dognovel Chapter 265 How to Correctly Change Your Fate
Chapter 265 How to Correctly Change Your Fate
Mont-de-Marsan is a city with a prosperous economy. All walks of life can flourish in Mont-de-Marsan, naturally including the church.
The main source of income for the church here, besides selling some theological peripheral products, is collecting donations and selling indulgences to civilians.
As the saying goes, when the gold coin rings, the soul goes straight to heaven. This kind of indulgence also has small, medium and large. Small indulgences are mainly sold to citizens to give them psychological comfort. Medium and large indulgences are mainly for businessmen. This is more of a legal process for clergy to collect bribes in disguise. As for the nobles, as long as they don't engage in heresy, they can go to heaven no matter what they do.
According to common sense, as long as the church in Mont-de-Marsan continues to collect funds in this way, it will become a church of the same size as the Windham Church in a few years.
However, things did not go as planned. As the plague swept across Midland, the church in Mont-de-Marsan first lost its income for three years. After the plague was over, the clergy of the church found that the citizens and the rich no longer wanted to buy their indulgences.
The reason for this is that although these citizens have always maintained a devout faith in the church, the tragedy caused by the plague directly caused the Midlan people to shake their faith in the God of Light.
Some people attributed this to the greed of the local church and the cruel rule of the lords, and no longer believed in the church. Instead, they chose to use a different way to perceive God's revelation by establishing their own small circles. Some extreme people chose to believe in cults and satisfy their evil desires through various shameless means.
Although small religious secret gatherings established by the people are considered heretical in the eyes of the Pope's Office, their main body is still the religion of the God of Light. The conservative ones may simply delete or add some doctrines, while the outrageous ones may combine some local stories, customs and culture, and more often the founder's own experience to achieve the purpose of deifying themselves.
But any church needs money to maintain daily expenses and development. Moreover, most church founders open churches for the purpose of making money, so they will inevitably come up with various ways to obtain money.
Some churches may raise funds by collecting membership fees or donations from believers; others may hold religious ceremonies, celebrations and other activities and charge participants.
In addition, some churches also use their status and influence among the people to cooperate with city councilors, businessmen, etc. to obtain certain economic benefits.
In an unknown hut in Mont-de-Marsan, a bishop of a folk church is holding a religious ceremony in front of the believers.
This folk church mainly combines the teachings of the God of Light with the divination of indigenous shamans, thus extending another way to make money: divination. Usually, the leader only needs to take a look at a person to know whether the person's future luck and wishes can be realized. If a person wants to change his fate, he needs to pay the bishop once so that the bishop can change his fate.
If a councillor wants to run for a city hall position, the bishop will charge a high fee and ask the believers to vote for the councillor, thereby increasing the councillor's chances of winning. Since the bishop has thousands of believers, all the councillors who have given him money have successfully obtained the positions they want, so that he earns thousands of gold coins a month from this success.
But today, the bishop encountered some strange guests.
"No, look at this."
One of them, who seemed to be the leader, ordered his men to bring a portrait in front of the bishop and politely asked the bishop:
"Do you think this gentleman can become an official of Mont-de-Marsan?"
The bishop looked at it carefully and compared the features in the portrait with the dignitaries in his mind, and finally came to the conclusion: this person was either from another place or an unknown local person.
"Tsk tsk tsk tsk..."
The bishop looked at it for a long time, then waved his hand and said:
"This person has very bad luck. I'm afraid it won't work."
According to common sense, the person should pay him a sum of money, and then he would "change his fate". But to his surprise, the person did not pay him, but moved the portrait forward again, and then continued to plead:
"Please take another look."
"This kid is not smart." The bishop shook his head, and then said in an impatient tone without looking up:
"There is no hope at all, please go back!"
"Is that so..." The stranger nodded, then suddenly grabbed the bishop's collar, his angry eyes staring straight at the bishop's frightened face.
"You want to fucking die, don't you?"
"Your Majesty Bishop!"
The guard next to the bishop was about to draw his sword when he saw this, but was knocked to the ground by a punch from the stranger's men. At the same time, a dozen armored soldiers rushed in from outside the house and directly controlled all the people in the cabin.
"Don't hit anyone when you're fortune-telling."
The captured bishop looked at this situation and his momentum immediately weakened.
"Take him away!"
Immediately, a soldier blindfolded the bishop, tied his mouth with a rag, tied him up with a rope, and threw him into a carriage outside the house.
Still in the same prison, the mask covering the bishop's eyes was removed, and he saw that the whole room was full of people. The bishop looked carefully and found that they were all folk religious leaders of Mont-de-Marsan. There were about fifty or sixty people at a glance, which almost wiped out the entire folk religious group of Mont-de-Marsan.
"Squeak-"
The rusty iron door of the cell was pushed open. Jacques looked at the religious leaders and asked the soldiers guarding them:
"None of these people support our master?"
"Captain, all those who were questioned either objected or refused to see the meeting."
"Well."
Jacques found a chair and sat down. He ordered people to bring out the portrait of John from outside, then he grabbed a religious leader from the crowd and said:
"Look, can this gentleman be an official in Mont-de-Marsan?"
"I've watched it several times, and it really doesn't work."
Seeing the religious leader in front of him being so ungrateful, Jacques said nothing more and said to the soldier next to him:
"Five minutes first."
After receiving Jacques' order, the soldiers nearby immediately picked up sticks and hit the religious leader. No matter how he begged for mercy, it was of no use.
Five minutes later, looking at the religious leader lying on the ground with bruises all over his body, Jacques said:
"Let's take a closer look this time. Can this gentleman be an official in Mont-de-Marsan?"
"Yes, this gentleman will definitely be able to become an official in Mont-de-Marsan, or even a high-ranking official."
"That's OK this time." Jacques nodded and asked the other religious leaders:
"what about you?"
As soon as the words fell, a religious leader said:
"This person is obviously the reincarnation of an angel. He is simply a god."
"If this continues for a few more years, I will definitely be able to become a noble."
Listening to the compliments from these religious leaders, Jacques walked up to the portrait and said:
"Just say this from now on. I tell you, this is the current Governor-General of the Southwest Governorate, Sir John. Don't think we don't know what you are talking about in secret. If you do this again next time, we will throw you into the river outside the city to feed the fish!"
After hearing this, the religious leaders realized the identity of the portrait and felt frightened.
However, at this time, a religious leader said:
"Sir, there is actually a religious leader who has not arrived yet."
"Ok?"
Jacques flipped through the list, and after confirming that it was correct, he rushed towards him and said:
"That's not right. Everyone on the list is here."
“The name of that church is Holy Gospel Church. You may not know it because they haven’t hired anyone in recent years.”
"Holy Gospel, Holy Gospel... Can you tell me more about the origin of this church?"
"In fact, I am not very familiar with them. I am just somewhat familiar with their leader. This leader's name in public is Sage. Their church only recruits rich people and people with great influence. And each recruitment process is very long. I guess the number of people in this church does not exceed a hundred."
"Okay, I got it. Send these people back tonight." Jacques silently memorized the name of the church. Just as he was about to explain this to John, a soldier who looked like a scout walked into the cell and said to Jacques:
"Captain Jacques, Lord John wants to see you."