Being a Life Player in the Middle Ages

After sending Mia back to Martha's house, Bayard did not leave because he had accepted Martha's dinner invitation. Instead, he went back to the house next door and said that he would come over on time before dinner.

After Mia chatted with Martha about her experience today, she packed up and prepared to go to the public bathhouse with Martha to take a bath.

The public bath located on Oppets Street is called Oppets Baths. The public baths mainly consist of three parts: hot water hall, warm water hall, and cold water hall - there is even a sauna - in addition, there are also ancillary facilities such as lounge, entertainment hall and sports field.

As soon as you enter the bathhouse, a wave of heat hits you in the face. The public bathhouse adopts an arch structure. Heating pipes were laid in the arch when the bathhouse was first built. The entire bathhouse is heated by hot air and smoke. Therefore, in the cold season, many people will come here to bathe. Even some poor people who have no firewood for heating at home will come to the public bathhouse to keep warm. After all, it is free to enter here.

Although admission is free, if you want to take a shower, only the cold water hall is free. The warm water hall, hot water hall and other areas are charged, especially the hot water hall. Because boiling hot water requires a lot of firewood, the charge is not cheap for ordinary people, and it costs one free per time.

Of course, Martha and Mia don't lack this little money. The weather is not warm yet, so they naturally want to go to the hot water hall to take a shower.

Public baths are of course divided into men's and women's areas. Male and female guests are separated as soon as they enter the room. The distribution on the left and right and the fact that the bathing areas are not connected mean that ladies don't have to worry about men suddenly breaking in while they are bathing. The staff guarding the entrances and exits also give them a great sense of security.

The public baths are built in a grand, majestic and extremely luxurious manner, looking like a royal palace. It may be the only place where most common people can enter and see the interior decoration, and thus imagine the residences of emperors and nobles. This public bath is an ancient building built together with Constantinople. Although it has been renovated several times, its original typical Romanesque architectural style has gradually incorporated Greek and oriental cultural elements. In addition to emphasizing practicality and functionality, it also has a bit of religious color.

If the world of Mia had developed as it did, this city and the entire empire would have completely transformed into a style unique to them in the next few centuries, and then in the late empire, influenced by religion, it would have become increasingly conservative and rigid, losing the openness and tolerance of that period.

But that would be hundreds of years later, so Mia just thought about it briefly in her mind and then turned her eyes to the shelf in front of her.

She didn't bring many toiletries, just a wooden basin, a comb and some spare clothes. After all, she only had a few sets of clothes and hadn't had time to prepare other daily necessities. But it didn't matter if they were incomplete, as all kinds of cleaning products were sold in public baths, although the prices were a little higher than outside.

Mia saw soap on the shelf. A bar of the most ordinary quality cost twenty francs, and the best one was even priced at one Nomisma.

Use a gold coin to buy a bar of soap? Mia declined, but she seemed to have discovered a major business opportunity. As expected, soap is a must-have formula for getting rich in ancient times.

In her second-year chemistry class, she learned about saponification reaction, and this class also had practical activities that allowed students to make handmade soap by themselves. As a student who had just finished the college entrance examination, Mia could say that she still remembered it vividly.

After thinking about it for a while, Mia bought two bars of soap similar to Martha's, one for herself and one for Martha.

Because this soap would dry out the skin in the bath, she had been planning to buy some olive oil, but Martha stopped her and brought a small jar that would be enough for the two of them.

In the end, Mia only needed to buy another cloth towel for temporary use, and she could buy the other things when she went to the market tomorrow.

After buying the things, Mia followed Martha to the hot water hall. Although she had never been to a public bath or even a hot spring, Mia had a lot of experience in her memory, so she was not unfamiliar with the place and was very clear about the procedures. For example, before entering the big bath, she had to wash her body with water to make sure there was no dirt before entering. She also had to wash herself after the bath. Then they could go to the lounge which was also separated by men and women to rest and wait until their hair was dry before leaving.

However, Mia was somewhat resistant to sharing the same bathtub with other people. After all, she was from the south and it was difficult for her to adapt to the northern bathhouses. She was just embarrassed to do it in front of other people.

Of course, she was more worried about the hygiene and safety here. It was very easy to get infected with some infectious diseases in such a place. To be on the safe side, Mia had no intention of entering the big bath.

There is actually a separate private bath here, but Mia came with Martha, so it is not convenient to go to the public bath at this time.

So after they entered the locker room, took off their clothes and entered the hot water room, Mia washed her hair and body with the clean hot water flowing from the pipes, and then refused Martha's invitation to enter the big bath, saying that she wanted to try massage and care next to it.

The large bathhouse in this hot water hall is a large square pool with two steps built a little further outwards from the edge for people to sit here after bathing. The area around the large bathhouse is very spacious with more platforms on it. There are also female slaves guarding it. Those who need massage services can find them. Although the fee is not cheap, you can enjoy the exquisite massage skills of the female slaves and various skin care products provided by the bathhouse.

Mia chose a platform that was half blocked by Roman columns. She refused the massage with unknown skin care cream recommended by the slave girl and only chose the cheapest but safe enough olive oil, asking her to give her a full body treatment from head to toe.

Although she is still a little shy, the newly bought cloth towel is very large, and covering her body can give her a sense of security.

The massage table was right next to the big pool. Martha had deliberately chosen a place where she could be seen to take a bath. Moreover, this big bath did not have a rule prohibiting wearing clothes in the water. Many people wrapped themselves in towels or directly soaked in the water in their petticoats, just as if they were washing clothes at the same time.

Martha soaked in the water wearing her petticoat. Gradually, people gathered around her, all of them familiar neighbors. When they got together, they had endless things to talk about. Mia pricked up her ears and listened to a lot of gossip, such as which couple had quarreled again; which child found a job; which family was going to have a wedding soon, etc. These were all trivial family matters, but they sounded very lively.

And through their conversation, Mia discovered that Martha was not only opening a herbal medicine shop with her husband John, but she was actually a midwife.

Although Martha's child unfortunately died, her midwifery skills were recognized by everyone, and people nearby would come to her for help when they had a baby.

When Martha introduced Mia to others and said that Mia would live in her house from now on, Mia also turned her head and greeted them.

Then someone asked Martha with a smile: "What a beautiful little girl, is she the child you adopted?"

Martha was stunned for a moment before she smiled and said, "I do have this idea."

Mia didn't hear this. The slave girl she was being massaged asked to turn over, and she just missed what Martha said.

But on the way back from the public bath, Martha suddenly stopped and asked her, "Mia, are you willing to be adopted by our family?"

Mia, who was planning what to buy at the market tomorrow, was stunned for a moment before she realized what she was asking.

Martha wanted to say something else, such as telling Mia that she didn't want to covet Mia's things - she knew Mia was rich - but simply felt that a young child like her needed a guardian, and their family conditions were also very good and could provide her with a stable living environment.

And Martha also wanted to say that she liked her very much and hoped that she could be her own child.

These words had been on her mind since she was asked about the adoption by her neighbors at the bathhouse.

But Mia didn't let her say anything. She smiled brightly, lighting up Martha's heart like a little sun.

"Of course I am willing. In fact, Brother Bayard asked me about this yesterday. I think it would be a lucky and happy thing for me to be adopted by you. I was worried that you might not want to."

When Martha heard her words, she immediately denied it: "How could that be? I would be more than happy to adopt you."

Martha and John actually had the idea of ​​adopting a child a long time ago. After their newborn baby unfortunately died, although they were young and sad, they still hoped to have another child. However, when they got older, they knew that there was no hope of having children, so they changed their minds and decided to adopt one.

But Martha and John had no relatives, and the people they knew were mostly neighbors of the same class. Each family was able to support their own children, so naturally they would not give their children to others to raise. As for going to the countryside to find a child to adopt, they were unwilling to do so. They felt that it was deliberately depriving the child of the kinship with his parents, which was an unacceptable sin. Moreover, they had heard a lot about the entanglements between adopted children and their original families during this period, so naturally they did not want to adopt a child who might leave them and return to his biological parents when he grew up.

So they set their sights on those orphans and visited the orphanages in the city many times, but so far they had not met any children that particularly caught their eye, so the adoption process was delayed again and again, and the couple almost wanted to give up.

But now they have met Mia, a child who lost her parents in an accident and came to them by chance. This makes Martha and her husband feel that they have a very good relationship with Mia, and this child is particularly obedient and sensible, and gets along very well with them, especially Martha.

When others asked her about it, Martha realized that she had already fallen in love with Mia. She wanted Mia to stay in their home and become her and John's child.

Mia looked up at Martha, her emerald green eyes like green leaves sprouting in spring, and the smile on her lips was as sweet as honey: "Then can I call you Mother Martha?"

Martha's eyes welled up.

The pair of wrinkled, calloused, and somewhat aged hands gently touched the girl's still damp hair, and then revealed a kind and moving smile.

"Of course, my boy."