Chapter 119.
Chapter 119 – Dreams
“Alan …… Alan …… don’t get up quickly ……”
A gentle voice echoed in the teenager’s ears.
“You little slacker, the sun is up to your ass ……”
Allen, who was twelve years old, rolled over and muttered, “Mom, let me sleep a little more ……”
“Ugh! I really can’t do anything about you, being so sleepy, no girl will like you in the future.”
“Well …… know …… mom, just a little while ……” The teenager confusedly went into dreamland again.
I don’t know how long, he felt his mother gently stroking his body, and said in a slightly stern tone, “This time you must get up oh!”
Allen had to bid farewell to dreamland with reluctance, and when he opened his eyes he saw his mother with her arms crossed and a slightly angry expression.
He got up from the bed, put his right hand over his mouth, and yawned “Ah-“.
“Got it, got it, I’ll get up now.”
With a reluctant look on his face, he began to dress slowly.
Mother sighed and complained, “Really, look at the little Tom next door, get up at dawn to help his mother cook, which like you so love to sleep …… Wait a minute, what’s this on you? “
Allen all of a sudden awake, hurriedly said, “I have no how …… ah, this is accidentally fell a bit.”
But his mother could not help but yank the teenager’s arm, rolled up his underwear, a few bruises suddenly appeared on his body.
The mother’s face instantly changed into a color of heartache, anxiously asked, “What is this …… how did you get into this?”
The teenager tried his best to say in a tone full of concern, “It’s really nothing, mom, yesterday I accidentally tripped when I was walking downhill and rolled all the way down, and these bruises are the ones that touched out at that time.”
But the mother could tell if her son was lying, and she stared into his eyes and asked seriously, “Did you get into another fight with someone?”
“I didn’t ……” the teenager retorted sharply, but when he met his mother’s eyes, his voice instantly became faintly audible.
He lowered his head and admitted in a whisper, “I’m sorry …… mom, I’ll never do it again.”
The mother looked at Alan with a strong look of sadness in her eyes and did not continue to press her son on why he fought, she knew why.
Allen is not only warm-hearted and kind, but also has a tolerance that does not match his age, and easily does not get into arguments with people.
There was only one thing that could have enraged the boy to the point of fighting so far – someone had made fun of his only relative, the mother in front of him.
His husband had died early in his mother’s life while she was still pregnant with Alan, and Alan had never seen his father in his life, becoming a posthumous child.
The mother did not choose to remarry, and worked hard to bring her son up, and as a young widow, even if she was very careful, there would inevitably be some rumors in the village.
Adults are concerned about neighborly feelings, but also only behind the back quietly mention so a sentence or two, will not say that kind of words in front of Alan’s mother.
But when the children played together, there was nothing to worry about, and they often shared the “secrets” they had overheard from the adults.
Not only when sharing secrets, but also when the children occasionally disagreed with each other, they would give each other a variety of nicknames, and when this kind of thing happened to Alan, “wild seed” and other nicknames are considered to be good.
These were the triggers that ignited the teenager’s anger.
“Didn’t you promise me that if it ever happened again, it would fall on deaf ears and you wouldn’t let yourself get hurt again?” said the mother, her eyes becoming moist. “The mother’s eyes became moist as she begged her son once again.
Weak by nature, she was never willing to let Alan solve problems with his fists, her son was now her only family and anything that could lead to him getting hurt had to be avoided.
His mother’s tears made Allen’s heart clench, he said as he went to wipe the corners of his mother’s eyes with his sleeve, “Mom, I promise you, I promise this will be the last time.”
“Ugh …… you always say it’s the last time.”
“It was that Pine guy, spouting nonsense with rumors he heard from who knows where, I got mad and fought him. We’ve made peace now, you saw us stopping by home together yesterday.”
The worried look on the mother’s face only slightly weakened, she immediately hugged her son tightly, and urged: “If other people talk nonsense, you just ignore him, in the future you can’t do it again.”
“Alright, alright, mom, I promise you everything.”
“I don’t know if you listened to it …… Forget it, go wash your face and eat first.”
The teenager simply washed up and came to the dining table to eat the breakfast made by his mother, although it was all simple food, but he didn’t know why, he felt that this breakfast was particularly fragrant. The mother also came to the table, mother and son talked, they talked about the source of the family’s livelihood – boiling salt.
The mother said with a little concern, “Recently, the number of salt merchants coming to our village has become fewer.”
“The salt merchants from the Arda Collar next door haven’t come for a long time, and there aren’t as many salt merchants from Bairdine as there used to be. “
“The money earned is much less all of a sudden.”
Alan guessed, “I heard some rumors in the blacksmith store, it seems like Alda has built some kind of new salt farm that can make so much salt at once.”
He turned the conversation around and said, “Don’t worry about it, mom. I’ll soon be an official apprentice to the blacksmith in the village, and the blacksmith even complimented me on my work. When that time comes, I’ll be able to receive a wage, and although the apprentice’s wage isn’t much, it’s no problem to subsidize the household.”
The mother smiled and touched her son’s head, this child was always so understanding, very sympathetic to her hard work.
“It’s not easy to make iron, you must learn well from the master blacksmith.”
……
After breakfast was finished, the mother cleaned up the dishes and once again came to the table.
Alan was a bit strange, normally his mother should have started the fire early to prepare for boiling salt, why was she so free today.
He said, “Mom, if there’s nothing else, I’ll go help out at the blacksmith store first.”
The teenager got up and was about to leave when his mother pulled him back.
“Alan.” His mother called his name softly.
“Don’t forget my other admonitions besides not to fight.”
A little puzzled as to why he suddenly said that, Alan agreed.
But he heard his mother continue to ask, “Tell me what things I have instructed you on a regular basis.”
The teenager was a bit helpless and began to list them one by one:
“Eat your meals and chew slowly.”
“Cover the covers when you sleep.”
“Don’t fight with people.”
……
“Uh, and get up early.”
After the list was finished, only my mother nodded and said this, “You’ll have to keep these admonitions of mine in mind when I’m gone.”
Ellen exclaimed, “Leave? Where are you going, Mom?”
The next thing that horrified him beyond words happened, his mother’s body was becoming more and more unreal until it turned into a transparent void.
He reached out his hand to grab his mother’s hand, but it came up empty.
“Alan, I’m sorry, mom can’t accompany you any further. You must take good care of yourself from now on.”
After leaving such a sentence, his mother’s virtual shadow eventually disappeared.
Allen stood dumbfounded next to the table, unable to stop the tears from flowing down his face.
“No-“
……
The teenager’s eyes opened with a start, but this time he was truly waking up from his dream.
I’m sorry that updates haven’t been very consistent lately because of work. I’ll try my best to keep up with one update a day, although it might be in the early hours of the morning like it is now, so please don’t worry about the book going too far, I’ll keep writing.
I haven’t thought about the details of the naval battle yet, so I wrote a little bit of the other aspects first, this chapter may not be very well written, yawning already when I was coding.
(End of chapter)