Chapter 49 The Church's **

  The assistant dean who gave obvious hints from among the many priests of the Holy Spirit Institute was locked in a dungeon and received special care.

  Hans got a simple bandage, now we need to send him to the court physician for treatment, but the literary youth, or the German Wen Qing, she has to follow me to the Prussian embassy in the imperial capital for identity verification... The word "collusion" is a bit evil, and "identity verification" is more suitable. Our Seafano family wants to give the church a big shake-up, of course, we have to make a name for ourselves! So on the way, I deliberately emphasized the severity of the situation and casually reminded her that the greater Hans' identity, the safer Pennyvis would be, and the more beneficial it would be for them.

  We parted ways at Konstantinplatz, four guards escorted her to the Prussian embassy, I took Hans to the Seofer's house!

  At the gate of the palace of Sejanus, after handing Hans over to the physician, I inquired about the whereabouts of Caesar and Alexander. A guard told me that both Caesar and Alexander were inside the palace.

  This is quite intriguing, I instructed the doctor to take good care of Hans and then sent someone to the embassy to inform the German poetess, put on an eye mask and immediately rushed to the palace.

  As soon as I stepped into the grand hall, I saw not only my cheap old dad, but also several department heads.

  Alexander stood by silently, I walked over quietly and asked: "What's going on?"

  "What's with your eyes?!" Alexander was taken aback by my eye patch at first glance, and ended up asking me the question I had asked him instead, "What's going on?"

  "You see, I was on the road and saw a group of trendsetters walking by. For a moment, I was captivated by their novel attire, especially that eye mask which seemed to be the icing on the cake. I couldn't help but stare... then Alexander suddenly reached out and removed my eye mask. He looked stunned, 'So you just punched someone in the face because of that?'"

  "The reason is very complicated, let's talk about this side of things first." I put back on my eye mask.

  Alexander explained to me what was going on in the hall. The governor of the northern border of the empire had received a letter, fourteen cities along the Black Sea coast of Poland, jointly signed a draft written by the former Polish foreign minister, which is now in Father's hands.

  "What's that?" I glanced at the old man's back and saw a piece of paper clutched in his hands, which was quite long.

  "A joint petition of allegiance to our Roman Empire. They wish to join our empire as a new province in the status of an imperial city!" Alexander said.

  The Poles finally cried out for joining the Empire?

  "Is it still an autonomous city?"

  "Not them, those scoundrels," Alexander said with a laugh.

  The Polish remnants are inferior bones and not slander. In the past few years, when Poland was divided, the cheap old man would often deploy troops to the northern border and the Austrian border, and the Polish kingdom remnants along the Black Sea coast were lucky to survive. Originally, they wanted to peacefully annex them, but unexpectedly they refused the empire's proposal regarding serfdom. Then, the cheap old man dried them up for several years.

  "What's Caesar's attitude?"

  "Attitude unclear. Don't worry, Old Man certainly saw through their thoughts." Alexander said with a smile as he saw me breathe a sigh of relief, "Those bastards really aren't anything! They actually wanted to join the Empire and make us their shield, just paying some protection fees every year!"

  I nodded in deep agreement, those worthless bones should be beaten up by Russians.

  I waited in the great hall for only a few minutes, just as Alexander told me about his side of things at this point. Several nobles involved have been caught and are now being interrogated.

  Uncle Vanya took some time off and had me and Alexander go to the study. I told Uncle Vanya and Alexander what happened at the Holy Spirit Monastery there.

  While the two of them were still thinking, I decided to speak out my thoughts and judgment. To categorize Prussian young women as innocent victims, the whole thing originated from ordinary jealousy, but ultimately it was because the church was not satisfied with its current power.

  Conspiracy to raid Elysee Club, the words of the clergy are inconsistent, and the clergy in charge only know how to execute and do not understand the reason. These people obviously took this as a simple religious idea issue. However, including that noble with an uncle at the Holy Spirit Institute, they all knew that this religious issue would soon become a treason case on the second or third day after two Prussian nobles were arrested!

  When I went to the Holy Spirit Hospital to save people, the church was trying to drive two German nobles mad! In conjunction with the church's shouting in the club about searching for evil ritual artifacts, as long as the two people go crazy, the church has a basis for claiming that the club is holding an evil ritual! This way, four unrelated things - a book to be banned, Satan worship, evil rituals, and rebellion - become one entity!

  "You're saying the church will accuse those noblewomen of Satan worship, and then under the influence of evil rituals, they'll conspire to rebel while out of their minds, and this idea will be revealed through writing?" Alexander reacted quickly.

  Cheap Old Man reacted faster: "But this way, the whole thing is still a religious event. This doesn't match the church's original purpose! It has nothing to do with the families behind them!!"

  When I saw the old man's sudden low voice and loud cry, I understood. I really approached the idea of the upper echelons of the church, with some excitement: "Is the emperor about to die?!"

  "Our emperor, Dido the First, just the other day, sneaked out of the palace and openly competed with Frenchmen in a brothel in the northern part of the city... When he returned for dinner, his nose was bleeding, and he fainted in the palace garden. He summoned over a dozen imperial physicians, and to this day, he still hasn't gotten out of bed!" Old Cheap laughed bitterly.

  "Did I win or lose?" "What a shameful display! It's an embarrassment to the imperial family!"

  "Our emperor, at the age of sixty-one, has consecutively worn nine crowns! Four more than that French count he fought against... The time for both sides was from noon to afternoon."

  What a long and exhausting battle, compared to me who cares about winning or losing, Alexander is more concerned about the dignity of the royal family... This guy is really stupid, forget it, I'll go help him find the Emperor's secret recipe for his nine concubines when I have time. "So the whole thing couldn't be clearer, the old Emperor is ill, the Church fabricated this case, apart from those sacrificed noble ladies, it won't harm our power at all, on the contrary, we can't blame them, but should praise them instead, because they handed us the butcher's knife to eliminate opposing forces before Caesar's ascension, whoever we want to kill, we can just kill..."

  "But the more people we kill, the higher the Church's reputation will be. The nobles will tremble with fear, the commoners will revere us, and the Church will once again make Constantinople cower under its authority! Those noble ladies' families behind them, they can't escape, as long as trouble hasn't burned onto their skin, it's enough for them to thank God. Even if we fail, just one sentence of 'they conspired against us', and they'll turn from being our accusers into our staunch supporters...". Alexander closed his eyes, clenched his fists tightly, and sneered coldly, "The so-called most merciful Church, those saviors of the faithful, who would have thought that they are actually the cruelest butchers in this world! If it gets out, it's truly chilling..."

  "It's quite reasonable, but I'd like to know what strong basis you have for making such a conclusion." Old Man Bao asked, looking at the garden outside with his hands behind his back.

  I answered honestly: "The monks of Mount Athos all appear in the Sacrament of Holy Spirit."

  Mount Athos Monastery is the most famous religious sanctuary of the Empire, and even the deputy abbot has come, it's clear that he wants to speak for the Constantinople Church in a major religious perspective and ceremony. Combining the details before and after, I can only think of presiding over the trial of the literary girls' Satan worship ritual.

  "So you're saying the church is plotting a rebellion?" The old man's eyes sparkled with a profound smile, "Since you've already set a trap for the church, explain your thought process."

  The reason I'm doing this is simple. It's a blood transfusion! A complete overhaul of the church's upper echelons! The church has been working with our Sefano family for so many years, and now that the old generation has passed on, those who have taken their place in the high seats are too arrogant! One or two of them think they can't do without us Sefanos! But I dare say, if they dared to make a move against me, those old folks would never have dared to do so!

  Why?

  Because those church elders have seen the ferocity of our Seofano family! They know what it means to be reasonable! What it means to be delusional!

  Nowadays, the church is being framed for treason and they can't argue their way out of it. As long as they can convince Old Man Xi, those guys won't die but will be skinned alive.

  "Caesar, I too support taking advantage of this opportunity to teach the Church a lesson!" Alexander immediately came out in support.

  The old man smiled wryly and said with a sigh, "Now that things have developed to this point, the church and the nobles can easily deal with it without breaking a sweat. But those two German nobles who brought the church to its knees are just as thorny for us, because the church's recklessness and lack of intelligence has escalated this into a serious diplomatic incident."

  "Nothing ventured, nothing gained," said Alexander with a sigh.

  "This, you don't have to worry about. As long as it's handled properly, those two German nobles won't breathe a word about this." I took off my eye mask, revealing a dark purple bruise around my eye, and smiled smugly, "Our people threw them into prison, but in the prison, they gave me a good beating too. So, outsiders will only know that the church colluded with foreign powers to plot a rebellion, which was then discovered by our people. As for what happened inside, all of this will be kept secret."

  The old man leaned in, took a closer look, pinched the wound at the corner of his eye, and chuckled: "Not bad, not bad! Nikis, Caesar is now assigning you a task. You must make sure that those two German nobles keep their mouths shut about what happened in the church dungeon today. Absolutely cannot let this matter be exposed and tarnish the Empire's reputation! Alright, before that Prussian noble arrives, go take care of your wound first."