Vol 1 Chapter 1 (1/2)

Chapter 1: The Burning Execution Stake

The thick smoke was billowing, every breath was like the ragged bellow’s heavy sound, like the burning of the throat and lungs, Xia Feng’s consciousness was starting to blur up.

“I can’t, I can’t sleep, I will die.”

“Stay awake, must absolutely stay awake!”

…..

The boundless crimson color suddenly dimmed, the deepest, heaviest pitch-black appeared, Xia Feng seemed as if he was drowning, struggling to grab onto anything that could help himself change his powerless state, to get rid of this unspeakable darkness.

Suddenly, in front shone a bright red light, much like the rising sun.

Under its s.h.i.+ne, Xia Feng felt he recovered a little bit of strength, and then he used everything he had to draw closer to the red light.

When Xia Feng drew strength from the light and truly took the final step, the brilliant rays became even brighter, turning from red to pure white, then the dark cave was completely smashed to pieces and instantly vanished.

“Whew.” Xia Feng fiercely sat up, taking in deep breaths, he actually dreamed of himself in a terrible fire, moreover, before the fire reached him, the sleeping him inhaled too much smoke and sunk into a coma, only being able to fuzzily, hopelessly wait until the flames spread over. It was comparable to the sleep paralysis he had a few times before, clearly he knew he was dreaming and want to struggle free, yet had no strength and no control.

This dream was unusually real, Xia Feng had lingering fears, plus he did not see signs of the big fire, that’s why he sat in a daze for a long time.

Along with the rapid heartbeats slowly returning to a steady pace, Xia Feng’s attention returned, and he remembered he was in the school library’s overnight-reading room rus.h.i.+ng his graduation thesis, he self-joked: “Recently it has all been this type of irregular all-nighters, no wonder I would have this kind of realistic nightmare.”

But as soon as Xia Feng looked forward, preparing to pack up and return to the dorms, the foreign and unimaginable scene in front of him was like having a giant hammer striking his head. He suddenly froze, his mind blanked-out.

Before him it wasn’t the beautiful wooden desk of the library, it was not the disorderly reference books, it was also not the draft of his thesis which planned to type into the computer. There was only a black, corners tattered blanket, and this blanket happened to be on top of his body.

The place he is sitting in now is not the library’s high-back chair, and is rather a narrow wooden bed.

“Where is this?!”

Although Xia Feng’s personality was a little introverted and shy with a slow reaction, but at the moment no matter what even he found that various things didn’t match up. Even if he was really on fire and got sent to the hospital, this didn’t look like the hospital either!

His heart tensed, and he frantically looking at the surroundings and as in a reflex-like action, Xia Feng hurriedly went towards the side and wanted to stand up.

Just when he stepped on the floor, Xia Feng felt a wave of extreme weakness and dizziness, both of his legs became soft and he was about to faint.

Xia Feng panicked and extended his hand, propping himself up on the bed and steadying himself. His complexion was deathly white, and he felt ill-at-ease, just now with a “graceful” glance Xia Feng already sized up his surroundings.

A dilapidated, narrow little house. In the house, except for the wooden bed by his side, there was also a wooden table that was about to fall apart anytime, two decent chairs, a holey crate, and on the other side of the wooden door on the verge of collapse, there seemed to be a stove which you can’t tell the original color and an earthen jar by its side, below the stove the firewoods had long gone out without a hint of heat radiating from it.

Everything was this unfamiliar, Xia Feng had no way to determine where this place was, and the continuous weakness caused Xia Feng’s mind to be even more chaotic.

“Where am I really at?!”

“My body feels like I’ve just came out of a serious illness, just like that time in high school with pneumonia.”

……

Countless thoughts resound in his mind, but Xia Feng had never encountered this kind of weird event. Having an introverted personality, he was at a lost on what to do and a deep panic quickly began to root itself.

The only thankful thing was, nothing too annoying had appeared yet and allowed him to take a few deep breaths out of old habit and slowly calm his anxiousness. At this time outside of the small house came a loud shout:

“Burn the witch! Aderan Church is going to burn the witch!”

[TL: I think it’s Adrian Church but it sounds like a name so I just used Aderan]

“Everyone go see quickly!”

“Kill the d.a.m.ned, evil witch!”

Fear and excitement, these two sharply contrasting emotions, were expressed clearly in a strange accent, this event threw off his fear and his curiosity rose, talking to himself: “Witch? What kind of world is this?”

As a novel-loving adult, a bad premonition grew in Xia Feng’s heart, but before he had time to ponder on it, with a bang, the pitiful shabby wooden door was forced open and a 12-13 year old boy rushed in

“Lucien-dage [honorific: older brother] …” A little boy with short brown hair, wearing a knee-length linen s.h.i.+rt saw Xia Feng who standing by the bedside and was both surprised and happy: “You’re awake?” (Nooooo he’s a zombie)

Xia Feng looked at the clothes different from the modern styles and numbly nodded his head, his mind a complete mess, he had an absurd idea: “Lucien, witch, church, burn to death, can it be that I really time-traveled, and even yet I came to the witch hunts of the Dark Ages in medieval Europe?”

Events always move in a bad development, Murphy’s Law grimly reminded Xia Feng, the boy’s hair color, the dirty old linen clothes were all proof of this, as to the boy’s language, Xia Feng’s body instinctively could understand it as if he could also use it, but since there is still a long way to being a linguist, he had no way to determine which language is it.

Seeing Xia Feng’s restlessness, the boy with blots of ash across his face did not find it strange: “Mom kept refusing to believe me and even secretly cried in the middle of the night. Her eyes were swollen and she repeatedly said ‘Poor little Evans,’ like Lucien-dage had been buried in the graveyard already.”

“Dad was helplessly annoyed, early in the morning he went to find Simon family’s bad son to send a letter to Sir Wayne’s manor, to ask older brother to find a way and come back. He is already a trainee knight chamberlain, the Virtuous Hall’s doctor did not dare to insist on that outrageous and ridiculous price.”

Speaking of his older brother, the little boy lifted his head slightly with a kind of heartfelt proudness.

“But, now everything is fine, they lost, I was right, how could anything have happened to Lucien-dage!”

While speaking, he pulled on Xia Feng’s arm: “Let’s go, Lucien-dage, let’s hurry to the church’s plaza to see the burning of that witch, she’s the hateful witch who caused you to be arrested by the church guards and interrogated for a whole night!”

With this big change, Xia Feng who was just planning to quietly reflect on life did not planned to go with the boy to join in the action, not to mention it was a direct burning of a live human; it was something that the self-proclaim good-hearted Xia Feng could not accept. Since he was powerless to prevent it, then it’s better if he did not see it at all, but the little boy’s last world shocked Xia Feng: “This witch and I have some involvement?”

As a result Xia Feng changed his mind and put away his astonishment, letting the little boy pull him and stumble towards the Aderan Church.

On the way, Xia Feng seized the opportunity to evaluate the crowd who were also heading towards Aderan Church.

The weather was warm, the men basically wore short sleeves linen s.h.i.+rt, the same color pants and backless shoes. The women wore a simple solid-colored long dress, on the dress was often sewn a large pocket. A common points was that their clothes were plain and worn out.

Most of them were brunettes with brown eyes mixed with blondes, red hair, black hair, blue eyes, red eyes, blue eyes, etc. Their facial features were deep with a very firm feel.