ruled by the dead. The reason why we chose to settle here is because it is desolate. .Here, magic survives, because there is nothing or anyone to threaten us. Here, in this world, there is the force of life." Although there are no guards here, there are many watchmen.
Clutching his mother's hand and hurrying into the portal, Joram immediately felt himself being squeezed tightly.Beautiful, shining stars leaped into view, but before he realized what was happening, the feeling of being squeezed was gone and the stars dimmed.He looked around, expecting to see the small room of the catalyst saint, but he found that he was no longer in the priest's house, he was standing on a barren stretch of white sand. The little boy had never seen such a scene before, and the feeling of warm fine sand under his feet made him very happy.He bent down and grabbed a handful of sand, but was roughly pulled forward by Anya, who strode across the sand, dragging the little boy behind her. At first, Joram enjoyed the feeling of walking on the beach.However, after a while, as the sand got deeper and the walking became more and more difficult, the pleasure disappeared suddenly.He began to sink into the shifting sand dunes, and every time he tried to move forward, the dunes moved under his feet, making him stagger and struggle. "Where are we?" Joram asked, panting. "We're standing on the edge of the world," Anya replied, pausing to catch her breath and wiping the sweat off her face with her hands. Glad to finally be able to rest, Joram turned his head to look around. Anya was right, the world was right behind him, the white sandy beach gave way to a few clumps of sparse grass, and the grass once again succumbed to the verdant green fields, and the tall and lush forests extended vigorously to the peaks of the mountains, and the peaks of the mountains were covered with snow. Capped, towering into the clear blue sky.As Joram watched, the sky seemed to leap from the mountain peaks and soar across the vast, cloudless expanse above him.Qiao Lang's eyes followed the arc, turned and looked forward, and the sky finally fell into the fog of nothingness on a large white sand in front of him. Then he saw the caretaker. Startled, Qiao Lang grabbed Anya's hand and showed her his finger. "I saw it." That was all she said, but the pain and anger hidden in the answer made the little boy shiver in the dim sunlight, although the warmth of the midday sun continued to radiate from the white sand under his feet come out. Anya firmly grasped Qiao Lang's hand, and pulled him forward forcefully, her torn skirt dragged behind, leaving a trace on the sand dune like a poisonous snake crawling over. Thirty-foot-tall statues of the Watchers lined the border, eyes eternally looking out into the mist that led to the realm of the afterlife.The stone statues stood twenty feet apart on the edge of the white sand, extending as far as the eye could see. Joram approached, letting out a surprised admiration.He had never seen anything this tall!Even the big trees in the forest are no taller than these stone statues.He approached slowly from behind the statues. At first he thought that all the statues were exactly alike; Nothing is different.Each stone statue stands in the same posture, hands raised, feet together, looking forward. But as Joram came closer, he noticed that one of the stone statues was different. The left hand of that stone statue should have been flattened like the other stone statues, but it was closed and clenched. Qiao Lang turned to look at Anya, his mind was full of questions about these wonderful stone statues, but after seeing Anya's expression, those questions that were about to be asked immediately stopped in his mouth.He bit his tongue, swallowed his doubts, tasted blood. Anya's face became even paler, and her eyes glowed hotter than the hot sand under her feet. She stared at the stone statue with her left fist clenched in excitement and madness. Anya resolutely walked towards the stone statue, staggering on the quicksand. Joram instantly understood.Suddenly, though he could not put it into words, all was understood by his mysterious childish insight, and a sickening dread settled over his soul, leaving him weak and dizzy.Qiao Lang was terrified. He tried to break away from Anya's hand, but she grabbed it even tighter. He screamed at Anya desperately, but from her dazed but engrossed expression, she seemed to have never heard of it. .His heels dug into the sand. "Please! Anya! Take me home! No, I don't want to see—" He fell to the ground, and Anya was pulled off balance by him.She tripped, hit the ground on her hands and knees, and had to let go.Joram tried to run, but Anya jumped forward, grabbed his hair and pulled him back forcefully. "No!" Joram screamed frantically, weeping in pain and fear. Anya hugged Joran's waist tightly with the strength she had developed while working in the field.She lifted the little boy and carried him across the sand; she fell down on the sand from time to time, but she kept moving toward her goal. Arriving in front of the stone statue, Anya stopped.Her breathing was short and rapid, she raised her head and stared at the stone statue standing in front of her. The left hand of the stone statue is curled into a fist, and its eyes are looking directly at the fog leading to the realm of the afterlife.From the outside it looked like it had less life force than a tree in the forest, but it could sense their coming.Joram felt that it was sentient, as he felt the pained, tormented soul in the statue. He was exhausted and stopped struggling, Anya threw him at the foot of the stone statue.Joram lay on the ground trembling, covering his face with his hands. "Qiao Lang, this is your father." Anya said. The little boy closed his eyes tightly. He couldn't move, speak, or do anything. He could only lie on the warm sand at the feet of the stone statue. But a drop of water on Joram's neck startled him, and he raised his head from the sand and looked up slowly.High above his head, he could see the statue looking straight ahead at the fog that hung over the realm of the dead, eyes filled with longing for eternal rest.Another drop of water hit the little boy, and Joram let out a heartbroken whimper, covering his face with his little hands. At the same time, so did the towering stone statue, weeping over his head.