Xiao Chen was beside the campfire, using a stone as a chopping board and cutting wild boar meat with a dagger. He was very strong now, and although he had never done such work before, he was able to cut the meat into small pieces easily. Katarina threaded the cut pieces of meat onto branches, and several children ran around, picking up handfuls of branches for her.
The task of grilling meat was given to the captain of the team, a soldier under Roger. The meat skewers sizzled on the campfire, and fat dripped into the fire from time to time, emitting a rich meaty aroma.
The people standing around were all members of this team. They had gotten used to cooking together and queuing up for meals these days. However, unlike the other teams who were eagerly waiting for meals, the people here were a little nervous in addition to anticipation. Therefore, the crowd was strangely quiet.
A magician who grilled meat for everyone to eat! A lord who lived with slaves. This was not only unheard of, but it was impossible to even dream about it.
Xiao Chen also felt this subtle atmosphere. He looked at the people around him. Wherever his eyes reached, people lowered their heads, as if his gaze was weighing down on them. His night vision allowed him to see the subtle expressions of everyone at this moment, some puzzled, some nervous, and some confused.
These people, although their bodies are standing, their hearts are already accustomed to kneeling. Although they are like lions when they are rioting, they are more docile than sheep and more timid than rabbits when they are calm.
The team leader grilled the first batch of skewers, but no one dared to come up and take them. Some children wanted to come up and take them, but were stopped by their parents.
"Eat it with confidence. This is a reward from Lord Xiao." Catalina was not surprised by these people's behavior. She waved to the children, and they immediately broke free from their parents' control and happily came up to grab the skewers. However, after all, they were children who had been in a slave camp. After getting the skewers, they remembered something and whispered a few words. Then, led by an older child, they walked to Xiao Chen's side and knelt down.
"Thank you for the reward, lord." The leading child said loudly. Although he looked sloppy and dirty, his face could not be seen clearly, but his voice was surprisingly gentle and pleasant.
However, Xiao Chen felt very uncomfortable listening to this. When these children were naughty, they were no different from the naughty kids he had seen before. But when they were in front of him, they acted like a sophisticated and submissive person. The power that caused all this was disgusting.
He put down the dagger, walked up to the children and said, "This is not a reward, it's just a sharing. Stand up, I don't like anyone kneeling."
After saying that, he reached out and pulled up the oldest child who was leading the group. The other children looked around, and although they didn't understand what was going on, they all stood up, then ran away laughing to eat the meat.
Seeing Xiao Chen still holding the older child, a middle-aged man hunched over and ran up to him, bowing repeatedly to him and saying, "These children don't know what you like, sir. They will understand next time."
"Who are you?"
The man glanced at the child supported by Xiao Chen and said, "Sir, my name is Quint Sandro, and the one in front of you is my son, Crete Sandro."
"Son?" Katerina asked in surprise. She walked forward and lifted the child's messy brown hair, revealing a handsome little 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 also this voice that made the Lynch family take a fancy to him. If it weren't for Lord Xiao who rescued us that day, in a few days... he would have become a castrator."
"Eunuch?" Catalina obviously didn't understand the word.
"That's right. Castrate him before he grows up to be a man. This way, his voice can be preserved." Quint said angrily. "Although both my father and I have become slaves, our ancestors were knights. If that day really comes, we can only die."
Seeing the man who had been bowing all the time say "you can only die", Xiao Chen realized that he was pushed to the limit. He also remembered that the Lin Qi family was one of the three families that cooperated with him in the end. It seemed that they got it cheap. He assured: "Don't worry, this kind of thing will never happen where we are going. You can rest assured to see little Krit grow up and let you hold your grandson."
Quint thanked him repeatedly.
Xiao Chen patted Crete on the shoulder and said, "Go play with the other kids."
Unexpectedly, Crete said, "Sir, my father and I will help you grill the meat. We have done this before when we were doing business with the caravan."
"You're still walking outside with the caravan? How old are you?"
"Fourteen, I have been to many places in the east of the kingdom." Crete answered generously.
"Okay! Come and help. Krit will help Katarina skewer the meat, and Quint will help your captain grill the meat." Xiao Chen waved to the people standing around, "I see you are getting impatient. Come with a few more people, and grill the meat together. Yes, that's it. This is how you should eat barbecue."
Nothing can increase people's understanding of each other better than working together. When you see someone working hard, you will naturally recognize him. And friendships are born in labor, just like a natural result. Because labor is the fundamental driving force of human development. Even if we don't realize it in our minds, our instincts know it very well.
Xiao Chen grilled and ate meat with everyone, and naturally integrated into 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.
After dinner, there was nothing else to do in the wilderness. Everyone sat around the campfire and chatted. Xiao Chen unexpectedly discovered that Krit was a good speaker. He was much better than his father at telling the story of his business with his father. When he asked him, he found out that when he was seven or eight years old, this little guy started to bargain with customers. In comparison, his father seemed like a cargo deliveryman.
"… The bandits surrounded the caravan, and they beat their horses to drive away those who wanted to escape. The timid mercenaries surrendered without firing a single arrow when they saw that the bandits outnumbered them by four or five times." When Crete told his story, he seemed very indifferent, like a storyteller telling a story without much emotion. It was as if the past had nothing to do with his life.
"These mercenaries deserve to die! They are a disgrace to mercenaries. Those bandits are actually like rats. As long as you kill a few of them, they will run away in all directions." Catalina's eyes widened, and she was completely immersed in this tragic 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 trying to push me away, and was hit to death by the robbers who were riding horses. When I have nightmares, I always see her being knocked flying..." At this point, Crete's emotions finally fluctuated a little, "I rushed over and threw myself on her. Her body was still warm, but she couldn't wake up. I wiped the blood from her mouth with my sleeves, but it couldn't be wiped away. I could only shake her, keep shaking her..." Crete said, as if he recalled the scene at that time again, and stood there in a daze.
"What happened next?" Catalina asked with red eyes.
"Ah, then..." Krete came 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 locked up in jail with my father."
"We became coolies for the bandits." Quint sighed and continued on behalf of his son, "Some wealthy merchants were redeemed one after another. But our family's property was taken away by the bandits, and we could only do hard labor for them. Crete and I fetched water and chopped wood every day. We had to work a whole day to get a little bit of black bread... We endured this for more than ten days. I thought we would die of exhaustion there soon, but the lord over there sent troops to wipe out the bandits."
"Then were you saved?" Catalina asked, and then she came to her senses, "I was so stupid. If you were saved, you wouldn't be in the slave camp."
"Alas, everyone knows that the nobles have an inseparable relationship with the bandits. The bandits got the news long ago and fled before the army arrived. But we, the hard laborers, were left in the camp because of our weak bodies. The knight in charge saw that he hadn't caught a single bandit, so he started killing us to make up for the loss!"
Xiao Chen noticed that when Quint said this, there were some scattered discussions around him, but most of the audience were not too surprised. It seemed that killing innocent people to take credit was not a new thing in this world. Even Katarina didn't say anything, but 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, it was Crete who saved me. When he came to kill us, he said to the knight: 'Sir Knight, I can sing very beautiful songs, 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, the knife would chop him down. Crete wanted to turn his back so that I wouldn't see the knife against his neck, but that bastard... forced him to watch me sing. Crete sang "The Shepherdess", which was his mother's favorite song. His voice trembled, but it was as beautiful as an elf singing. I have never heard such a beautiful song, and that bastard certainly hasn't heard it either. In the end, maybe he was moved, or maybe he had enough heads. Anyway, he spared our lives, and then we came here..."
Crete, who had been quiet all the time, had red eyes when he heard this. He hugged his father, buried his head in his shoulder, and sobbed softly.
Everyone around sighed. They could relate to the story of Quint's family. Who wouldn't have experienced some tragic situations in the end? Many people stood up. The men patted Quint on the shoulder or touched Crete's head. Some girls even hugged Crete with tears in their eyes. Even Catalina hugged him for a long time and secretly took out a piece of chocolate that someone had given her and put it in Crete's hand.
Xiao Chen saw this scene, and after a moment's silence, he said, "Krete is such 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. His experience as a merchant made him realize what a great opportunity it was to serve a magician. He was stunned for a long time before he rushed to Xiao Chen and shouted, "Thank you, sir! Thank you, sir! We... we are grateful."
Crete, on the other hand, was very calm. He 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, let's all tell our stories. I once heard a saying that if you share your pain with others, you will only have half the pain left. Today, we are here to share our pain with each other, and tomorrow we will be closer brothers and sisters."
Brothers and sisters? Xiao Chen had called out these four words in the afternoon with a loud speaker, but the feeling of saying them by the campfire was so different. 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. She suddenly felt that the campfire today was particularly warm.