CHAPTER 136: CHAPTER 134 THE GREAT PURGE MOVEMENT

Imperial Calendar, November 4th, 1444.

The end has come for the fleas.

Hundreds of Black Hat Army soldiers marched in neat rows to the new camp and took control of all the main thoroughfares.

Along with them came various brooms, shovels, and wicker baskets.

Under the urging of the old Legion Commander and the newly appointed Ten Households Leader, the refugees were forced to rise from the garbage heaps and numbly line up outside.

Led by the black-robed citizens of the Gulag Old Camp, nearly a thousand refugees were brought to the creek.

Beside the creek were piles of firewood and nearly three hundred abandoned or salvaged broken wine barrels and water tanks from the ruins.

These were all prepared by Casti at Horn’s behest.

Water from the creek was hauled ashore and poured into those large wooden barrels and tanks, the scalding water giving off wafts of white steam.

As for the female refugees, they were placed elsewhere.

The refugees became restless at once; this scene, this atmosphere—it couldn’t be that they planned to cook them, could it?

"Master Gold Medal Scripture Reader, what is being done here?"

"Are you making soup? I don’t see any food."

Some bold refugees stepped forward to ask.

Armand climbed laboriously onto a dirt mound, imitating Horn’s typical intonation:

"Everyone, up until now, you were merely under the name of my Pope Country without officially undergoing the joining ceremony."

With righteous fervor, Armand shouted, "To join my Pope Country, one must go through three major ceremonies.

The first is the baptismal ceremony, to wash away sin and impurity. Those who are not devout, when falling into hot water, will only go mad and resist—which is the devil’s mark!

The second is the haircut ceremony, to shear off your long hair and beards. Like Eve and Adam, after your hair is cut, you are no longer who you once were, but newborns of this world.

The third is the hymn ceremony, where you sing hymns under the leadership of the Ten Households Leader and learn to step and pray!"

Clearly, Armand did not command the same respect among the refugees in the new camp as he did in the old.

His speech only drew more suspicious gazes.

But Armand had a backup plan, signaling to Thomas beside him.

Amidst the crowd’s uncertain stares, Thomas took initiative to go to the water tank.

The surface of the tank emitted steamy heat. He stripped naked, pondered briefly, then flipped into the water tank.

"Hiss..." Pressing against his rapidly reddening face, Thomas gritted his teeth and smiled at the refugees, "Not hot!"

"If it’s not hot, don’t just stand there—close your eyes and sit down."

Just as Thomas suspected he misheard, two black-clad soldiers forcefully pressed his shoulders, plunging him into the boiling hot water.

The burning sensation gnawed at Thomas’s skin. When he stood up from the water again, he showed his scalded, reddish-black skin and, half-crying and half-laughing, said, "Not hot!"

After all, if it were hot, then surely there was a devil within.

In truth, the burning sensation that Thomas felt was not solely from the hot water but from Sessi’s concocted cleansing solution.

The effect was superior to normal cleansing solutions, and the cost was lower, but the trade-off was a slight scorching sensation on the skin like a hot iron.

Following Thomas’s demonstration, other refugees jumped into the hot water one by one.

Although they howled at first, eventually, they forcefully stated, "Not hot."

As they gradually acclimated to the water temperature, they even encountered a sense of comfort, as if they truly washed off some burdens.

Days of fatigue seemed to dissipate along with it, some people even fell asleep in the hot water.

Until the villagers from the old camp brought out the pig-bristle brushes.

"Oh-ho-ho-ho...Not painful!"

"No pain! Ah! Not painful at all!"

"Woo-woo-woo, not painful at all!"

Raising their heads from the hot water, the refugees indeed felt reborn, as if they had returned to the human world from the devil’s Fire Prison.

"If it doesn’t hurt or burn, why are you crying?"

"These are tears of great joy, what do you understand?" The refugees cried out.

Whenever the pig-bristle brush swept over their backs, it would reveal blood-stained spots, streaks of oil mud falling into the hot water.

During this period, the villagers from the old camp trimmed their hair and beards with small knives, cutting off all tangled hair and facial hair.

Meanwhile, their clothes would be roasted in front of the firepile; the wood in the firepit had been soaked in insect-repellent solution, perfect for driving away fleas and small bugs.

Once they were finished, they would dust on medicinal powder, brush teeth, and trim nails with small knives.

Finally, like red-boiled shrimps, the stained-red and white refugees stood blankly and joyously on the roadside.

This clean and refreshing, unprotected strange feeling was something they had never experienced in their lifetime.

It indeed resembled newborn infants.

A massive amount of wastewater was dumped downhill in the creek, turning the once clear water gray, with flea corpses drifting and sinking.

Armand stood before these ’newborns’ and began preaching.

"As long as you undergo baptism, which is repentance to oneself, you can make amends for your crimes!" Armand shamelessly claimed.

"Seems that this isn’t part of the doctrine, right?" A devout Believer remarked, "I’ve done odd jobs at the church for twenty years, never heard of it."

"You all are too rigid. Divine intent isn’t solely grasped from scripture, but from the heart."

Armand dismissively waved his hand, saying, "I derived this doctrine from my own heart.

Look, a merciful person forgives someone three times, so the Holy Father certainly is willing to forgive those who err three times, thus willing to let you merit forgiveness!"

"Eh, sounds somewhat reasonable."

"It’s absolute nonsense!"

"What, you figured it out? Are you the Priest? If you can, interpret it then!"

Here they were washing people, over there the camp was being cleansed.

Barrows of rubble, garbage, and bone fragments were swept out from tents and grass huts, under the urging of the Ten Households Leader, refugees laboring to push them into a large pit outside the camp.

As for fleas and the like, there was the cheap insect repellent powder concocted by Sessi.

This insect repellent powder was very low cost and highly effective, but emitted a potent and intense scent of camellia flowers.

Strong enough to make fleas and humans alike emit shrill cries and leave.

From noon till dusk, it took six hours to barely cleanse half the people.

But no worries, separating the washed from the unwashed, the cleansing would continue tomorrow.

Collective actions, especially those involving everyone, are the perfect circumstances for establishing authority and spreading influence.

The Great Cleansing was not just cleansing people and living places, but also cleansing the residual influence of Legion Commanders.

Because throughout the Great Cleansing, Horn along with his old camp directed operations while the Legion Commander contributed only suggestions.

Thus, when the six-hour Great Cleansing concluded, they instinctively continued to heed Horn’s commands.

Of course, there were repeats, but the shifts in power transpire through such back-and-forth struggles.

Apart from this, the sick among the refugees were individually registered, while Chervis’s distillation pot never stopped.

Horn had certainly purchased over a thousand pounds of garlic previously, with another thousand pounds arriving tomorrow, guaranteeing enough distilled garlic essence to treat these refugees.

Whether due to being unaccustomed to antibiotics or not, these refugees reacted sensitively to garlic extract, achieving remarkable healing effects.

Along with it, Horn’s presence became mysteriously profound.

The Holy Father’s Holy Water truly can cure illness!