Iron Powder and Spellcasters

   Chapter 43 Anna

   "What? Is that a beauty god?" Winters was a little surprised, because he actually only saw naked women.

  Anna smiled sweetly and nodded.

  Although the girl in front of her was smiling, Winters clearly saw two faint lines between her brows. He also noticed that Anna's left hand holding the candlestick was clenched too tightly and too hard, and the joints had turned white, and the girl's right hand was twitching slightly unconsciously.

   Am I saying something wrong? Winters was a little puzzled. He also couldn't understand why Madame Navarre's daughter was obviously very angry, but she still pretended to be sunny.

The    army worships strong, bold and unrestrained men like Layton and Field. Even if Winters didn't like Major General Layton very much, he was willing to follow Layton to the battlefield.

  While Winters wanted to remedy that, he wasn’t one of those art connoisseurs who could speak their minds. The painting conveyed to him only the simplest intuitive feeling, so he honestly said what he thought: "If you didn't tell me it was Aphrodite, I would have thought it was Athena."

   "How could Athena show herself naked?" Anna was slightly taken aback.

"Is that so? I'm superficial." Winters blushed again, thinking hard about words that could properly describe his intuitive feelings: "But the goddess in the painting makes me feel more like a… Female warrior, female warrior. That's right, that's it!"

His thoughts suddenly became clear, and he explained with gestures: "Although the characters in the painting are female (with secondary sexual characteristics on the chest), they are very fit, heroic, well-proportioned, and even I don't have such beautiful abdominal muscles... I feel her hands It would be more harmonious if there was an extra shield and a spear, and it was mistaken for the goddess of war."

Anna covered her face and smiled sweetly: "Mr. Montagne, I have never heard of your comments before, but they are new." Her brows were no longer wrinkled, her fists were no longer clenched, and her eyes were like crescent moons. Smile from the heart.

   Winters said embarrassedly: "I don't know how to draw, these are my wild thoughts."

   "An interesting idea, M. Montagne."

   "Maybe there is a chance to ask the painter what he thinks."

   "In my opinion, the artist doesn't know what he wants to convey."

   "Which painter created this masterpiece?"

   "It's not a painter. My mother bought it from an unknown little painter."

   "But I think he draws beautifully."

"It's nothing more than a parody of classical art. Many goddess statues in the classical era were so fit and handsome, and many of them were even female statues changed from male statues." Anna took off the latch and pushed open the kitchen leading to the living room door: "Come on, Mr. Montagne, you can tell the chef what you want to eat, please don't be polite."

   But there was no one in Nuo's big kitchen, only a faint glow from the oven. The door to the backyard was open, and it seemed that the servants who worked there had slipped out lazily.

  Ana turned her back to Winters and stood motionless at the kitchen door.

   "It's too late, it seems that the kitchen has come to rest time. Then don't bother, let's go back." Winters was a little worried that the little hostess would not come down.

   "How about that?" Anna walked into the kitchen and lit the oil lamps everywhere with candlesticks: "If you don't mind, I'll prepare it for you."

   Winters was a little flattered: "I'm not hungry anymore, why bother you to make things yourself?"

   "There are some ready-made ingredients, which are very convenient, as long as you don't dislike it." Anna's voice was soft, but Winters could not refuse: "Please turn up the fire in the oven."

   Winters subconsciously obeyed the order and began to add wood to the oven.

  Anna found two pieces of wheat bread leftover by the servants, and cut off the crust that had hardened from being left for too long.

   Then slice off the chunks of cheese and smoked meat in the pantry, layer by layer on top of the bread. Finally, a pickled cucumber was taken out of the jar, cut in half vertically, and half of each was placed.

  Winters wanted to help, but couldn't reach it at all, so he could only watch Anna in a dress rushing in and out of the kitchen.

  The bread after the secondary processing was sent to the oven by Anna for baking. The cheese gradually melted and penetrated into the gaps inside the bread. A few minutes later, Anna cut the baked bread into easy-to-eat pieces with a knife and led Winters out of the kitchen to a secluded gazebo in the corner of the garden.

   The fragrance of a certain rose permeates the air, and cicadas chirping around. The bright moon covered most of the stars. Across the neatly manicured bushes, you can vaguely see the lights in the side hall not far away from the windows.

   "Please use it."

   Winters didn't expect things to turn out this way, he just ordered food casually, and finally let the little hostess cook it herself.

   He said to Anna apologetically, "You can just leave me here alone. I'm sorry to delay your time for so long. Madam Navarre may be in a hurry."

The girl did not leave, but sat lightly on the stone bench with her skirt, smiled and said to Winters: "I want to thank you, Mr. Montagne, for giving me an excuse to escape from the boring party. .I don't want to go to a party like this at all."

   "Why, isn't the party bad?"

   "What's so good about the party? Isn't the entertainment of the party just listening to the most powerful man bragging?"

   "Well said! Miss Navarre, well said!" This witty summary made Winters smile and applaud, and no one could feel more empathy for this sentence than a soldier.

  Anna no longer maintained her ladylike smile, and giggled. At this moment, Winters really felt that Miss Navarre in front of her had become a living person with flesh and blood, rather than a puppet.

   "Please use it, Mister Montagne." Anna motioned Winters to sit down.

   Winters tasted Anna's results, a wonderful combination of bacon, cheese, pickles and bread: "The bread was a little dry, but it was really, really delicious."

   "My grandfather often did this for me to eat when I was a child. Fresh bread with more moisture will taste better."

   Winters is really starving. The best way to praise a chef's craftsmanship is to eat. Winters tried his best to express his praise for Anna's cooking.

While    was busy gorging, Winters saw Anna staring at him from the corner of his eye.

   Winters stopped and asked Anna with his eyes: What's the matter?

   "Actually, I haven't eaten anything since the afternoon." Anna said quietly.

   "Then you and I eat half of these food?"

   "But I can't eat it."

"why?"

   "Only married women have the right to eat, burp and fart freely in the presence of men."

   "Hahaha, why do you say that?" Winters found that Miss Navarre was really a wonderful person, not only from a very strange perspective on the world, but also articulate and witty.

   "Mr. Montagne, do you have any sisters?"

   "I only have one younger sister."

   "Then haven't you heard your mother and your sister say, 'Any greedy girl can't find a man'?"

   Winters recalled carefully: "I really never heard my sister's mother say that."

"If you were a woman, your mom would tell you 'men want little girls with sparrow-like appetites, and it's best if you don't have any knowledge but say you're amazing. If a man finds out If you are more knowledgeable than them, then they won't marry you'." Anna, who took off her disguise, no longer kept smiling deliberately, and looked a little depressed.

   "So the ladies are going to play stupid?" Winters, let alone getting married, had never even held the hand of a young lady, and he had never thought about it.

"Yes."

   "You can't pretend to be stupid for a lifetime, right?"

   "It's too late for married men to regret it."

"Hahaha."

"What are you laughing at? Mr. Montagne." Anna sighed and let out a sigh of relief in her chest: "That's the truth, you can eat whatever you want at the party, and people will praise you for your calmness. Tolerance. But what about me? I'm also very hungry, but if I do this, my reputation will be ruined, and the whole Hailan will whisper my gossip. Do you think this is fair?"

"It's really unfair, but it's a big problem that you and I can't solve. You and I can only solve a small problem." Winters thought for a while, then asked Anna with a smile: "Are you going to marry me? ?"

   "What are you talking about?" Anna stood up in panic and stared at Winters with wide eyes.

"Since you don't plan to marry me, I also don't plan to marry you. Then why do you have to worry about your image in front of me?" Winters explained to Anna calmly: "There are only the two of us here, and you are even in front of me. Eat a whole cow, and it won't reach the ears of the person you love. Since you want to pursue fairness, you shouldn't even oppress yourself when you're alone."

   Winters pushed the tray of bread to Anna's side: "Eat it when you're hungry, don't worry about me. I won't tell anyone about it."

   "Even if you tell others, I'm not afraid!" Winters blushed countless times tonight, and this time it was finally Anna's turn to blush: "Come here!"

   "Why?" Winters was a little confused.

   "I want you to come here! Stand beside me." Anna repeated.

  Winters looked confused and walked slowly to Anna's side. He was a little worried about whether he was going to be slapped.

  The girl stared at Winters for a few seconds, then turned around and showed Winters her graceful back: "Help me untie it."

   "Don't do this, I'm not thinking about getting married yet!" Looking at Anna's beautiful back neck, Winters hurriedly refused. He's in a mess now, and he can't figure out why he has to take off his clothes all of a sudden?

  Anna was angry and anxious, and punched Winters hard in the back, stomping her feet again and again: "What are you thinking? I want you to help me untie my waistband. With this thing strangling, I can't eat."

   "Scared me to death, thought I was going to have **** with me." Winters thought to himself.

   Hearing that he was only taking off the girdle, he could not help but breathe a sigh of relief and asked, "Where is the girdle?"

  Anna wears a long blue dress with ruffles trimmed with white velvet ribbons. The whole is big at the bottom and small at the top, and below the waist is an exaggerated skirt supported by the skirt.

   It was only now that Winters noticed that the girl's waist was very thin, not as thick as a sixteen-pounder. This slender waist has violated the normal shape of the human body, and was completely strangled to such an extent by external forces.

   I had just admired the picture of Aphrodite who showed the beauty of the female body without restraint, and then saw the slender waist that was forced out, which made Winters feel that it was too cruel and morbid to treat women like this.

"You first untie the rope at the back of the skirt, and then open the buckle at the waist of the skirt. I will do the rest myself." Anna blushed, and she didn't know what was wrong with her. Men untie their waists.

   "Oh, alright." As soon as Anna said it, Winters understood, and he was familiar with unbuttoning the skirt of the skirt and loosening the crossed string little by little.

   "Why are you so skilled?" Anna was alert to find that Warrant Officer Montagne untied the skirt rope in a few strokes, faster than her own maid's movements.

   "Isn't this the shoelace? I have been wearing boots for more than ten years, and I can do the work of putting on and loosening shoelaces with my eyes closed." Winters replied proudly.

  After the knot of the waist was untied, Anna stopped letting Winters help, and slowly loosened the rest. This process is not to take off the corset, it is just like loosening the shoelaces so that the corset is not so tight.

   Anna, who got rid of the corset, took a few deep breaths happily. Obviously, this corset not only restrained her waist and abdomen, but also compressed the space in her lungs. She glared at Winters, sat back on the stone bench, and ate in vengeance.

   Winters couldn't help but start to feel a little pitiful for the young lady, and he pushed the rest of the food to Anna's side. One person ate in silence, one person watched in silence, and sat like this for a while, until Anna ate all the remaining bread in one go.

   "I haven't had a few bites yet." Winters quipped: "It's all in your stomach."

   "If you want to eat, why don't you make it yourself?" Anna immediately pushed back.

  The food was gone, and Winters felt that there was no point in sitting here, so he asked, "Then let's go back to the party?"

   "If I don't go back, you are not allowed to go back. Mom will definitely send someone to find me when you go back."

   Winters was speechless, and the two sat in silence for a while.

   There was a sound of the heel of the boot hitting the slate in the distance. The footsteps were getting closer and closer, and it was obvious that someone was coming. Anna immediately put away her lazy posture, straightened her back, and sat on the stone bench.

   Winters stood up and looked in the direction of the footsteps, only to see a familiar figure walking out from behind a man-tall, manicured bush - it was Antonio.

   "So you are here, you can't hide if you don't like social situations." Antonio said to Winters with a smile. Then he saw another figure beside the stone table, his expression became complicated, and a playful smile appeared on the corner of his mouth.

   As soon as he saw Antonio's expression, Winters immediately knew that his uncle was going the wrong way. Before he could explain, Antonio had already taken the lead in greeting Anna: "Miss Navarre, good evening!"

  Anna also politely got up and returned a curtsy: "You are also good, General Serbia."

   "Hope this little guy Winters didn't trouble you."

   "How come? M. Montagne is very polite."

   Immediately afterwards, Antonio turned his head to Winters, and asked Winters happily in the old language: "[Old language] Did you kiss her tonight?"

  Old language, known as high language and noble language in the northern empire, is a language that has deep roots with imperial language, but is not the same. In the past, the language was mainly used by the nobility and the clergy.

After the    Alliance overthrew the emperor and the nobles, they abandoned the names of the high language and the noble language and called it the old language.

   The Imperial language is called a common language or a continental language.

   Old language and Common language have only a few words that communicate with each other, but most of the pronunciation and grammar are different, so Common language users may be able to understand individual old language words, but definitely not understand the whole sentence.

   In the imperial era, the clergy and the nobility had a monopoly on knowledge, so most books in the past were written in old languages.

  In today's republics, only the intellectuals learn the old languages, because they need to read the literature of the past. The vast majority of people only know the common language, which is enough for daily production and life.

   On top of the old language there is also the ancient language, and the original pronunciation of the ancient language has been lost.

  Only researchers who need to read books from ancient imperial times learn ancient languages—and the clergy, because the authentic scriptures recognized by the Catholic Church are written in ancient languages.

   And because the three languages ​​use the same set of letters, modern people can "hard read" ancient languages ​​with the current grammar.

   And the church also has a unique set of archaic pronunciations known as "ecclesiastical pronunciations". It is said to have been passed down by word of mouth from ancient times, and generally only the clergy can learn to use it.

   The Military Academy has classes in Old Tongues and Old Languages ​​so Winters and Antonio can use Old Tongues.

  Antonio suddenly changed language, Winters didn't understand at first, and was surprised when he reacted.

  Winters did not expect that his uncle would dare to say such rude words in front of a lady, and even a gentle woman would slap him hard. He turned his head and glanced at Anna, who tilted her head to look at the two of them suspiciously, and showed no sign of anger.

   Winters breathed a sigh of relief. Obviously Anna couldn't understand the old language, and he also answered his uncle in the old language: "[Old language] Can you stop making trouble?"

"[Old language] Well, well, young people have their own ideas." Antonio smiled, obviously still thinking things wrong: "[Old language] I'm done with my business, when do you want to leave, Come find me again, I'm not in a hurry."

   finished talking to himself, and before Winters could explain, Antonio said goodbye to Anna and left here with big strides.

   Watching Antonio's figure disappear behind the bushes, listening to Antonio's footsteps getting farther and farther, Winters no longer knew what to say. Antonio has already had a preconceived idea, and it would be troublesome to explain it again.

   He sighed, turned to say goodbye to Anna: "Miss Navarre, we got along very well today. But I'm going home, please allow me to say goodbye."

  Anna said to Winters with a big smile: "[Old language] So, do you want to kiss me?"

   After she finished speaking, she slapped Winters and threw her hands away angrily.

   Finally let Anna appear, and the main story will be pushed tomorrow! (chronological order) I would like to thank the book friend for the recommendation ticket of the shrimp pond, thank the book friend 20181013204343295 for the recommendation ticket, and thank the social justice Pharaoh for the recommendation ticket. Bow thank you.

   (end of this chapter)