Chapter 997: Chapter 53 Golden Friendship
Although Carlo Aide was advancing in years, his decisive and brisk nature had not changed in the slightest.
Having agreed on a visit to White Eagle and left two reliable servants to run errands and deliver ssages, he did not linger any longer and took the initiative to bid farewell to Winters and Anna.
The silver-trimd black carriage rolled out of the village, and Caman, who had been playing the puppet all this ti, coldly asked Winters: “Lies, deceit, and conspiracies… You dragged here to witness all this, do you intend to confess and repent? Or is it simply to waste my ti?”
“Neither,” Winters replied imdiately, he solemnly declared: “I asked you to join in receiving guests because there is a friendship between us, as precious as gold.”
Anna ashadly looked towards the distant mountains, pretending she had heard nothing.
“Your Excellency Montaigne,” Caman put on a ceremonial smile: “You really aren’t embarrassed in the least when you speak! That’s so typical of you.”
Winters nodded in thanks, completely immune to such attacks.
Caman humphed lightly, lifting his cup to sip so ice water.
Next was Winters’ turn; he also picked up his cup and asked unhurriedly: “I’m curious too, if you dislike eavesdropping, why not simply make an excuse to slip away?”
“It’s because of…” Caman stopped mid-sentence, glancing at Anna’s back, he swallowed back what he was about to say.
Victorious, Winters left his chair, stretching heartily, his spine popping with a series of muffled crackles due to long sitting.
Winters exhaled comfortably. He looked towards Anna and asked with a smile, “Was the sunrise beautiful?”
“It was stunning,” Anna answered softly.
“Co on, Mr. Caman, let’s go enjoy it too.” As he passed by Caman, Winters patted his shoulder: “Even though we missed the sunrise, taking a walk isn’t bad either.”
Caman remained motionless, continuing to savor his ice water.
The devout Priest of Wolf Town had wasted an entire morning, even missing the morning prayers, fuming silently, not in the mood to pay any attention to Winters.
After walking so distance, Winters whistled, and two wolfhounds imdiately dashed towards him like arrows.
Seeing the two wolfhounds frolicking and spinning around Winters, Caman was slightly startled. He then stood up, nodded to Anna, and hurriedly followed them.
…
The mountain looks close when you gaze at it from afar, but Winters had walked for a whole hour and still found himself halfway up.
The human village in the center of the valley had beco so small it could fit into a portrait fra, while the mountain peak had already disappeared due to the slope’s curvature.
The air was thin at high altitudes, and Winters felt tired, so he stopped climbing further. He found a flat patch of grass nearby and sat down slowly.
The mont his bottom touched the ground, Winters couldn’t help but sigh in contentnt. He slapped his sore calves and called to Caman, “Let’s not go any further, let’s rest here for a while.”
“Is that it? You’re done?” Caman’s cheeks were slightly flushed, but his breathing was still steady.
“Stop with the pretenses, I don’t believe you’re not tired,” Winters said, patting the empty space beside him: “Sit down and take a break, we’ll head back once we’ve rested enough.”
Caman was non-committal. He walked directly next to Winters, but instead of sitting, he stood with knees propped, slowly adjusting his breathing rhythm.
The two wolfhounds that had followed Winters up the mountain were also exhausted. The two large dogs lay beside Winters, tongues lolling wetly, panting heavily and still.
The cool air of the late winter was invigorating; Winters leaned comfortably against the wolfhounds, alternately rubbing the heads and chins of the two dogs.
Suddenly, Winters sighed deeply.
After his sigh, he joked to Caman: “If not for seeing it with my own eyes, I couldn’t imagine there are people in this world who live surrounded by mountains from birth to death—opening their eyes every day to only see mountains.”
Caman asked indifferently, “What, have you never seen mountains before?”
“It’s not about having ‘seen mountains’. [Seeing with your own eyes] and [hearing about] are different,” Winters explained with a smile, choosing his words: “I an, from the ti I was born until I beca an adult, wherever I lived, as long as you walked for an hour, you could always see the ocean.”
“And after you beca an adult?”
“After I beca an adult?” Winters self-deprecated: “After that, I was exiled to Paratu, wasn’t I?”
Touched by Winters’ sincerity, Caman also couldn’t help but sigh.
He sat down next to Winters and narrated softly:
“Montan people would probably find it difficult to imagine a world where ‘an hour’s walk leads to the ocean’. I’ve seen so followers who have never left their parishes all their lives. For them, the world consists of their hos, farmlands, markets, and churches. Life is so ager that they need the existence of heaven, and heaven must exist.”
After Caman’s remarks, both fell into silence.
Sitting quietly for a while, Winters asked, “By the way, have you ever seen the ocean?”
Caman was about to answer when he suddenly stopped.
A mont later, he hesitantly said, “I’ve never seen it…”
But he quickly added, “But I know what the ocean looks like.”
Winters chuckled, speechless: “You’ve never seen the ocean, yet you know what it ‘looks like’. How do you know? Did an angel reveal it to you in a dream?”
“Through books, paintings, and descriptions from others,” Caman defended himself: “I don’t need to see the ocean with my own eyes to know what it looks like.”
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