"You bastard! If you can, kill this old guy like me! Do it!" The man's sudden roar made Anya and Cesare a little at a loss, and when they saw each other's face clearly, they were surprised. It was discovered that the peeper turned out to be an elderly woman. No wonder she could get rid of her so easily.
Although the old woman is only about fifty years old in terms of physical appearance, her hair is sparse and gray, her face is covered with rough wrinkles like a piece of torn linen, and her eyes are sunken into the sockets almost The sunlight cannot reach her pupils, making it difficult to see the whites of her eyes.
She was wearing a large hooded apron, which was stained with filthy mud and looked very pitiful. Anya quickly put her sword back, and stretched out her hand to help the old woman up a little embarrassed: "Hey... I'm sorry I scared you, but why did you hide and spy on us?"
"Bah! Stop pretending to be nice here!" The old woman threw away Anya's hand. The back of Anya's hand was so painful from the slap, and her face was filled with grievances. "I know who you are! You shameless crows want to take away my son unless I die!" The old woman stood up tremblingly while holding her hands on the ground, pointing at Anya and Chesa with her fingers. thunder.
"Crow?" Cesare thought thoughtfully, remembering that the family's emblem was a crow, and put his hands behind his back as quickly as possible, took off the family ring before the other party noticed, and stuffed it into his pocket. . "Old lady, what you are talking about...doesn't mean the Hunyadi family?"
"You're still pretending, right? You gangsters! You drove everyone out of the town, and now you want to arrest my son. I won't leave. This is my and my son's home! Where can I be? Don’t go either!”
Seeing that the old woman was getting more and more agitated, Anya hurriedly explained. "You seem to have misunderstood. I am not a member of the Hunyadi family, and this..." Before Anya could finish her words, Cesare gently touched Anya with his elbow, and Anya understood instantly.
"This, he, he's not, um." As she said that, to prove what she said, Anya also took out her family ring, which is the symbol of the nobility of the Lauryn family. The badge on the ring is a diamond embedded in it. Small sapphire with deer head pattern. "This is my family ring, and this is my personal servant."
"Really?" Cesare was suddenly surprised.
"Isn't it?" Anya felt that her lie was perfect and looked at Cesare with even more surprise.
"...Yes, she bought me with a gold coin." Cesare said helplessly, following the lie.
"In fact, it's not worth the money at all." Anya said with a smile.
Logically speaking, a woman from such a poor family would become respectful when seeing a symbol of nobility, for fear of offending the great person, but the mother-in-law in front of her came forward with hesitation and took a closer look at the symbol. The family ring of the Lauryn family raised his heavy eyelids and looked at the two people in front of him again and again. Maybe people are not even afraid of starving to death, so how can they be afraid of some foreign aristocratic brats.
The other party was a little shaken, so Anya struck while the iron was hot and continued to make up nonsense. "My attendant clumsily broke the carriage, and now the horses have escaped. We came from Kalliu and wanted to go west through the forest and got lost here. Can you help us?" Anya stepped forward. Go and pray for help like a sincere little girl.
The old woman looked at Anya, who was pretending to be pitiful, and then at Cesare, who really didn't look like a wealthy family. She didn't know whether she felt soft-hearted or thought of something. "You girl, are you sure you didn't lie to me? Why do you have to go through this forest when you are so good?"
"It's just to rush for time. Besides, if we are bad people, why would we beg you like this? Are you right? Mother-in-law."
The old woman hesitated for a moment, and finally nodded doubtfully. "Well, I think you two kids are pitiful...sigh...then come with me."
The situation went more smoothly than expected. The old man turned around and left, motioning for the two of them to follow. Anya was delighted with her successful deception, but Cesare always felt that something was not right. Following the old woman at Napojiao, I looked at the abandoned houses around me. I seemed to see very familiar scratch marks on some collapsed walls...
Cesare deliberately pulled Anya to slow down and put some distance between herself and the old lady in front of her. Then he leaned close to Anya's ear and asked in a low voice. "Aren't you worried?"
"What are you worried about?" Anya tilted her head and looked at Cesare.
"You have exposed your identity. She knows that you have noble connections. What if this is a trap for bandits? What if she is leading us to a dangerous place?" Cesare said directly. worries.
Anya listened to Cesare's words and looked at the back of the old woman leading the way.
"You can't always doubt everyone for no reason. Before the bad guy takes off his disguise, you should try to respect him like a good person. If she is really a good person, then this is a good thing, but if she is not a good person... "
As Anya said, she naughtily flicked the side of Cesare's face with her fingertips. "If there is a gathering place for bandits nearby, we might be able to find the carriage."
"Robbing the robber's carriage? Is this your plan?"
"Of course, some genius ideas are the wealth of madmen alone."
Anya chuckled, and stopped talking before the old woman noticed her voice. Although Cesare still felt a little worried, he couldn't think of a better way at the moment, so he could only follow.
Not long after, the old woman took the two of them to the door of a house on the edge of town. The house was built on the original foundation with a second floor and additional rooms, and a cellar that extended downwards was dug outside the door. Due to the material The degree of aging is different, and there are obvious traces of expansion everywhere. However, this house, which is already quite large in the whole town, cannot escape the natural wear and tear over time. The outer wall has been almost destroyed and cannot be seen. The initial appearance.
The straw on the roof was withered and broken, and could only barely cover the eaves. Several wooden structures of the house have already been infested by insects, and there is a risk of collapse at any time.
Cesare observed the surroundings carefully and did not find any ambush or suspicious sights for the time being, but this was not enough reason to relax his vigilance. The old woman took out a rusty iron key from her apron, turned it back and forth several times from the door lock, and then pushed the wooden door open. When a few people walked into the house, it was clear that there were traces of human life in the house. Although there was a thick layer of dust accumulated in the corners, the general surface showed signs of frequent cleaning.
Pushing through the door is the dining room. A medium-sized dining table is placed in the middle. There are flimsy wooden chairs on both sides of the table. There are some uncleaned tableware on the table. Looking inside, you can see a large pot in the stove on the wall, and the water in it is still clean.
This place doesn't look like a place where robbers live. Is it true that a good person has been wronged for no reason? While Cesare was thinking, the old woman wiped the mud on her hands with the linen hanging on the wall and spoke to the two people.
"You guys sit down first. My son drove to the city and should be back early tomorrow morning. Let him see you off then."
"Tomorrow? Do we have to wait here all day and night?" Cesare was a little anxious. He had already wasted a lot of time on the journey yesterday, and now he had to wait all day in vain.
"If you don't want to wait, you can leave by yourself." The old woman snorted coldly. "But I kindly remind you that the next inhabited town in this place has to be walked for five or six days, and it is not in the west." Hearing the old woman say this, Cesare could not continue to say anything.
Seeing Cesare's troubled expression, Anya just shrugged her shoulders, then pulled out a dining chair and sat on it. "Mother-in-law, is there anything delicious?" Anya asked with a smile as her legs swayed.
Hearing Anya talk about this, the mother-in-law also crossed her arms and lowered her head and thought for a while, then walked straight to the door. The sound sounded like the cellar was being opened. After a while, the mother-in-law held two pieces of raw venison that had been bled. After walking back, he threw it into the pot without any treatment, lit the firewood below, and boiled it with boiling water.
Of course, in a place like this, you can't expect to eat any delicacies from the mountains and seas. In other words, eating meat is already the highest level of hospitality.
The flames of the fireplace warmed people's hearts. The figure of an old woman busy in her home, wiping it with a linen cloth quickly made people forget many malicious suspicions. Anya thought of the old woman again. I had just said something when we met, so I asked immediately.
"Why do you hate the Hunyadi family so much, mother-in-law?"
"Why? Why do you think it is?" As soon as this was mentioned, the old woman suddenly tried to stand up straight, and her whole body was filled with anger.
"Because they are a bunch of bastards, bastards, damn beasts! They drove everyone away from the town! They even tried to take away my son!" Seeing her beating her chest angrily, Cesare couldn't help but think about himself. Hunyadi's identity is so unpopular even in his own territory. Could it be that the people in the family have really done something harmful and he just doesn't know about it...
It's just that she cursed for a long time and just reiterated that the Hunyadi family were evil bastards. When Anya continued to ask why she wanted to drive away the townspeople here and take away her son, the woman twisted her lips and thought After a long time, she couldn't explain why. In her description, it seemed that the Hunyadi family were a bunch of lunatics who did things without logic. They just wanted to clear out the townspeople from their territory simply because they didn't like them. After cursing and cursing, the matter was settled.
