Chapter 11, The last leisurely time
Any experienced otaku will always need a computer with a fast Internet speed. This is a rule recognized by the entire Internet.
Such a otaku, no matter where she goes, even if her friends have no idea about her sexual orientation, preferences, or the number of collections, she still has a communication channel - since such a rule, in most otakus, It has long been ingrained in the world, so otakus always regard computers as one of the necessary equipment for living at home or cocooning... As a qualified otaku, Elizabeth. Bennett's biggest dream before time travel was to buy a well-lit high-rise apartment in a mid-priced neighborhood in the city center, and then put his beloved computer in it and install the highest-end hardware, especially There are high-fidelity speakers, all kinds of favorite figurines are displayed behind the computer desk, and cookies, desserts and drinks are piled at your fingertips on the other side. In addition, there is an oversized Simmons bed that allows people to roll around anytime and anywhere.
However, there is a famous saying that goes like this: How beautiful your dream is, then how cruel the reality must be...
Instead of saving enough money to buy a small high-rise apartment in the city center, she owned a large house in the countryside of England at the end of the 18th century.
Judging from the living area alone, it seems to be a profit, but from the perspective of various software and hardware, it is really a loss that makes people cry.
——No Internet, no computer, no refrigerator, no microwave, no running water, not even electricity, not even potato chips...
But what can be done? Stingy fate will make you gain some things and make you lose other things.
The world does not revolve around any one person. No one is the protagonist, and no one is a supporting role; no one is always lucky, and no one is always unfortunate; no one always reaps joy, and no one always welcomes sadness...
Okay, do you think Elizabeth would really drink this bowl of chicken soup with the wrong seasonings?
——The story world of "Pride and Prejudice" that she traveled to really revolves around herself, the heroine! She and Mr. Darcy, who is currently unknown, are the protagonists of this world, and are destined to have a life full of legends...
In fact, unlike those chicken soups for the soul that are force-fed to the people, it is impossible for everyone to be equal in every world. There must be protagonists, supporting roles, and of course more supporting roles. Some guys are born with more things than others: more powerful parents, wealthier families, stronger bodies, smarter minds, etc. But on the other hand, these advantageous conditions are not destined, but because their parents paid the corresponding price. Those who have obtained these favorable conditions do not get something for nothing for no reason. Instead, they have to bear higher expectations from their families and shoulder a variety of heavier responsibilities - this is the price.
Everything in the world follows this theorem, that is, equivalent exchange. Some equivalent exchanges are obvious, while others are buried under the deep material level; so countless people pay the same price, but get different results - however, for a new aspect in their own destiny, After a round of equal exchange, the time-travel version of Elizabeth is now quite satisfied. Although the plot of "Pride and Prejudice" has been messed up, and it is estimated that it will be difficult for me to have a vigorous love affair with Jane Austen's "dream man", the situation in the Bennet family has already been It seriously deviates from the plot line, even if it deviates more, it would be fine.
In return, not only can she enjoy a certain degree of modern living conditions in this backward world, such as replacing her mattress with Simmons, but she can even access the Internet here - with the opening of the time and space door, a... A network cable was also pulled over by Wang Qiu from the base in the modern world... After signing a document promising not to leak secret information about this time and space, Elizabeth finally got a coveted laptop.
(After more than one million people traveled through the late Ming Dynasty, the existence of other worlds is no longer a highly confidential matter.)
Looking at the netizens in the chat group showing off their travel photos, she couldn't help but feel a strong sense of superiority in her heart.
——I am chatting online in the British countryside at the end of the 18th century on the eve of the Napoleonic Wars! Can any of you have such an experience? !
However, Elizabeth only dared to feel proud in her heart, and did not dare to really post the photos online to show her superiority. Moreover, she estimated that even if she did post them, most people would not believe them, and they would just think that she was in an old house in modern Europe. I took some photos...
Just as she was languishing offline and about to read the entertainment news, a pair of very cute twin silver-haired lolita pushed the door open and barged in.
"...Sister! Can you lend us this computer? For some reason, our computer keeps crashing today!"
"...Oh, it's Hansel and Gretel! What? Do you want to play a game?" Elizabeth looked back at the silver-haired twins who seemed to be adorable to the core, and suddenly smiled in a good mood - before, When she learned that these two doll-like little guys were actually the Romanian silver-haired twins from "Black Lagoon", she was shocked, but looking at these two lolita, they seemed to be quite well-behaved and not perverted. Signs of evil spirits. Moreover, I have now become the heroine in a novel. As a crow, I really have no right to laugh at the black boar, so I have become accustomed to it.
"...No way! I have business to do now! Big brother (Wang Qiu) and grandpa (Political Commissar Guo) took a lot of photos in London before, let us sort them out." Gretel raised her head and raised the storage in her hand Ka, said with an amazing expression on his face.
So, Elizabeth gave up her laptop and stood aside with interest, watching the silver-haired twins insert a memory card into the computer and retrieve photos and videos - Elizabeth did not participate in the previous few days. trip to London, so now I am a little curious about it.
Although she had been to London once before with the "Bennets", she went directly to a relative's house and did not visit too many places.
Then, the LCD screen showed the iron-gray foggy sky, swaggering carriages passing through the city, and British gentlemen wearing cloaks and cylindrical hats with pipes in their mouths, wrapped in layers of pleated fabrics and lace ribbons like big Gift bag, lady with ostrich feathers on her head, dark light , old-fashioned shops with messy layout, and drunkards playing bowling in pubs - bowling in this era was called "skittles", and the gameplay was not as formal as in later generations. The main thing was to put nine wine bottles and let people throw the wooden pins. Roll the ball over and see how many can be knocked over...
Next, the camera seemed to turn to the slums in the East End of London, showing many shabby shacks, dirty roads, and people in ragged clothes and sallow faces. They looked dirty and had numb eyes, like prisoners in a concentration camp. Elizabeth was very sad.
However, Hansel and Gretel, two seemingly innocent and pure twins, disagreed with this, "...what's there to sympathize with? If we hadn't met the lustful big brother, our future would have been I’m afraid the fate is not as good as these people!”
Elizabeth, who has also watched "Black Lagoon", immediately remembered the tragic ending of the Romanian twins in the original work, "...Ah, I'm sorry, I forgot your previous experience... Indeed, you were sold abroad at such a young age. , it’s really too miserable..."
"...Actually, even if we were not sold abroad at that time, our fate would not be much better."
Gretel shook her head and took out a photo from her pocket, "...even if he didn't starve to death at that time, he would probably be like the compatriots in the orphanage in this photo, huddled in a dirty and smelly house. Become a cave-dwelling barbarian in the sewers..."
——In the photo, a middle-aged woman covered in dirt and pale skin is sitting in a cave littered with garbage, with a syringe still on her leg. Next to her is a deformed little boy with a bag of poisonous powder in his mouth. Looking at the camera with a creepy and silly expression... The middle-aged woman in the photo, like the silver-haired twins in "Black Lagoon", is one of the Romanian orphans living on the streets after the drastic changes in Eastern Europe.
Before the upheaval in Eastern Europe, Nikolai. During the era when Ceausescu ruled Romania, Ceausescu, who was so happy with his success, promulgated many ridiculous decrees that caused an uproar around the world, including prohibiting divorce, prohibiting the use of contraceptive measures, and prohibiting free abortion. Each couple had to give birth to at least four children. If these articles are implemented, offenders will be regarded as traitors who undermine national construction, and the punishment will be extremely cruel. The purpose of this series of policies is to increase Romania's labor force and increase the birth rate and fertility rate. But he did not take into account that the impoverished Romanian people simply could not afford the cost of raising children, and Romania's economic level was far from enough to support such a large population. As a result, these absurd laws directly led to the skyrocketing birth rate and death rate of infants in Romania. A large number of poor parents who were unable to raise their children had no choice but to abandon their babies in tears.
Initially, these abandoned orphans could be adopted by the state in welfare institutions. However, after the drastic changes in Eastern Europe and the fall of the red regime in Romania, the entire country fell into turmoil again. The former welfare institutions were forgotten by the world. Some orphans became hot commodities for human traffickers and were sold to red light districts and various private houses in Western European and American countries. The club has even been exported to Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Arabia and India... Hansel and Gretel in "Black Lagoon" are such a pair of Romanian twin orphans who were unlucky.
However, if they had not been taken abroad by human traffickers, but had continued to stay on the soil of their motherland, would their subsequent fate have been slightly better? I'm afraid that's not necessarily the case - in the Eastern European countries of that turbulent era, ordinary families still had no food to eat and no living security, and the orphans abandoned by the welfare institutions were even more hungry, cold and desperate. In Bucharest, the capital of Romania, the city's abandoned sewers became their shelter. They used the heat emitted from the steam pipes in the sewers to stay warm, and relied on begging and stealing to obtain food, barely surviving.
By the 21st century, these Romanian orphans hiding in the sewers of the capital have become a special group called "cavemen". Many of them have lived in the sewers for decades and have long adapted to the filth of the sewers. There is a stench, and the rats, fleas, garbage, and feces here are ignored. And they continued to have children in this sewer without a trace of light, allowing their offspring to grow up in this dark underground world. Some children never left this underground world from birth to adulthood, and gave birth to their own children here...
Obviously, there is no healthy life in such an underground world. Among Bucharest's sewer dwellers, almost everyone suffers from AIDS, and a quarter of them suffer from tuberculosis. Every time the sun is about to set, the inhabitants of the sewers begin to wake up and crawl to the surface like the living dead. Because their eyes have become accustomed to the darkness and become like vampires who no longer adapt to the sunlight!
——There is no hope, no goal, even household registration and identity have disappeared in the turmoil, leaving only violence, drugs, hunger, disease, discrimination and loneliness. If we say that those "Northern drifters" who sleep in basements and sewers in Beijing, China, after experiencing setbacks and despair, still have a way out to leave Beijing and return to their hometown. So these Romanian orphans, abandoned by everyone, have been trapped in this dark and humid world forever. They can only wait for death in the darkness, and are eventually completely swallowed by the boundless darkness.
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After hearing such a heavy and tragic story, Elizabeth suddenly felt a little depressed. She just smiled brightly and turned around to leave, hoping to change her mood. Unexpectedly, after walking around the house, they found that three Indian guests who came for treatment had just left. In order to see off these Indian guests, Wang Qiu and the others also followed them back to the base of the modern world. Among the remaining people, Jane was lying on the sofa doing a facial mask, and Mary, Kitty and Lydia, three old Chinese ladies dressed in Western girl skins, were playing mahjong. Elizabeth, who did not know how to play mahjong, was seriously worried about this. Lack of interest.
Really unable to find any entertainment, looking at the sunny and sunny weather outside, Elizabeth put a book under her arm and prepared to go out for a walk.
——It is the most beautiful summer of the year in England, and it is a quiet and beautiful afternoon. The sun is shining, flowers are in bloom, and the air is filled with the fragrance of flowers and grass. Everything gives people a comfortable feeling.
After walking among the sunny grass and woods for a while, Elizabeth felt much more relaxed. She was about to find a secluded place to take a nap, but she met another "best friend" who was also walking - a girl from the same village. The eldest daughter of the Lucas family, Charlotte. Lucas.
Well, but in the mouth of the long-tongued woman in Longbourn Village, she is more commonly known as "the old girl from the Lucas family who can't get married"...
——Elizabeth and her sisters, each with a dowry of a thousand pounds, and outstanding beauty, yet the marriage was so difficult. Charlotte's dowry was only a measly one hundred pounds, and her appearance was ordinary, so she naturally became a slow-selling item in the marriage market of the gentry class.
Speaking of which, the Lucas family is also a prominent family in Longbourn Village, William. Mr. Lucas is the only knight in the village. He used to do business, served as mayor, and was once quite wealthy. But the problem is that at the end of the 18th century, when capitalism was just emerging, people's ideas had not yet changed. Even in Britain, the status of merchants was far inferior to that of landowners. On the one hand, after making money, many big businessmen will eagerly buy manors and become country squires in order to improve their social status; on the other hand, many gentlemen would rather borrow debt to survive than do business. It would be considered unseemly for a famous gentleman to conduct business, but respectability was precisely what Mr. Lucas valued most.
As a result, after becoming a knight, in order to maintain his dignity and become a respected gentleman, Mr. Lucas gave up his lucrative business and came to the village of Longbourn to buy land and settle down, relying entirely on land rent for his living. However, land is a very special commodity. Land for sale is not always available. Most of the good land in Longbourn Village has already been occupied by other families. Therefore, the property purchased by Mr. Lucas at that time was relatively small and the land rent was high. His income was not enough to maintain a luxurious life, but he was a good-looking person who liked to hold dance parties and ostentatious events. Therefore, he could not make ends meet for decades and had little money left in his early years of business. He became a member of the country gentry class. poor.
And Charlotte. Miss Lucas was dragged down by the reality of this money-worshiping society and became a twenty-seven-year-old "old girl" due to various reasons such as a meager dowry and poor appearance. The Lucas family also had great headaches for their eldest daughter who could not get married. They even considered marrying Charlotte to a widower with a child in Meryton who had died. It's just that Sir Lucas prides himself on being a respectable person, so he couldn't bear to bring it up first, and the other party was not very satisfied with Miss Lucas's dispensable dowry and equally dispensable appearance. In the end, the marriage failed to take place. .
In the original work of "Pride and Prejudice", Charlotte finally grasped Mr. Collins' life-saving straw in time and successfully married herself. Although this made Elizabeth, her long-time friend. Miss Bennet felt angry and puzzled. However, this marriage could already be regarded as a very good bargain for the Lucas family, which still had an unmarried daughter and an unimpressive son... But in this In a world disrupted by time travellers, God knows what kind of marriage this ordinary-looking Miss Lucas will have.
Closer to home, in the village of Longbourn, Charlotte is Elizabeth. One of Bennet's few same-sex friends, and after changing her soul, the time-travel version of Elizabeth cautiously continued to maintain this friendship and friendship with Charlotte out of various considerations...
Therefore, as soon as she recognized Elizabeth's appearance, Charlotte immediately came up to her with a smile and greeted her enthusiastically:
"...Elizabeth (Elizabeth's nickname)! Good afternoon! Why haven't I seen you in the past few days (staying at home and surfing the Internet)? By the way! Did you know? Netherfield Manor has been rented out again! Do you want to know who rented it? ”
Upon hearing the news, Elizabeth's mind suddenly exploded with a "boom" and became blank, leaving only one thought:
——Can it be said that after experiencing so many changes, the plot of "Pride and Prejudice" will finally unfold as it is? Unfortunately, facts will prove that her thoughts at this moment are really too naive...