Old Buck

The sun of Colchis hung, as always, in the orange-red, sickly sky, casting scorching yet lifeless light. Old Buck straightened his somewhat aching back, carefully wrapped the last piece in "Colchis paper," placed it in a specially made wooden box, and packed it with dried moss for cushioning. He wiped the fine sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, feeling a strange sense of solidity in his heart.

Paper. He instinctively touched the rough yet lightweight gray-brown sheets beside him, used for recording inventories. Even now, he sometimes found it unreal. Grass stalks, leather scraps, and a little clay could make something so light, something one could write on? In his more than sixty years in Colchis, it had been a miracle he would not have dared dream of.

No, not a miracle. Old Buck corrected himself inwardly. It was a "divine miracle" brought by Pastor Beichen and the Divine Child. Like the creaking windmill that provided steady power, like the mortar that made buildings incredibly sturdy, like those tender green fields that could never have survived in the past.

He shuffled out of the stone house used specifically to store and repair the "objects of divine descent"—what the believers called the technological creations Zhou Beichen had brought. The afternoon sunlight was somewhat blinding. Out of habit, he narrowed his eyes, weathered by wind and sand and creased at the corners with ravine-deep wrinkles, and looked over the familiar yet unfamiliar land before him.

Highland Settlement.

In his memories, this place had once been nothing but a barren, wind-scoured rock plateau. Only a few of the poorest, most desperate drifters had built shacks here, barely clinging to life by digging up pitiful roots and catching the occasional sand rat. Back then, he had lived here too, relying on the little skill he had learned in an abandoned mine when he was young—fiddling with rusted gears and damaged wiring—to barely make a living repairing junk in exchange for a mouthful of stale, hardened food.

Those days had been gray and endless. Every morning, the only thought was how to survive until nightfall. People's eyes had been numb, like stones stripped of all luster by wind and sand. Even despair seemed weak and listless. The air reeked of poverty, sweat, and something deeper: hopelessness for the future. Pastors from the Covenant Church occasionally came to preach about enduring suffering and serving the Father God in exchange for blessings in the next life, then took away the meager offerings people possessed.

Old Buck had once been devout as well, but years of hardship had left that small faith like a clay tablet baked beneath the blazing sun, gradually cracking and crumbling into dust.

When had the change begun?

Old Buck's thoughts drifted back to that hazy, restless afternoon. It seemed... not long after Pastor Beichen came to that dilapidated little church? He could no longer remember the details. He only remembered that young Eastern face, whose eyes lacked the emptiness and greed of other pastors, bringing with him a different air. Some of what he said was strange—"investment," "returns"—words that sounded heretical, yet somehow stirred faint ripples across hearts that had long gone still.

Then came the descent of the "Divine Child."

Old Buck would never forget that day. Pastor Beichen had stood at a high place with a baby in his arms, and sunlight seemed to favor that direction especially. He declared that this was the messenger sent by the Father God, the "Divine Child" who would lead them out of suffering. At first, Old Buck had been doubtful, just like most others.

Were there not already enough scams and lies in Colchis?

But before long, a string of unbelievable facts shattered those doubts.

The Divine Child, Lorgar, grew at a visible pace, possessed boundless strength, and had penetrating wisdom. Not only could he easily move massive boulders that several strong men could not lift, he could precisely locate underground water sources and foresee coming sandstorms. Old Buck had personally seen Lorgar stare at the wreckage of a nearly scrapped water purifier with those violet eyes, then point out several tiny cracks and blockages that even Old Buck himself had overlooked.

What shook Old Buck even more was Lorgar's unique bearing. He possessed neither the hypocritical arrogance of the Covenant Church's upper ranks nor the common meekness and numbness of the common folk. He was quiet, yet reassuring; powerful, yet never cruel to the weak. He would patiently listen to an ordinary believer talk about troubles at home, and use his enormous palms—hands that ought to have been capable only of destruction—to carefully bandage a child's wounds.

That blend of compassion and majesty was something Old Buck had never seen in any great figure.

Pastor Beichen, meanwhile, was like the executor of the Divine Child's will, the man who transformed intangible "divine miracles" into concrete benefits people could touch and feel. He had led everyone in mixing the common desert wormwood with a certain kind of clay, then firing it into sturdy mortar that turned shacks into stone houses and gave the settlement proper walls. He had directed the Divine Child and the people in building that huge windmill, using Colchis's never-ending winds to bring them power they had never dared imagine. He had improved salt-making methods and had even produced glass that, though cloudy, was usable.

And then... paper.

Old Buck lowered his head and looked at his hands, thick with calluses, with traces of mortar and grass scraps still lodged beneath his nails. These hands had handled cold metal, repaired broken wiring, and trembled from hunger. Now, under Pastor Beichen's seemingly fanciful direction, these hands had helped create "paper."

He still remembered the miserable failures at the beginning: the foul-smelling slurry, the "grass-pulp cakes" that either could not be scooped out or crumbled at a touch. It was not as though he had not had his doubts. He had thought that perhaps Pastor Beichen had truly gone astray this time. Clay tablets were cumbersome, but at least they were familiar. Yet Pastor Beichen did not give up. He shut himself inside the workshop and experimented again and again, and even those eyes that always gleamed with calculations became bloodshot.

Until the moment they added clay powder, until the first rough but intact sheet of paper was successfully peeled away... Old Buck still remembered the violent pounding of his heart. It had not been reverence for a divine miracle, but something else... the pure excitement of taking part in creating something entirely new. He, Old Buck, an old craftsman who had struggled at the bottom of Colchis all his life, had actually made something like "paper" with his own hands!

That excitement was a hundred times stronger than when, in his youth, he had first repaired an old machine that could still hum.

The settlement's transformation had touched every aspect of life. It was not merely that the houses were sturdier, the food supply more stable, or that they now had wind power and miraculous paper. The deeper change had occurred on people's faces and in their eyes.

The numbness was gone, replaced by the bright, hopeful look of busyness. Children no longer curled up in corners, yellow-faced and skinny. Instead, they chased and played outside the schoolhouse, or used charcoal pencils to write crooked letters on precious paper. Adults no longer guarded against and argued with one another over scraps of food. Under the Faith Guard's organization, each had their own duty, working together toward the goal of an "Earthly Heaven." Even those who had initially doubted Lorgar's identity gradually gave their hearts to him after witnessing the settlement's tangible transformation.

There was order here—an order unlike the Covenant Church's oppressive rule, one built on fair distribution and common goals. There was vitality here—an energetic, upward-looking vitality unlike Lorgar's drunken decadence or deathly stagnation. And here, above all, there was... dignity. Through their own labor, people could earn food and warmth, learn knowledge, and take part in construction. It made everyone living here unconsciously straighten their backs a little more.

Old Buck walked to the workshop district. The windmill's massive blades turned slowly and powerfully in the wind, transmitting energy through an increasingly complex system of gears and belts to every corner. Grinding wheels spun at high speed with a steady hum; small furnaces for smelting glass breathed out searing heat; under his guidance, several young people were trying to use newly made paper to copy a complex diagram of gear structures.

As he watched it all, his heart filled with indescribable emotion. When he was young, he had once had dreams too. He had dreamed of using these hands to make something useful, to make life a little better. But in cruel Colchis, that dream had soon been ground to pieces by reality. He had thought he would die silently in some forgotten corner like most wandering craftsmen, his meager skills buried with him beneath the yellow sands.

He had never expected that, in the twilight of his life, upon these Southern Highlands, those nearly forgotten skills would not only avoid being buried but be given unprecedented value. Pastor Beichen trusted him, placing those precious objects of divine descent in his care for storage and maintenance. The Divine Child Lorgar respected him and occasionally came to ask questions about materials and structures. The settlement's young people were willing to learn from him, calling him "Master Buck."

The feeling of being needed and respected warmed and satisfied him more than any brick of refined salt or tanned sand-beast hide ever could.

"Grandpa Buck!" A clear child's voice interrupted his thoughts. It was a little girl from the schoolhouse, her little face flushed from running as she held up a sheet of paper. "Look! I learned to write my own name today!"

Several crooked yet earnest characters were written in charcoal on the rough gray-brown paper. Old Buck could not read, but he recognized that it was the girl's name, taught to her by Pastor Lavoisier. He reached out with his rough hand and carefully touched the marks, a heartfelt smile spreading across his face like spring rain soaking into a parched riverbed.

"Good, good child..." His voice was slightly hoarse. "Study hard, and someday make even more useful things for our settlement."

The little girl nodded vigorously and ran off happily.

Old Buck watched her lively retreating figure, then looked again at the thriving settlement before him. The windmill turned, cooking smoke rose, people worked, and children laughed. All of it had begun with the arrival of that Eastern pastor and the birth of that violet-eyed Divine Child.

He thought of Lorgar. That dull, oppressive city, where people's faces held only numbness or fawning servility. He thought of the bloated upper-ranking pastors of the Covenant Church and their hollow doctrines. Compared to that place, this was where the gods' favor truly lay.

Pastor Beichen had said they were building an "Earthly Heaven." Old Buck did not understand such lofty principles, but he felt that if heaven truly existed, it was probably something like this—food to eat, homes to live in, work to do, hope, and dignity.

The sun began to set, deepening the orange-red sky and gilding the entire settlement with a warm golden edge. Old Buck slowly made his way toward his stone house. His home was no longer the drafty shack of old, but a small, sturdy, dry house built from mortar and stone. Inside, there was even a lamp made with cloudy glass and acetylene gas, allowing him to study the structural diagrams of damaged parts Zhou Beichen had given him by lamplight at night.

He knew he was old. His strength was no longer what it had been, and he learned many new techniques more slowly than the young. But these old eyes had seen Colchis's deepest despair and witnessed the most unbelievable rise on this land. His hands could still move. They could still do something. He would do everything he could to protect this hard-won heaven—for the Divine Child, for Pastor Beichen, and for the children whose faces had found their smiles again.

Standing at his doorway, he cast one final look over the settlement, its outline growing ever clearer in the dusk. The windmill's enormous silhouette stood against the brilliant yet sickly sunset like a silent, steadfast guardian.

A peaceful, contented smile appeared on Old Buck's deeply wrinkled face.