mtl008 Chapter 2599 Shangri-La (Part )
Chapter 2599 Shangri-La (Part )
Chapter 2599 Shangri-La (Part )
Strange was called to the county government.
At that time, he was celebrating the festival with the residents of Shambhala. The chief of one of the villages quietly pulled him aside and told him mysteriously that he wanted Strange to see someone.
Strange's path is different from that of his teacher, the Ancient One. He has never been mysterious and does not have that kind of natural majestic temperament. The advantage is that he can easily get along with the villagers.
In fact, Strange didn't want to go, because the village chief always wanted to introduce him to a girlfriend. He thought the village chief was tricking him into going on a blind date again. This happened every year. He knew that Orientals valued family and clan, and they were kind-hearted, so Strange just perfunctorily tried to get away with it every time.
Today was no exception. Knowing that the village chief was happy during the holidays, perhaps he wanted to take him to meet another girl. Strange didn't want to argue with him, so he followed him out.
Who knew that this road would get farther and farther, and we would find ourselves at the foot of the Himalayas.
Then came the expected three-court trial.
The case of the villagers of Shambhala is not that simple. It is not that their entire generation has not been counted. There has been no record of them since five or six hundred years ago.
These hundreds of people seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, and there is no record of this group in any historical materials that can be found.
Considering that roads and satellite technology were not well developed in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, it is understandable that some villages deep in the mountains might have been abandoned.
But what time is it now? It is already the 21st century, and the Beidou satellites are clearly showing in the sky that there are no three villages in the Himalayas. What is going on?
When the county chief couldn't figure it out, he reported it to the mayor. When the mayor couldn't figure it out, he reported it to the district chief of the autonomous region. After reporting it up the chain of command, they finally found someone who understood the situation and realized that it must be related to Kamar-Taj.
Strange thought they had misunderstood that Kamar-Taj had locked up these people, so he hurried to explain. After a long conversation, he realized that the other party didn't actually care who these people were or what their history was. What they cared about was what these people were doing now.
Strange is still very confident. Kamar-Taj has never treated the three villages below unfairly. The farmland there is enchanted and can grow crops one after another without any human care. The scenery is beautiful, the natural resources are rich, and there is no disease or disaster. This is the paradise that many people pursue.
Then he was speechless by a question from the county magistrate - It's the 21st century, don't you go online?
Strange wanted to say that he also wanted to go online, but there was no signal. What could he do? He couldn't ask Stark to throw a satellite into the sky just for his own internet access, could he?
With the help of the village chief's translation, Strange finally understood that what they meant was that the villages outside had been modernized, but the ones inside were still developing a small peasant economy. You said you wanted to develop it, so go ahead and do it. But you still don't understand, and you're lacking something every day. What kind of life are you living?
Strange had no choice but to look at the village chief, who was also a little embarrassed. After all, it was not very glorious to go to outsiders without telling the Sorcerer Supreme, but he really couldn't live like this anymore.
The biggest problem with Shambhala is that it is closed, but not completely closed. In order to intermarry with outsiders, it accepts outsiders. There are even many girls who take the initiative to go out and choose men, and then return to the village to give birth when they are pregnant, and sometimes they bring the men back with them.
This group of people have seen the outside world, know how the society outside has developed, and know what kind of life even the ordinary people at the bottom of the society live.
It is noon and I am hoeing the field. Sweat drips down to the ground. Although many people in modern society complain about being tired from work and want to go back to their hometown to farm, those who have actually farmed know how hard it is. Traditional agriculture is the industry with the lowest return rate. Working hard for a whole year cannot make as much as working in a big city for half a year.
The same is true in Shambhala. Farming is indeed not tiring for them. After all, the fields have been optimized by magic, so there is no need to worry about crop yields. There are no natural disasters of any kind, and the weather is always very good. If they really cannot process all the food, there are wizards to help.
However, farming must involve basic labor. You can't expect food to grow without even plowing the land or watering it. You have to take care of it all year round. Apart from that, there is nothing else to do.
It would be fine if it had always been like this, but after enjoying the benefits of modern society, who would want to go back to suffer the hardships of a backward agricultural economy?
The only entertainment in the village is singing and dancing. The daily routine is eating, sleeping and having children. Because there is no pressure to survive, people don’t even care about their education. They just want to raise their children and farm.
The father of this village chief was an explorer from the United States in the last century, so he can speak Chinese, Tibetan and English. He has long been longing for the developed American society his father talked about and has always wanted to go out and take a look.
The new Sorcerer Supreme is an American, and it is said that he is quite famous in the society of ordinary people. The village chief is unwilling to let himself and his children spend their lives like this, but he dare not quit directly to Strange.
After all, no Supreme Sorcerer had ever treated them unfairly, and he couldn't just enjoy the benefits without taking responsibility.
After much thought, the village chief decided to find a third party. His daughter happened to be married in the town at the foot of the mountain, so he wanted to ask the mayor to ask Strange if he could let them go out occasionally like students.
The village chief’s request was actually just to go out for a trip, but the town mayor and the county magistrate obviously didn’t think it was that simple.
Shambhala is the only way to Kamar-Taj. To enter Kamar-Taj, you must pass through these three villages.
Kamar-Taj actually does not belong to any country. It is an enclave exclusive to the magical world. This is also a treaty that was signed when the temple was built. There is no way and no need to go back on it.
But it does not say that Shambhala also belongs to Kamar-Taj. All land outside the designated area of Kamar-Taj is state-owned, so Shambhala is naturally the village. Now even the town at the foot of the mountain has a skytrain, so actual control over Shambhala should be achieved.
The county magistrate stated his request, and Strange was a little hesitant. When Ancient One included these three villages within the range of the magic protective shield, it was actually to protect his hometown.
That was still ancient times, and some people might think that even in ancient times, it was unlikely that anyone could fight their way to the Himalayas. But don’t forget that magic also plays a significant role in Marvel’s history.
The history of ancient China has been almost completely changed. During the turbulent dynasties, in addition to humans, there were also various demons and monsters competing for supremacy on the land of China. Although the village where Gu Yi is located is remote, demons are also rampant in the mountains, and the villagers live an extremely difficult life.
If she and her fellow villagers had not discovered the secrets of magic, the villagers would have been unable to survive. So after founding the holy land of Kamar-Taj, which has the same name as Kamar-Taj Village, Ancient One immediately covered her hometown with a protective shield.
But her purpose was to protect rather than imprison. It was just that people of their generation knew how dangerous it was outside, so they took the initiative to stay away from going out.
Most later generations don’t understand what changes are happening outside, they just think it’s good to stay here, so they just stay there.
To be honest, Strange felt that he had never stopped anyone from going out. Although the villagers did not know magic, they could leave if they wanted to.
Later, after explanations from the village chief and the county chief, Strange finally understood that, as they said, Orientals value family and clan, and have a stronger sense of collectivism. If a village upholds a certain law, no one can violate it. You can't just leave because you are curious about the outside world.
That is to say, some villagers now want to leave, but they dare not leave, because leaving means they can never come back. What if the world outside is not as good as they say, then they will have no way out.
So they hope that there will be an external force to interfere, preferably to actively break this isolation from the outside and change a certain custom that has always been regarded as a norm, so that more people will no longer have to succumb to internal pressure.
The village chief also expressed his helplessness. He said the village was too small and could not compare with the vast world outside. Too many young people had heard their parents talk about what was happening outside and wanted to go out and see the world. The village chief didn't know whether to agree or disagree, and the situation was stuck in a stalemate.
But this matter must have an outcome. Either the several factions in the village will completely split, with those who want to stay staying and those who want to leave leaving. Or an invisible hand will physically break Shambhala's isolation from the world.
The division of the village is something Strange absolutely does not want to see. Not to mention where the wizards will go to buy things after the village is gone, his teacher, the Ancient One, can come back and punch him into the wall so that he cannot be dug out.
As a true modern man, Strange understands that the trend of modernization is almost unstoppable, and the killer feature of modernization is not brighter lights or cleaner water, but the extremely fast flow of information.
Once people have accepted this speed of information flow, they can never go back to the days of receiving information at a slow speed. Even he himself is the same, otherwise he would not have asked his apprentices to convert all the magic books into e-books and then read them at twice the speed.
Although the fast-paced life is always criticized, a slow pace of life is not necessarily a good thing. Strange often feels drowsy in Kamar-Taj because the days are long and there is nothing to do.
After being in this state for a long time, and suddenly returning to the fast-paced New York, Strange even felt that his brain was a little slow to function.
But Strange was cautious about building a road to Shambhala. He decided to visit the town at the foot of the mountain first, and then decide whether to develop Shambhala.
Students of Kamar-Taj often went to the town and volunteered to lead Strange. Strange set off with a few great wizards and played in the town at the foot of the mountain for two days and two nights.
Before setting off, Strange really didn't think there was anything fun about a small town. He himself was born in a small town, so how could he not know what the town was like?
But the town at the foot of the mountain where the Sherpas live is indeed different from what he imagined. They live a modern and primitive life.
It sounds contradictory, but it is true. Every household has access to water, electricity and internet, but they still live in stone houses. There are modern agricultural machinery, but people still thresh barley by hand. There are modern hotels, but most of them are homestays converted from residential houses.
It was not until Strange was taken on a tour with the students and the tour guide that he understood why this was the case. To put it bluntly, the entire town was a huge Truman Show, and all of this was almost a performance for the tourists.