The Sensory Animals of Ston Hill

"Grace? Where does it hurt? Is it a stomachache?" William knelt down and looked anxiously at Grace's face.

Seeing William's anxious look, Grace's eyes became even more moist, and she said, "It seems to be the stomach..."

"It must be the chocolate!" exclaimed Mrs. Sharp remorsefully. "I said too much chocolate would give her a tummy ache! Gotta put her down—"

William immediately picked up Grace and carried him upstairs.Grace was lying in William's arms, and the big skirt blocked the entire staircase, and the others could only follow closely behind.With so many feet, the sound of the stairs was so loud that Grace's heart beat so fast that she hid her ears in William's arms.

"Do you want to help?" Alan Stone asked from behind.

"No need." William's voice sounded a little breathless, he was walking in a hurry.

He carried Grace into the "study" where he had just given Luka a lesson.How can ordinary people have a study room in their homes? It was originally just a bedroom with a small bed, and William put Grace gently on the small bed.

He squatted beside the bed and asked Grace, "Does it hurt a lot?"

Grace nodded with red eyes, looking like she was about to cry.

Mrs. Sharp said she had experience, and that at such times one should take a sip of laudanum.She brought a small bottle of laudanum, and William sniffed it first, without passing it to Grace.

Alan Stone asked him what was wrong. "The dose of opium is a bit high," William replied.

Allen took out a handkerchief from his coat pocket and handed it to him: "Use this."

William shook the bottle, poured a few drops of laudanum on the handkerchief, and then handed the handkerchief to Grace's nose, "Sniff it lightly."

Grace obediently complied.William waited for a few seconds and asked him, "Do you feel better?"

Grace looked at him and shook her head.

Mrs. Sharp said, "A sniff is no use! Still a drink! It's good medicine, the best Turkish opium ever!"

William hesitated, looking from Grace to the vial of laudanum.Alan Stone squeezed in from behind, took the bottle from his hand, and said to Grace, "Open your mouth, and I'll put two drops in your mouth." Then he said to William, "Two drops will never There are side effects."

William stepped back slightly, watching Alan Stone drip two drops of laudanum on the tip of Grace's protruding tongue.Turkey's laudanum doesn't use strong alcohol, so it doesn't taste spicy. Grace quietly retracted her tongue, closed her mouth, and soon yawned.

"Does it still hurt?" Alan Stone asked him.Grace was so sleepy, she squinted her eyes and shook her head.

Mrs. Sharp said, "She should be put to sleep."

"Then... let's all get out," William said, looking back for Eva and Anna.

"Brother." Grace actually took his hand, "Brother, don't go."

Eva wanted to go forward, but was stopped by Alan Stone. He smiled strangely and said, "It's okay, William and I will just watch her here."

Mrs. Sharp said it would work, but Alan Stone insisted.He was eloquent and always presented a decent image in this house. Mrs. Sharp was finally persuaded by him and left with Eva and the others.

"Brother, don't avoid me." Grace took William Ston's hand and said tearfully, "You know I can only come here in the morning, so you always come in the afternoon, don't you?"

"...I... am busy with military affairs."

"You're still lying to me. You just don't want to see me," Grace accused him.

William Stone had never seen Grace speak so coquettishly, and he didn't know how to answer for a moment.

"Really busy?" Grace asked again.

"It's true... I just joined the job, so I need to know a lot, and there are more general affairs inside the Capital Guard than outside the garrison." He sat down by the bed, still being held by Grace, his voice was softer than before, "Grace, how could I not want to see you?"

"Are you lying to me?"

"I didn't lie to you, Grace."

"You want to see me too."

"……Yes."

Grace smiled, but soon looked worried, "Don't you like it here? Do you want to fight on the border more?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Someone told me that a man like you should be a gun, not a vase."

William laughed, "Who said that?"

Grace realized that she had slipped her mouth, so she quickly pressed her lips together, and after a while, she stammered, "I can't tell you."

William didn't ask, but said: "There is no such thing, Grace, leaving the front line does not mean that I will no longer work. I also have my own duties and tasks in the Capital Guard."

"Really?" Grace looked at him eagerly, grasping something like a child and asking to the end.

Alan Stone said from the side: "What are you talking about with her? It's about the army..." He wanted to say that Grace didn't understand, but he didn't think that was the case, so he changed his words: "She's drunk. It's done like this."

But William Ston still explained his duties to Grace, explaining the attitude of the Senate and the Parliament towards the war, "... Therefore, General Verwick told me that the role of a military statesman in the capital is no more important than that in the capital. The general who charges at the front is of little use."

Alan Stone evaluated William's patience in his heart, and it was indeed far better than his own.

In military school, everyone made him target William, including himself.Many teachers have said that he is not inferior to William in terms of intelligence, physical fitness and courage. The only thing he lacks is patience.Because of the lack of patience, it is easy to be reckless, easy to make mistakes, easy to fall into traps, and easy to regret afterwards.

Wilhelm was so bored with patiently talking to drunk people that he wandered over to the window.The young children were playing in the inner courtyard, and even Luca, who had been studying in the study, went out.The younger brother John chased his sister with a thick wooden stick, and the girls all hid behind Luca.They all obviously prefer the steady Luca.

Alan Stone felt a little unfair for John, obviously he was the one who always played games with the sisters, and he was not always so naughty; and Luca only appeared occasionally.

"Does your stomach still hurt?" William asked Grace.

"If it doesn't hurt, you're leaving, aren't you?"

William was completely helpless, he couldn't say disappointing words to Grace like this.

"I can't eat so much chocolate at one time in the future." He had to say this.

Grace grinned. "Chocolate is so sweet."

William also smiled, "It's sugar sweet."

"Brother, do you remember you gave me a bag of candy? That was the first time I ate candy wrapped in nuts. It was so delicious."

"I don't even remember, was it when you were very young?"

"It was my 11th birthday. You told me, it was my father who told you that the Chinese are different from us. They think it is a good thing to be born, so they all celebrate their birthday. I asked you how to celebrate your birthday, You said you didn't know, but you would give me gifts every time I celebrate my birthday." Grace's tone became aggrieved: "Brother, you didn't come home when I was 19 years old."

William said "I'm sorry" guiltily.

Grace laughed, "It's okay, I like the Christmas gift you gave me very much, it's so beautiful, I'm reluctant to use it, such a soft shawl, I'm especially afraid of getting it dirty, it won't be white after washing too much."

William asked puzzled, "Shawl?"

Alan Stone, who had originally decided to be only an audience member, rushed over to interrupt their chat and said to William, "Let her sleep."

Grace asks William: "Have you forgotten? You made Ellen—"

"Grace!" Alan Stone raised the volume, "You should go to bed."

Grace pursed her lips, "Damn it." She turned her gaze back to William's face, "Brother, don't go."

William took his hand, "I won't go."

Grace finally agreed to close her eyes.

He fell asleep quickly, and William asked Ellen: "What shawl was Grace just talking about?"

Alan Stone shrugged, "Who knows what she said. Why did two drops of laudanum make her drunk?"

William Ston looked at Grace's sleeping face and smiled softly. He no longer shy away from the blood relationship between Grace and them, and said with emotion: "Don't we both drink too well?"

William kept his promise, sitting by Grace's bed and watching.Alan Stone didn't leave either. He found something to do for himself and checked Luca's study notes.

Grace was awakened by a knock on the door, and Luca knocked gently on the door and asked William if he could finish the remaining paragraphs.

He heard Alan Stone say: "You go, I'll watch here."

He complained in his heart and wanted William not to go, but he couldn't open his mouth, as if he hadn't woken up yet.

William let go of his grip and got up from the bed.Grace complained in her heart, and said again that Alan Stone was a nuisance.

The door opened and closed, and another person sat beside him.

"Why are you so bad? Are you happy to see him in a hurry?" He heard Alan Stone ask him in a low voice.

"You're bad, nasty ghost." Grace retorted in her heart.

The bastard even touched his face.Grace was upset because Alan Stone was tickling his face.

He even touched his mouth!Grace imagined that she would lie in ambush, and when the finger went a little further in the middle, he would open his mouth and bite his hand to scare him!

But Alan Stone didn't give him a chance to attack, and quickly moved his hand away from his lips, and touched his arm instead.

"Do we really have the same scars?" he heard Alan Stone muttering to himself.

He was equally curious.He knew that he had a scar on his arm, but he had never looked at it carefully. When he was a child, he always fell down and was cut by branches. There were several scars on his body. He had to carefully look at which scar was useful.

He felt that Alan Ston pulled his sleeves down like taking off a glove—he wears sleeves of the upper and lower styles today, and the lower half wraps his arms tightly, like a long glove without the part below the wrist; The top half looks like a pumpkin that hasn't grown well, which is especially in the way.He could never understand why ladies always use clothes to make themselves bigger.

Alan Stone's hand slid up his forearm. Grace knew he made a mistake. William said it was the upper arm, so she had to go up again.

Alan Stone was not so annoying now, he obediently moved up, and finally stopped at the edge of the pumpkin sleeve.

Yes, that's where it should be, Grace thought.To be fair, he thought he should also look at the scar on Alan Stone's arm, so that he could know whether his scar looked more dignified than his, after all, the two had been vaccinated together.

But first he had to figure out what his scar looked like.

It's round, Alan Stone thought, looking at the scar.

He did have a scar of this size on his arm, but it was irregularly shaped, and he wondered why Grace's scar was so round.

His fingers pressed it up and touched it curiously.The scar itself is nothing special. He also has a circular scar on his abdomen, which is caused by a bullet. It is much rarer than the scar from vaccinia.

The strange thing is that the arm with this scar, why is it so slippery?His fingers could not help but slide lightly on that arm, a little addicted.

He didn't know that Grace called them "pumpkin sleeves" in his mind, he just thought the sleeves were so useless that his palms slipped in without hindrance.It was because Grace's arms were too slippery, and he blamed it in his heart.At this moment, he even thought of a wisecrack: This arm is as smooth as its owner.Alan Stone's palm slid onto Grace's shoulder all at once.

He never knew that a person's shoulders could grow so small that he could cover them with one hand.Like holding an apple, it is difficult for people to let go.

Then his fingertips touched the hard bone under the skin, and it took him a moment to realize that it was Grace's collarbone.He couldn't remember if he had ever touched it.

He once frantically tore open Grace's clothes, and touched this body in a blank mind, but he couldn't remember what it felt like to touch this body at all. hot.

His fingers moved forward along the track of the bone, like a person exploring the way in the dark.

"Alan..." He heard William's voice behind him.