Chapter 366: Chapter 365: The Commoner’s Book
Western Cecil City, with its abundant trees and lush vegetation, provides a steady stream of building materials and industrial raw materials for the newly established Cecil territory—even serving as a food source. And in the northern part of this forest, adjacent to the White River, Frost Wood Village gradually livens up with the rising morning sun.
This is a newborn village, yet it is orderly and vibrant. Neatly arranged wooden houses are blanketed in chimney smoke, new dwellings constructed from cement and bricks are dotted among the wooden houses, and wide cement roads connect several major buildings in the village. Thanks to regular cleaning and strict sanitation policies, these roads are clean and tidy, devoid of the common sight of excrement found on roads in other regions during this era.
All these features are a manifestation of "Cecil Order."
Lumberjack Bardi stepped out into the morning sun, carrying the warmth accumulated from a hot meal at home, helping him withstand the early spring chill in the forest. This man, who had spent a lifetime felling trees, walked onto the street, rubbed his nose itching slightly from the cold wind, and headed towards the registration point.
As he walked across the street, he glanced at the houses on either side, and the image from last year emerged faintly in his mind.
He still remembers when eight hundred refugees from Cecil Clan first arrived on this land, it was just a pitifully makeshift logging camp—dozens of woodcutters and a small group of soldiers came here with axes and swords, set up tents, and erected fences. The initial camp was not even as big as the square now in the center of the village. But now, in less than a year, it has become a village, and a large and beautiful one at that—the tents have turned into woodcutters’ cabins, which expanded and multiplied into streets. Supplies from the city continuously sent here, just as the timber logged here is continuously transported to the city. Cement has appeared, shops have appeared, and this village that evolved from a lumber camp even received a name—the leader personally named it Frost Wood Village.
If he hadn’t personally experienced all this, Bardi could hardly believe that it all happened right under his nose.
More woodcutters appeared on the street, and Bardi greeted these friends warmly, as they laughed and walked together. On the way, someone suddenly exclaimed, "This place has changed so much."
"It has, after all, we’re not idle even in the winter," a woodcutter with a big beard laughed, "We’ve even built a bell tower."
"I wonder what’s been happening in the city lately," Bardi muttered, "It changes faster than here."
"Last time I went into the city, I saw new houses being built on the west side. They said two thousand people from the buffer camp have received what they call... oh, citizenship," the woodcutter who spoke first said, "But I haven’t been to the city lately..."
Though Frost Wood Village and Cecil City are connected by convenient roads and river transport, the woodcutters here don’t go to the city often—since this place became a permanent settlement and village facilities were established, Frost Wood Village gradually gained self-sufficiency. The workers who initially came here have become villagers who settled down. With plenty of work tasks, and not much happening in the city anyway, people from Frost Wood Village generally only go to the city once or twice a month. They rely on descriptions from those who occasionally go to the city or listen to what the convoy guards transporting supplies between the village and city have to say about the changes happening in Cecil City.
During the idle chatter, their conversation gradually shifted to guessing the changes in the city, guessing whether the leader has come up with something new, but they didn’t chat for long as they were already at the registration point.
Bardi wiped his nose and looked at the registration point’s shacks. According to the work process, after he registers here, he will receive tools and then follow the foreman to the designated area in the forest to start work. But it seems something is happening at the registration point today—he saw many people gathering on the small clearing in front of the registration point, even his foreman was standing there.
Bardi and a few woodcutters curiously moved closer and discovered that it was a convoy delivering supplies—they were still a newly established village, so many clothes, liquor, and other items were still transported from the city. Such a convoy comes from the city at least once a week.
It’s certainly good news when the convoy arrives, but it was odd that everyone gathered here—since unloading and handing over items ordered by villagers would take the whole day anyway. Did the convoy bring something new?
Just as Bardi was pondering, he saw his foreman squeezing out of the crowd with a smile on his face and holding several large sheets of paper filled with text and drawings, exuding the smell of ink.
"Chief," Bardi immediately went over, "Did the convoy bring something good?"
"Oh, Bardi," the foreman was evidently in a good mood and quite eager to show off, he waved the papers in his hand, and said loudly, "Look, newspapers! New stuff from the city!"
"Newspapers?" Bardi was stunned, the convoy indeed brought something new, and just like every time before—anything new from the city is bound to be something never heard of, "You mean these sheets of paper? What...are they for?"
"’Books’ that commoners can buy and read," the foreman glanced at Bardi, with pride in his eyes and tone—even though he only got the newspapers a while earlier than others, he was quite proud, "There’s a lot written here, even the recent changes in the city."
"Where are they?" Upon hearing this, Bardi leaned in further, "Where are they written... What’s written?"
"Here, the ’Cypress Street’ district in the West City District is built, the new immigrants who gained citizenship are moving in. And here, they say wheat and fur prices are dropping because the trade route with the Gran Territory is open. And here—wow, has the Holy Light church on the Plains of the Holy Spirits gone mad...they’re even burning other people’s churches?"
The foreman pointed out each section of the newspaper, expressing surprise as he spoke, and then began reading the news earnestly on his own. Bardi stood beside him, staring wide-eyed but suddenly felt a wave of discouragement—
He couldn’t read...
He recognized some words, but only a small portion—at most, he could spell out his own name, age, and address, as well as understand the charts on his work card, and this was the result of attending a few days of night school. There was a night school in the village last year, where a teacher from the city would come weekly to teach five days of classes. Bardi attended a few times, but he never listened attentively!
He looked at the newspaper filled with text and couldn’t help feeling frustrated.
The foreman was earnestly reading the newspaper’s content, completely ignoring Bardi’s frustration. He even burst out laughing halfway—there seemed to be some amusing jokes or funny stories in that newspaper, but to Bardi, everything was out of reach.
Even though the newspaper reportedly cost just a few copper coins.
He knew he couldn’t ask the foreman to read the newspaper to him; even though the foreman usually had a good relationship with everyone, such a request was unrealistic.
A few familiar coworkers squeezed out from the crowd. Bardi lifted his eyes and saw one of them holding a newspaper, dismantling it as he walked and handing parts to others.
They might have pooled money to buy a copy—although a newspaper was cheap, costing only a few copper coins, for many lumberjacks who had just a little spare money, spending money to buy a few sheets of paper to read might still seem like a "waste," but they were ultimately curious about the content of the newspaper, and so pooling money to buy it was quite possible. After all, a newspaper contained several sheets, and they could read it in turns after breaking it apart.
Bardi looked at those people with a twinge of envy, his heart murmuring—they were all from the same labor background, people dealing with axes and saws, and now they were striding like scholars, even grandly tucking the newspaper under their arms like a book, truly...
Truly dignified...
Bardi patted his pocket, gritting his teeth suddenly, and turned towards the direction of the convoy.
The foreman, having just finished reading something, looked up and saw Bardi’s action, and couldn’t help but call out curiously from behind: "Where are you going? It’s almost roll call time!"
"I’m buying a newspaper!"
"Can you even read it?"
Bardi did not look back: "I’ll take it home and slowly study it—if worst comes to worst, I’ll wait for Mr. Bernard to come and ask him!"
"Mr. Bernard" was the teacher assigned to teach at Frost Wood Village, a second-level clerk working at the Administrative Office.
Watching Bardi walk as if in a sulk, the foreman shrugged and glanced at the newspaper in his hand once more.
He muttered to himself, "I should keep it well when I go back, saving several issues together... that would count as having a book at home."
...
In the Plains of the Holy Spirits, in front of the rocky ridges Fortress, Rhett Aiviken raised his head, gazing up at this ancient fortress standing at the southernmost part of the Plains of the Holy Spirits.
The black high walls of the fortress shimmered with a slight grid-like luster in the sunlight, a glow emanating from the copper poured into the crevices of the walls. The builders of rocky ridges Fortress melted the copper and mixed it with adamantite and purple copper in the molten metal. This magic-infused alloy would absorb magic power from the sun by day and slowly release it all through the night, making the entire wall incredibly strong. This magnificent and sturdy fortress was a product of the Fog Month uprising a hundred years ago.
It stood among the mountains at the boundary between the southern borders and the Plains of the Holy Spirits, controlling the vital route from the southern borders to the Plains of the Holy Spirits. Even the Duoergong river, which connects north and south, had to flow past the fortress’s side gate—it was a colossal irony, symbolizing the kingdom’s complete blockade of the entire southern region. For an entire century after this fortress was completed, the southern borders became deliberately exiled land. The Second Dynasty, fearing the revival of the ancient and mighty Cecil Clan might destabilize the royal family, continuously divided and weakened the southern borders while building this fortress, seemingly to make the rocky ridges Fortress the kingdom’s new "southern frontier," and exiled the survivors of the Cecil Clan to the southern wastelands.
This incredibly sturdy fortress was built to guard against the founding family of this kingdom.
Yet, for a whole century, the Cecil Clan never crossed this barrier, silently enduring the price of the Fog Month uprising failure, silently accepting the royal family’s division and suppression until last year, when that Cecil ancestor revived, and the family’s members crossed the rocky ridges Fortress for the first time, heading to the Plains of the Holy Spirits.
Wright gazed at the black high walls of the rocky ridges Fortress, his mind conjuring the history of this fortress and recalling the brief time he spent on that incredible pioneering land in the southern borders. Then he looked away, adjusted his old Holy Light Cleric’s robes, and stepped toward the gate.
