When Lolo was very young, she had been to Port Sethevia once with her father. They had stayed at a hotel called the Horseshoe Inn in the center of the city. The owner was a silver-haired old man. She heard that he had been a scout when he was young. Once, he had encountered a group of ferocious smugglers while patrolling the border. He had injured his leg during the battle, and he had been using crutches ever since.
In her memory, the old man always neatly arranged his clothes, combed his hair meticulously, and had a solemn expression on his face as if he was about to go to war at any moment.
To be honest, his appearance was a little scary when they first saw him.
Luo Luo was startled when she first saw him. This was the first time they met, but the old man just stared at her without blinking. His eyes were as sharp as an eagle's. After a while, she sighed and said, "So similar."
The girl was a little scared. She shrunk behind her father, and her father gently patted her on the shoulder.
Then, she saw the old man turn around and enter the kitchen. After a while, he came out again. As if by magic, several plates of pastries and preserved fruits appeared in his hands, and he placed them in front of the girl one after another.
Children of this age had no resistance to snacks at all. Very soon, Lolo was attracted by the exquisite pastries, and she forgot her fear. She began to gorge herself on them.
Meanwhile, her father and the old owner walked to the other side and talked in low voices. There was clearly no one else in the room, but the two of them kept their voices very low, as if they were hiding from some terrifying existence in the darkness.
A moment later, the two of them ended their short conversation. After that, it was as if nothing had happened. The old man left their room with his crutches.
Her father smiled and patted her head. "Let's go. Haven't you always wanted to see a big ship? Let's go to the port in the afternoon. "
Hearing that, Lolo was instantly excited. Her father's territory was far inland, and she had never seen the sea. However, she had a little servant girl who was born in a fisherman's family. She had once described the magnificence and prosperity of the port to her. The unique merchant ships from all over the world, as well as the enthusiastic and hearty sailors, all of which deeply fascinated the girl.
In the end, the father and daughter spent an extremely pleasant afternoon together at the port. Lolo even boarded a merchant ship that had just entered the port. It was the most magnificent and most beautiful three-masted sailboat in the entire port. The sailor on the ship even gave her a wooden bottle containing a little seahorse. Lolo planned to take it back and give it to her little servant girl. That way, she could take it out and look at it whenever she missed home.
It wasn't until dusk that the girl stopped in her tracks, satisfied. Her father bought her a bag of maltose. The father and daughter sat on a bench by the port, eating the maltose while watching the sun sink toward the horizon.
The girl's excitement of seeing the sea for the first time gradually faded. After running madly for an entire afternoon, she finally began to feel a little tired. Opening her mouth, she yawned. She felt her eyelids getting heavier and heavier. Leaning her head on her father's arm, she was about to fall asleep.
The man took off a coat and draped it over her body. He took out a pipe from his pocket and held it in his mouth.
Many people didn't know that he was actually a heavy smoker. However, ever since he had a daughter, the responsibility of a father made him not smoke for so many years.
However, tonight, he had to smoke one.
Because he knew that the truth that he had been searching for eight years was finally getting closer to him. He was about to break through the layers of fog and reach the final destination.
The crippled old man of the inn walked out of the shadows like a ghost and lit the cigarette in his mouth for him.
"Are you ready to go to hell? It's not too late to give up now," the old man said calmly. He pointed at Lolo who was leaning on his shoulder. "I can see that you care about her a lot. Since that's the case, why don't you let go of the past and live with her? Grow up with her, watch her get married, and build your own family. If you're lucky, you might even have a grandchild. Deep down, you're actually yearning for such a life, aren't you?"
After a pause, he said meaningfully, "You have to know that the truth often doesn't bring happiness but pain in the end."
"Pain?" The man smiled bitterly. "Ever since that happened, I've been living in pain all the time. I've already lived in hell for eight years. I don't mind going down again."
The old man nodded and didn't try to persuade him anymore. "In that case, let's be companions."
What the two of them didn't know was that the girl in the man's arms hadn't completely fallen asleep yet, so she heard every single word of their conversation. But at that time, Lolo didn't understand the true meaning of the old man's words.
Many years later, when the girl returned to Port Sethevia, she was already all alone.
However, this place was already completely different. It was said that the Horseshoe Inn had been burned down by an accidental fire three years ago, and the innkeeper had also disappeared in that fire.
Because the old man didn't have any children, the second year after he disappeared, City Hall sold the land to someone else. Now, it had become a fish shop, and the owner was a chubby auntie.
Lolo didn't waste any time. She stood outside the fish shop for a while as a way to cherish the old man's memory, and then headed straight for the dock.
The Sacred Alliance's ports had always been the subject of complaints from merchants because of the higher tax rates, stricter inspection of goods, and more backward infrastructure. In contrast, people preferred to do business at the ports of the other two major forces. Overall, the Sacred Alliance's ports weren't as prosperous as those of the Free city-state and the Lionheart Empire.
However, because there were people from the Church and the local police force in charge of maintaining order, the security at the port was the best among the three major forces. There were very few thieves on the streets, so the life of the Guild of Thieves was not that good.
Lolo walked around the port and only heard that three ships were interested in going to Gudilesi University City. One of them had just docked and was unloading its cargo. The owner of the ship planned to buy some local specialties and sell them in the Free city-state. It would take at least two weeks for them to fill up their cargo.
As for the remaining two ships, both of them were planning to leave in the near future, but one of them was planning to go to the Dwarf Kingdom first. That would take a long time, and it wouldn't be unusual for them to drift on the sea for a whole year in bad weather.
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
