I put out his fire

Two days later, the commoners finally welcomed their new emperor.

Slaves surrounded a flower-studded carriage and painted gold powder paint on the wheels.The float is nearly two people tall and is pulled by three horses of different colors, black, white and brown.

At noon, the new emperor would take this open-air carriage and drive through all the streets of Rome.

Nero wore eight layers of silk inside and out, from the shirt to the gem-encrusted shawl, all bordered by stripes on a purple background.Wheat ears and oil drops are painted on the back of the hand, and a purple silk satin sprinkled with gold powder is held in both hands.

He carried the silk and walked onto the float. There were cheering crowds on both sides of the street, and the Guards formed a human wall to separate them.

Behind the emperor's float was a smaller float carrying Agrippina.

Agrippina is dressed in gorgeous red silk, with a purple ribbon tied around her plump and strong waist, and her curly silver hair is tied into a simple bun.

This is a rare event in Rome, even more so than the carnival of Lupercalia.The streets were crowded, and many people climbed to the roof to see.The hills, the coast, and even the decks of docked ships were full of people who wanted to pay their respects to the new emperor.

By the sea, Rhodes was sitting in the highest cabin, holding two thick prisms.He didn't speak, but looked serious, adjusting the distance between the prisms back and forth.

Next to him was the chattering Welba.

"Damn it! I've never seen so many people!" Welba yelled at the top of his voice. "The crowd of people's heads is so dense that it makes me sick to see!"

He stretched half his body out of the window, trying to get himself closer to the street, like a turtle stretching its head to the limit.

Welba looked at the street through the prism and howled: "My God! Before the emperor's float arrived, the people on both sides of the street were already shouting frantically. Their waving arms were like the squirming legs of a turning centipede." !"

Rhode adjusted the two prisms to the most suitable distance, and fixed them with wooden sticks and ropes.This simple telescope allows him to see everything on the street.

The guards in silver-grey iron armor lined up in a row, like a layer of paper that was about to be burned, blocking the enthusiastic crowd.

"Why are there so many people?" Rhodes said holding up the binoculars, "The last time he returned to the city from Greece, there were not so many."

Welba withdrew his body, rubbed his sore eyes, "It's not surprising, your master is probably the most popular emperor ever."

Rhodes put down the binoculars and squinted at him, "What do you mean?"

"Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor." Welba said, picking his nostrils. "He collected those corrupt elders and cut off a lot of business taxes. You know, before even prostitutes had to pay taxes. He also paid special attention to small businesses and peddlers. Tolerance, now except for salt and gold which are monopolized by him, all other things are free to buy and sell.”

Rhodes flicked the smooth prism, and said in a vague tone: "Is that so..."

"He has a good reputation." Welba tossed the prism in his hand, "at least the prostitutes who flirted with me in the brothel, the hawkers selling scrapers at the entrance of the bathhouse, and the women with clay pots on their heads, all Praise for him. What was the controversial bail bond before, all forgotten in a series of tax cuts..."

The crowd on the deck suddenly stomped excitedly, the ship shook violently, and Rhodes, who was lying on the bed, couldn't help but clung to the edge of the bed.

Welba fell flat on the ground as if tripped.He leaned on the window frame and stood up tremblingly, cursing: "Not only did these things climb onto my boat without permission, but they also jumped around like fleas!"

He glanced out of the window and exclaimed in surprise, "Here we come! The emperor is here!"

Rhodes felt nervous for no reason, raised his binoculars and looked out the window.

In the crowd like black water, a brightly colored float is like opening up wasteland, and it is difficult to split a road covered with roses.

As soon as that iconic curly silver hair came into view, Rhodes' heart beat like a drum.He put down the binoculars reflexively, took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and then lifted it up again.

Under the scorching sun at noon, the purple silk and satin sprinkled with gold powder exudes broken gold like water waves.Rhodes could clearly see that Nero only wore a gold ring on his finger, which was the same style as the one on his hand.

Back in time quickly, Nero, who was betrayed by everyone in the previous life and whose purple robes were tattered, Nero who was young and cruel by nature when we first met, Nero who was domineering and infinitely demanding when making love...all in the prism in his hand at this moment.

Rhodes at this moment actually saw countless Nero.

Before love, time is false.

"Oh! God! Did you see that golden and purple silk?!" Welba slapped the window frame excitedly, "I can guarantee that the silk in the emperor's hand can buy ten ships like ours !"

Rhodes looked at Nero on the float with a dazed expression, turning a deaf ear to Welba who was screaming beside him.

The float slowly disappeared into the field of vision, like a stained glass bead gliding out slowly.

Rhodes still maintained his long-distance posture, and he didn't react until a long time later, lying back on the bed in silence.

As soon as he turned around, he met Wilba's mean smile.

"How?" He said in a strange voice, "It's so far away, can you see the master's appearance clearly?"

"In this world, no one knows what he looks like better than me." Rhodes said coldly, stroking the round prism surface back and forth with his fingertips.

Welba smirked, with a meaningful expression on his face.

Rhodes put the telescope back on the table, closed the glass window that had been deformed by seawater for a long time, picked up a piece of wine from the fruit plate, and threw it into his mouth.

"Your master has changed. When he was hijacked last time, he was still a little bud that was easily frightened." Welba also picked up a grape, "It's only been a little over a year, and he's growing like a blossoming fruit. For a man with a calm demeanor."

Rhodes recalled Nero just now, without realizing that his eyes were lost, and said softly: "He has changed."

"You've changed too." Welba folded his arms on his chest and looked at Rhodes seriously.

Rhodes was leaning on the pillow, his face was half up, and he glanced at him from the tip of his sharp eyes, "How did I change?"

"You are more talkative than before, or...you have become gentler." Welba said, "Before on the pirate ship, you faced nearly a hundred pirates alone, and you had to protect the descendants of Augustus. At that time You look like you are made of fire or iron and stone, you are very fierce at first glance, and you are not easy to bully at all."

Rhodes ignored him, pulled a green grape from the root, and held it between his bright red lips.

Welba added: "In short, you and your master have changed."

……

After patrolling the city, Nero did not let himself rest, and went to the temple early the next morning.

He once again stood on the wooden bridge erected for the flood, looking towards the mountain road at the end of the bridge.

It was this mountain that built his manor, held flood sacrifices, buried Thales' ashes, and Rhodes' mother was a virgin here; the flood at the foot of the mountain flooded the streets, and he had to bear huge repair costs for it.

And, Rhodes once jumped from the top of the mountain for him.

Nero trembled, supported by two guards holding torches, and walked along the mountain road to the temple located halfway up the mountain.

Since the flood sacrifice, this declining temple has never been used again.

As Nero and his armored bodyguard walked across the dusty marble floor, the virgins who kept the sacred fire were still dozing off.

The emperor's sudden visit caught the priests in charge of the temple's daily life by surprise.

"Oh... I didn't expect that your first temple would be here." The priest was terrified and smiled, "Everyone thought you would go to the Temple of Vesta in the center of the city."

Nero saw the sweat beading from his forehead and asked, "How long have you been a priest here?"

"It has been less than half a year since the flood sacrifice until now." The priest said, "Before the sacrifice, this temple has been abandoned. After it was reopened due to the flood, I was transferred here from the largest Vesta temple. Before at the Temple of Vesta, I was just a small candlestick responsible for lighting candles."

Nero asked, "Is there a crypt here?"

"Of course." The priest said affirmatively, "Every temple has a crypt, where the bones of those extremely evil people are buried. Only under the holy light of the temple can the sinful soul be purified."

Nero nodded, "Take me there. I want to see what kind of souls are imprisoned there."

……

It was cold in the crypt, and the candlesticks hanging from the studs had long since rusted.The virgins swept a narrow path very quickly, and put candles in the rusty and crumbling candlesticks.

Stepping on the narrow path with emerald-studded lace-up boots, Nero finally stopped in front of an urn.

There are more than 50 urns, covered with dust, arranged in small grids on the ground, which at first glance look like erect heads.

On each urn, there is a piece of rusty iron plate with the name of the deceased engraved on it.

"Thales Fine." Nero's eyes darkened, "Find out the name."

A virgin found Thales' ashes in the last cell of the last row.Apparently, Thales was the last person to be buried in this crypt.

Two guards walked over with torches, illuminating an open space next to the urn.

Nero bent down to look at it, the red light from the torch illuminated the half-corroded iron sheet, and there was a vague "Thales Farne".

Picking up the urn, he inadvertently glanced at the ground.He suddenly frowned, his dim eyes tightly locked on the ground.

Under Thales' urn, there is a flat concrete floor, which seems to have been specially cast with cement; while under other urns, there is uneven dust.

Nero raised his fingers, and there was a muffled sound between his knuckles and the small piece of cement.

"It's a strange patch of cement," he said. "Crack it open, and I'll see what's down there."

……

Nero knew that Rhodes' mother's death would be tragic, but when he actually faced her remains, he still gasped.

The slaves chiseled for a whole day, and only in the middle of the night did they clear out a single bone.They also found a silky white robe in the cement, and several pearl hair ornaments reserved for virgins.

Diane died by being doused in cement.

The slaves placed the white bones that had been stripped of the cement on the silk, and a petite skeleton appeared impressively in the firelight.The white bones were perfectly preserved in the cement, the skull had no cracks, and the milky white teeth were distinct.

The young priest stood beside the bones, too horrified to speak.He didn't know the origin of this white bone at all.

"I... I have served in the temple for so many years, I just heard that I have never encountered such a thing..." The priest's face turned pale with fright, "This is...only virgins who committed serious crimes were buried alive in cement... ..."

Nero gave him a stern look.The priest quickly shut up, his knees were still shaking.

"If you don't want to have your eyes gouged out and your tongue cut off, just rot in your stomach what you saw today." Nero said, slowly scanning all the things in the crypt with the naturally cold eyes inherited from his mother. People, "This sentence applies to all of you."

All the virgins and slaves knelt down and fell silent.

With a calm face, Nero walked up to the bones and straightened the crooked skull.Just as the skull was being turned, a pointed horn of parchment protruded from the mouth between the milky white teeth.

He took a thick iron nail, pried off a tooth, pinched the sharp corner, and pulled out the parchment that the bone contained in his mouth.

Opening the layers of parchment, the paper has turned orange, and the blood-red writing is distorted, as if it has been soaked in water:

"My dear Lord, my son:

I am now trapped in the deep pit of this crypt, using a piece of paper and an engraving pen that I begged for, dipped in the blood of my fingertips, and wrote this letter.

You take my surname as Faen, which was discussed in advance with your magnanimous father who regards me as a pearl.That night, the Guards broke into the house, executed your grandparents with swords, poured grease on the yard, and set fire to it.Your father was crushed to death by a falling stone beam in order to protect me.He told me to live until the last moment of my life.

I just took advantage of the chaos and escaped.In despair and gloom, he obeyed an old friend's advice, changed his name, paid some favors to the priest who examined the body, and sneaked into the temple that would never be searched by the courts and the army.

But at that time, I didn't know that there was already a life in my body, and that was you.

I panicked, dieted like crazy, and wore a belt around my waist from morning till night.When I was seven months old, taking advantage of an opportunity to go shopping alone, I gave birth to you ahead of schedule by drinking a potion to induce labor in a small medical clinic.

My child, the stipulated time for purchasing was too short. At that time, I was exhausted and only focused on going back to the temple, so I didn’t get to take a good look at you. This is a pity that my nose gets sore every time I think about it!

After handing you over to your uncle, I have been in front of the gods for so many years. Whenever I guard the holy fire and wipe the statue of the gods, my body is unclean, and I will feel almost utterly guilty.I am a false virgin.When my identity was finally exposed and I was about to face the punishment of pouring cement, I actually felt relieved like a prison bird flying out of the cage.

My Rhodes, after giving birth to you, I have never seen you again.Now that you are 12 years old, I want to know what you look like, what clothes you wear, what you like to eat and drink, what kind of voice you speak, whether you are destined to be weak and easy to get sick, and whether your personality will be like your father Lively and outgoing, what kind of walking posture is it, how many friends have you made, can you archery, draw the bow and swim, have you learned rhetoric and debate skills, do you have enough money to spend, do you have any girls you like... I've been fantasizing about you all day.I have only one child like you, and I worry like a mother to a hundred.

Dear son, tomorrow I will go with the gods.I wish you all the achievements of serving the gods in the past 12 years.I am willing to block all bad luck for you at the cost of losing your body and bones; I am willing to prolong your life at the cost of closing the quagmire.

I hope you can overthrow all suffering, and I hope you can take charge of your own happiness.

I also selfishly hope that you will remember that I will always love you. 』

After reading the letter from the dead man's mouth, Nero swayed and knelt beside the bones.

The author has something to say:

In fact, Rhodes is a premature baby [picking nose.jpg.]

By the way, why is there a row of high-level trials in the backstage, which is very frightening