After lunch, Qin Dong was ready to find a house to live in, after all, there were too many people under him, and the general carriage and horse shop could not live, and he could only live by renting a house.

Qin Dong is not very familiar with Constantinople, after all, he is a dove occupying the magpie's nest, his soul occupies other people's bodies, absorbing the memories of recent years, and he does not get much memory from his childhood, and seven or eight years have passed, Constantinople has also had some changes in the urban pattern because of the war, but the general outline has not changed, which does not prevent him from finding where he used to live.

Qin Dong's father had bought a house in the slum to live in the slum because all the goods in the caravan had been robbed, and he had little money left, so he could only buy a house in the slum to live in, and later married his mother.

Through some vague memories, Qin Dong found the former slum, and it became clearer after overlapping with the impression in his memory, yes, this is it.

It was still a thick-necked tree, a stinky alley, and the tattered linen sign on the roof of the tavern hung limply, and I don't know how many years it had been hanging, and it was still there.

In the alley, a few bare-bottomed little children squatted under the eaves and played with stones, and saw Qin Dong and the others all dressed in extraordinary clothes and carrying weapons. They all looked frightened and hid away.

There were very few people in the alleys during the day, and people were out to beg for a living, and a short and fat woman with a bloated figure came in front of them. Wearing a shabby coarse cloth dress, the beads of sweat on her face and thick neck continued to drip down, seeing so many people coming, the woman walked to the edge of the street with a basket made of rattan, the basket was full of clothes, Qin Dong vaguely remembered this woman, and he immediately shouted: "Is it Aunt Terina?" ”

The woman was stunned. She didn't expect that someone in this group of extraordinarily dressed people would know her, she looked at Qin Dong carefully, and asked with some uncertainty, "...... are you?" ”

Qin Dong saw that it was indeed Aunt Jielina. hurriedly walked over and said, "Aunt Terina, I'm Qin Dong, do you still know me?" Qin Dong, do you remember? ”

"You're Qin Dong? Oh. OMG. Where have you been all these years, little? You've made your mother so bad, thank God you're back, oh, how wonderful! After Jielina recognized Qin Dong, she became so excited that she actually left tears in her eyes.

The two exchanged pleasantries, and then Qin Dong asked, "Aunt Terina, is my mother at home?" ”

Listen to Qin Dong ask about his mother. Terina's face changed, and then she slowly talked to Qin Dong about his mother Caroline: "Since the Huns came seven years ago. Your father and the three servants who went out of the city to work never came back, and then your mother found out that you were gone, and she was in a hurry, and after the Huns left, she went out of the city every day to find you, and she searched for more than a month, and she didn't find you all over the radius of dozens of miles, and she believed that you might have died, or were captured by the Huns, and as time went on, your mother's spirit became worse and worse, and she often talked to herself alone, and after your father disappeared, her source of life became a problem, I saw that she was not a way to go on like this, so I took her with me to wash clothes for the nobles and rich merchants to support herself, and finally survived after so many years, but her illness has not shown signs of improvement, some time ago a group of Romans suddenly appeared in your house, the leader of them said that it was your mother's relative, and it was also a Roman nobleman, seeing your mother's appearance, he wanted to take his mother to Rome to recuperate, so your mother was taken to Rome by this relative, child, if you come back a month early, you will be able to see your mother! ”

Qin Dong's face changed, and he hurriedly asked, "Then did this relative of mine say that it was my mother's person?" ”

Aunt Terlena thought for a moment and said, "He seems to say that he is your mother's half-brother, that is, your uncle!" ”

Qin Dong's heart was in turmoil, he was ten years old when he was taken away by the Huns, he already had a very clear memory at that time, and began to be sensible, from the memories he obtained, he found that his mother never had a living brother and sister, was an orphan girl, and his parents, brothers and sisters were all killed by the Germans in a war, and then fled to Constantinople alone, otherwise, with his father, a merchant who came from the East but was robbed of goods, and did not have much money, how could he marry the daughter of a good family? can only marry an orphan daughter like his mother, who has no father and no mother.

Terina's words made him realize that this was unusual, someone had pretended to be his uncle, and had taken his somewhat delirious mother away in the name of his uncle. What is the purpose?

After listening to Terina's words, Qin Dong felt like a sudden thunderbolt from the sky, one of the important purposes of his coming to Constantinople was to find his mother, this woman was too bitter, but the reality was that his mother was picked up by a so-called uncle who suddenly appeared inexplicably.

Qin Dong was almost in chaos, he forced himself to stabilize his feelings, and said to Terina: "It turned out to be my uncle, I heard my mother talk about it, but I haven't seen it, it seems that I have to go to Rome, and I don't know when I will be able to turn around, Aunt Terina, my house is still there, right?" ”

"Yes, yes, your uncle said to me before he took your mother, please ask me to help take care of your house, and said that if you come back in the future, he will give it to you, and let me tell you that it was he who took your mother and asked you to go to Rome to find him!"

Qin Dong completely understood, Terina's words completely confirmed that someone was deliberately targeting him and using his mother's safety to blackmail him, as for the other party's purpose, he didn't know for the time being, he took a deep breath and said steadily: "Auntie, I may have to go to Rome in a while, I don't know when I will be back, and I haven't seen you and those neighbors for so many years." I would like to invite you to dinner with the neighbors in my house tonight, and I hope you will help inform the neighbors that you will definitely come over when it gets dark! ”

"Okay. This is on Aunt Terina, go, come with me to my house first, and I'll get you the key to your house! Terina immediately agreed, she saw that Qin Dong was dressed in good fabrics, and there were so many followers behind him, she must have made a fortune. Therefore, there was no refusal either.

The Qin Dong family's house is still a good house in this slum, covering an area of about one acre, with two rows of houses in front and back. In a large courtyard in the middle, the houses in Europe are basically made of stone, strong and durable, and the same is true of Qin Dong's family. The house has been unoccupied for a long time. It was full of cobwebs, dust on the floor and tables, leaves on the ground, and a musty smell.

After Terina's work, Qin Dong immediately asked Alfald and the others to clean the house together, cleaning inside and out, and the house and yard were completely new after cleaning.

Aunt Jielina is a very capable woman, and Qin Dong left the matter of entertaining the neighbors to her after that. She soon invited more than a dozen neighborhood women from the neighborhood and used the money given by Qin Dong to buy the raw materials and drinks for the banquet. There were not enough tables, chairs and benches, so she asked people to borrow some from other people's houses, and made up twenty or thirty tables.

Aunt Terina's work was done with these things, Qin Dong was very relieved, and sat on the stone bench in the courtyard alone to analyze who took his mother to Rome, this question was very critical.

According to the clues provided by Aunt Guò Terina, he basically excluded the people inside the Huns, and also excluded the people from the Eastern Roman Empire, if it was people from the Huns and the Eastern Roman Empire, there was no need to take his mother to Rome, which was redundant, and besides, the Eastern Roman Empire didn't need this trick to deal with a small commander like him, and he was promoted to a commander for more than a month, and his reputation was not so big, if the Eastern Roman Empire dealt with such a small commander as him, It is estimated that the officials of the Eastern Roman Empire are too idle.

After thinking about it, Qin Dong thought that the person who took his mother must be someone from the Western Roman Empire, and there was only one person who had an enmity with him in the Western Roman Empire, and the feud was not small, and that was Orlistes, who was originally the secretary of state of the Xiongnu Empire.

Qin Dong was very anxious, but he knew that he couldn't come in a hurry, and no matter how anxious he was, he wouldn't be able to find his mother now, according to the time calculation, I am afraid that his mother would now be in Ravenna, the capital of the Western Roman Empire. If his inference is correct, Oristes' purpose is just to use his mother as a card that can threaten him at a certain time, not to harm his mother, this time is not certain, maybe a few years later, maybe more than ten years later, if so, his mother should be well taken care of in Rome, thinking about this, Qin Dong felt a little better.

Then Alfald came over and said, "My lord, I don't think we need to rent a house elsewhere, although you have a little bit of a house here, but the place is big enough, if we build a shed in the yard, and find a carpenter to make some beds, or go and buy it directly, we should be able to accommodate the seventy or eighty people we have come this time, but everyone lives together a little noisy!" ”

Qin Dong thought for a while and said: "In this case, you take a few people to the neighborhood to see if there is a ready-made bed to buy, if there is, buy it back, buy half of it, after all, this is the place where I was born, there are neighbors on the left and right, everyone is an acquaintance, and we live here to take care of each other, and we should not be here for a long time, we will go back after finishing things, but we still have to rent a house outside, there are three caves in the cunning rabbit, in case something happens, we have other places to hide, and we will not be chased to nowhere to hide!" Half of us live here, the other half live in the house that Gebuus rented for us, and we rented a house for ourselves, and the location of this last house can only be known to the two of us, don't tell anyone, if something happens, the house here and the house Gebuus rented for us are exposed, and we will take everyone to the spare house to settle down! You do it now, and come back before dark! ”

Alfald nodded, "Okay, my lord, I'll go!" ”

Aunt Terlena is a very capable woman, under her organization and arrangement, nearly thirty tables of banquets have been prepared before dark, after dark, the neighbors have come one after another, Qin Dong said hello to them one by one, some neighbors asked Qin Dong what he was doing now, whether he had made a fortune outside, and some neighbors asked him if he was an official outside, and some neighbors told him that their daughter was not married yet, just the same age as Qin Dong, and wanted to marry their daughter to Qin Dong's daughter-in-law, was so frightened that Qin Dong repeatedly said that he already had a daughter-in-law, so he sent those enthusiastic neighbors away.

In this period, due to the great migration of ethnic groups brought by the Huns, Europeans were not very reluctant to marry across ethnic groups, for example, the military commander of the Western Roman Empire, Aetius, had barbarian blood, many high-ranking officials and generals of the Roman Empire had barbarian blood, and in the following centuries, there were basically very few Europeans with only one pure blood.

At about eight o'clock in the evening, the sky was completely dark, Qin Dong's house and yard had already lit many torches, the yard was bright, the neighbors who came sat at the table under the arrangement of Afar and others, a dish and food were served on the table, and the wine was also brought up, according to the usual practice, Qin Dong first said a word, nothing more than to thank the neighbors for helping to take care of his mother over the years, he was very grateful for this, and after finishing speaking, let everyone start eating, He also toasted his neighbors at a table with a wine bowl, and how could there be any such custom of toasting in Europe at this time? The neighbors were very curious about it.

Table-by-table, in the end, Qin Dong was already drunk, he was originally anxious, worried, and in a very bad mood because his mother was gone, but he couldn't show it on his face, and he had to greet these neighbors well, so the more he drank, the more sad he became, and the more he drank, the more he wanted to drink, but in the end he was drunk.

The next morning, Qin Dong woke up with a terrible headache, and only after drinking a few cups of cold tea in a row did he feel better, and after washing up and eating breakfast, he found that there were many fewer people in the courtyard, so he found a subordinate guard and asked: "We have a total of seventy or eighty people, why are there only half of them here?" ”

The guard replied, "My lord, Master Gebuus has sent someone to say that he has rented a house for us, seventy or eighty people are too crowded here, and Lord Alfald has already moved there with half of them!" ”

Qin Dong patted his head, it seemed that he had drunk too much last night and forgot about it, he waved his hand and said, "Okay, I know, you can go!"

After the man left, Qin Dong went out with a few guards, ready to go around the street, his mother was gone, but her safety should be no problem, she could only put it aside for the time being, and then think of a way later, now he has more important things to do. (To be continued......)