"And those people, of course, take it for granted: 'I told you so', 'It's okay, it's normal', 'You are already great, you just have to accept the reality', 'This job is still suitable for men'
.”
Sonia took out her cigarette bag and started to roll her third cigarette.
"You know, they always sound so confident and convincing, always so rational, neutral, objective and sincere."
Sonia's eyes focused on the tobacco in her hand.
"At the end of the day, I was almost convinced that maybe I really screwed up, maybe I wasn't cut out to be a soldier?"
The Flower of Fortress turned around and grinned at Thales:
"Right?"
Thales did not answer immediately. He sat on the ground with his back to the observation deck, his hands on his knees, and his expression was profound.
They always sound so confident and convincing...
At the royal banquet, the scene where Deputy Captain Vogel asked D.D to take the initiative to die is still vivid in my mind.
"Unlike you, I didn't mess up."
The young man suddenly spoke:
"I can solve it. I'm just working hard and adapting. I need time."
Sonia stopped rolling her cigarette, then turned to look at Thales.
"adapt?"
The Flower of Fortress smiled at first, but immediately turned cold.
"Sunset, it seems you really messed up."
Thales frowned.
Sonia rolled up her cigarette and sneered:
"And smash more than a little, otherwise you wouldn't live in the dead man's house, your father wouldn't come to you secretly, and Jinni wouldn't roar and threaten me to fix you."
Thales was not convinced at first, but when he heard this, he raised his head in surprise:
"Jinni, Ms. Jini?"
Sonia skillfully held the cigarette in her mouth and took out the flint:
"Are you sure you don't want to take a bite?"
Thales looked at the rough cigarettes for sale and twitched his lips.
Sonia shrugged her shoulders, lit the tobacco in twos and twos, and puffed and sighed happily:
"Well, boy, maybe of the two of us, you are the one who is not suitable for being a soldier."
Hold.
Thales waved away the smoke, moved his butt to the side, and looked unhappy.
"I know that you have just returned to the royal capital, which means you have entered a new battlefield. But every rule prevailing in the new battlefield is not good for you and unfair to you. They make you feel strange, confused, desperate, and unable to see
Way out."
Thales frowned in disbelief, while Sonia blew out smoke:
"Contrary to what most people think, it is not difficult to fight with a sword. Even the so-called sacrifice of 'risking your life' is just a matter of being hot-headed, gritting your teeth and shaking your mind. The real difficulty is knowing why you are fighting."
Listening to her words, Thales suddenly remembered the words Mallos left after punishing D.D:
【When you decide to trade, make sure it is your own scale.】
"But when you look upward and away from each specific opponent, when you see more and look higher, when you find that the rules of the fight are so fucked from the beginning, when you find that your fight is just in a cage.
It’s a monkey show, and when you can never change the cage... the fight becomes very, very difficult.”
[It is as if what my sword hits is no longer a flesh and blood body or a steel weapon, but an invisible wall. No matter how I swing the sword, it will be of no avail. 】
For some reason, Thales suddenly remembered what Cohen said in the downtown area.
The Flower of the Fortress blew the incompletely burned cigarette butts and spoke calmly:
"Nervousness, fear, panic, mistakes, regret, wavering, self-doubt, and even numbness and giving up. We have all experienced these, and there is nothing to be ashamed of."
The lookout under the moonlight was quiet and quiet, and coupled with the smoke in Sonia's hands, everything seemed like a dream.
"You failed in your recruitment as a guard?" Thales suddenly spoke, expressionless.
Sonia raised one leg, hooked her lips, but shook her head.
"I was just lucky. A big shot happened to be passing by. I got a second chance. I stayed here and waited for the next round of recruitment."
The voice of Fortress Flower is a little dim.
Big shot.
Thales looked around Star Lake Castle for a week:
"John Brightstar?"
Sonia chuckled lightly, held the cigarette in her mouth again, leaned back, and held the back of her head with both hands.
"The days after that were difficult. I ate and slept with the guards in the castle, and worked hard to prepare for the next assessment."
At this moment, there was something more in Sonia's eyes.
"The beautiful words of comfort disappeared from then on. No one gave me a good look, everyone was isolating me, and I also understood that I got an advantage and entered the game without following their rules, which made those men
They feel that their rights have been offended, 'women are receiving special treatment', 'taking shortcuts to get in', 'it's so unfair to men' and so on."
"From bed and duty arrangements to daily work and rest, from frequent emergency training, increased weight-bearing training to the cleaning job that coincidentally got me every time, they tried every means to make me look embarrassed.
A 'experienced person' came to sing the praises and babbled: 'They are not targeting you, they just feel uncomfortable', 'I'm sorry, but maybe you should give up?'."
Thales listened quietly, but he remembered the moment at the royal banquet when Anke took hostages and forced a duel in the palace.
At that moment, all the guests at the banquet and the prominent figures in Yongxing City raised their heads and looked at him.
"Including every 'friendly match' within the team, I would sometimes be so determined that if I won, they would say, 'You're lucky,' 'I'll leave it to you,' 'I'm a bit tired today, so I'll give it to you.
', or 'you've taken advantage of it and are able to face it head-on', 'the outcome would be different in another situation', or even 'you will definitely die if you fight with your life', 'real battles won't be that simple', blah, blah, and so on.
"
"Oh, by the way, there's also my favorite phrase, 'Beating me doesn't prove that you are better than a man. If you have the ability, why don't you compete with a more powerful man?'"
Sonia dusted off her cigarette and smiled:
"Does every man say this? I call this the 'Sharing Technique'. Every time I defeat one of them, they will say this. It seems that as long as I say this, the defeated guy will share it instantly.
The 'more powerful man' is a bit bigger, he holds his head high and regains his glory, and he goes from being short and weak to being invulnerable."
A few sharing skills.
Thales couldn't help but chuckle.
But his smile quickly faded: There were people like this in his battlefield, too, weren't there?
"And when I lost, they all said in unison, 'See, I told you', 'This is perfectly normal', 'Generally speaking, women really can't beat men',' Okay, by your standards, that's pretty good."
'."
Sonia's tone dropped.
"At that time, everything was very frustrating: swordsmanship, fighting, weightlifting, long-distance running, javelin throwing, archery. It seemed that in every activity, I couldn't compete with others, especially those men who had been trained and even served in the military."
"I don't have their strength, strength, speed, explosiveness, physique, and physique. I don't have everything they are proud of in the things that we usually compete with from sports games to knight tournaments."
A dark cloud blocked the moonlight, leaving the boy and the woman in darkness, each feeling dejected.
"But you win," Thales said softly, "in this unfair rule."
Sonia was silent for a long time, then she took a deep breath and slowly exhaled the smoke from her nose.
"I didn't win. I just survived."
The distracted eyes of the Fortress Flower slowly reunited.
"Just when the days were passing by and the date of the next recruitment was approaching, and I was so heartbroken and almost giving up on myself, someone asked me: 'Why, Sonia, why are you on their chessboard?'"
Hearing this, Thales raised his head.
"Their chessboard?"
Sonia smiled and nodded, as if she thought of something happy:
"I was asked: 'There are many ways for soldiers to fight, and there are also many ways to kill people. Why do we have to learn from them to use muscles, rely on their physique, resort to strength and explosion, and learn from them what they say all day long?
Huh? Why do you have to pursue the strong, rude, domineering, masculine, and aggressive things they pursue, and follow them as a model to prove yourself? Why should you learn these things from them and compete with them?'"
Thales narrowed his eyes.
Sonia sighed:
"'Because', I said stupidly at that time, "'Because these are useful, because the commander said, these are all tested in competitions, things that have been tested by history, and are needed by every soldier on the battlefield.
Of, good things.'"
Having said this, the flower of the fortress chuckled.
"'That's because only men were allowed to participate in the earliest games,' I was told, 'so of course they have to compete in the events they know how to do. When have you ever seen them competing to have a baby?'"
Thales' expression changed.
"'And soldiers need these not just because these things are "good"," Sonia sat up cross-legged, even forgetting to smoke, and just let the cigarette burn slowly in her hand, "The guy told me, 'but because
They are already soldiers, and they like, are used to, and are good at being strong, rude, domineering, masculine, and aggressive. Most of the time, they only use these things, so these things become "useful" and "good"
"", and then passed it on to the hands of later generations. When more and more people later, and fewer and fewer people doubted it, everyone agreed that this was common sense and truth.'"
Sonia was fascinated by the retelling, as if she had returned to that moment many years ago:
"'Because this is a tournament they control, a battlefield they define, and one of their most cunning tricks is to 'allow' you to enter the game, and then defeat you in these rules and projects that do not allow for doubt, and then
Let me tell you: Look, you didn’t win, you can’t do it.'"
Thales spoke subconsciously:
"but……"
But the flower of the fortress didn't let him continue, and kept to herself:
"So why, Sonia, you are already at a disadvantage on the chessboard that men are familiar with and have dominated for thousands of years. If that's the case, why? Why should you follow the rules they set and the standards they are used to?
, the survival rules they have established, and the habits they are very familiar with. When the armors and weapons you can get are all made according to men's conditions, how can you expect to compete with them with these? "
Why should we follow the rules they set, the competition standards they are used to, the survival guidelines they established...
Thales' eyes gradually drifted away.
"...When they even regard the size of several handfuls as a standard competition event and require everyone to compare lengths with them, how are you going to win? Pretend to be fake and pretend to be a man?" Sonia sneered.
Thales came back to his senses and found that he had missed a paragraph:
"Is this a metaphor?"
Sonia turned around and smiled evilly:
"depends on you."
Thales raised his eyebrows.
At this moment, the flower of the fortress in front of him looked like a torch, piercing through the smoke and confusion:
"'Don't listen to them,' I was told. 'Even if you want to win their prize, don't live up to their standards, don't do what they say, don't pretend, even if you're the only one who can prove it to them.'
'Because then, you really lose'."
"It was that night that I realized how stupid I had been."
She turned to the thinking boy:
"Tales, don't be stupid, don't listen to them, don't pretend."
Thales clenched his fists.
Don't listen to them.
At that moment, he inexplicably remembered Quick Rope and what the latter had said to him.
[Don’t play chess with him on the same chessboard, Thales, because you don’t know how deep his methods are in this game, how many hole cards he has, and those who were manipulated by his father without knowing it.
Those who are are extremely sad.】
Immediately afterwards, Thales thought of Charmaine Lombard.
"I'm not, I'm fighting, in my own way."
Thales subconsciously opened his mouth to retort, almost at the same moment he remembered the man with ice-like eyes but fire in the ice.
"Physically, of course you don't, but what about your mind?"
Sonia stared at him, stretched out her hand and touched Thales' chest: "Where is this place?"
Thales didn't speak. The scar on his chest where he was burned by silver coins when he was a child seemed to be slightly hot.
"A few handfuls originally only grew in one place," Sonia said sarcastically, holding up the cigarette again, "but the reality is that tens of thousands of years have passed, and they have turned into something else. They are everywhere and do not grow naturally.
It was installed artificially."
Thales pursed his lips.
"What happened next?" he asked hoarsely.
Sonia's eyes moved.
"Later, later, I no longer struggled to compete with them in weightlifting and speed competitions."
"There must be something, I thought," she squinted her eyes, as if recreating the way she had been thinking carefully back then, "There must be something on this chessboard that has been ignored, abandoned, and neglected by them for a long time.
They don’t take it seriously, but they can be picked up and used by me. Although it is difficult, because this chessboard has been theirs for so long, and the rules of chess have been formulated for them for so long, that everyone feels that they are born this way.”
"But I can't give up, no matter how loud they laugh, how harsh the curses, what they use to stop me, how many dirty jokes they tell me, or how many people they sleep with in order to get close to the Duke, they are all about to get rid of me
Are you kidding me about being worn out? I am the most fierce woman in the six major villages and towns. I have never heard any dirty jokes or kicked any ugly ones!"
Unknowingly, the dark clouds gradually dispersed, the moonlight fell, and green smoke surrounded the observation deck.
Sonia hummed softly:
"I stayed, I persisted, I worked hard, studied, and observed, and I was defeated again and again in competitions with men and those 'strong ones'. Then gradually, I became the most inconspicuous, the most ignored, and the most
Where people laugh, something interesting is found that most people dismiss.”
"I have a better sense of balance. I can trot on the single-plank bridge that they can't even stand on, and I can walk as fast as I can on the bumpy and broken roads."
"I am small in size and light in weight. I can get into smaller gaps, hide in narrower bushes, and can be equipped with different types of mounts."
Sonia opened her mouth and gently exhaled a hollow smoke ring.
"I have more coordinated and flexible fingers and wrists. My weapon belt is tied more finely and tightly than theirs, and is easier to adjust. My longbow is more accurate, more comfortable and tighter than theirs."
"Smell, sight, hearing, I have more sensitive senses than many people, so much so that John once said that my nose was even sharper than his hunting dog."
"I can endure pain better than a considerable number of soldiers. The cold and hunger probably came from my mother. When I was a child, she had to earn money for the family after doing farm work. She had to squat by the river for several hours and wash countless basins.
clothes, and I still don’t know how she did it.”
"In harsh environments, I can hide and persist for a long, long time. Although my strength is small, my consumption is also less. Even after exhausting all my strength, I only need to rest for half of their time and only eat them.
With half the food, you can stand up and jump around again."
“In long-distance races that are longer than the longest long-distance race, or in cross-country races, I may not be faster than them, and I may not be more conspicuous than them, but I am more stable and precise than them, and less prone to fatigue, sleepiness, dizziness and loss.
"
Thales was fascinated by what he heard.
"That's it, patience, balance, adaptability, memory, details and sophistication, toughness and recovery rate; low consumption, high sensitivity. And you know, I only recently discovered that women live longer than men, even in peacetime.
"
The flower of the fortress curled her lips:
"So I learned to use my ability to endure pain, use more reliable parts to meet the attack, and when they were surprised, 'Why don't you fall down?', I gritted my teeth and fought back; I learned to choose the part that is more suitable for my performance.
battlefield environment, instead of sitting down on the flat ground and wrestling with them; if all else fails, then simply avoid the front and fight a war of attrition, hide yourself, mobilize the opponent, and bet that he will tire before me.
Paralysis means freezing first, then fainting from hunger."
She patted her thigh and sighed:
"Of course, for all the above qualities, the men refuse to admit that I am better than them. There are always people who refute, and there are always people who say, 'Are you going to compete with the royal guards?', but there is only one thing they admit..."
Sonia blinked and pointed at Thales' head:
"My mind."
"Although I think this is because John said 'she is smarter than you all' first, and no matter how unwilling they are, they dare not offend the Duke."
Thales chuckled softly.
Sonia spoke excitedly, holding a cigarette in one hand and waving it with the other, regardless of the spittle flying around:
"You know, people always think that men are smarter, rational, calmer, better at hiding emotions, and more resolute and rational, while women are slower, irrational, weaker, emotionally unstable, and only know how to be hysterical."
"But in such a long military career, I haven't noticed this. You know, almost every soldier is irritable, irritable, and impulsive. If he doesn't have sex for three days, he can't help but masturbate or have a fight.
It doesn’t seem to be much better than women.”
Sonia shook her head:
“I don’t know where the conclusion that ‘men are more sensible’ comes from.”
"It comes from men," Thales suddenly said, "You know, the more you lack something, the more you have to brag about it."
Sonia was stunned for a moment, then laughed.
"Wait, don't you sound angry?"
The flower of the fortress stopped laughing.
"When most men hear this, they will become angry, deny it, and jump in anger, or at least say seriously, 'You can't overturn a whole boat with one pole'?"
Thales shrugged:
"Wouldn't that just play into your game, 'men are irrational'?"
"Oh, bad, you reacted really quickly," Sonia frowned, "If I want to mention this again in the future, someone will definitely refute, 'Look, His Highness Thales is also a man, so he is very sensible.'"
"That's not necessary."
Thales waved his hand politely and leaned back: "I have no intention of sharing a few."
Sonia laughed heartily again.
She raised her head, looked at the bright moon surrounded by stars, and said with emotion:
"In short, I use my strengths to make up for my weaknesses. I am me, and I want to do my own thing, instead of doing what they want me to do according to their standards, meaninglessly proving to them that 'I can be a man.'"
Thales suddenly felt that the bone ring in his front didn't seem so heavy anymore.
"Did you pass the guard's assessment?"
At that moment, Sonia's smile faded.
"While I was waiting for the next opportunity to try to subvert the rules, the assessment came unexpectedly and early."
Fortress Flower stood up and took a deep breath of cigarette.
"A group of bandits entered the Wang family's hunting forest and settled down. The Star Lake Guards led the new soldiers to suppress the bandits, but the intelligence was wrong. They were not ordinary bandits, but the advance scouts of the Blade Leader rebels."
Her words were a little lonely.
"We were dragged in the woods for a whole month. We suffered heavy losses, our communication channels were cut off, and we were unable to advance or retreat."
Sonia nodded slowly:
"It was that battle, and I passed the test."
Listening to her understatement and calm words, Thales suddenly realized what a thrilling story was hidden behind it.
"But I also understand one thing: in a real battlefield, when people on both sides are rushing towards each other like wild beasts, when your enemy just wants to thrust the knife and his hands into your stomach, when the intestines of your comrades are...
When it mixes with blood and water and leaks out..."
Fortress Flower's face turned cold, and she raised the few remaining cigarettes:
"No one knows whether you are a boy or a girl."
The other party's words reminded Thales of the countless bloodshed he had experienced. He couldn't help but darken his face, and stood up as well:
"I'm very sorry."
Sonia shook her head, not caring:
"In this way, I discovered another advantage of mine: my mind. No matter what the environment, I can grit my teeth and calm down, endure the unbearable, force myself to think, summarize, and consider the situation on the battlefield. Each of us can
Where is the position of the team, what state each person is in, what the enemy may do next, and what we should do next to make a more beneficial and rational decision..."
Thales had a weird expression: "But I remember that you just said before that you were just blindly fighting in Broken Dragon Fortress?"
Sonia chuckled and slapped her thighs:
"So I don't have a few!"
Thales was startled and speechless for a moment.
"There is another example. In the Year of Blood, we and the Exeter people were involved in a tug-of-war along the Mu River."
Year of Blood.
When Thales heard this term, his smile dropped.
"Araka and his Fury Guards were the vanguard. They fought without fear of death and dared to confront Exeter's army in a field battle. There were countless northern warriors who fell into his hands. 'Wrath of the Kingdom' became famous for a time.
According to legend in the Western Continent, it is said that the first question King Lian Nuen asked when he got up every day was, 'Is Alaka Mu dead?'"
The Flower of Fortress shook her finger and curled her lips:
"And just when Arak's reputation was getting bigger and bigger, and more and more Star people were dying, and they were becoming more desperate and fanatical, and your father even wanted to recruit young soldiers to join the army and die together with the Northlanders, I calmed down. I
I thought, we can't do this, and then, I did something."
"What's up?"
Sonia took a deep breath:
"Before Araka's one-for-one mad dog attack killed him and his men, I bypassed the main battlefield, went deep behind the enemy lines, and unexpectedly reached the northern border occupied by the Exters..."
"Recaptured the Cold Keep."
She said this with the same understatement, as if it didn't matter.
In the bloody year, take back the Cold Castle...
But Thales connected his memory and his expression suddenly changed after he figured it out:
"What?"
"What, you don't believe it?" Sonia raised her eyebrows.
Thales blinked hard and tried to recall his historical knowledge:
"No...wait a minute, as far as I know, two hundred years ago, the 'Northern Conqueror' Alicia mobilized the troops of the whole country and laid out pockets on three sides. During this process, she made numerous strategies and fought hard. Thanks to luck, she was able to win the victory.
Go down to the largest and most fertile cold castle in the north, and push the Exeter people back to the northern plains and black sand mountains..."
He stared at the flower of the fortress in disbelief:
"But in the Year of Blood, how did you do it when you went north alone, without support, and faced the threat of a hundred thousand troops? Why have I never heard of this?"
But Sonia just smiled mysteriously.
"According to old man Thordor, one of the prerequisites for King Nunn's willingness to negotiate is that the truth about the loss of Cold Keep is not made public. A hundred thousand Northland athletes are brave and invincible, but they were stabbed in the anus by a woman."
Thales suddenly looked strange when he thought of King Nun's voice and smile.
"Are you doubting?" Sonia was very dissatisfied with his attitude. "Hey, why do you think that Val Arend, a guy with high ambitions, has been respectful to me and never lacked supplies for more than ten years?
What a waste of weight? And why is his daughter, Miranda, willing to serve under me? Because I was the one who removed the head of old Duke Dylan from the gate of the Cold Castle and returned it to the Arlend family!"
"And on the other hand, why did your father ask me to guard the fortress instead of Alaka Mu, who has a greater reputation and can scare the Northlanders more?"
Sonia held a cigarette and crossed her arms:
"Is it because I'm good-looking?"
Thales thought about it and nodded: "You are indeed beautiful."
At that moment, Sonia's expression froze and the cigarette fell from her mouth to the ground.
Thales reacted and quickly explained:
"I mean, um, when you're fighting, it's nice to see you drop your cigarette."
Sonia seemed to be very unaccustomed to such an answer. While leaning over to pick up a cigarette, Sonia's expression kept changing from surprise, suspicion, joy, introspection, and denial for several seconds.
"Tch, it looks good, you mean including these?"
She hummed and straightened up, lifted her clothes to expose the skin on her ribs, and then opened her collar to reveal her shoulders and collarbone:
"And these?"
Thales was suddenly startled.
That's... a scar.
Oh my god.
Under Sonia's clothes, from her flanks to her back, from her shoulders to her neck, there were pits and pits everywhere. They were full of criss-crossed scars, arrow scars and burn scars, including sunburn marks, and old and new skin were tangled together in different shades.
.
Is this the price of transforming from a farmer's daughter into a fortress flower?
Thales stared blankly at the scars on the other person's body. It took him a while before he realized what he was doing and turned away embarrassedly:
"Yes, including them, you look good by other standards too."
Fortress Flower frowned, she tied up her clothes and looked at Thales again:
"It's strange, you don't seem to be trying to smooth things over politely, using polite words like 'you are very handsome' or 'very distinctive'."
She scratched her head.
"Ever since my parents passed away, no one has ever complimented me on my beauty, and my grandma even advised me not to worry about my appearance. Damn it, it feels so strange to be complimented on my beauty. Is this the daily life of Williams in Xihuang?
?”
Thales's expression darkened.
No, he can guarantee that in the Western Wasteland, no one would dare to praise the beauty of Legend Wings.
At least I dare not praise it to my face.
Thales coughed: "You, um, actually, just say thank you."
But he remembered something.
"No wonder."
Thales sighed:
"No wonder that stubborn old man King Nun was willing to sit down and negotiate with the stars during the Year of Blood. It was not because of Gilbert's brilliant tongue, nor because of the terrifying Wrath of the Kingdom, nor because of my father's young soldiers.
"
"It's because of you," Thales stared at the other party, "because of Cold Castle, King Nunn made the final decision and finally brought about the "Fortress Peace Treaty"."
"Countless people in the Kingdom of Stars owe you a great debt of gratitude."
But Sonia just smiled softly and waved her hand: "John said that reputation is like the shit in the East China. Well, well, it's quite nice to be praised occasionally."
She scratched her chin and enjoyed the last few puffs of her cigarette.
Seeing the other party's appearance, Thales couldn't help but sigh.
In comparison, his mission to Exeter seven years ago to stop the war... seems to be nothing.
"I have a question," Thales frowned, "For the generals who were promoted to nobility during the Year of Blood and commanded the standing army for the royal family, why, why did the Wrath of the Kingdom and Wings of Legend create barons, and you?
, Sonia Satherley, who has made extraordinary achievements, is just a female lord?"
"Yeah, I'm curious too," Fortress Flower's face was full of sarcasm, "Not only that, I'm also ranked last among the so-called three handsome men."
Speaking of this, she seemed full of complaints:
"And damn the flower of the fortress, which warrior likes to be called a 'flower'? Are you waiting to be fertilized, pruned, picked, given away as a gift, or are you waiting to bloom and then wither?"
"Why don't you see them calling Araka the 'Flower of the Kingdom' and Roman the 'Flower of the Legend'? Really, if you had seen that pretty boy, you would understand that this is the nickname he should have, okay?"
Her evaluation of Williams made Thales nod repeatedly:
"Then what do you want to be called?"
This really stumped Sonia.
"Hmm, let me think about it, um, Fortress Wolf?"
Thales chuckled.
"Very good," the flower of the fortress looked at him for a while, then suddenly smiled, "now you make me feel that you are still the same person who saved a deserter when you first arrived at the fortress, and was put on my shoulders, and you were afraid of heights.
A crying child."
Thales' smile froze and his expression became embarrassed.
"I have done so many prestigious things in the past, and you have to mention this."
Sonia shook her head, meaning:
"To me, this situation is much more majestic than the stupid thing you did to force the palace with your sword."
Thales fell silent, thoughtful.
Sonia continued to smoke her cigarette with the same profound expression.
A few seconds later, Thales suddenly spoke:
"Can you give me a bite?"
Sonia was startled at first, but she understood something and smiled evilly: "Oh? Where did 'Children not allowed to smoke' go?"
"It is imperial custom that a man becomes an adult at the age of fourteen." Thales said without any shame.
Sonia and he looked at each other and smiled, and the former stretched out the hand holding the cigarette to him: "Take it easy, the smuggled goods from Dragon's Kiss are always expensive."
Then I will provide you with free food and free accommodation.
"Don't worry, we're just sharing cigarettes, I'm not sharing a few with you... By the way, I still remember that slap you just gave me, fuck you."
"Hey, if you want to come back, I'm always waiting."
"Forget it, I don't dare to fuck the wolf of the fortress."
Thales took the cigarette from Fortress Flower unceremoniously, put it in his mouth, and took a deep breath.
"Cough! Cough! Cough cough cough!"
After just the first puff, Thales was choked by the wonderful spiciness and coughed repeatedly. He shivered in the cloud of smoke he exhaled. He quickly handed the cigarette back, vowing not to take a second puff.
"Hey, I was wrong. You can't be a soldier," Sonia took back her cigarette and gloated, "It's okay to be a smoker."
Thales was busy coughing and had no choice but to extend a middle finger in response.
"What is this? I think I saw the mute do it to Miranda."
"This is a common friendly gesture used by people from the North and South to greet each other."
Sonia smiled slightly, took the last puff of cigarette, and raised her middle finger to him:
"Hello, you little bastard!"
"Anyway, thank you," the prince finally recovered. He turned around and faced the mountains and forests in the distance of Star Lake Castle, "I have figured it out a lot, and I feel much better."
"real?"
"real."
At that moment, the weight of "Gortaksa" was no longer like a light on my back.
Thales raised his head, faced the gentle moonlight, and sighed:
"I suddenly realized that compared with what you have faced, what you have faced, and what you are facing now, the battlefield I am about to enter does not seem that difficult or that bad."
As a newcomer and challenger to the game, he cannot pretend to be fake, pretend to be them, and follow their rules.
Never.
I'm a little tired, and there must be a lot of language errors. I'll go back and make corrections tomorrow.