On the Seven Towers

Xiao Chen was beside the campfire, using a stone as a chopping board and cutting the wild boar meat with a dagger. He was very strong now, and even though he had never done this kind of work before, the meat was easily cut into small pieces. Caterina threaded the cut pieces of meat onto the branches, and several children ran around, picking up handfuls of branches and giving them to her.

The job of grilling meat was left to the leader of this team, one of Roger's soldiers. The meat skewers made a sizzling sound on the campfire, and fat dripped into the fire from time to time, exuding a rich aroma of meat.

The people standing around were all people from this team. In the past few days, they were used to cooking together and queuing up to receive meals. But it's different from the rest of the team who are eagerly waiting for their meal. While the people here are looking forward to it, they are also a little nervous. Therefore, the crowd felt strangely quiet.

A magician who cooks barbecue for everyone! A lord who lives with his slaves. Not only was this unheard of, it was unlikely to even appear in a dream.

Xiao Chen also felt this subtle atmosphere. He looked around at the people around him. Wherever his gaze reached, everyone lowered their heads, as if his gaze was weighing heavily. The ability of night vision allowed him to see clearly the subtle expressions of everyone at this time, including confusion, nervousness, and confusion.

Although these people are standing physically, their hearts are accustomed to kneeling. Although they are like lions when they are rioting, when they are calm, they are docile than sheep and more timid than rabbits.

The team leader had grilled the first batch of skewers, but no one dared to come up to get them. Some children wanted to come up to get them, but their parents held them back.

"Eat with confidence. This is Master Xiao's reward." Catalina was not surprised by the behavior of these people. She waved to the children. The children immediately broke away from their parents' control and happily came up to grab the meat. string. However, they were children who had stayed in the slave camp after all. After receiving the meat skewers, they remembered something and whispered a few words. Then, led by an older child, they walked to Xiao Chen and knelt down.

"Thank you, Lord, for the reward." The leader of the children said loudly. Although he looked sloppy and dirty and even his face could not be seen clearly, his voice was surprisingly gentle and pleasant.

But Xiao Chen felt very uncomfortable when he heard it. When these children were naughty, they were no different from the naughty children he had seen. But when they came to him, they showed a sophisticated attitude of surrender. The power that caused all this, Disgusting.

He put down the dagger, walked up to the children, and said, "This is not a reward, just sharing. Everyone stand up, I don't like anyone kneeling."

After that, he reached out and pulled up the older child in front of him. The other children looked around. Although they didn't understand what was going on, they all stood up and ran away to eat the meat happily.

Seeing that Xiao Chen was still holding the older child, a middle-aged man ran up to Xiao Chen with his back bent and bowed repeatedly to Xiao Chen: "These children don't know your preferences, sir. They will understand next time."

"Who are you?"

The man glanced at the child who was being supported by Xiao Chen, "Sir, my name is Quint Sandro, and the person in front of you is my son Crete Sandro."

"Son?" Catalina asked in surprise. She stepped forward and lifted the child's disheveled brown hair, revealing a rather handsome face, but it was obvious that this was a boy a few years younger than him.

"Yes." Quint said hesitantly: "He has a good voice. But it was this voice that made the Lynch family take notice of him. If Mr. Xiao hadn't rescued us that day, in a few days...he He will become a castrator."

"A castrato?" Katerina obviously didn't understand the word.

"That is, castrate him before he grows into a man, so that his voice can be preserved." Quint said angrily, "Although we, father and son, have become slaves, our ancestors have produced knights. If that day comes, we will have no choice but to die.”

Seeing the man who had been bending and bowing say "I can only die", Xiao Chen understood that he was being pushed to the limit. He also remembered that the Lin Qi family was one of the three families that finally cooperated with him. ? It seems to be cheaper for them. He promised: "Don't worry, this kind of thing will never happen where we are going. You can feel at ease to see little Crete grow up and let you hold your grandson."

Quint thanked him profusely.

Xiao Chen patted Crete on the shoulder and said, "Go play with other children."

Unexpectedly, Crete said: "Sir, my father and I are here to help you barbecue. We have done this before when we were doing business with the caravan."

"Are you still walking outside with the caravan? How old are you?"

"At the age of fourteen, I have been to many places in the east of the kingdom." Crete replied generously.

"Okay! Come and help. Crete will help Catalina skewer the meat, and Quint will help your captain grill the meat." Xiao Chen also waved to the people standing around, "I see you are also impatient, please come with a few more Let’s have a barbecue together. Yes, that’s what it’s like to have a barbecue.”

Nothing can increase people's understanding of each other more than working together. When you see a person working hard, you will have a natural recognition of him. And friendships arise during labor, just as naturally as they come naturally. Because labor is the fundamental driving force for human development, even if we are not aware of it in our minds, our instincts understand this.

Xiao Chen barbecued and ate meat with everyone, and he naturally integrated with the people around him. The slaves gradually forgot that he was a lord and a magician, and laughter began to appear in this corner of the camp.

In the wilderness, there is nothing else to do after eating. Everyone naturally sat around the campfire and chatted. Xiao Chen unexpectedly discovered that Crete was really an eloquent little guy. He was much better than his father in telling the story of his business with his father. . When I asked him, I found out that when he was seven or eight years old, this little guy started to be responsible for bargaining with customers. In comparison, his father was more like a cargo boy.

"...The bandits surrounded the caravan, and they used horses to drive away those who wanted to escape. Those timid mercenaries saw that there were four or five times more bandits than themselves, and they surrendered without firing an arrow." When Ritter told his story, he seemed very cold, like a storyteller telling a story without much emotion. It was as if the past had nothing to do with his life.

"Damn these mercenaries! They are a disgrace to mercenaries. Those bandits are actually like mice. As long as you kill a few of them, they will flee in all directions." Catalina's eyes widened, completely immersed in this tragic scene. story.

"Sister Catalina, it's a pity that there was no one like you among the mercenaries at that time. Otherwise, my mother might not have died. She was hit and killed by a bandit on horseback while trying to push me away. I had nightmares. I always see her flying up after being hit..." At this point, Crete's mood finally fluctuated, "I rushed over and threw myself on her. Her body was still very warm, but she didn't wake up anyway. But come here. I wiped the blood from her mouth with my sleeve, but I couldn't wipe it away. I could only keep shaking her..." Crete said, as if recalling the scene at that time. , stunned there.

"What happened next?" Katerina asked with red eyes.

"Ah, later..." Crete came back to his senses, "A robber took me away. Because I wanted to bite him, he slapped me and knocked me unconscious. When I woke up, I was beaten with my father. In jail."

"We became the coolies of the robbers." Quint sighed and continued for his son, "Some wealthy businessmen were redeemed one after another. But our family's property was all robbed by the robbers. We could only do hard labor for them. Crete and I had to do everything every day, carrying water, chopping wood, and only got a little bit of black bread after working for a whole day... We had to endure this for more than ten days. I thought we would soon be here. I will die from exhaustion there, but I didn’t expect that the lord over there sent an army to destroy the bandits.”

"Then are you saved?" Catalina asked, and then she realized, "I'm so stupid, if you were saved, you wouldn't be in the slave camp."

"Well, everyone knows that those nobles have an unclear relationship with the bandits. The bandits got the news a long time ago and escaped before the army arrived. But we hard workers were thrown into the camp by them because of our physical weakness. . When the knight leading the team saw that not a single robber was caught, he started killing all of us to make up for it!"

Xiao Chen found that when Quint said this, there were some scattered discussions around him, but most of the audience were not too surprised. It seems that killing good people and taking merit is nothing new in this world. Even Katarina didn't say anything, she just clenched her fists tightly. Maybe in her opinion, mercenaries were much more reliable than the lord's army.

Quint touched Crete's head lovingly: "Speaking of which, Crete saved me. When he killed us, he said to the knight: 'Master Knight, I can sing a nice song, please. Please don't kill us. You can sell us for a good price.' The knight put the knife on my neck and asked him to sing. If he didn't sing well, he would cut it off. Go, don't let me see the knife against his neck, but the bastard... forced him to watch me sing. Crete sang a song called "Shepherdess", which was his mother's favorite song. The voice was trembling, but it was as beautiful as the singing of an elf. I had never heard such a beautiful song, and that bastard certainly didn't either. In the end, maybe he was moved, or maybe he had enough people. Anyway, he stayed. Our lives, and here we are..."

Crete, who had always been quiet, heard this, but his eyes turned red. He hugged his father, buried his head on his shoulder, and sobbed softly.

Everyone around them sighed. The story of the Quint family made them feel the same. They would end up in a slave camp. Who doesn't have a few tragic situations? Many people stood up. The men went over to pat Quint on the shoulder or touch Crete's head. Several girls went over to hug Crete with tears in their eyes. Even Catalina hugged him for a long time, and secretly took out a piece of chocolate that someone didn't know who gave her, and stuffed it into Crete's hand.

When Xiao Chen saw this scene, he pondered for a moment and said: "Crete is really a brave and good boy. We will protect him and let him learn to protect himself in the future. When he is free, let him do something with me."

Quint was stunned by this sudden decision. The merchant's knowledge made him know what an incredible opportunity it was to serve a magician. He was stunned for a while before he rushed to Xiao Chen and shouted loudly: "Thank you, sir! Thank you, sir! We...we are grateful."

But Crete was very calm, stood up, and bowed deeply to Xiao Chen.

Xiao Chen helped Quint up and said to the others: "Since we are all sitting here today, everyone should tell their own stories. I have heard a saying that if you share your pain with others, you will only have half of the pain left. Today, we share our pain with each other here, and tomorrow we will be closer brothers and sisters."

Brothers and sisters? These four words were shouted out by Xiao Chen in the afternoon, but the feeling of saying them by the campfire was so different then. At this moment, these four simple words shook Katarina's heart. She stared at Xiao Chen in a daze. His face was calm and firm, and his eyes were full of encouragement and hope, which made her suddenly feel that the campfire today was particularly warm.