Chapter 107 Sculpture

"Are you tourists?"

The village chief sat in front of the window on the west side, his body lying slumped on a wooden rocking chair. A complete bearskin covered his chest to his ankles. He was flipping through a book with yellowing and brittle pages in the light of the setting sun. Lao Shu asked without raising his head.

Mikael took off his gloves, rubbed his hands, took a breath, and then replied: "Yes, yes, my sister and I rarely get snow in our hometown, so we just wanted to come north to see the snow during the winter vacation, hehe. …”

Hearing this, a sense of familiarity flashed through the village chief's heart. He held on to the armrest and sat up from the recliner with difficulty. He pinched the temples of his reading glasses taped with tape between his two fingers, moved down a little, and lowered his head slightly. , flipping his glasses and looking at the boys and girls in the room.

Sometimes there is no absolute right or wrong in worldly affairs, nor is there absolute profit or loss.

Just like this person with presbyopia, when looking at distance, it is very clear and convenient...

"?"

Wait a moment! How do the "brother and sister" in front of me look like brothers and sisters!

The hair color and eye color were completely different, not to mention the facial features... He didn't even know how the boy could say the words "brother and sister" so openly!

But when he took a second and third look, he quickly became confused - there was no similarity between the two in appearance, but from the upright posture, the way his glasses stared at the toes of his shoes, and then When I noticed the slight unnaturalness in his scrutinizing gaze...

This really looks like brother and sister.

Maybe adopted?

"Okay, okay!"

He reluctantly closed the book and suddenly became a little puzzled:

"How did you find this place? We haven't seen outsiders here for several years, especially in the winter. I have lived for so many years, and I haven't seen as many outsiders as the fingers of my two hands. The last time... the last time I saw them When did you arrive as an outsider... was it four years ago or five years ago? "

The more the village chief continued talking, the more guilty Mikael felt. He quickly interrupted his thoughts before the village chief recalled him: "Hey, aren't you just pursuing excitement? Who knew that once you enter this snowfield, you can't even walk away?" It's been three or four days, and it must have been more than 200 kilometers, before I came across a small village like yours... Hey, the snow outside is so thick now, so, village chief, can you make it easier for us to stay here? time?"

The village chief stared at Mikael silently, his eyes seemed neither sad nor happy, without any thoughts or attachments.

"It will take a while... The snow is very thick. It won't start to melt until at least March or April, right? You have to stay here for at least two months."

"Ah...it's been so long..."

Mikael let out a sigh of disappointment, but skillfully reached into his pocket, pretended to take out a compass, and handed it to the village chief.

The village chief's hand like dry wood quickly stretched out, grabbed the compass, and then put his hand back under the bear's skin.

"..." Hua was impressed by the village chief's hand speed. Let alone an old man, with this speed, even if she judged it from the perspective of ancient martial arts, she could still be said to be "quiet as a virgin and as mobile as a rabbit"...

Then she realized in a somewhat confused way why the reward given by Mikael was a compass, and the actions and eyes of the village chief just now were like a person who has been hungry for three days smelling the fragrance of rice. It was really too much. …

Hungry and thirsty.

The permafrost here is covered with thick snow for half of the year, and the land itself is barren, with very little grain production (otherwise, why would you put weird things in bread!). Therefore, hunting in the birch forest has become one of the main means for people to obtain food.

Looking at it this way, for this small village with almost no contact with the outside world, the value of a compass far exceeds the so-called money.

"Well, young man, help me put the books in the storage room, and then ask my wife to take you to the wooden house opposite. No one has lived there for a long time. You have to go to the backyard to move some firewood and chop it. Oh, by the way. "It won't be long before it's time for a wonderful dinner. My wife should be baking pies now. After you finish packing, come and have dinner with us!"

His hands were hidden under the bear's skin and he was gently stroking the brand new compass. The old village chief felt satisfied for a moment, and his attitude towards Mikael and Hua instantly improved a lot.

Mikael picked up the old book from his lap and quietly exited the bedroom without saying anything.

The house of the village chief's house is a common wooden house style in Eastern Europe. It is rectangular in shape, with an open door in the middle on the long side, a bedroom on the left, a kitchen on the right, and a small storage room sandwiched in the middle. Of course, there is still space left by the spire. There was enough room for an attic. Mikael vaguely remembered the attic where the village chief's grandson, who was about the same age as him, slept at that time. For some reason, he didn't see it today.

Hua seemed to be a little curious about the old book the village chief was reading, and kept looking at it. Mikael smiled and handed the book to her. There was a line of vague curly letters printed on the leather cover. I can only make out the following words:

"***Fables Collection"

"..."

Mikael opened the latch, and the door of the storage room slid inward automatically. He placed the books on the wooden shelf, turned around, and pushed open the kitchen door.

The village chief's wife was a big woman with a round waist. She tied two aprons together and tied them around her waist. When Mikael walked into the kitchen, she was putting a pile of bear meat, fish meat, rat meat...in short, all kinds of weird things. The meat mixture is stuffed into an iron pan covered with a layer of dough.

Mikael simply repeated the conversation with the village chief, and she just said softly and said no more words.

Mikael was not in a hurry, and watched quietly as she stuffed the meat, then took a few more dough pancakes, covered the meat filling like a pot lid, and pinched the edges of the dough pancakes along the edge of the pot. Out of pattern.

Then, she picked up the entire iron pot, and Mikael quickly stepped aside, watching her walk into the bedroom and put the iron pot into the fireplace - yes, this so-called kitchen is actually a place for processing ingredients. , as for cooking... it should not exist.

After finishing all this, the village chief's wife pulled off the apron from her waist, took off a heavy leather coat from the wall, half dragged and half dragged around her body, and then numbly and silently waved to Mikael. motioning to the two children to follow her.

The moment the wooden door opened, the wind blew in. Even with the strong village chief's wife blocking the way, Hua couldn't help but stumble. Fortunately, even though Mikael held her shoulders, he didn't stop. He stood in front of her calmly.

The houses in the village are distributed in a ring. If you want to go to the "house opposite", you must naturally pass through an open space surrounded by the middle, which is the so-called square.

The square is surprisingly large for the size of the entire village.

This was the place that Hua was most curious about. She imagined that these semi-primitive people who were far away from normal human civilization would hold sacrifices in the square in the middle of the village just like the ancestors in ancient times, and then sing and dance. The square should be filled with paintings. There are various totems that she cannot understand, which are the remnants of the most primitive beliefs of mankind...

But there were none of these, at least she didn't see them.

She only saw a low stone wall buried in ice and snow. The wall was about the same height as herself, and it looked like it was only half-finished. There may indeed be totems carved on the walls, but there are naturally no traces hidden under the cover of ice and snow.

As for what is surrounded by low walls, in the middle of the square...

It is a lifelike sculpture.

The main body of the sculpture is a huge totem pole. The thick iron ropes are like dead branches wrapped around the trunk, tightly binding a man to the pole.

The wind and snow covered the statue with thick silver, and the man's lowered face was covered with ice edges, making it difficult to see his facial features, but there was no doubt that he looked completely dying.

Who on earth left such realistic sculptures here? Hua didn't think that the people in this small village could make such a thing. In other words, the existence of this sculpture as a work of art created a huge contrast with the entire isolated and ignorant village.

No, it doesn’t seem so out of place. The weird totem pole as the main body of the sculpture, the man who is tightly tied to the pole and suffering, the chains that are so thick that it is difficult to resist resistance——

This sense of primitiveness, ignorance, violence, despair, and loneliness perfectly complements this village.

"Can I get a closer look at this?"

Hua asked the village chief's wife in a low voice, and repeated the question two or three times. It was not until Mikael repeated her words loudly two or three times that the village chief's wife stopped.

She didn't say anything, but turned around slowly, glanced at Mikael and Hua with lifeless eyes, and then raised her head slightly, indicating that they were free.

Hua and Mikael gradually approached the sculpture until they reached the foot of the totem pole and could reach out and touch it.

In the middle of nowhere, Hua suddenly felt a strange feeling. As her eyes moved upward, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up almost instantly——

The sculpture-like man exhaled white air from his mouth and nose, and then slowly opened his eyes that were almost frozen by ice and snow.

They were a pair of eyes like burning fire.