On an April morning, the crisp morning breeze blew in through the half-open windows, quickly blowing away the lethargic inertia, and the warm Mediterranean breeze seemed to urge everyone not to waste this precious morning light, although not many could get up so early.

Standing in a large room, Ding Mu was slightly worried.

Fifteen golden flints a month should be regarded as a very generous commission, and if you count the fact that you can still have a meal at the bishop's place from time to time, Ding Mu should have been very satisfied with the current treatment.

But looking at the room, he felt that the bishop did not seem to be a very generous man.

Although he had never met his predecessor, Bishop Malejo, he had heard all sorts of anecdotes about him, including the fact that he had had some kind of intimate conversation with almost all the young choir boys, and that the bishop had already suffered from a very serious venereal disease, and if he unveiled the robes he had been wrapped around for many years, he would find that there were so many places in his body that he had developed terrible abscesses that the foul stench could only be concealed by applying a lot of spice to his body.

However, Ding Mu was not interested in the bishop's private morality, and he found it difficult to bear the collector's taste and his almost rugged style.

Art, philosophy, law, and all sorts of historical treatises, Ding Mu found himself in a vast library of masterpieces from the ancient Greek and Roman eras, but the owner of this library seemed to be interested only in possession.

In addition to the bookcases he had seen in the bishop's living room before, it wasn't until he actually started working that in another courtyard, not very far from the living room, there seemed to be a whole room of various classical works, and this so-called room, he felt that it was more appropriate to call it a palace.

Three rows of wooden bookshelves leading to the ceiling divide the stack into three sections, which seem to be carefully arranged, but in fact, if you flip through them, you will find a complete mess of manuscripts and documents, as well as various manuscripts transcribed from an unknown era, arranged in a disorderly manner on the three shelves that look like a whole row of giants.

This made Ding Mu finally understand why Priest Alfonso had suggested that he find someone to be a helper from the beginning, and it was obvious that such a difficult job could not be done by one person.

He picked up a document on the shelf with a good sheepskin as the cover, and found that it was supposed to be the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno's "On Nature", but he felt helpless that such an important work, full of serious wisdom, was mixed with a pile of alchemical manuscripts on how to prepare sex drugs scraped out of nowhere.

Ding Mu walked slowly along the bookshelf, while carefully avoiding the various messy books and papers piled up under his feet, he told himself that he had to be careful, no one knew if he would destroy a precious cultural relic that would be regarded as priceless in the future.

At the end of the room was a locked bookcase, similar in style to that of the living room, probably by the hands of the same craftsmen, and the lock had accumulated a thick layer of soil, which had not been opened for a long time.

Ding Mu took out a string of keys from his pocket, which had been given to him by the treasurer of Malejo, who, though nominally the Bishop of Palermo, was now interned in the Château de Monreale, not far from the Episcopal Palace, which contained nearly a hundred Aragonese guards, enough to guard against those who tried to get him out.

It took some effort to open the bookcase, and to Ding Mu's surprise, there was nothing else in it except for a sturdy-looking wooden box.

The wooden box was also covered with dust, and Ding Mu couldn't help but shake back with one end of his hands.

The wooden box is surprisingly light.

Ding Mu looked at the box, and after making sure that there was nothing strange about it, he carefully opened the lid of the box.

A black key was pressed against a yellowed piece of cotton paper, and a rope of no longer discernible color passed through the hole in the handle of the key, and a black thing was tightly tied to the rope.

When he put the key in the sunlight of the window and looked closely, Ding Mu realized that the black thing was actually a bone.

Although he was not sure, Ding Mu vaguely thought that this should be a human bone.

He carefully picked up the paper in the box, and to his strange thing, it was full of inexplicable symbols, or something that might be mysterious to this era, but to him it meant something else.

It was actually a manuscript of Zhang Alchemy, and Ding Mu was a little disappointed.

Ding Mu was really not interested in the kind of alchemy that might be unfathomable to many people today, and if he wanted to, he could create more jaw-dropping so-called illusions and miracles at will, and even let those believers regard what he had created as some kind of miracle.

But Ding Mu didn't want to do this, because he knew very well that this kind of thing was like a double-edged sword, although it might attract people's attention in a short time, it was also likely to be a mistake in it.

After all, this was still a time of deep hostility to heresy and heresy, especially in Iberia, and when you think of the current King of Sicily, Ferdinand II, and his wife, who was known for his paranoia rather than piety, Ding Mu felt that he should not be a moth.

It is indeed Sicily, but it is also the domain of the royal family of Aragon, at least Julián Don Gómez is the palace minister of the King of Sicily.

But what is it? Ding Mu was still curious and took the key and looked at it carefully.

Judging from the styling, he can be sure that this is not something that is very old, which can be seen from the teeth on the key and the texture of the leather rope.

But why put it here, or in the deepest part of the stack?

Ding Mu knew that he shouldn't have too much curiosity, but he still couldn't help but figure it out in his heart.

But he also knew that before he could satisfy his curiosity, he had to put the place in order, which looked like a classical library, as soon as possible, and he began to worry about whether the fifteen golden flints could feed a bunch of people.

After all, he has to support his family, but he has already made up his mind not to let Sophia live a hard life.

When I think about it, I feel that my pockets are tight.

was thinking wildly, footsteps came from the door, Ding Mu quickly put away the tissue paper and key, and then carefully closed the door of the bookcase.

"Greeks, the priest has something to do with you."

One of the attendants glared at Ding Mu defiantly as he spoke, saying that the matter of making a young Greek the treasurer of the library had caused a small stir among the priest's servants and retinue, and if it weren't for the bitter and difficult to understand of these manuscripts, these people would not have allowed a Greek to compete with them for a job.

Even so, these people still didn't intend to give Ding Mu a good face.

Following his entourage into the living room, Ding Mu found that in addition to Priest Alfonso, the palace minister's wife seemed to be there.

Seeing Ding Mu, the dark gaze of the palace minister flickered slightly, and she withdrew her upper body, which was slightly leaning towards the priest as if she was saying something, and looked Ding Mu up and down with a scrutinizing gaze.

"My lord, it seems that he is a good fit for you," said the princess, placing a handbag with a gold filigree pattern on her lap, "My husband has asked about this young Greek man before, and he has never forgotten his saving grace." ”

"But I need this young man here too, so let me stay if you can," Alfonso shook his head, "Madame, you probably can't imagine how stupid our bishop is, even for the sake of those priceless treasures, he should have let him rest in the castle of Monreale." ”

"But do you think it's so good, Master?" Madame Alfonso seemed unimpressed by Alfonso's words: "If the king and queen know that you are so interested in those heresies, perhaps they will reconsider supporting you as bishop, and Zaragoza may reconsider sending someone else to replace you." ”

"If that's the case, that's fine," Alfonso seemed unimpressed by the court's advice, "we all know that there have always been people who have been dissatisfied with me, and if your husband is more trusted by the king, perhaps Zaragoza would have considered whether or not to recall me back to the kingdom." ”

The priest's words seemed to arouse the displeasure of the palace minister's wife, her face rose with a layer of frost, and the eyes that looked at Ding Mu next to her also became fierce: "My husband may not be favored by the king, but I still hope that you can help him, the most important thing for us now is the meeting of the bishops' conference that will be held soon, if you can't get everyone's support, you can't get the status of bishop of Palermo." ”

"That's why I'm more concerned about what Malejo left behind," the priest said, standing up and holding out his hand to Madame Chancellor, "Madam, if you still support me as Bishop of Palermo, then please also support the present move, believing that I will be rewarded for doing so, even if not now, but in the future this reward is something you can't imagine." ”

As if she was a little disappointed that she failed to convince the priest, the palace minister's wife stood up helplessly and bowed slightly to kiss the priest's hand, and then walked indifferently past Ding Mu, who bowed his head and saluted, and disappeared outside the door.

"Come here, young man," Alfonso didn't seem to be affected by the words of the palace minister, he motioned for Ding Mu to come to him, and then asked about the library with great interest, when he heard Ding Mu's description, Alfonso thoughtfully tapped his fingers on the table and asked after a little thought, "If I want you to find those really precious books and documents from them as soon as possible, can you do it?" ”

"As long as there are enough people," Ding Mu didn't answer directly, he didn't know how long Alfonso meant by "as soon as possible", let alone what he called precious, but his mind quickly flashed the alchemical manuscript written on cotton paper and the key, "I can sort out the entire library first, you know that the person in charge of the library before didn't understand what he had to do at all, so he had to start from scratch." ”

"I've heard that Malejo has a very strange hobby, he seems to be only interested in collecting, but rarely does he really care about those collections, maybe it's more for him to show his wealth," Alfonso shook his head with a slight amusement, "but I still have to finish it as soon as possible, I really need these books." ”

Although it was strange that Alfonso seemed to care too much about the books left behind by Malejo, Ding Mu agreed to sort them out as soon as possible.

"But this can't be done tonight," Alfonso said, looking at the wooden pendulum clock on the table, "I have asked you to come for other things, I have to entertain a guest from afar, as far as I know, he has a great interest in ancient Greece and Rome, so I need to start here," Alfonso said, gesturing to the two bookcases behind him, "find a few books and deliver them to the guest in the evening." ”

"Yes, sir, but can I ask if this guest is interested in any kind of work?"

"He was a wise man, and I think he was no stranger to all disciplines." Alfonso sighed with a little emotion, "It's a pity that there are no such talents in either Ragon or Castile. ”

Ding Mu opened the bookcase and began to search, when suddenly something familiar jumped into his eyes.

A key wrapped in tissue paper with characters written on it lay quietly on the partition in the corner of the bookcase, revealing only a small piece of it, but it was certain that it was exactly the same as the one he had seen in the stacks.