Chapter 120 Blending In With The Crowd

Chapter 120 Blending In With The Crowd

Madurai, India.

Alex and his party landed at the Madurai Airport and were on their way to the only temple of the God Vidalambha.

It was 6 pm by the time they arrived and to reach the temple, it took them thirty minutes via a local cab.

The cab stopped one and half kilometre away from the temple as there was too much crowd since it was time for the evening prayers, which was also the last prayer of the day.

People adorned in traditional dresses as well as casual clothing were all moving towards the big temple present right in the heart of the city.

Actually, it was the city that was built around this ancient temple.

If Alex's memory served him right, Jagan mentioned that he would be going back home and taking his grandfather's position as the priest in this ancient temple.

Jagan's father was a businessman and said to be blessed by God to have a wise mind. His duty lay in managing the temple and not serving God directly like a priest, Jagan's grandfather had said.

It was Jagan who would be taking up the position of the High Priest, his grandfather had mentioned one day. Why, what, when… all such questions were never asked by his family and they simply accepted this fact, Jagan included.

Alex knew Jagan's grandfather had died because Jagan himself had said it two years ago, before the group separated.

He was quite sad and due to such a melancholic atmosphere, there was no farewell party and everyone had simply waved him goodbye at the airport.

While walking on the busy streets, Samuel asked Alex, "Will he recognize us?"

"What?" Alex couldn't hear him. There was too much noise around with cars and bikes honking, street vendors shouting loudly to sell their goods, and so on.

Samuel clicked his tongue and let go of talking to Alex. He turned to Carl and held him by the wrist. "Keep close."

Samuel had many siblings and naturally, his big brother instinct had risen as Carl cluelessly looked around and stumbled every five steps on a foreign soil.

The amount of people Carl was looking at right now was mind boggling. He had never seen such a big crowd even at political rallies back home in Austin.

Alex walked together with the other two and as they neared the temple gates, they saw a big queue of people just waiting to get in.

Such a queue made these guys' heads spin.

Alex knew he and his party were never going to make it to the main temple with so many people around. He had to find a way and do something.

Trying to think of a way, firstly, Alex realized that even though they were foreigners, they were in too bland clothes to appear like tourists.

People did stare at Alex since he looked like a handsome western foreigner, but that too wasn't for long because everyone was just too busy and had to go about their business.

Samuel, being a Mexican, he kind of blended in with the people here. Actually, he totally seemed to have blended in because Alex couldn't find this short 5'4 dude among the rest of the crowd.

People had an average height of 5 '3-5' 7 in this place and Alex stood out quite a lot with his 6 '3 frame while Carl too was the same with his almost six feet tall height.

Noticing the problem, Alex quickly went to a nearby clothes vendor to buy traditional clothes. It was a street side shop and there was a middle aged guy managing it.

"Hi, I'd like to buy some traditional clothes please," said Alex to the man.

"Ya?" The man tilted his head in confusion, not understanding the slightest of what Alex had said.

"Traditional clothes. Clothes. Clothes." Alex tried to make the man understand, but that guy didn't seem to know English.

Facing a problem, Alex looked around and found people using their phones. Their texts and everything on the phone was English, so Alex thought they knew about it and approached them.

As he went close to them, the group of young teenagers that were laughing suddenly were startled to see a tall white foreigner walk up to them.

It was their first time coming across foreign tourists like this and Alex was lean and muscular as well as tall, appearing a bit intimidating.

However, once the guys realized he just needed help, they happily provided it.

The boys acted as their translators and although their English wasn't good enough, the vendor understood and gave Alex the necessary clothes.

It was these group of boys who then guided Alex to a nearby restaurant that had a bathroom and got them changed.

The traditional clothes Alex and his party were wearing contained a white silk cloth with golden edges, and a white shirt.

The group of boys whistled and nodded their heads with a smile on their faces. They seemed to like the look of Alex, Samuel, and Carl.

It was these sweet teenagers who then guided Alex to a man holding a tray containing sandalwood and sandalwood in paste form.

The boys got Alex, Samuel, and Carl to get the paste applied on their foreheads and with this, they looked like proper devotees.

They also got them to buy the necessary offerings and translated whatever the native people were saying.

Alex never would've thought that approaching some random people brought such immense benefits.

These guys surely were quite helpful and friendly.

With their help, what would've taken Alex more than an hour to do, was done in just fifteen minutes.

There were fifteen more minutes left for the evening prayers to begin and he knew they had to rush.

The boys too were aware and they hurriedly took Alex to a nearby temple staff. It was not difficult to find such a person because they all had an ID card around their necks with a yellow ribbon that stood out.

The boys talked to the staff and the staff seemed to have understood.

However, things don't always go as planned and the staff refused whatever the boys were asking him by shaking his head.

The boys were pleading but the staff still shook his head.

Alex felt pity for this group. They had done so much for him, now there was no need to go to such great lengths to request so much to someone.

Alex placed his hand on one of the guys' shoulder and said, "Let me handle it."

He then turned to the man and instead of speaking, looked him in the eyes and took out a bundle of cash from his system's inventory.

They were all shocked by how the money suddenly appeared, but that was only momentarily as greed flashed in the man's eyes and overtook his common sense.

"Anna, no. Don't give money," one of the boys said to Alex while shaking his head.

"Ey! Poyvitu!" The man sneered and pushed the guy to the side, clearly unhappy.

[TL: Anna = big brother; Ey! Poyvitu! = Hey! Get lost!]

The young teenager didn't heed the guy's warning and still asked Alex to not pay him.

Alex smiled and patted his shoulder. "Don't worry, if he tries to harm us, we know to protect ourselves."

Alex didn't know how much the boys understood, but he knew this wasn't enough.

"Our situation is really urgent, as I've said to you. We really need to meet the High Priest as I've mentioned before."

While they were roaming around, Alex and Samuel had begun talking to this group and explained why they were here.

Samuel was a big extrovert and making friends definitely wasn't difficult for him. Even the language barrier didn't bother him and he immediately got acquainted with the group. 𝗯𝗲𝗱𝗻𝗼𝘃𝐞𝐥.𝗰𝗼𝐦

It was through him that things were much easier to explain to the group and the boys understood about everything these guys were planning.

Thus, they left everything they were doing, which was nothing, and rushed to help them.

Once Alex said to the guys to leave things be, they understood and decided to just let him do what he wanted to do.

Alex walked up to the guy while holding the money. He seemed very eager to grab it, but Alex first held his collar and looked into his eyes.

"You better get us to the main temple and inside it quickly, otherwise it won't end well," said Alex.

One of the boys quickly rushed to the scene and translated:

"Avar kurukirar…"

What the boy said was, "He's saying he'll beat you to a pulp and even find your men and beat them. He's also saying that he'll get the police involved if you try to cheat him. Since he's a tourist, the police will listen and you'll have a hard time, uncle."

The man gulped nervously and fearfully as he heard what the boy said. If that was true and he got caught with bribes, he'd be severely punished.

However, the money Alex was handing out was too much to just ignore. This was his whole year's salary!

The man looked at Alex and said, "Don't worry boss, it'll not be a problem. I know some inside people, you'll be there in no time."

The man had spoken in his native language and Alex understood it by the translation from the boys.

Nodding in understanding, Alex let go and the man finally took Alex, the group of boys, and his party through an entrance only meant for staff and priests.

As he had stated, he really did bring them inside in no time.

But the problem was, the prayers were about to start and people had flocked inside the main temple like crazy, squishing everybody on their way.

Thankfully, Alex and Carl were tall and stood out. Samuel got lost between the crowd, but that was least of Alex's concern for now.

A few minutes later, loud gonging of temple bells were heard and there he was, the figure Alex had been waiting for…

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