Chapter 4: The Ghost Cloaked in Night
In the almost transparent night of the city of Rome, flakes of gold falling from the sky were churning and falling like a glittering wing.
It didn't fall very fast, but it was still impossible for Dura to swoop down and catch it.
"What now?" said Dura, flapping her wings in mid-air, her face frustrated, "I should have known that I should have let Shag smell the flakes of gold, he might be able to get them back!"
Zeus was already furious, and he thought that holding the holy relics of Saint Peter would always deter Arya, but he never expected that a Manado would be killed halfway!
Now he can only rush to the palace and fight with that crazy female devil as his holy rat!
But looking back, how will he explain to Grandpa David?
Zeus even suspected that the reason why he took the initiative to defend himself to Gainas, saying that he let go of those people in the gladiatorial arena was to hide far away, and when the tiger king's mother and son were killed, even if he fell into the complaint of the holy rat, he did not have to come to the rescue, thus offending the queen mother of Western Rome.
This cunning and hateful bad old man, Zeus now hated him the same to the core!
If it weren't for his sudden action, which crippled Mendo, his beloved little sheep, Mary, would not have died so miserably.
When Grandpa David did this last night, Zeus was confused: "What the hell is he doing? Mendo didn't do anything to him?"
Since Grandpa David appeared, everything has been messed up, and at this moment, Zeus feels a little overwhelmed!
But I can't care so much, so I rushed to the palace first and stopped Arya. If she really peeled off the skin of the tiger king's mother, in case the little white tiger woke up and saw it afterwards - Zeus didn't dare to think about it at all.
"I have been in the arena for more than three hundred years, and I am about to reach the fourth hundredth year, but for the first time I have never forgotten the cruelty of mankind!" he wiped a handful of tears and stubbornly raised his head, "Jesus could not wash away their sins with His own precious blood! Why did the great flood of Noah's time not come again? Let the fire that burned Sodom and Gomorrah come down quickly! Burn all the cruelty and ugliness away!"
Dura also felt very uncomfortable, but what could she do with a pigeon? What she should have done now was to keep her head down, and wave her wings desperately, and fly to the palace on the Palatine Hill as quickly as possible.
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Flakes of gold fell in a filthy, narrow alley, the "acne" of the city of Rome – a slum of misery except poverty, sickness and lowliness.
It was so late that I could still hear the "clanging" of the laborious scrubbing of clothes in the wooden basin, a cheap job that could only hold a few copper plates, usually done by girls of six or seven years old.
Because their bones were still growing, later archaeologists, when they found their slender calf bones in the thick mass graves, would be shocked to find deep bone pits on them, like a bloodless wound of white flowers, which they had been kneeling on the old paving stone slabs for many years.
How is it possible for a poor child to have a childhood?
Although they could look up and see the golden palace on the Palatine Hill, they could still hear the charming singing and laughter coming from there from time to time.
But she couldn't imagine the life of the people who lived there - yes, sometimes people who lived in hell could see heaven, but even if her life was more holy and unblemished than that of angels, it was impossible to enter heaven, not even for a second!
There was no light in the slums, so the little girl could only take advantage of the dim light of the street lamp at the entrance of the alley to put her clothes into another wooden basin filled with clean water.
There is also a toga she washed all the "rations" she got today, and the soaked toga is really surprisingly heavy for a child of her age, not to mention that she is already exhausted. The last one was made with a thick purple edge, and only a noble patriarch could wear such a fine costume with such a fine material and texture.
Therefore, no matter how tired she is, the little girl must wash it carefully.
Washing such a toga, the little girl can get paid for washing ten ordinary toga.
It was this kind and pious patriarch who picked her up from the Tiber River, otherwise she would have starved to death or been taken by wild dogs.
Such a precious garment, the other patriarchs let the most attentive and reliable servants in the house wash it. The patriarch would have the slaves bring her one every week, also to help their family.
The reason why the patriarch did not bring the little girl home to raise it was also because he was afraid that his wife would misunderstand and think that it was his illegitimate daughter.
The family in which the little girl now lives is poor, but the owner is a very kind and simple old blacksmith, whose only son died heroically on the border of the empire many years ago. He has worked all his life, and now he is old and sick, so he naturally needs someone to take care of and accompany him.
The patriarch respected the hero's father very much and gave him the little girl.
Now the old man was boiling water in the room upstairs—the water from the high mountain from the fountain was so cold that he was afraid of making a mistake with the little girl. The little girl was born very beautiful, and it is very likely that she will marry into a better family in the future, and if she falls ill early, her body is weak and cold, and she cannot give birth to children, it will ruin her whole life.
After boiling a pot of hot water in the old iron kettle, the old blacksmith would hobbled down the tattered and narrow staircase, step by step, and without a word put the kettle weighing ten pounds at the little girl's feet.
"Daddy, go to bed early, I'll finish washing up soon. Seeing that her adoptive father came to bring hot water to her again, the little girl was moved and worried about the old man's body. All it takes is for him to fall down the stairs in disrepair and it is enough to become paralyzed. "This toga is too valuable, I need to wash it carefully. ”
"What a good heart the Elder Prom has, and if it weren't for him, we would have starved to death!, but if he were to give us a handout, he would have hurt our poor self-esteem—and the poor often have only that little self-esteem left!" said the old blacksmith, touching the little girl's soft golden hair with pity. "Who hates you so much and leaves such a good child as you? You are so beautiful and have such an outstanding temperament, your father or mother must be a person of great status. ”
"I never thought of them, I didn't hate them. They may already have a beloved daughter, and they don't want another child to share their property!" In ancient Rome, this was very common, in order to allow the heirs who had already been designated, to get all the family property, and then the children born later, were either given to others or simply abandoned.
"They must not be devout Christians, or they would not have done so! But it is good that you were born in an era when Christianity was made the state religion, otherwise you would have been carried by slaves and drowned as soon as you landed! Alas, one day I must go to the holy rat and talk to him, and if he can identify your real parents with the help of God Almighty, I will definitely go to them to settle the score!"
"It really doesn't have to be like this, my dearest father, since they don't want me at all, they can't love me, so even if I live with them, in a mansion like a palace, I won't be happy. ”
"But you're a pearl baby! you shouldn't be buried in this slum!"
"I saw that 'mythical beast' in the gladiatorial arena today, and it was taken to me by the kind Grandpa Prom. She's so fit, so rich—she has such a young tiger cub, she doesn't deserve to die! I really don't know what will happen to her little tiger cub when she's dead?"
"Yes, if it weren't for the fact that I'm really old, and I have suffered from a damn neurasthenia, and I can't sleep at night, I'd like to go and see it! It's a 'divine beast' that I've never seen before! I heard that after stabbing her to death, the Queen Mother ordered someone to take her back to the palace, and she should be there now?" said the old blacksmith, pointing to the brightly lit palace on the top of the hill.
The little girl was about to say something, when she heard a "pop", and something fell into the wooden basin beside her, which was the large wooden basin containing the washed clothes. "What is it?" the little girl couldn't help but cry out, and at the same time reached into the tub to find it. She soon touched a thin piece of metal, very small. "It's like a copper plate, but it's too thin, it's rectangular!"
At this moment, a pair of dark blue eyes, as terrible as ghost fire, suddenly appeared in front of the wooden basin, and the little girl was frightened. But before she could cry again, a claw as sharp as a blade sprang into the tub and snatched the thin piece of metal from the little girl's hand.
The little girl refused to let go, but her palms were scratched by the unreasonable guy, and the blood that flowed from the wound stained the wooden basin, which was finally washed away.
Before she could feel the pain of tearing flesh, the dark blue eyes were gone.