Iron Powder and Spellcasters

   Chapter 139 Guests

   When the three of them said goodbye to Lieutenant Mason, the senior was full of reluctance. He literally stuffed several large packets of beef jerky and pork jerky into the saddlebags of several people, saying that they were the specialties of the ranch. He also insisted on sending a ride, and finally sent it to a dozen kilometers away.

   Before parting, Mason was almost begging: "If you have time, you must come to see me again, but definitely." After that, he stood on the dirt **** beside the road and watched him until his sight was blocked by the terrain.

   Winters, Bud and Andre embarked on the road back to their station with heavy hearts.

When    retired from the horse, Andrei said in a depressed mood: "If the rams don't let us go, I'm afraid we will be like that in a few years."

   "Lieutenant Mason's situation is worse than ours." Bud was calm and stern as usual: "It looks like he is the warden, but what is the difference between him and the prisoner?"

"Boil the frog with warm water." Winters threw the quartz in his hand into the puddle in the distance, and said with emotion: "I always feel that there is still a way out, so I dare not give it a try, but I will end up with the worst result. When we were in Fortress, we fled directly back to Veneta, so maybe we wouldn’t have so many troubles.”

  The white quartz stone slid through an arc in the air, and fell into the water with a plop and disappeared, leaving only a few small ripples.

  …

After    arrived in Blackwater Town, Winters and Bard changed back to their original mounts, and immediately went to their respective stations.

  Heishui Town and Langtun Town take the Heishui River as the natural boundary. There is no bridge on the river, but there is a shoal for walking.

   When Winters arrived at the ditching field, he found that Anglo had already been guarding the crossing point.

   "Second Lieutenant!" Anglo told Winters impatiently: "You have guests! Two guests!"

   Waiting for Winters at the police station were two guests he had never thought of.

   "Gold?" Winters couldn't believe his eyes. "You? Why are you here?"

The black and thin man in front of    laughed loudly, revealing his golden teeth. It was the former pirate, former sailor and former sailor "Good Luck" Gold.

   "I'm not the only one here! Your Excellency!" Gold laughed: "There is also an acquaintance of yours."

  A half-sized boy ran out from behind Gold, rushed forward and hugged Winters.

   The sudden situation caught Winters off guard. He was stunned for a long time before he recognized who the boy was hugging him: "Charle? Ah? Is that you?"

  If he read it right, the person holding him was Ben Venuto's third brother, Ciel. It's just that it's been a year since we last met, and this kid has grown a lot taller. The face faded from childishness, and it looked a bit like an adult.

   "It's me, Brother Winters!" Ciel said excitedly, "We've found you!"

   "You...why are you here? Did my letter arrive so quickly?"

   Winters never thought that he would meet his old friend in Wolftown, let alone Ciel and Gold—two people who had almost nothing to do with each other.

   "That's a long story." Gold pointed at Charles and smiled: "This kid is here to deliver you a letter."

   "Who asked you two to send me a letter?" Winters asked.

"No no no! There is no me, only him." The former pirate captain shook his head again and again and said triumphantly: "I didn't come to deliver the letter to you. Your mother and your fiancee are worried that this kid will not be able to deliver the letter, hire a I'll protect him all the way."

   There were too many questions in the other party's words, and Winters didn't know how to speak for a while.

   "What nonsense are you talking about?" Ciel glared at Gold and explained to Winters, "It was Madame Serbia and Miss Navarre who asked me to bring the letter."

   "The letter? Where's the letter?" Winters' breathing suddenly accelerated.

  Charle cut the hem of his clothes with a knife, and pulled out a paper roll wrapped in felt cloth.

   "What's the use of doing these clever tricks? You might as well keep it in the package." Seeing Charles taking the letter out of his clothes, Gold was very disdainful.

  Ciel immediately retorted: "Who knows if there are any bad guys?" When he said this, his eyes were fixed on Gold.

   But Winters' mind was completely off the two of them. He couldn't wait to open the letter and read it as quickly as possible.

  There are three letters in total, one for Kesha, one for Elizabeth, and one for Anna.

   Nothing special was written in the letter, only a few words. Possibly for fear of being intercepted, Winters wasn't even mentioned by name.

   But to Winters, these letters were as sweet as the first breath of air a drowning man breathes again.

   After listening to Ciel's remarks and combining the contents of the letter, Winters roughly figured out what was going on.

  Time goes back one year before Ben Venuto was kidnapped by the Monta gang on the dock, and Ciel came to Winters for help. In order to prevent Ciel from being retaliated against, Winters asked Bud to send him to the City of Hundred Flowers.

   In the following days, Ciel hid in a relative's house in Baihuacheng, listening to the news from Hailan with trepidation, and did not return to Hailan until the storm gradually subsided.

   At this time, it has been five months since the Monta gang was bloodbathed. Ciel wanted to thank Winters, but learned that Winters had already taken the supply fleet to Taneria for the second time.

  Because Winters had greeted him in advance, and Kesha also remembered that Ciel was the younger brother of Winters' classmate, Ciel had been apprenticing in Giovanni [Antonio's younger brother]'s workshop for the next six months.

   As for the small incident a few months ago, Ciel never mentioned it to anyone else. No one in the workshop knew that he was Ben Venuto's younger brother, much less that he had asked Winters for help.

After   , there was an incident in which the Interprovincial Army sent Veneta graduates to Parato.

  When Winters was thinking "how to get home" all the time, his family in Hailan was also trying to save him.

  Due to communication difficulties caused by geographical separation and deliberate deception by the federation, the Veneta side was initially unable to obtain any valuable information.

   At first, the government only knew that the warrant officers who went to Guitucheng to attend the entitlement ceremony were missing, but they didn’t know where they were, and thought that the Union Provincial Army had put the warrant officers in prison.

  The messengers sent back by the consul in Guitucheng arrived at Hailan one by one, and Veneta learned that the warrant officers had been sent to Parato.

   At this time, it was too late to send someone to pursue him, and the Directorate Government could only negotiate with Prato.

   But the people from the plateau who suffered from the suffocation took a tougher attitude, and directly scattered the Veneta ensigns. De Bella's envoy has not yet arrived at the castles, and the second lieutenants of Veneta have been sent to more remote stations.

   Until this time, the news of the disappearance of the officers and students spread from the upper ranks of Veneta to ordinary citizens. For a time, the Republic of Veneta was in a state of indignation and public outcry.

  The family members of the military students were so outraged that they launched a public petition on the Senators Square. After learning of the perfidious and provocative behavior of the province, ordinary Veneta citizens who had no relatives and no reason with the military students were equally indignant.

   For the Veneta Directorate, the sum of the cities equals the state. The peasants of Veneta have almost no political rights, a historical legacy of the era of autonomous cities and sovereign wars.

   As the heart of the Republic, angering the sea blue is equal to angering the Veneta Republic.

  The anger of Hailan citizens was like boiling lava, and the ruling committee was under enormous public pressure for a while.

   Consul De Bella had to personally come forward to reassure the people, publicly promising to "rescue our children."

  Despite Debella's vows and impassioned enthusiasm, not a single Lieutenant Veneta will go home until the Land of Galloping Horses is satisfied.

  How to satisfy the Platonic people?

   Give them back the Palatine officers who were sent overseas.

   So the Veneta Governor can actually do nothing.

  Winters was sent to Palatu, Antonio was still stationed in Taniria, and only Kesha and Elizabeth were left at home in Seablue City, as well as Sophia who was temporarily staying.

  Kosa wrote to Antonio, asking her husband to send someone to bring Winters back to Veneta. But Antonio rarely opposed his wife's idea.

  Antonio's reply contained only one word - "wait".

   But the impatient Kesha couldn't wait, so Ciel took the letter thousands of miles from Hailan to Wolf Town.

   "Did you get my letter at home?" Winters felt something was wrong.

   "Letter? What letter?" Charles was also very surprised.

   "It's the letter I delivered through the church."

   "Not received, at least I don't know."

   Winters thought for a while and asked, "When are you leaving from Hailan?"

   "Last month, six weeks ago."

   Winters' letter was sent out only two weeks ago, and six weeks ago he was busy organizing the militia.

   "Then how do you know I'm in Wolf Town?" Winters became more and more puzzled.

   "I have to thank Miss Navarre for this." Ciel said with a wicked smile: "Miss Navarre really likes you, Brother Winters."

  Charle explained the relationship again, and then Winters knew that it was Anna who used the relationship of the Navarre firm to find out that Winters was stationed in a town under the city of Gervoudan.

  Anna told Kesha the news, and Ciel and Gold immediately set off from Hailan, before the letter Winters delivered through the church was even written.

"When we set off, we only knew that you were near the city of Gervodin, but we didn't know which town you were in. So we had to look for one town after another." Charles said happily: "Blessed by the Lord, I only found five towns. I found it!"

   "Wait, you mean Mrs. Serbiati and Miss Navarre let you come together?" Winters bit the word "jointly" very clearly.

   "Yes, in fact, it's enough for me to come alone." Charles cast a dissatisfied glance at Gold: "I don't know why this pirate has to follow. This pirate took the opportunity to extort a lot of money from Madam!"

"By you? If you can't get out of Veneta, you will lose your life." Gold was very disdainful of Ciel's words, and he looked at Winters: "My lord, it was your mother and your fiancee who hired me. Although I'm asking for a bit high, but it doesn't look like your family is short of money anyway."

  Ciel snorted softly. He knew about Winters' family connection, but he didn't bother to correct Gold.

   "Doesn't that mean Auntie already knows Anna?" Winters realized this all of a sudden, and he suddenly felt dizzy.

   While Winters was still in a trance, Gold gave Ciel a light kick.

   "Okay!" the former pirate chief said gruffly: "I've already seen Lord Montagne, and there's no one else here. Don't hide it, take out your things."

  Charle froze in place as if struck by lightning when he heard Gold's words.

  Gold sneered, grabbed the wooden staff from Ciel's hand, and folded it **** his knees.

  The wooden stick broke in the middle, and a dozen pieces of thick finger-like, dark yellow metallic luster fell out of the wooden stick and landed on the ground with a tinkling sound.

   Winters picked up one of the pieces, and he could see what it was without identifying it.

   He raised his eyebrows: "Gold bars?"

"It's a gold bar. Twelve are here, not a lot. Madam and Miss Navarre asked me to bring them to you." Charles nodded, and he took out a small wooden tube from the leg of his trousers: "Navarre Miss Lei also asked me to bring this to you. She said this is a receipt, which can be exchanged for gold coins with Albert, the goldsmith who went to the castles."

"This kid is so stupid, I thought I didn't know." Gold grinned: "I have to carry this broken stick wherever I go, and I have to hold it in my arms even when I sleep at night. No one is allowed to touch it. When other people are fools? If I have bad intentions, he can still live to this day? Even if I do not have bad intentions, does he think that he can have a safe journey on his own?"

  Ciel's cheeks were flushed red, and he wanted to fight back, but he couldn't find any words for a while.

   "Send me money for what?" Winters asked.

   "The madam said that you must have a lot of money, and that you will definitely need a lot of money when you go out." Charles repeated honestly: "The madam also said that you can understand what she means when you see the money."

  It is true that Winters is short of money, but he doesn't quite understand what Auntie means.

   "Could it be that you want me to spend money to bribe the people of Paratus?" He thought: "Or it means that you can use this money to escape? But my military status is still in Paratus, so what should I do if I lose my military status?"

   Twelve gold bars, each with the thickness of a thumb and a long middle finger, were heavy in the hand.

   Winters took out six of them and handed them to Gold: "Captain Gold, thank you for protecting Shire all the way here. The gratitude is beyond words, please accept my gratitude."

  Ciel's eyes widened in surprise.

   "Although I really want gold bars, I can't take your money." Gold waved his hands again and again: "I have already received a portion of money from your family, and there is no reason to eat both ends. Then am I not a traitor?"

   Winters smiled: "Can I hire you to **** Ciel back?"

   Unexpectedly, Ciel shouted: "Don't be deceived by this pirate! I won't go back! Brother Winters, if you don't go back, neither will I! I'll stay here to help you."

   "What nonsense are you talking about, kid?" Winters couldn't help but slapped Ciel on the head: "You don't go back to Hailan, stay in this place?"

"Brother Winters, do you remember what I said?" Ciel looked straight into Winters' eyes: "I swore that as long as I can save my brother, my life will be yours in the future. How can you be alone here? I'll stay here to help you. I can stay here as a sidekick, doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, I can do anything."

   Winters was about to refute, but Gold agreed.

The pirate chief said seriously: "Sir, this is not the same as Veneta. In Veneta, you have a relationship. But here you don't even have a trusted person. When something really happens, it will be too late. I'll take this kid away, and he'll definitely come back halfway. Just keep him."

   Winters didn't know what to say for a while.

Girard's voice came from outside the house, and old Dussack opened the door and said with a big laugh, "Where can such a handsome horse come from behind the house? It looks like a young horse! Winters, do you know who it is? eh? Eh... you have guests?"

   "What? Horses?" Winters looked at Charles and Gold in surprise.

   "Well, that's right." Ciel nodded: "I also brought you strong luck."

   Thanks to the book friends who have voted for recommendation before, thank you all;

   Thanks to book friends Kun Kun, Alexios, book friend 20180307195832293, yellow rabbit from a flower gardener, behere370, calm gray, Cang Langxing, black computer accessories, Jiang Xue Diao Weng, book friend 20191007064305842 for their recommendation tickets, thank you all.

   (end of this chapter)