Indescribable cyberpunk - #626 - Chapter 612 Temple Street

After having lunch, I stayed in the clinic until three o’clock in the afternoon. On the grounds that Qianfan City was not very stable recently, I asked the clinic employees to leave work early. This reason sounded a bit far-fetched, but after learning that the wages were still the same, regardless of whether The doctors and nurses in the clinic walked away faster than the other, for fear that Zhu Jue would regret it on the spot.

The explanation he had thought up in advance failed to come in handy, and it cannot be said to be a bad thing. After cleaning up, Zhu Jue took Su Zi and Gu Yinxing to the religious area of ​​Qianfan City.

The matter entrusted to store manager Gattuso in the religious items store yesterday has been responded to. They are now going to find the character who appeared on the religious channel talk show – Fisher Faraz.

Although Qianfan City is not a city with a strong religious atmosphere like Rongxia City, it still has a considerable number of believers due to its large population base.

Therefore, among the 40 communities in the lower city of Qianfan City, communities No. 7 and 27 are officially recognized as religious areas. They are specially set up in this way to maximize the coverage of the 40 communities in the lower city. The purpose of Zhu Jue’s trip The land is Community No. 27.

Of course, this does not mean that preaching is only allowed in these two communities or that everyone living here is a believer. It is just a compromise method thought of by the Qianfan City government in order to minimize the burden on the religious affairs management department.

All religious activities in these two communities can receive some degree of help and support from the government, such as the Halloween parade. The activities in these two communities are particularly rich and may not be as good as the Spring Festival in Rongxia City. The festival can also attract many tourists to come and watch.

At the same time, the official government also allows various denominations to open formal large churches and temples after paying the so-called “missionary” tax, so that believers can have a place to worship, instead of praying for the chance to arrest Father Kane before he wakes up. The house was more like a small prayer hall than a church.

There have been a lot of things happening in Qianfan City recently, and they can’t be said to be weird. Although the government is covering up in every possible way, just like what happened in Community No. 1 yesterday, many things cannot be stopped by deleting news reports. Word of mouth can never stop them. live.

However, to Zhu Jue’s surprise, the events that happened one after another not only did not make Community No. 27 deserted, but actually became much livelier than other communities!

The airship flew in the outer air layer of Community No. 27. Zhu Jue held his mobile phone and looked at the steaming smoke and colorful prayer flags on the streets and the people passing by. In addition, Community No. 27 was already close to the bottom community. , simple and rough street buildings are mixed in.

It was supposed to be a lively scene, but because of the mixed elements, it seemed obscure and difficult to understand, causing people to frown subconsciously.

“Where are you waiting for us?”

As the manager of a religious items store, Gattuso has been immersed in this industry for a long time and knows a lot of things, so Zhu Jue spent extra money to hire him as a middleman. Not long after, Zhu Jue reached out and patted the driver’s seat. The chair said,

“Stop 6, Gattuso’s tea stall is on the right side of the exit.”

It took another ten minutes to arrive at stop No. 6 based on the electronic map.

The airship had just settled at the berth, and Zhu Jue and his party passed the hue value test. As soon as they went out, they were greeted by the unique smell of burning incense and candles, followed by another burst of noise or noise. Lively ringtones flooded their ears.

Zhu Jue’s eyes wandered among the crowd and soon locked on Gattuso, who was holding a silver-white metal bowl and waving to a stall on the right side of the street.

“Is this the case for all communities in No. 27?”

After passing through a wave of monks wearing saffron lama uniforms and holding cymbals in their hands, Zhu Jue came to the tea stall. His eyes once again stayed on the crowded street and he couldn’t help but ask.

“Of course not. This is one of the few temple streets in Community No. 27. It was originally just a street. In the past few years, Qianfan City was renovated. I heard that several sects with relatively large number of believers joined together to make an integration after discussion. District, they say they want peaceful coexistence and freedom of belief. Anyway, in my opinion, it means that everyone can make money together. Even purchasing goods is much more convenient. It has developed into what it is now, so you are here People of all denominations can see it.”

As Gattuso spoke, he stood up and placed the bowl in a row of depressions next to the stall. The cleaning robot that was cleaning next to it came slowly over, and a sentence that Zhu Jue couldn’t understand appeared on the display with its head replacing the eyes. Sanskrit characters, when the former took out his mobile phone and scanned it on the display screen, he raised his hand to make a mark on his chest, and then bowed and took away the tea bowl.

“Where is Fisher?”

Zhu Jue had no intention of delving into the history of Temple Street. After getting a vague answer, he turned to ask about the target person of this trip.

“At the spiritual retreat station ahead, as per your request, I made an appointment with him for an interview.”

Gattuso was also a wise man. He took money to do things. As he spoke, he started to walk forward, motioning to Zhu Jue and the others to follow.

It was almost evening, and due to the geographical location of Community No. 27, the sky that was still bright when we were driving outside on the central void quickly dimmed in the street.

However, the visibility on the street is not reduced at all, because Temple Street is to a certain extent the commercial street of Community No. 27. With dense crowds of people, there is naturally no shortage of lights.

What’s interesting is that the lighting provided in Temple Street is not entirely street lamps. To be precise, the street lamps here are not only quite far apart from each other, but their appearance is no longer a common style, but has become an old-fashioned one. The chandelier has an oval cover, which limits its lighting range.

Therefore, the dark space between street lamps became a place for some shop stalls to play freely, such as red lanterns hung on mechanical telescopic poles with square pieces of paper, translucent crystal lamps that scatter various kinds of light, and The shape is somewhat like an enlarged version of the Aladdin spotlight.

To a certain extent, these lighting devices with different styles represent the religious culture of the stalls in that place, but because they are set against very old rusty buildings, the area looks inexplicably weird.

After walking only half a street, Zhu Jue saw the preacher sitting on the pulpit surrounded by candles, wearing only a white cloak and preaching the scriptures. He also saw the crowd wearing “colorful” clothes. , the dance looked a bit like the weird dance of a great god, with the goddess shaking her head, and there were many people around who either cheered loudly, or raised their hands and made some weird gestures to pray in a low voice.

It’s clearly a religious ceremony, but in their opinion, maybe there’s some performance art in it?

“So many strange things have happened in Qianfan City recently, how dare they gather people to join in the fun?”

Zhu Jue looked sideways with interest for a while, feeling the noisy flow of people around him, and couldn’t help but ask.

“Haha, it’s just because there are so many weird things that this place is so busy. You are not in this industry. They are eager for some supernatural events to happen. Where there are ghosts, there are gods.”

Gattuso explained casually, then turned around, glanced at Zhu Jue, and pointed to a booth selling masks nearby. There were people nearby performing a show of evil ghosts eating people and then being expelled by the gods. He said in a muffled voice,

“If there are no demons, then what’s the point of the existence of angels? People are afraid of hell, so they want to go to heaven.”

“It’s interesting. They seem to sell some small items there. Let’s go and have a look.”

Zhu Jue seemed to suddenly think of something, reversed his steps and walked towards the stall there.

“Hey, if you’re going to visit Temple Street, why don’t you come back after we’ve finished talking. I have to go home for dinner in the evening, and you just paid me to help you make an appointment with Fisher. Being your ‘tour guide’ is not included in the service. “

Looking at the two ladies who followed them without saying a word, Gattuso, who had originally expected them to persuade them, could only trot over to remind them.

In his opinion, although Fischer Faraz is only a small character, he just said this in private. Someone who can talk about his teachings on a talk show is naturally not an ordinary person in this community No. 27. If he is late, he may be the one who Even if a “business” is a failure, when the time comes for people to ask for remuneration, who will he go to to reason with?

“Don’t worry, I’m just buying two things. This Bagua mirror is good. How much does it cost?”

The reason that made Zhu Jue come here all the way is naturally not the performances here, but the things sold here.

The brass-colored Bagua plate has several grooves outlined with cinnabar and a convex mirror embedded in the center. The whole thing is no bigger than the size of a palm and has quite obvious traces of hand-making. It should not be something on the assembly line. At most, it was polished later. Although it is old, it looks unexpectedly simple and refined.

“200, I also give you a guide to religious trivia, how about it, you get it for free!”

The stall owner had a cross hanging on his chest, but the objects placed on the stall were incompatible with his sect.

“200. Is your Bagua mirror inlaid with diamonds or gold-plated? If you sell it for this price, won’t you be afraid of being stabbed in the spine?”

As a colleague, Gattuso immediately stood up and exposed the opponent’s face as a profiteer.

Are you kidding me? There are only 80 mirrors in his shop, and this is not the way to kill a pig!

Zhu Jue played with the Bagua mirror and glanced at the evil ghost pattern on the cover of the half-centimetre-thick pamphlet handed over by the stall owner. The green seedlings and fangs looked like a guy from the Eastern Hell. Without saying anything else, he ignored Gattuso, who cast a strange look next to him, motioned for Suzi to pay, and turned around to leave.

“Sir, if you want to buy this mirror, just tell me. I have a better one. It can bring good luck to your home. It can also bring good luck to your house. Moreover, it is a genuine gold-plated mirror. I only sell it to you for 998!”

Seeing that Zhu Jue didn’t even have the intention of bargaining, Gattuso immediately came over and said with a flattering tone.

“It’s no use. It’s gold-plated, but it doesn’t smell like that. Let’s go, everything that needs to be prepared is ready. Take me to see Fisher, I’m in a hurry.”

He casually put the Bagua Mirror into his windbreaker pocket and flipped through the religious trivia guide with one hand.

Gattuso didn’t understand the meaning of Zhu Jue’s words, but he didn’t want to get to the bottom of it. In his opinion, bringing people here as soon as possible was the most serious thing.

Walk to the front and start leading the way.

Completely unaware of the black-purple energy overflowing from Zhu Jue’s pocket where the Bagua Mirror was installed.