48 Hours a Day

Chapter 894: Love

“I went to Pellegrino’s domus and eliminated six of his six guards. By the way, I didn’t break a sweat throughout the whole thing. I even took the time out to walk around his domus. To my surprise, Pellegrino, who was always busy bringing in more money, lived way simpler than I thought. There were not many slaves in his domus, and there was nothing particularly valuable. Considering that he makes a lot of money every year, I doubted Senator Pellegrino valued money more than anything else.

“When I kicked on the door of his room and put my dagger on his neck, he was so scared that he knelt in front of me and kept begging for mercy. However, he didn’t mention anything about using his money to buy his life. It was rather strange. According to my experience, no matter how stingy a person is, they are usually more than willing to spend some money when they are about to lose their lives. Unless... ”

“Unless the money he earned over the years is no longer in his hands.” Lucilla raised an eyebrow. “He is making money for others.”

“Yes. Something interesting came up next. After that, I asked him who he gave the money to. He told me that he gave all his money to a centurion. And this reminded me of something else.”

“What was it?”

“Rome had always been the Balance Blade’s territory. It wouldn’t be easy for the Hounds to ask their assassins to infiltrate this place. Besides, my teacher and other assassins that work alone, would need external support as well. The middleman is not the only person they talk to. They would need an efficient intelligence channel that could provide them with all the useful and updated information. And a place like that would need a lot of money to operate. There is an organization called the Beehive in the southeast city. It is a very mysterious organization. And their influence is not limited to the southeast city and the Senate. It seems that there are some of them in China, and it’s pretty obvious that they have spent a lot of money to collect intelligence.

“But unlike the other two forces, the Beehive does not have any income. Or, to be more precise, they earn no apparent income on the surface. In other words, its owner needs to keep bleeding money to keep it running. And as far as I know, the Beehive’s owner was the Hounds. Their spokesperson was a guy called Corne. He once tested me with the Balance Blade’s doctrine. From then on, I started to cast my doubts on your husband.

“After that, I did a thorough investigation on your husband. I looked for information about him when he was still young.” Zhang Heng looked at Pompeanus, “You came from a famous family. However, your family started to deteriorate by the time your father became the head of the family. In order to revitalize your family, you joined the army and began to follow Aurelius to go to a different war. At first, you were just an unremarkable centurion. However, you started to put more effort into making more contributions. Aurelius began to appreciate you more and regarded you as his confidant in the end.

“Your situation, however, is kind of similar to mine. Although Aurelius valued you very much, you were not the only young general that he favored. You had a lot of competitors, and many people are better than you. But in the next two years, those younger generals who were better than you died one after another for various reasons. In the end, you became the most dazzling rising star, and Aurelius became more and more dependent on you.”

“Although there were many people in the military who were older than you and more powerful than you, they were are all too old to pose a threat to you. You were the only one who could threaten yourself.”

“Lucius!”

Lucilla suddenly thought of something, and her expression changed drastically. She was standing in front of her dressing table, but took two steps back and moved away from Pompeanus when she heard what Zhang Heng said.

“Yes, the younger brother of Aurelius, Rome’s co-ruling emperor Lucius,” Zhang Heng said, “The first man in the military at the time, with outstanding achievements. He was at his prime. Logically speaking, he should be the one to rule the army for a long time. And he, like Aurelius, was the emperor of Rome as well. With him being alive, you will always be his subordinate. After that, Lucius was killed by the plague when he was returning to Rome from the frontline. He did not even make it back.”

“You bastards killed my first husband?” Lucilla looked at Pompeanus. Seemingly to have forgotten her fear, she started yelling at him, “I could have continued to be a queen in the palace! After my father’s death, Lucius was supposed to become the only emperor in Rome, and our child was supposed to be the next ruler of the Roman Empire, not my stupid brother!”

Pompeanus only smiled but made no comment whatsoever. Instead, he looked at Zhang Heng and finally said, “Enough. Stop here. You don’t know me at all. You said you didn’t understand why I sent an assassin to assassinate you. The reason is very simple. It was because of jealousy.”

“What?” Zhang Heng raised his eyebrows. He felt a little surprised.

“Oh. I do not envy your transformation from commoner to a nobleman or the fact that you gained Commodus’s favor... I don’t care about such things. The jealousy I’m referring to is my instinct as a man and a husband.”

“You mistakenly thought I was your wife’s lover?” Zhang Heng suddenly realized, “Let’s not talk about whether I’m your wife’s lover. As far as I know, your wife has had many lovers. You shouldn’t mind about these...”

“Do you know where they are now then?” Pompeanus asked casually. “I can even kill the Roman emperor, Lucius, to get her, let alone the toys she’s gotten tired of playing and has thrown away.”

“But if this matter bothers you, why didn’t you stop her in the first place?”

“Oh. You’ve gravely underestimated her. Lucilla has never been the woman that would live under someone’s control. Even her father can’t control her. If she did it to acquire the sheer pleasure of cheating, why would she let the entire city of Rome know about it? Clearly, she was trying to declare war on her father, who used her as a political bargaining chip to marry her to someone. She wants to trample on the royal honor that her father valued. To me, she is like an out-of-control flame, incinerating everything on every path that she travels on. And that’s why I can’t stop loving her.”

Pompeanus smiled. “With my status, I need to spend no effort to find a gentle and obedient woman. Of all the women I met, none of them have her charm. She is made up of wild vehemence, rapacity, beauty, and debauchery. She is the epitome of perfection. I fell in love with her the first time I laid my eyes on her. I can’t change her, and I don’t want to.”