"dad!!"
"Waaaaah... Daddy!!"
At the school gate, a middle-aged man with a weathered face, dressed in a black military uniform, stood outside the classroom door, looking exceptionally sharp and menacing.
The teacher introduced with a smile: "This is Mr. Su Yue, a combat hero who returned from the front lines in Dukar."
"Wow!!!"
"Su Yu, your father is a hero!"
"So cool!! Is war really that cruel?"
"He doesn't seem to be limping."
The children watched innocently as Su Yue entered the classroom, exclaiming, "Daddy!!"
Su Yu and Su Yun rushed towards Su Yue. A complex and inexplicable emotion appeared in Su Yue's eyes. Applause came from behind the stage. Compared with himself when he was covered in dirt and carrying an extremely heavy military backpack, Su Yue felt a sense of trepidation as he returned home.
Everything felt both familiar and strange. He couldn't describe or understand the feeling. He clearly missed his hometown, his children, and his wife, but this longing didn't seem so real.
"Wife..."
A staggering sound came from behind. Elisa leaned against the wall, looked at Su Yue, moved her lips twice, and threw herself into his arms.
"Honey...that's wonderful, wonderful."
Su Yue was tackled to the doorway by him, her chin resting on her beautiful long hair and forehead. She said, "I'm going to visit the children." Elisa stroked his face and asked:
"How did it go? How was it this time?"
Su Yue said, "It's a short 14-day holiday. I'll be going back in a while."
Elisa tried to hold back her tears, but she still cried. Su Yue lowered his head and kissed her.
There was no one at home.
He talked about what was happening on the front lines. Adults don't need to hide things from each other, and he didn't want Elie to worry. He kept talking about interesting things from the front, but Elie still heard a lot of trouble and noise from him.
For example, in the first story, there are quite a few corpses.
In the second story, they broke into a house. It seemed that Su Yue was describing taking the deceased's belongings, but Elie could sense a strong sense of horror from his happy description, so she wept even more deeply.
Su Yue was taken aback.
Wasn't he trying to comfort her? Why is she crying even harder?
a long time.
When the time comes to no longer allow for tenderness.
I'll cook for you.
"good."
Eliza gently touched his face and said, "Rest well. If you don't want to work, then don't go anymore... The front line is too dangerous. The news reports it every day. I'm worried every day. The children keep asking when their father will come back... Many of my colleagues at the company... their husbands, their husbands... all sacrificed their lives."
"Brother Yue...please, just don't go."
Su Yue remained silent.
Don't go?
What about the contract? Are you going to breach it?
The 14-day rest period is a short vacation. If you disobey orders and do not return to your unit, you are considered a deserter and will be subject to a military court or even execution.
He ran his hand through Elis's long, dark hair without speaking, and said, "I've been promoted to corporal now, so it's fine. Officers face far fewer dangers than ordinary soldiers, and we engineers don't need to do the dirty and hard work."
Elisa trembled as she asked, "But how did you get promoted to corporal without any military merit?"
"..."
Su Yue remained silent, and Elie cried again.
Su Yue rummaged through his backpack and said with a smile, "I brought you a lot of gifts..."
"And at least the economic problems have been solved. We can now earn more money. The officials in Dukar have increased the military budget. When I went to the front lines, the soldiers' salaries increased by 30%, which is more than enough to make a living and can even give you and your children a better future."
Su Yue was unaware that he had completely immersed himself in the world of 700 years ago.
Just as he was living with his former lord, completely severed from the world of Canaan and Turin, he was completely unaware of this risk.
But war is too hard on the human heart...
If he were Su Yue, the lord of Canaan, he might not feel compassion for the scene before him. Su Yue, the lord of Canaan, is a demigod; he would not feel tired or weary.
His troops will not be defeated.
His strength is unmatched.
All the conditions that ordinary humans should perceive, such as exhaustion, the threat of death, the need to support a family, and the hardships of life, should not have occurred to Su Yue, the lord of Canaan.
Unbeknownst to Su Yue, the war had numbed his senses. All he wanted to do now was turn on the TV with lifeless eyes, lie on the sofa, and do what a middle-aged man should do.
One could say that his brain's neural pathways have mutated.
The child's head.
The mindset of a middle-aged person is different from that of a middle-aged person.
Middle-aged people are already set in their ways. Their world and social values are like a piece of fish nailed to a chopping board. This fish is neither fresh nor worthy of attention. It is incomprehensible no matter what, and they are constrained and trapped in a dead end.
Such a desperate situation would not cause his death in an instant; rather, it was more like a chronic illness.
When chronic diseases begin to spread.
It may take decades, or even until the moment of death, for people to realize and understand the abnormality and situation.
"Aren't you going to meet up with your former colleagues?"
Su Yue smiled.
He looked at everyone as if they were dead. There were too many civilian corpses on the battlefield. Vibrant lives often did not belong there. Mud, filth, lice, and bloodshed were the cruel truth of the battlefield.
He walked around outside and felt increasingly out of place in "peace".
Everything made him feel uncomfortable.
The middle-aged, greasy man peeking out from the second floor to observe the situation downstairs, staring at the women's buttocks on the street, reminded Su Yue of a scout in an enemy watchtower, and he instinctively wanted to raise his gun and shoot him.
The smiling vendor handed over a brown sugar steamed bun. The slight sound of half a sugar cube and coffee hitting the table made Su Yue feel as if he could hear shells and bullets whizzing past his ears and bouncing on craters.
Every little rustling sound turned into a kind of tension.
Outwardly, Su Yue appeared no different from ordinary people.
However, he felt that the nature of his life had been completely changed.
He became a prisoner of war.
A puppet of war.
It seems that without war and without a battlefield, he is nothing.
It will become nothing.
He even developed a certain aversion to peace.
"Dad... I'll sing you a song."
Su Yue held the coffee, stirred the sugar cubes inside, and smiled, "Okay."
Eliza held her husband's arm, and the family enjoyed a happy time together.
A tram roared past, its metal body creaking. Su Yue watched as many men in military uniforms walked down the street, their heavy backpacks and bags gleaming.
Wearing a suit at this moment, he felt as relaxed as if he were wearing nothing at all.
The weight of steel helmets and steel guns is too great.
He seemed to have shed his fatigue.
Gregory, holding his sister's hand and leading several children, walked towards them. Su Yue waved to him.
"And Abraham?"
"He didn't come."
Suddenly, the street was cordoned off by a large number of soldiers. Su Yue looked at the group of soldiers lined up in the street with a puzzled expression, as if they were waiting for some important figure to inspect the troops. He asked with a questioning look:
"What's going on?"
Elie was also puzzled: "Why are the troops lined up on both sides?"
Gregory said, "I'm not quite sure either. I called Henry earlier, and he said he was going to prepare a surprise for us."
Su Yue vaguely sensed that the surprise Henry mentioned was related to the current situation.
Not long after.
A man wearing a steel helmet with red tassels, long leather boots with sharp spurs, and dressed in the majestic hunting attire of a Dukar nobleman, rode a tall black warhorse and walked towards them amidst the fawning of a group of Dukar officials and nobles in the distance.
He crossed the street, dismounted, and waved to Su Yue and Gregory amidst the astonished gazes of countless ordinary people.
"???"
"!!!!"
Su Yue stared in shock at Henry's aristocratic tuxedo and the iris and cornflower emblems on his hunting attire...
"Fuck you???"
"What's wrong?"
Eliza looked at her husband with a puzzled expression as he swore.
"Henry is royalty??"
Gregory was equally dumbfounded: "He...he's the Crown Prince???"
The feeling was as if they had encountered the King of Dukal at the front lines, who had appeared to inspect the troops. It was rumored that the King was the noblest being in the world, a divine being who did not need to use the toilet, work, rest, or eat.
Some uncultured soldiers even questioned the king's identity, wondering what constituted a noble person.
The frontline troops being reviewed and on guard had been visited by the King two months prior.
At that time, Su Yue and Gregory were just observing from afar.
They did not actually come into contact with the upper-class nobles of Dukar.
But they never expected that Henry would be able to get involved with the royal family.
Su Yue's lips twitched.
He thought of Henry VII of the Bathonomic Empire. "Could it be that this Henry is actually Henry VII of the Bathonomic Empire???? That's impossible, isn't it?"
"Where is William? Where is Frederick? Where is Kim Soo-er?"
"Where did Europa go? What role does the Cthulhu pantheon play in this world?" At this moment, chaos began to assault his already numb and indifferent nerves once again.
Prince Henry dismounted from his warhorse and walked toward Sue and Gregory.
"I'll give you a chance to kiss my riding boots."
He looked at the three of them with a smile.
The court minister beside him said, "These are all His Majesty the Crown Prince's comrades-in-arms."
"!!"
"Dad...the Crown Prince!!" Gu Yu was stunned.
Eliza looked at Henry with a surprised expression.
Henry smiled and interacted with the Gregory family children and Su Yue's two sons for a while before saying, "I have something to attend to, so I'll be leaving now. The family is too busy... If you have any questions in the future, you can let me know."
"..."
"..."
Numb, completely numb, everyone around the coffee shop seemed to have undergone general anesthesia... Henry was discussing the issue of seizing the coalfields and exchanging views with Su Yue on the overall situation of the war, as if the two people in front of him were not cannon fodder corporals on the front lines, not low-ranking officers, but rather two generals... This made the staff officer next to him frown.
Su Yue: "..."
He grew increasingly silent; the world was becoming more and more bizarre. Henry VII was actually his comrade-in-arms? If he were to return to Turin, would Henry remember him?
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com