Chapter 955: Freedom
The shack dwellers paid them no heed. No one got up; they continued blocking Trion and his party on the road. The person kneeling at the very front spoke words of thanks through streaming tears. She clutched Trion's calf tightly and pressed her cheek against it.
"Good heavens! Someone get over here and drag them away!" Trion stomped his foot in disgust. "Is this any way to behave, crowding around here crying and screaming?"
Several bodyguards beside him finally stepped forward to drive them off. Some of the shack dwellers, however, were so devout that even after being dragged to the roadside, they continued kowtowing again and again.
"This is unbearable! Every time I come here, they put me through this," Trion said, smoothing the hem of his clothes. "I've told them over and over not to make such a spectacle of it, but not one of them listens."
Simoya let out a cold laugh. "If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes today, I never would have believed that anyone in Emangria still performed an actual foot-kissing ritual. Your estate has some serious rules, Sir Trion."
"Are you mocking me? I've had more than enough of this sort of misunderstanding!" Trion shouted. "I have never demanded that they do this. In private, I've told these people countless times that we are all equal—equal from the moment we are born. Do you think their pig brains can understand freedom and equality? They insist on doing this. What am I supposed to do, have every person who comes to salute me arrested and whipped twenty times?"
"It's true," Fatima said softly. "The baron has never forced anyone to kneel before him. He has always openly opposed this behavior."
Simoya could not be bothered to argue. She merely