Rhine Church

The next morning, Lin Ye pushed open the door.

His mother had already gone out. Breakfast had been left on the table: a bowl of hand-rolled egg noodles.

After breakfast, he arrived at the bus stop downstairs. Though the morning temperature had yet to rise, the air already felt damp and sticky.

Within minutes, a bus marked with the number "6" pulled up.

"Dear passengers, welcome aboard Bus Route 6. This is a self-service fare collection bus traveling from North Shore East Station to South Shore Railway Station."

"North Shore Tianlu Lake. Please take your belongings and prepare to disembark."

"Hiss—"

After the pneumatic hiss of the doors opening, cool air from the bus's air conditioning washed over him.

Lin Ye tapped his card and boarded, then went straight to the corner of the last row and sat down.

He checked the map on his phone. A red line marked the route. He had not gotten on the wrong bus; there were still more than twenty stops to go.

After a jolting start, the bus steadied, and the greenery along the roadside began sliding backward.

Not long after they set off, a series of clanging sounds from ground-breaking machinery became rather irritating.

He looked over and saw a road construction crew, with a sign reading "Safety First" standing nearby.

"Didn't they just finish repairing this section?"

"Come to think of it, haven't they been working on it for nearly two years? They said it was for a subway line, but it still hasn't opened."

The passengers spoke in low voices. If the subway were operational, they would at least not have to sit out in the sun like this.

In the back row, Lin Ye took out his earphones and put them on.

Soothing music filled his ears, gradually drowning out the noise from the construction site and easing his mood.

"Next stop: South Shore Wuyue Plaza."

Lin Ye opened his eyes, stretched lazily, adjusted himself, and took off his earphones.

"South Shore Wuyue Plaza. Please take your belongings and prepare to disembark."

"Hiss—"

The moment he got off the bus, a wave of heat made the fine hairs on his arms droop.

He looked around, then took out his phone and opened the navigation route.

He made his way through Wuyue Plaza, where towering buildings rose all around him and the streets were bustling.

At its center stood a giant mermaid sculpture over twenty meters tall, a landmark building of sorts. Quite a few people were taking photos in front of it.

After crossing the plaza and walking through several streets, he turned into a small alley.

At the end of it, an old black church came into view.

He had looked it up yesterday. The Rhein Church was a church that worshipped pain.

They believed that all living beings carried original sin.

And as long as they endured pain, the original sin upon the living beings of the mortal world would lessen. Their beliefs carried strong tendencies toward self-sacrifice and destruction.

The church worshipped an entity known as the Father of Pain as the embodiment of its faith.

The church scriptures recorded that the Father of Pain had used human vessels—the Holy Son—to descend into the Human Realm several times.

He quickened his pace, passed through the open black iron gate, and entered the church courtyard.

Though it was clearly summer, the courtyard had an air of decay. The grass was withered and yellow.

A gray stone path lay amid the sparse, yellowing grass, leading straight to the black doors of the church.

It was a classical West Continent Gothic-style building, with a pointed roof and arched upper window frames.

The gray-black walls were tinged pale white, with patches of plaster already peeling away in many places.

The entire church was blackish-brown, exuding an air of mystery and gloom.

He glanced around. There were few people.

It was summer vacation, but not a rest day. Many people still worked on Saturdays.

Stepping along the stone path, he entered the church hall. A woody fragrance calmed his mind.

Looking ahead, two rows of low benches stood on either side, while directly before him stood an enormous gray-white stone statue.

It depicted a bare-chested man wrapped in thorny brambles.

He wore a floral crown, his right eye tightly shut, with a tear trail beneath his left eye. It was precisely the image of the Father of Pain described in the Rhein Church scriptures.

Below the statue of the Father stood a pulpit two people wide, its black paint lending it a solemn, dignified air.

An elderly man with white hair, dressed as a priest, stood before the pulpit. A brass cross necklace hung from his chest, and a thick scripture rested on the pulpit before him.

He raised his head to look at Lin Ye and smiled.

"Child, it seems you have encountered some confusion."

His voice was gentle, making people instinctively feel well-disposed toward him.

Lin Ye raised his eyes slightly. Was that... a standard line?

He stepped forward and nodded faintly. "Father, I would like to learn some Old Gulyain Script. Do you have any relevant materials here?"

Looking at the old priest, he only then noticed that although this gray-haired elder looked no different from any ordinary old man, his eyes were exceptionally bright.

His irises were like pale sapphires, nothing like the cloudy eyes of an ordinary elderly person.

"A foreigner? From Tin Deer?"

The old priest paused, then looked at Lin Ye gently. "Child, I can see yearning in your eyes."

"There are already very few young people like you who are passionate about learning languages."

He folded the corner of the scripture before him closed, removed the brass cross from his chest and placed it on the cover, then rested both hands lightly atop it, appearing rather solemn.

"To learn a language, you must first understand language."

"What do you think language truly is?"

Lin Ye froze. What was language?

"A means of communication?" he said.

The old priest smiled at that answer. "That's right. Language is a means of communication."

"With people, with objects, with eyes, with the world."

"Language is the eye through which we observe the world. It is the boundary of thought and perception."

His voice was unhurried as he spoke at length.

"It is said that the ancient Gulyain people living in the northern snowfields of the West Continent wielded the power of snow. They had one hundred and twenty-seven different descriptions for snow."

"Child, do you know what that means?"

He looked into Lin Ye's eyes. Lin Ye did not avert his gaze. "I don't."

The old priest smiled. "It means that, in their eyes, snow existed in one hundred and twenty-seven distinct forms."

"It means that even if we stood amid the same blizzard as them, our understanding would be far less detailed and rich than that of the ancient Gulyain people."

"Language limits our perception."

"Those places that cannot be spoken of are not places where one is 'not allowed to think,' but places where one is 'unable to think.' That is the 'realm of silence.'"

"That is the charm of language. Master language, and you can master thought. Control language, and you can control those who use it."

He stared directly at Lin Ye. His pale blue eyes were utterly calm, so calm that they carried a sense of weariness.

Lin Ye felt somewhat uncomfortable under that gaze. Just as he was about to say something, the old priest's expression darkened slightly, and he sighed.

"Every language is a way of observing the world."

"When it dies, it is not merely the loss of vocabulary. It is the disappearance of a complete system of knowledge, the memory of a culture, and a unique way of understanding the world."

"To this day, we still cannot see the world through the eyes of the ancient Gulyain people, nor can we understand the snow described in their language."

"There was also a forgotten tribe in the Maya Jungle of the North Star Continent. Their language contained a unique understanding of the local rainforest ecosystem."

"But all that knowledge and culture was permanently lost with the death of their language."

"The ruins of that tribe are still there, yet we will never again be able to understand the world as they saw it."

As he said this, he turned around, bowed slightly toward the Father of Pain behind him, and drew a cross over his chest with his right hand.

"Gangu." Two syllables left his lips.

Lin Ye's gaze sharpened. The pronunciation of those two syllables was not exactly "Gangu," only similar.

"Father, what does that mean?"

The old priest turned back and smiled. "Old Gulyain Script. It means 'the light of miracles.'"

"I hope that in the future, we will be able to recover those lost days."

*

*

*