Hearing the inquiry from his first mate, Charles let out a rare, booming laugh. "Hahaha, not living past forty? That old ship doctor was just lying to me. If I really wasn't going to make it, with his fiery temper, he would have been frantically nagging me long ago."
"Is... that so?" Bandage sounded skeptical.
Charles seemed to recall something, and the smile on his face gradually faded. He spoke with a touch of sentiment, "Yes. Do you remember that unfinished secret the old doctor mentioned before he died? It wasn't until I had Linda check my health a few days ago that I realized. The secret he said I'd blame him for knowing was probably that the so-called 40-year-old curse never existed at all. He was just trying to scare me.
"If he were alive now, he'd be a hundred years old, and he still saved that secret for a final joke. The older people get, the more childish they become."
