Chapter 1

Chapter 1 . The Burning Stake

Smoke bellowed fiercely, burning his lungs and throat every time he took a breath . Xia Feng was on the verge of collapsing into as state of unconsciousness .

“No! Don’t fall asleep…If I fall asleep, I will die…”

“Stay awake! I need to stay awake!”

……

Endless ignites dimmed into the deepest darkness . Xia Feng, thrashing and drowning, struggled to grasp anything by which he could reach out and grab to escape from floating aimlessly and to escape from the darkness around, that is beyond description .

Suddenly, a glimmer of reddish light appeared, like the rising sun in the morning .

Under the shine of the light, Xia Feng felt a small part of his strength comes back . Desperately, he started approaching the light .

When Xia Feng finally took his step, with the help of the light . The reddish light began shining, until the crimson turns into pure white, broke through the darkness, and tore it apart . The darkness faded away .

“Huh!” Xia Feng sat up from his bed abruptly, breathing in shallow pants . He dreamt about a horrible fire . And when the fire came, Xia Feng, deep in his dream, lost his consciousness when he accidentally breathes in the thick, poisonous smoke . He could do nothing but only desperately waiting for the deadly flame approaching him . Just like the sleep paralysis happened before—— knowing he was dreaming, but didn’t have any power to control the dream, or even escape from it .

The dream was really realistic, and some uneasiness still lurked in Xia Feng’s mind, and he didn’t really feel about the existence of the fire . he stared blankly at the wall for a long time .

His heartbeat started slowing down and Xia Feng finally concentrated his mind . He remembered he was trying to finish his graduation essay in the school’s library . He spoke to himself with plenty of self- mocking humor: “It must be the the irregular schedule these days that made me having such a realistic bad dream . ”

But when Xia Feng looked around, preparing to pack up and get back to his dorm, he was surprised by the unfamiliar environment around him . It was just out of his imagination . Feeling like getting hit by a huge hammer, Xia Feng’s mind and his body automatically froze

And the place he was sitting on was not the library’s chair, but a narrow, wooden bed that was almost broken .

“Where am I?”

Xia Feng is somewhat a pretty shy and low-profile person, but even the most unresponsive guy can tell the difference: It’s not the library here . Even if the fire accident is real, and someone brought him to the hospital, it’s absolutely not a hospital here!

He started to feel nervous . After sweeping his eyes around the room, Xia Feng subconsciously tried to stand up .

Right when he steps on the ground, he felt extreme dizziness and lack of strength . His legs went limp and he almost fell down .

Yet Immediately, as Xia Feng holds up his body on the bed, his face turned pale and he turned nervous . He recognizes the environment around him with just a quick scan .

It was an old and narrow cabin, except for the wooden bed next to him, there was a small wooden table that seemed like it would fall apart in the next second, two chairs that were barely usable, and an abandoned crate with a big hole in it . On the other side of the tumble-down door, there was a stove with a distinguishable color, and a clay pot hanging above the stove . There were almost no remaining of the firewoods, and the heat has disappeared a long time ago .

Everything felt so unfamiliar . Xia Feng was unable to speculate where he is at all, and the weakness he felt continued to distract his brain .

“Where on earth am I??”

“My body feels like I was really sick and just recovered, but is still really weak, just like when I got severe pneumonia in high school . ”

……

An infinite number of ideas popped up in his brain, but Xia Feng had never met something as strange as this time, it was hard for someone who has an introverted personality to properly react to the current situation . He was panicking even more about the things around him .

Fortunately, nothing harmful happened, and Xia Feng deeply breathed, just like normal, and reduced his panic slowly . At this time, shouting and crying appeared right outside the cabin .

“Burning Witches! Adrien’s Cathedral is going to burn a witch!”

“Hey! Everybody go and have a look!”

“Burn the damn, evil beldam to death!!”

The two opposite feelings of fear and excitement emerged at the same time, when Xia Feng realized the bizarre accent of the shout he just heard . Curiosity, then, replaces the fear . “Burning Witches? So where is that place……”

As an adult who is mastered in history, Xia Feng has an intense premonition on all the things just happened around him, but he didn’t have the time to think deeply about that . He just heard a noisy sound, someone smashed his way into the room, through the door that was almost broken——completely broken now . It was a twelve or thirteen years old boy .

“Brother! Lucien! You woke up!” The boy talked with great excitement when he saw Xia Feng . The boy had short, gray hair, and wore a long linen coat down to his knees .

Looking at the clothes that were not “modern-styled” at all, Xia Feng nodded without even realizing what he was doing . His brain was a mess now, and a really weird thought popped out: “Lucien…Witches…Church…Burn? Did I just time-traveled, and traveled to Dark Ages that the churches were hunting down witches? Isn’t that the Middle Ages?”

THING WILL ALWAY GOING TOWARD THE BAD SIDE . Murphy’s Law was reminding Xia Feng about his situation with a merciless manner . The hair color of the boy, and the tattered linen clothes he wears were both clearly proving Xia Feng’s hypothesis . Xia Feng could automatically understand the language they use, and probably could use it, but he didn’t know why . Even though he was not a linguistic professor, he still realized that such language sounds like one of the massive languages on earth . However, since he was not a linguistic professor, he couldn’t conclude which one it was

It seems that the boy was not surprised when he saw Xia Feng become lost . “Mom doesn’t believe me,” He said, “I’ve heard her tearing fiercely during the midnight, and mumbling her poor little Evans . It almost sounds like you are already buried in the graveyard……”

“Dad just can’t stop her from tearing, so he had already called the naughty Simon to deliver a letter to Sir Verne this morning, telling my brother to come back . He is going to become a knight’s attendant soon, those doctors won’t dare to bargain their crazy price in front of him . ”

When talking about his brother, the boy slightly lifted his chin up and looked really proud of his brother, who was going to be a knight’s attendant soon .

“Well, now they lose and I win! Lucien, you’re always gonna be fine!”

He started to drag Xia Feng’s arm when he talked, “Be quick, Lucien! Go and see how the church burns down the witch, the damn witch who caused you to be interrogated by the church for the whole night!”

Actually, at first, Xia Feng didn’t want to go with the boy . He was still not well adapted to everything that changed, and needed some time to calm himself down; also it was pretty hard for him, with modern education and viewpoint, to accept the fact that someone is going to be burned . “If I cannot stop it, at least i have the right to not witness it,” He thought, but he is surprised by what the boy just said, “What? I am involved in that matter?”

Therefore Xia Feng changed his mind, he threw his surprise away, and allowed the boy to drag his arm, and stumbled out of the cabin, to the Adrien’s Cathedral .

On his way to the church, Xia Feng started to study the wearings of the people around .

The weather was warm . Most of the males were wearing linen clothes with short-sleeves, pants were all the same color, and shoes without heels; Women were wearing flat, similar dresses, often a large pocket sewed on the dress . All of them had a similarity, which was old and dirty .

Most of the people he saw had grey hair and grey eyes, but also included blonde hair, red hair, black hair, as well as blue eyes and green eyes .

“So did I really time-traveled to Middle Ages?” Xia Feng looked at himself, same linen clothe, same pants, and same no-heel shoes .

Soon after they got out of the shabby, messy slum . The majestic Adrien Cathedral appeared in front of them, with its semicircular vault high in the sky, a huge, white cross located on the top of it, the windows of the church very narrow .

There were already a lot of people at the Adrien Square, in front of the cathedral . Xia Feng just let the boy drag him all the way into the crowd, and tried to squeeze in even more . A lot of people are looking at them angrily . “We did not get beaten just because the church is in front of us”, Xia Feng thought .

After a while, Xia Feng felt relieved from the pressure around, they had finally edged out to the front of the crowd now .

At the center of the square, there was a wooden stake, a woman about twenty years old, pale but astonishingly beautiful, tied on the stake .

The citizens around were trying to throw rocks or spitting on her, or cursing and questioning her loudly .

“You damn, the evil witch, I will stone you to death!”

“Why are you hiding in the Adrien District? What have you done to us?”

“My little Tracy passed away months ago……It must be you! It must be you killing her! You demon! Wu wu wu…… my poor little Tracy……”

……

The women, even when got hit, locked her lip and soonest say a word, or make any sound, but stared at the crowd like a sculpture .

A group of people slowly entering the square caught Xia Feng’s attention . The middle-aged man leading them wore a white, gilt-edged robe, with a pure white cap, holding a badge with the symbol of a white cross on it . He was looking at the Square peacefully without talking, stately and solemn . The people standing behind him were all in white robes, neat and clean, looked decent and healthy, in contrast to the noisy and scruffy crowd from the slum .

Behind those people, strong, muscled soldiers were armed with silver chain-mails and weapons, standing in a line .

The man took out something looks like a pocket watch, and confirms the time . He stepped up front, and raise the badge up in front of the crowd .

Suddenly, the angry, crying, noisy crowd just shut their mouth up together, all at the same time .

The only sound remain is the wind blowing through their clothes .

Xia Feng was amazed by that, even in the modern society, it will take several weeks’ training in order to achieve the order of that level, how can these people from a slum achieve that? What forces them to do that?

Holding the badge high in the sky, the men ’s voice was not high but the square was resounded with his words: “Thee poor sinner seduced by the Flibbertigibbet . Obsessively dreaming about the evil pow’r, thou art tainted from thy headeth to thy toe, from thy corpse to thy soul . Only the holy lighteth can purify thee! This is the God’s punishment, but eke his gracious gift, his forgiveness to thee the stray lamb . ”

“Burn her! Burn!” The shout from the was loud but oddly in order .

The propaganda and bewilderment Xia Feng saw scared him . If any one of them knows that he was a “traveler” here, then he, Lucien, whose soul was occupied by the devil, would be here at the stake .

“Before the purification, God of Sooth(Truth), with mercy and forgiveness, wanteth me to asketh thee: art thou making thy confesseth thy guilt? The sincere confession shall purify thy soul thoroughly, and allows thee to enter the God’s heaven . ” The middle-aged priest asked gently and compassionately .

The woman’s shrill laugh suddenly broke out with madness:“I’m seeking the truth of Magic, not the god of Truth! Burn me now! Here in the flame, I shall witness your Guilty Heaven being devastated, and your luxuriant church falling down!”

“She’s crazy!”

“it’s unforgivable evilness!”

“Bishop’s mercy only gets back her cursing, those witches’ heart are deceived by Devil! They shall receive their death!”

“Burn her!”

The Bishop didn’t say a word, but the Xia Feng could hear the hoarse and exhausted voice from the poor around .

This is the first time in his life that Xia Feng is placed in such propaganda and craziness, he is shocked by that fact the Europe, during the Middle Ages, was such a dangerous place .

“Well, how can they burn her though if there are not woodpiles around here?” He realizes .

Although he felt sorry for the poor women, Xia Feng dared to do nothing, or he will be sent to hell immediately with one stone from everyone .

The Bishop performed the prayer, his voice became higher, resonant but without any emotion: “Then, thee sinner, wend to Hell under the purification . ”

Shiny light erupted fiercely from the cross badge, dazzling everybody’s’ eye . All Xia Feng could see was white holy light .

Like holding a small sun, holy, majestic and dignified, Everyone, include the boy next to Xia Feng, started praying and praising the God .

The holy light concentrated, aiming the sky when it reached the height of the vault, it reflects back down onto the stake .

Scarlet flame broke out immediately and starts burning, the fire, as tall as an adult, surrounded the woman .

She laughed and cursed with extreme madness:

“I will witness your Guilty Heaven being destroyed!”

“I will witness your luxuriant church falling down!”

“I will witness all of you fall into perdition!”

……

The horrible screaming never stopped, until the woman, together with the stake, was burned into ashes .

Xia Feng, while the light erupted from the badge, was shocked and lost .

“This is not Europe during the Middle Ages……”

“That’s a world of REAL magic and divine arts……”

“And I’m ……Lucien……”