They thought of the mechanical creations buried underground that "will come into play one day", but found that the pipes had burst due to long-term neglect and could not be used. Even the few that could be used were useless in the face of the drought that spread across almost the entire empire.
An era of famine is visible on the horizon, and along the coast, ships from another continent are eyeing this crumbling empire.
In a time of crisis, the interest groups that reunited remembered the man they had expelled—
That man single-handedly integrated the originally fragmented human countries into an empire, so he also has the ability to integrate the now fragmented Roman Empire into a whole again.
As much as I once hoped that the former regent would die, I now hope that he is still alive.
But for the man who was dramatically given the hope of "staying alive" at this moment, all this was not important.
After a year of hiking, he finally returned to the place where it all began. He was filthy, with unruly black hair and beard and lifeless eyes. He stared in a daze at the deserted village in front of him.
It seemed that after hearing the news of his expulsion, everyone in the village of Skull moved away just to avoid contact with this plague god.
Whether it was the villagers I had helped before, or the village chief whose life I had saved and who said he would wait for me to come back no matter what... everyone left.
He stood in front of a dilapidated wooden house and noticed a "For Sale" sign hanging on it.
It wasn't because of the war or the sudden disaster, but because I was expelled and had no choice but to return here...
Just because of this, you left? You didn't even allow me to become a farmer and spend the rest of my failed life
What have I done for all these years? My lover never spoke up for me, my friends are silent, and my students never helped me when I was devastated.
I sacrificed my life for them and this country, and this is what happens
Why on earth have I worked so hard until now? What on earth is it for
It's not that men don't cry, they just haven't been sad enough. Now Yang Hao thought about all the efforts he had made but ended up with this situation. Even though he had cried all his tears during the one-year journey, he couldn't help but wet his eyes at this moment, letting two lines of tears slide down his thin cheeks and finally drip onto the weed-covered ground.
Tick tock…
The unreal sound of tears dripping onto the ground.
Snap…
There were the sounds of footsteps behind me.
Yang Hao slowly raised his head and turned to look. He saw a white-haired nun holding a basket, wearing a white nun's uniform and a white gauze headscarf.
The nun's face was full of surprise. After a slight hesitation, the surprise turned into a joke:
"I thought it was someone else who came back in disgrace and tears. It turned out to be you? The former regent Yang Hao?"
She exaggeratedly made a cross on her plump chest, and her playful remarks caused Yang Hao to sneer:
"Did you show up just to mock me?"
He knew this nun, this Mother Teresa... a nasty creature, a woman who would be an oddity even in the most heretical of religions.
Did she come here on purpose to mock my current plight? Did she come here on purpose to humiliate me and then pretend that if I had listened to her and not left the village, I wouldn't be in this situation
Thinking of this, Yang Hao clenched his fists.
But surprisingly, the nun seemed to have known about his condition for a long time.
She just showed Yang Hao the playful smirk in his memory, and then walked forward. As Yang Hao subconsciously took two steps back in resistance, she wiped the tears from his face with her sleeves and wiped off the dust on his face:
"It's funny to see you in such a miserable state, and... I may laugh at you, but if I leave a homeless puppy alone outside, I, Mother Teresa, will also feel uneasy."
"I'm not a dog."
"Yes, puppy."
Sister Teresa gently rubbed the tip of Yang Hao's nose with her fingers, then took his hand and pulled him out of the deserted village under his astonished gaze.
"Where are you taking me?"
Yang Hao wanted to pull away and stand still, but he found that for some reason, even the strength to resist was drained away along with the warmth in his hands.
His nose felt a little sour, and the tears that had been wiped away seemed to be pouring out again. He hurriedly asked, taking this opportunity to sort out his thoughts.
But unexpectedly, when faced with his question, Mother Teresa just turned around and said in confusion:
"What are you talking about? Are you planning to freeze to death in the village later by standing here like an idiot instead of going home? Is your head okay? Just because you can stand the cold doesn't mean a delicate nun like me can. So don't stand here like an idiot. If you have anything to say, talk about it when you get home."
Go home—do I have a home
Yang Hao looked back silently. The shadow of the deserted village was getting farther and farther away. It was no longer his home.
Chapter 2: The Warmth of the Nun, and the Recovering of the Regent
Holding the hand of Mother Teresa and guided by the warmth of her palm, Yang Hao finally came under her leadership to a dilapidated and leaky monastery located deep in the mountains not far from the village of Scuol.
Yang Hao had forgotten the name of the monastery. He only knew that when he first came to this world and this village, the monastery had no name.
Now when he came to the monastery again, he found that the entire building had hardly changed except that it became older.
Before he could squint his eyes and observe for the first time this building where only Sister Teresa lived alone, Sister Teresa kicked open the shaky door and dragged Yang Hao in in a non-nun manner:
"Although my humble abode looks shabby and has many leaks, compared to the house in the deserted village that is leaking everywhere and will collapse at the slightest gust of wind and water, I think my monastery, although not a mansion, should be considered an ordinary house—"
"Well… "
"Hey? Why are you looking at me? Don't you see what's wrong with you? You're such a mess, even horse manure is cleaner than you... Hiss, have you ever learned magic outside, mom?"
"No."
Yang Hao shook his head blankly: This woman, why did she ask me if I had learned magic? "You should also know... With Priscilla here, I don't have to worry about magic at all."
"Did that black-haired bitch ever speak for you? She became the court mage of the Roman royal family. What did she do for you? I mean, other than helping you cast magic from time to time in the beginning?"
Hearing the name "Priscilla", Sister Teresa's face was filled with disgust, and her mouth instantly changed from a sharp sword to poisonous fangs. The pain that was originally just a momentary pain of a knife piercing her heart was now a sour pain that lasted for several days:
"I heard that no one has ever spoken for you. Even if they can't speak for various reasons, it seems too beastly in my eyes. Dogs know to protect people who bring them food, why are some people so beastly that they are even worse than dogs?"
"Well… "
"Alas, I shouldn't have counted on you - all right, all right, just sit here in the lobby. It won't be drafty here, so just rest here for a while until I'm done."
With a look of disgust on her face, Sister Teresa lit the candles in the monastery lobby, pulled Yang Hao to a bench where the cold night wind could not reach, and after a short rest, she left and went through a door into the depths of the monastery.
Yang Hao sat on a bench, recalling every detail of the event called "Priscilla".
As a genius magician, she is known as the "Witch of the Night" and is good at large-scale battlefield auxiliary spells. She is Yang Hao's lover. Ex-lover...
When he was wrongly accused and forced to step down and stand trial, Priscilla did not speak up for him because of his status as the royal court mage.
Rather, most of the people he had helped were like this. Either because of their status as saints, or because they belonged to a noble alliance, those who were willing to speak out were either exiled or directly executed because of their status as foreigners.
He is now a lonely man in the Roman Empire. When he thought of this, his fingertips couldn't help but feel cold.
"well… "
Yang Hao sighed deeply, thinking that he might as well die, at least if he died, he would still have something to think about.
Just when he was feeling discouraged, Mother Teresa came out from inside. Without even looking at Yang Hao, she grabbed his fingers with her hot palms.
"Come in - hiss, it seems I have to help you find another key to this broken monastery later, and you stink so badly, you have to give me a bath before eating."
"Uh..." Take a shower
Yang Hao was stunned for a moment, then looked back at the monastery dimly illuminated by the dim candlelight: It was already night, and although the early spring night wind outside was not that cold, it could still blow you into a fool if you had just crawled out of the freezing river.
In this case, you want me to go out and take a shower and come back
No... If you were going to let me take a shower, why did you drag me in
Yang Hao, with a confused look on his face, was dragged into the inner hall of the monastery by Sister Teresa, and then into a room near the well in the rear courtyard.
Sister Teresa pushed Yang Hao directly into the steaming room. Before he could react in the steam where he was, she threw in a set of linen clothes, a razor for shaving, a woolen towel, and a bucket for water.
"For the time being, I am a little girl with little strength. It is tiring enough to fetch two buckets of water. Just wipe yourself with the hot water. I won't hold out hope and wait for you to wash yourself clean."
"you… "
"Also, if you really don't know how to shave, don't shave. I'll help you after dinner. And don't ask. Don't ask anything."
"but-"
Sister Teresa rushed in and quickly tore off the dirty rags on Yang Hao's body. She put her finger on his lips and said coldly:
"I told you not to ask. If you insist on asking today, I will shove the tile brush into your rectum and pull all your confusion out of your shit hole."
Faced with a threat that was totally unlike what a nun would do, Yang Hao could only swallow the question "Why are you helping me like this?"
He had no idea why Mother Teresa did this, nor did he think that he was of any use to the nun at this point.
But - he had to admit it, he had to admit it...
This was the first time in this year that he felt warmth from others.
…
At the same time, in the capital of the Roman Empire.
When the roundtable meeting that had ended unpleasantly was held again, everyone could see the embarrassment and frustration on everyone else's faces.
This early spring drought dealt a heavy blow to the Roman Empire.
According to the magician's divination, the drought will last for more than half a year in the central agricultural areas of the Roman Empire.
For half a year, the agricultural areas, which had almost no water, were unable to produce any food...
It can even be said that the greatest disaster and famine since the founding of the Roman Empire will occur at the latest this winter.
Even the dumbest person knows the importance of food to a country.
But precisely because no one knew how to solve this worst drought and famine, they sat around the round table in silence.
After a long time...
"At this point, we have to admit... the various reforms of the former regent were indeed very useful."
General Dreshka, the representative of the warlords, spoke expressionlessly. His words made everyone, including the leader, look extremely disgusted and helpless.
"But we simply don't have the power to understand those reforms. To get those machines working again, we need him back..."
"Let him come back? No, that's impossible! Do you know how much effort we put into expelling him? Do you want him to monopolize power again, and then take away all the benefits that belong to us and finally distribute them to the fools?!"
"Then, Master Peter, please tell me how we can solve this impending drought? The food produced on the border cannot fill the gap that the Roman Empire will have to face next. The Elven Kingdom has long blocked our trade due to border frictions. Even if we want to ship by sea, we don't have the money to buy it—"
"Money? Didn't you swallow all that money, Duke? I heard that the money you spent on hiring the musicians at your last banquet was enough to buy food for everyone in your dukedom for half a year!"
"Master Peter! What happened in the past has already happened, and I can't get the money back from the musician. The most urgent thing now is how we should deal with this crisis!"
The round table meeting was noisy, like a bird and animal market. The royal family was the vendor who looked confused and didn't know what to do, and General Dreshuka was the silent patrolman who might overturn the table again at any time.
In the seemingly endless quarrel, and under the anger that General Dreshuka had endured and was about to explode... Patriarch Peter finally compromised.
The roundtable meeting finally decided with a vote of five to one that the exiled former regent Yang Hao should be respectfully invited back.
But having said that, how should we invite people in the end
They didn't even know whether the man was alive or dead, so how could they invite him back
Everyone looked at each other.
Finally, the representative of the royal family, the uncle of the future empress of the Roman Empire, raised his hand:
"The court mage Priscilla is the lover of the regent. She knows where the regent is most likely to be. And with this relationship, it shouldn't be a problem to invite him back..."
"What's more, the Regent cares about the people! Judging from his various reforms to people's livelihood, he would not allow the people to be in danger without taking any action..."
"I believe he will come back for the sake of the people! At this point we must admit that the Roman Empire cannot afford to lose that man..."
"That means we have to give him some benefits..."
Looking at the royal representative who stood up and talked eloquently, General Dreshuka just sneered in his heart: You were the first person who wanted him dead at that time, so how come you are the one who most wants him to come back now
And the whole article is nonsense. The only key point is actually the last sentence, right
It is "us" rather than the "Roman royal family" who should give up their interests to the regent.
Chapter 3: Surrender of interests, vigilance of great powers, and shaving
The Roman Empire's round table meeting lasted neither long nor short, yet it still made all the participants except General Dreshuka shout at the top of their lungs.
In the end, they still couldn't reach a consensus on "surrendering of interests" - General Dreshuka's guess was correct.
The royal family representatives kept saying that they were doing it for the greater good, but in fact the core point was to transfer the lost interests of the royal family to other factions.
Everyone was angry about this, but they could only grit their teeth and swallow the blood: because the former regent Yang Hao’s lover Priscilla was now the court wizard of the Roman royal family.