Rome, the Colosseum.
This had once been a place where gladiators and beasts spilled blood to entertain the nobility.
Today, the audience had changed.
Tens of thousands of Roman commoners had been “invited” onto the stands by fully armed Qin soldiers.
They were packed tightly together, not daring to make a single sound.
On the sandy arena floor, there were no lions or tigers.
Instead, dozens of once-mighty Roman senators now lay there.
They were bound together with thick iron chains, their necks rubbed raw and bloody, like a herd of slaughter-bound livestock kneeling in the center of the arena.
At the very front, the one missing a leg was Caesar.
At the highest tier of the stands.
On a throne hastily assembled from golden vessels and luxurious tapestries, Ying Ziye sat.
Beside his feet was a plate of washed grapes.
Wang Jian and Meng Tian stood on his left and right, hands resting on their sword hilts like two silent stone statues.
The wind blew.
It carried sand—and a faint scent of blood.
One of the overweight senators could no longer endure the suffocating pressure.
He suddenly broke free from the people holding him and crawled forward on all fours.
“Spare me! Spare me, noble lord!”
He crawled beneath the stands, desperately knocking his head on the ground, each impact echoing with dull thuds.
“I will offer everything! I have three estates in the south of the city, and vineyards outside the city! The deeds are in my home!”
The fat senator cried uncontrollably.
“My treasury! I will offer all my gold! Just spare my life!”
Ying Ziye on the stands picked up a purple grape and put it into his mouth.
He said nothing.
A Qin centurion beside him immediately understood.
He waved his hand downward.
“Grant it.”
Two Qin soldiers carried a small pot over to the fat senator.
Inside the pot was molten, golden liquid—recently melted down.
It was still emitting rolling heat.
The fat senator froze.
He stared at the pot of gold, his wailing expression stiffening.
“No… no…”
He tried to back away.
But the two Qin soldiers grabbed him like a chick—one on each side.
One forced his jaw open.
His fat mouth was pried apart.
The other tilted the pot.
The golden liquid, carrying lethal heat, poured down.
“Ugh… ughhhhhh…”
The senator let out a muffled, inhuman groan, his body convulsing violently.
The stench of burning flesh spread through the air.
Molten gold spilled from the corners of his mouth, searing grooves into his neck and chest with a sizzling sound.
A few seconds later.
The soldiers released him.
The fat corpse collapsed straight onto the ground.
His mouth remained open, a lump of solidified gold lodged in his throat.
The stands fell into dead silence.
Then came suppressed retching from some Roman civilians.
But more of them, after the brief terror, looked at the corpse with a twisted, almost sick satisfaction.
They recognized him.
Just yesterday, this senator had personally beaten a woman holding a child to death over a single counterfeit gold coin.
Ying Ziye spat out the grape skin.
He tilted his head slightly toward the scribe behind him.
The scribe immediately understood and stepped to the edge of the stand, holding a bamboo scroll.
He cleared his throat and, in stiff but clear Latin, announced loudly:
“Roman Senator, Crassus!”
“Charge One: Three years ago, he seized the land of thirty civilian households in the eastern district, causing seven people to starve to death!”
As soon as the words fell.
On the stands, a gaunt old man suddenly stood up and pointed downward, roaring.
“My family! That was my family!”
The old man screamed and cried, only to be tightly held back by the people beside him.
The scribe did not pause and continued reading.
“Charge Two: One year ago, he embezzled three thousand shi of disaster relief grain in the western district and resold it for profit!”
“My child… my child starved to death because of that!” another piercing cry rang out.
“Charge Three: He forcibly abducted a civilian girl as a slave, causing her to drown herself in a well!”
“My daughter! My daughter!”
One after another, bloody accusations erupted from the stands.
The senators kneeling on the ground began to tremble.
They had not expected the Qin people to judge them in this way.
These accusations were not compiled by the Qin.
They had been recorded over the past few days by Qin soldiers distributing food in the city—written down one by one from the mouths of surviving Roman civilians.
After each senator’s crimes were read out, Qin soldiers stepped forward and branded a slave mark onto their faces with iron tongs.
The moment the heated iron touched flesh, a sharp sizzling sound rang out.
Screams echoed across the Colosseum.
Not a single senator was spared.
When the final man’s charges were read, the scribe rolled up the bamboo scroll and stepped back.
Ying Ziye stood up.
He walked to the edge of the stands and looked down at the tens of thousands of Romans below.
He spoke in Qin language, his voice calm and low.
Though not loud, it was translated clearly by relay messengers into every ear.
“These people.”
He pointed at the branded senators below.
“From today onward, they are demoted to slaves.”
“They will be sent eastward, to mines without sunlight, to work until death.”
“All their property—land, houses, money—will be distributed to you.”
For a moment, the entire arena fell silent.
Then—
BOOM!
A thunderous roar of cheers erupted from the throats of tens of thousands of Roman civilians.
“Ura!”
They shouted in Roman language, screaming victory.
They jumped, shouted, embraced, and cried.
It was as if the victors of this war were not the Qin army, but themselves.
They shouted a word they had just learned, in awkward Qin pronunciation:
“Prince!”
“Prince!!”
The cheers surged like a tsunami, engulfing the entire Colosseum.
Ying Ziye watched everything calmly.
He waved his hand.
Qin soldiers stepped forward and dragged the wailing, screaming senators away like dead dogs.
Soon, only one person remained in the sandy arena.
The cheers gradually faded.
All eyes turned to the center.
There lay Caesar.
His broken leg dragged across the sand, leaving a long trail of blood.
He had heard everything.
He had heard his people cheering for the enemy who destroyed Rome.
Spit.
Caesar coughed up another mouthful of blood.
Slowly, he propped himself up with his elbow.
He lifted his face, covered in blood and dust.
He looked at the child sitting high on the throne.
At the devil who had personally driven Rome into hell.
Caesar’s body began to tremble uncontrollably.
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