Chapter 19 Misha
◎And—they weren't wearing shackles!◎
Inner city of Rome, western part of the city.
In the narrow alleys, pedestrians move like rats, having to duck their heads to avoid the clothes hanging horizontally while keeping a close eye on the filth flowing freely under their feet.
If you are not careful, your worn-out clothes will turn into mud color.
A young man dodged puddles and gravel nimbly, his steps swift, a fragrant basket covered with his cloak.
Normally, I would have to worry about people surrounding me and threatening me, but not today. As long as I was willing to move my feet, I could walk to the long table at the intersection and grab something to eat.
The funerals of nobles rarely allowed common people to take extra things away from them. The family of the deceased had to offer the "leftover" bread, meat and wine in the baskets to the temples of the gods.
But Muala's family was different... The new head of the family, Melia, allowed the children to take as much bread as they wanted. According to unwritten rules, funeral food could not be taken away in bottles or cans, as it would taint the family's fortune.
Instead, she asked everyone to cut the bread in half and stuff other food in it to take away.
Whenever the hourglass on the table ran out, a servant would replace it with new bread, jam and dried meat and turn the hourglass over.
Some people who are not familiar with Melia may even admire her kindness.
Oh, mercy.
A mixture of confusion and anger crossed the young man's face. "How could Melia of the Muala family be so merciful? This order—just this order... why?"
Could it be that they believed in a certain god? But why would nobles who believed in gods share the food offered to the temple with them?
He still resented Melia, but he couldn't explain the food in his hands.
Mixed with the sweet aroma of jam and meat pie, these delicacies that he could never eat normally were gradually eroding his will.
The cheerful mood gradually turned into anxiety.
He stepped into the house and put the basket on the stone slab with a thud: "I'm back, Millie, come and have some bread."
Before his sister came over, he completely threw off the cloak on his head and wiped his cheeks and palms with clean water, revealing a whiter layer of skin.
Although there are not many changes in the body, it can finally be seen that the capable boy is actually a young girl.
"elder sister."
The girl twisting straw ropes in the corner stood up and came over with red cheeks. She smiled ingratiatingly, shrinking back and not daring to come over to take it.
Misha's heart sank.
Even if he was sent back by Melia's people, what happened could not be changed.
Her parents chose to sell her younger sister when she was not at home because she was younger and less useful than the older children. Now that her younger sister is back, they are only concerned with thanking the nobles and don't care about her sister's thoughts at all.
Millie is now like an abandoned kitten, putting on a flattering smile to everyone.
Misha grabbed a piece of bread and put it hard in her sister's hand: "Eat it, there's still a lot." She turned her face away and pretended not to care.
"Um…!"
Millie's clothes were like a torn sack, and her bamboo-like arms stretched out from the hole, grabbing the bread covered with jam. She opened her mouth as wide as she could, bit the piece of meat on the edge, and swallowed it slowly.
While eating, he kept glancing at his sister's expression out of the corner of his eye, as if he would stop immediately if his sister coughed.
Misha had to look away and turn her face towards the door.
The sun gradually set, and darkness enveloped the small room. They couldn't afford a candle, but fortunately there wasn't much furniture in the room, so it wasn't easy to bump into things.
Pasha, Pasha.
The sound of my mother's slippers came from not far away and soon came into the house.
The two sisters sat sideways on the worn blanket, watching their mother pick up the bread on the table and gobble it up.
Misha wanted to say hello to her mother, but for some reason she was too tired to speak. She looked at her sister's linen clothes, then at her mother's pale, torn hands, and said nothing.
My sister came back yesterday wearing nice clothes, not like those from a brothel, beautiful and soft. They covered her from neck to ankles, hiding the wounds from the beatings with bamboo sticks.
When he returned, the clothes were stripped off and sold for several cans of flour.
Mother swallowed two slices of bread, then hesitantly took the remaining half of the steak out of her mouth and put it back in the basket.
Not long after, my father and an unwashable smell rushed into the room at the same time.
The man's clothes were covered in stains. He and his mother worked for the city's lords. Most of the work was done by slaves, so these poor commoners had to do the hard labor.
My father swallowed two meat pies in one breath, then heaved a sigh of relief with a cold water: "Oh, if Caesar brings more slaves, we-"
"Shh, shh!" His mother covered his mouth in fear.
Although no one cares about the nonsense of the poor, can they say anything about Caesar?
The man swallowed his words dejectedly. He grabbed the third piece of bread, but couldn't bear to eat it, so he slowly put it back.
After the woman wiped the table clean, she covered the basket with a cloth.
Misha looked at her parents in the darkness: "Caesar will definitely win. Let's move."
"You dead kid!" The man picked up a broken wooden board and wanted to hit his daughter twice.
Misha's creepy eyes flashed by, but he didn't dare to swing down. This little guy was always hanging out on the streets, and he had learned a lot of martial arts. He wasn't as easy to fool as his little daughter.
He put down the board, still grinning: "What are you moving? There's nowhere to move it. Tell me your name."
"I heard some of the estates are deserted, and we could join some of our neighbors—"
"Pooh!"
Hearing his daughter's childish words, the man straightened his back immediately, his face flushed with excitement: "Abandoned manor? Do you think the master needs your money? I would rather let it be abandoned than let you live in it!"
There are many foreign races and barbarians between the royal city, various city-states, and foreign city-states. These barbarians are a source of high-quality slaves, but they can also cause a lot of trouble.
Not everyone has the ability of the elders. Many manors in the corners are abandoned, and there must be manors that have not been occupied by barbarians.
But those manors still belonged to the nobles, so how could they easily rent them to you? Even if you finally persuaded the noble lord, after you planted one crop, you might be kicked out the next year.
The man got so excited that he slammed the table. "There's war everywhere right now. If we dare to run... run out of this city gate, our whole family will be captured and made slaves of the barbarians!"
The woman beside him kept patting his back, nodding and scolding her daughter: "Yes, Misha. Those barbarians are not as kind as the nobles..."
"Mercy? Mercy!" Misha laughed in anger. "If you were really merciful, our family would work from morning till night and we wouldn't be able to survive!"
Every free citizen had to pay taxes regularly, and even a tax of five silver coins was a heavy burden. This small family had too many expenses, but it was difficult to earn a good price for their labor when there were so many slaves.
Sometimes, in the dead of night, Misha had to try her best to fall asleep, otherwise she would be unable to help but imagine a despairing future. Many of the children on the street had devoted themselves to the "career" of climbing windows and stealing.
She had learned to write with the old man at the end of the street, using the Roman Code.
The best outcome for burglary is the amputation of the right hand. Without it, how can a poor person survive?
"Isn't that merciful?"
This time, it wasn't the father who retorted, but the usually gentle mother: "Aren't you grateful to Lady Melia? She was the one who sent someone to bring Millie back. We live in her house, and the meals we've been eating these days are all her gift!"
The woman's eyes were filled with tears as she stared at her daughter with a sad look, as if blaming her for her cruelty.
Misha really felt suffocated this time: she didn't dare tell anyone about the previous "assassination" against Melia, especially her parents.
When a somewhat arrogant slave brought Millie back, she only told her parents vaguely that she had knelt in front of Melia and begged for her help.
Out of pity, Lady Melia paid to buy Millie back.
Fortunately, my parents believed it easily and did not ask any further questions.
Unfortunately, they developed a huge, Misha-incomprehensible gratitude towards Melia.
[Didn't we sell our sister because of Melia's coercion?!]
Misha held her head up, trying her best to stop herself from trembling: "Mom, but..."
There's no point in arguing.
Seeing the numb looks in her parents' eyes, she shut her mouth and pretended to be docile.
Hearing her submissive silence, her father hummed with satisfaction.
Millie diligently poured water into the bowl, and he drank it all in one gulp. Then he knocked on the table at his eldest daughter: "At Lord Muala's funeral—will there be wine?"
Of course there is wine. Unlike juice and water, wine is an expensive enjoyment.
It just so happened that the man had been rich when he was young, and he missed that feeling very much.
Even through the darkness, Misha could be heard shaking her head. "Yes, yes, but that wine is for the gods, and we've already taken so much bread and meat..."
"oh."
When talking about God, this father who loved to show off put on an honest face and kept silent.
After a long while, he muttered: Go earlier tomorrow and take more trips...
Although the nobles' slaves looked down on others and were most annoyed by the commoners and were prone to picking fights, as long as they didn't overdo it, taking one each morning, noon, and evening should be fine.
Lady Melia is so rich, and all this large house belongs to her, so she doesn't need to worry about eating anything.
"I know." Misha responded dully.
No one wanted to waste a candle, so the family rustled down onto the carpet. These carpets had been stained with sewage, slashed with knives, and then thrown into the neighborhood like garbage during a wealth contest a few years earlier.
Huh…Hulu…
The sound of her family breathing was right behind her head, but Misha couldn't fall asleep.
In her mind, there appeared Millie's ingratiating and shy smile, then her parents' numb and excited scolding, and finally some fragments of Melia.
Why...why didn't Melia kill her? There was clearly no reason to let her go.
She waved her hands and touched her sister's arm.
Misha was stunned: her sister really came back, so why would Melia buy her sister back? Even if the nobles loved to waste money, they would not send the people they bought back home.
[Could it be that my mother is right, and I am the one who is so heartless?]
[No, that's not right. Something must be wrong——]
She wanted to shout, to accuse, to curse, but she found that she had no corresponding words either in her mouth or in her mind.
According to the standards her parents had set for her, Melia had done nothing wrong and had actually done a great favor to their family. However, she had committed a grave error by stabbing the noble with a knife, and deserved death.
Misha was wallowing in pain and couldn't sleep no matter how hard she tried.
After an unknown amount of time, a ray of hazy light shone in from the hole in the wall.
The murmurs from her sister's mouth disappeared. Millie must have woken up, but she was just enduring it, not daring to wake up the others in the house.
Misha got up from the ground, put on her cloak, picked up her basket, and stepped into the city of Rome before dawn.
Bring more bread and meat. Just more food will reduce the pain a lot.
As she walked, she murmured to herself: Just have something to eat, don't think about it, don't think about it.
Xicheng District is full of self-built houses. Perhaps they will be demolished after Melia takes back Xicheng District, but now it is still as tangled as a maze.
Misha skillfully turned three corners and took a shortcut to the commercial street.
The tables that are too close to the poor will always be sold out. The commercial streets are full of people at noon, but people can get more bread in the morning.
"Why did Miss Melia ask us to come here?"
"I don't know. As long as I can survive, I can go anywhere."
Who? Misha stopped and poked her head out of the alley.
Not far away stood several strong men and women, who looked like slaves judging by their attire—no, that wasn't right.
She stared at the long swords and shields at their waists, and doubts instantly filled her mind.
Why are the sacrificial gladiators standing here? And—they're not wearing shackles!
The author has something to say:
Thanks to Lei Lei from Zheng Xiaohua's girlfriend~
Thanks to Inoue Hei, Yunzhongfeixiang, Mirai, Woba, Jiuqi, Mo Xinyao, H, Chami, jgbvgyfch, An, Cai Ziyou, Orange, x, 48622012 for their support.
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