Inside the house.
After explaining numerous matters, Little Niu clapped his hands casually:
"Alright, everything that needs to be said has been said. You can get out of bed and take a walk. I'll also introduce you to the manor's layout."
Xu Yun had already considered this, so he easily agreed:
"Then I'll trouble you."
Little Niu nodded, walked to the cabinet by the bed, and fiddled with it a bit after bending down.
He stood up and casually flicked his right hand.
A pair of shoes and tube socks were tossed in front of Xu Yun with a clatter.
These were somewhat old shoes, with the sides and back made of coarse grey burlap, stained with some black spots.
The front was covered with leather, visibly worn on the surface.
From the current historical background, the leather material should be deer hide.
Then Little Niu pointed at the shoes and said:
"These are Brogue shoes I wore in high school, should match your foot shape.
Remember, don't wear these shoes outside the manor. If you want to go out, be sure to tell me first and I'll get you another pair."
Xu Yun nodded cooperatively—not because he had been successfully pua-ed, but because he understood that Newton wasn't restricting his freedom of movement.
The reason Little Niu required him to change shoes when going out was simply this:
During this era in the United Kingdom, rather, Europe, stepping out means encountering feces and urine...
Concern for public health in the United Kingdom started after this plague ended, around 1690 when it reached county-level ubiquity.
Europe's overall recognition of contagious diseases like plague still remains at the isolation stage—the United Kingdom is even at the forefront, with the first European arrest for fleeing a diseased area occurring there.
The unlucky yet fortunate person was named Henry Ross, and the incident happened in the Saint Bartholomew's District in 1604, sixty years ago.
Strictly speaking, this is a process of completing awareness, there's not much to criticize or disdain.
Europe's peak feces-and-urine culture occurred around the 12th century A.D., when the situation was truly chaotic.
Famously, high heels were invented to prevent stepping on filth.
Of course.
Completing awareness aside, the feces and urine in public areas of the United Kingdom still exist, that's a fact too.
Especially in Lincolnshire, where there are many cattle and sheep, going out, that smell...
This is also why Newton initially found Xu Yun extravagant—such warm boots, Newton wouldn't even want to step out of the house with them, yet Xu Yun dared to wear them outside for half a day.
If not for future profits, Little Niu wouldn't complain a word more of 'profligate' right now.
Xu Yun was unaware that Little Niu had labeled him a spendthrift and a rich dog. At this moment, he was flipping out of bed, picking up a tube sock—God have mercy, after ten whole chapters, our protagonist finally got out of bed, tears in eyes!
Xu Yun awkwardly put on the tube sock, glanced at his big toe sticking out of a sock hole, rolled his eyes silently, and picked up the Brogue shoe from the floor.
Brogue shoes, also known as Baroque shoes, originated from the work shoes worn in the highlands by the Scottish and Irish of the 16th century, practical and durable.
These shoes became relatively more common among the general populace in the seventeenth century, ranking lower than Oxford and Derby shoes, yet they were standard for students in some middle schools.
But by the 20th century, Brogue shoes had been discovered by the Duke of Windsor from the countryside and gradually became a symbol of the gentleman.
Newton's pair of Brogue shoes was relatively well-preserved, paired with Newton's tube socks with a few holes, not excessively uncomfortable to wear.
Of course, forget about the image:
In this era, the whole United Kingdom's aesthetics are somewhat ostentatious; during the Victorian Era, men wore skirts, clothes were oversized and messy.
In the eyes of the 21st century, it seemed like door god attire for warding off evil spirits, hanging at the door for propitiation, on the bed to avoid pregnancy.
Fortunately, no acquaintances would see him dressed this way at the moment, so after putting on the shoes, Xu Yun confidently followed Newton out of the bedroom.
Just as Newton mentioned earlier.
Perhaps because the house was originally a garden house, the interior overall area was not large, one could even say narrow.
Outside the bedroom connected to a small room of about twenty square meters. With the bedroom door as the origin, the left side of the room had a small window with a desk in front of it.
A quaint little bookshelf stood beside the desk, filled with books.
The right side of the room had a relatively thick door with an old and dark rug laid at the entrance.
Clearly, this was the exit from the entire house.
Excluding the fenced area outside, the building's area was barely over sixty square meters, a rarity in Europe, whether in the 17th or 21st century.
Converted to the housing situation locally, it's akin to a family of four in Shanghai living in a 25-square-meter room, crowded to the extent that without a home makeover, it's uninhabitable—though if a certain designer with the surname Tao handled it, it likely wouldn't be livable even after renovation, with an additional charge of 1.3 million for renovation fees.
Then Little Niu led Xu Yun to the window, pointing outside:
"Fat Fish, as you can see, the fruit trees in the window were belonging to my family.
From the fence start going approximately a thousand feet westward to reach the village road at Woolsop, then further north is a well, near which you can see a windmill built over sixty years ago.
As for the direction of Lincolnshire, I don't need to elaborate, you came from there."
Hearing this, Xu Yun nodded silently.
Despite being the 'apple' that fell from the sky, unclear where exactly Lincolnshire was, he had no intention or need to head toward Lincolnshire now, therefore, there was no need to cause more unnecessary hassle.
Soon after, Newton pulled his attention away from the window, pointing at the desk and bookshelf:
"As for here... this is where I study and work. Without my permission, you're not allowed to touch any pieces of paper—not even if ink is spilled and stains the pages."
Compared to the casual introduction of landmarks outside, Newton was much more serious when mentioning the desk.
His tone reminded Xu Yun of one of his otaku friends; whenever Xu visited, his friend treated his collection of figurines with the same attitude.
However, Xu Yun's attention was quickly drawn to the desk.
Or to be specific, the several manuscripts on the desk.
One of the manuscripts contained a sketch with simple and impatient strokes on two pages:
On the left of the first page was a tree, and under it stood a stick figure.
The scenario on the second page was almost identical to the first, except in this scene, another stick figure was falling from the tree.
This falling stick figure was highlighted with a circle drawn deliberately, beside it were two arrows pointing up and down, and...
A question mark.
Seeing this, Xu Yun's eyes instantly lit up.
.......
Note:
A reader mentioned this book's slow pace; well, I've never been a rapid-fire... cough, fast-paced writer.
My personal writing habit is to write while popularizing science—slow-paced yet wouldn't feel watered down for everyone—modestly speaking, I'm an author who likes to impart knowledge to readers.
"Wow, I checked, this is actually true"—comments like this bring me a lot of satisfaction.
Additionally, someone asked if this is a cross-world literature; my introduction makes it clear:
The protagonist has no superpowers, this book will feature realistic scenarios, it's quite a unique black technology novel though everything the protagonist gains must be earned through their own efforts, not the kind where spinning a wheel grants you a dimensional foil.
To repeat, it's a reality-based tech novel, reality-based tech novel, reality-based tech novel!!!
But the pace will be very slow, very slow, very slow!!!