strokinit Chapter 5 Rhine Church
Chapter 5 Rhine Church
The next morning, Lin Ye pushed open the door.
My mother has already gone out. Breakfast is left on the table: a bowl of hand-pulled noodles with eggs.
After breakfast, I went downstairs to the bus stop. Although the morning temperature hadn't risen yet, it already felt a bit damp and sticky.
A few minutes later, a bus marked with the number '6' drove up.
"Hello passengers, welcome aboard the No. 6 self-service bus. This bus runs from North Bank East Station to South Bank Railway Station."
"We have arrived at Tianlu Lake on the north shore. Please take your belongings and prepare to disembark."
"laugh--"
After the pneumatic sound of the car door opening, a blast of cool air from the car's air conditioning hit me.
Lin Ye swiped his card to board the bus and went straight to the last row of seats.
I glanced at the map on my phone; the red line marked the route. I hadn't taken the wrong train; there were still more than twenty stops to go.
After a bumpy start, the vehicle became stable, and the surrounding green belt began to recede into the distance.
Not long after we drove off, a series of clanging sounds from the ground became quite annoying.
Looking over, it was a road construction company with a sign that read "Safety First".
"Wasn't it just fixed a while ago?"
"It's been almost two years since they started construction, right? They said it would open to the subway, but it still hasn't opened."
Passengers on the train whispered among themselves, saying that if the subway could be built, at least they wouldn't have to stand in the sun like they do now.
In the back row, Lin Ye took out his earphones and put them on.
Soothing music entered my ears, gradually drowning out the noise from the construction site, and I felt relaxed.
......
"Next stop: Nan'an Wuyue Plaza."
Lin Ye opened his eyes, stretched, adjusted himself, and took off his headphones.
"Nan'an Wuyue Plaza, we have arrived. Please take your belongings and prepare to get off the bus."
"laugh--"
As I got off the bus, a wave of heat made my goosebumps goosebumps.
I looked around and took out my phone to bring up the navigation route.
Walking through Wuyue Plaza, you see towering buildings and a bustling atmosphere.
The giant mermaid sculpture in the middle is over 20 meters tall and has become a landmark. Many people take photos in front of the sculpture.
After crossing the square and walking through several streets, I turned into a small alley.
At the end, an old, black church came into view.
He had looked up some information yesterday and found that the Rhine Church is a church that takes suffering as its faith.
They believe that all living beings are born with original sin.
As long as they endure suffering, the original sin of earthly beings will decrease, leading to a strong tendency toward self-sacrifice and destruction.
The Church takes a figure known as the "Painful Father" as the embodiment of faith.
Church texts record that the "Painful Father" descended to earth several times through his human form, the "Son."
I strode forward and passed through the open black iron gate of the church to the front courtyard.
It was summer, but the yard had a sense of desolation; the grass was withered and yellow.
A gray flagstone path lay in the sparse, withered grass, leading straight to the black church gate.
The building is in the classic Western Gothic style, with a pointed top and arched windows.
The gray-black walls had a pale white tinge, and in many places a layer of plaster had peeled off.
The church is predominantly dark brown, exuding a mysterious and gloomy atmosphere.
Looking around, there were very few people.
Today is summer vacation, but it's not a day off; many people work on Saturdays.
As you walk along the stone path into the church hall, the aroma of wood brings a sense of peace.
Looking ahead, there are two rows of low seats on the left and right, and in the center stands a huge gray-white stone sculpture.
The image is of a man with his upper body bare and covered in sharp thorns.
Wearing a floral crown, with his right eye closed and tear stains below his left eye, he is the image of the "Painful Father" from the Rhine Church scriptures.
Below the statue of the Father, there is a two-person-wide altar, painted black, which looks solemn and dignified.
An elderly man with white hair, dressed as a priest, stood in front of the altar, wearing a brass cross necklace around his neck, with a thick religious text on the altar in front of him.
He looked up at Lin Ye and smiled.
"Child, you seem to be experiencing some confusion."
Her voice was gentle, which made people feel good about her without them even realizing it.
Lin Ye slightly raised his eyes. This was... standard rhetoric?
He stepped forward and nodded slightly. "Father, I'd like to learn some Old Rhine script. Do you have any relevant materials here?"
Looking at the old priest, he then noticed that although the white-haired old man looked no different from any other old man, his eyes were very bright.
His pupils were like light blue sapphires, unlike the cloudy eyes of an ordinary old man.
"A foreigner? From Seoklu?"
The old priest was taken aback, then looked at Lin Ye gently. "Child, I see longing in your eyes."
"There are very few young people as passionate about learning languages as you are now."
He closed the book in front of him by the corner, took off the brass cross from his chest and placed it on the cover, pressing his hands lightly on it, appearing somewhat solemn.
"To learn a language, you must first understand it."
"What do you think language is?"
Lin Ye was taken aback. What is language?
"How do you communicate?" he asked.
The old priest laughed at the answer. "That's right, language is the means of communication."
"With people, with things, with eyes, with the world."
"Language is the eye that observes the world; it is the boundary of thought and perception."
His voice was calm and unhurried, as he spoke slowly and deliberately.
"It is said that the ancient Rhine people, who live in the snowy plains of the northern continent of the West, control the power of snow, and they have 127 descriptions of snow."
"Child, do you know what this means?"
He looked into Lin Ye's eyes, and Lin Ye did not look away. "I don't know."
The old priest smiled. "This means that the snow appears in 127 different forms to them."
"This means that even if we were in the same heavy snow as them, our understanding would be far less refined and richer than that of the ancient Rhine people."
"Language limits our perception."
"Those unspeakable places are not 'forbidden to think about,' but 'impossible to think about'; those are the 'realms of silence.'"
"That's the power of language: mastering a language means mastering thought. Controlling a language means controlling the people who use it."
He stared straight into the woods, his pale blue eyes calm, a calmness that carried a hint of weariness.
Lin Ye felt a little uncomfortable under that gaze. Just as he was about to say something, the old priest's gaze darkened, and he sighed.
"Every language is a way of observing the world."
"Its demise is not merely the disappearance of vocabulary, but the demise of a complete knowledge system, a cultural memory, and a unique way of understanding the world."
"We still cannot see the world as the ancient Rhine people saw it, nor can we understand the descriptions of snow in their language."
"In the Mayan jungles of North Star Continent, there also exists a forgotten tribe whose language system contains a unique understanding of the local rainforest ecology."
"But this knowledge and culture have been lost forever with the extinction of the language."
"The ruins of that tribe are there, but we will never be able to understand the world as they saw it."
At this point, he turned around, bowed slightly to the "Painful Father" behind him, and made the sign of the cross with his right hand in front of his chest.
"Gangu." Two syllables came from his mouth.
Lin Ye's gaze narrowed slightly. The pronunciation of these two syllables was not the accurate "Gango," but only similar.
"Father, what does this mean?"
The old priest turned around, smiled, and said, "It's an ancient Rhine word meaning 'light of miracles'."
"Hopefully, in the future, we can rediscover those lost memories of the past."
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