Chapter 2 Different Names, Different People

  Someone poked my back, I turned around to see Constantine, he glanced around cautiously and leaned in close, lowering his voice: "Why do I always have a feeling that the old man will jump out of the grave?"

  "With that old guy's style of doing things, we'd better be careful." I think with the character of this old man, he is indeed capable of doing such a thing.

  "So you guys think so too?" Another person responded to us two, his name was Maurice.

  "I chimed in, 'Compared to the old man crawling out of his grave, I've always been afraid that a bunch of illegitimate sons and daughters would suddenly appear at today's funeral, crying and wailing. Think about it, those people have never seen each other from childhood to adulthood, and they're all here for one reason - to fight over the old man's inheritance. As the old man would say, taking his money is like killing his parents. If things get out of hand, they might even start a big fight. We can't just stand by and watch those bastards disrupt the old man's funeral, but fighting with his sons and daughters at someone else's funeral doesn't feel right either. At that time, whether we intervene or not, it's all a problem.'"

  "As soon as I walked into the church, I had an inexplicable feeling of unease! It turns out that's what I've been worried about all along!" Konstantin exclaimed loudly, and several people around him showed expressions similar to mine.

  Valens glanced around nervously, afraid that an old man would jump out of the tomb, and said: "Whether to intercept or not is not a serious problem. If such a thing really happens, I'm afraid the number of illegitimate children of the old man will be more than thirty of us! We are small and weak, and we may get trapped. Without paying some price, it's hard to get out."

  Including me, many people around here think that old man is a unique person. Well, being able to be like that at his age is indeed constructive and full of creativity.

  The next second, the three of us got a slap on the head. There is only one person who can hit us like this here, Alexander, who was born earlier than me.

  Alexander glared at us three with a black line on his forehead, trying to salvage the old man's reputation: "Although I was looking forward to the scene where the teacher would rise from the coffin with an angry face and scold us, 'You bastards, you little rascals, how can't you even use a handgun?' But in fact, General Provadas is already dead. I understand that you cannot accept General Provadas' death and are expecting a miracle to happen."

  There's another thing that hasn't been mentioned, which is that the old man didn't have a wife. This rather eccentric old man, unlike other commoner-born generals who were busy marrying noblewomen to advance their family's standing, did the opposite. In other words, among those who attended his funeral today, apart from the group of veteran soldiers who served as his guards, there were only a few servants who took care of him and a handful of relatively close relatives, and he left part of his estate to these people.

  After bidding farewell to these people, we led out the horses tied up in the church stable. More than 30 of us mounted our horses and looked back at the cemetery we had just left, making sure that the old fellow hadn't crawled out of his grave. Only then did we turn around and head down the muddy road home.

  Clouds are rolling in the sky, sunlight shines on the earth, by the muddy road where horses' hooves have trodden, can be seen a shepherd boy driving sheep in the distance, a very heart-soothing picture, which has eased not a little the sorrow of parting from a dear one who has left this world.

  Maurice and Constance were walking on the left, followed by Valence on the right. These three people plus my older brother Alexander are the ones I get along with best, you could say they're my best friends so far. No choice, this world is pretty weird, male otakus under 18 years old, I've found four of them, as for others, sorry, their age has doomed us to not getting along.

  More than thirty people, four of them are perverts. The old man's initial enlightenment education has a high rate of inspiring perverts. But these four perverts are still small compared to my and Alexander's father.

  Alexander, Valens, Constantine, Maurice. Maybe someone has noticed that their names are not ordinary, in fact these names were given by my father and Alexander's father.

  The reputation of Alexander the Great as a conqueror is known worldwide, and my father gave Alexander his name in the hope that he would be like him and conquer the world. And Valens, Constantine, Maurice, and about twenty others, although we all have different surnames, each of us has more or less the same blood flowing through our veins, so they were also affected by the disaster.

  Valens was named after the 4th-century emperor Flavius Eulalius Valens, who was proclaimed Roman Emperor by his fellow soldiers after putting down a rebellion and launching a war against the Sassanid Empire of Persia. He was considered a great military leader. However, in the Battle of Hadrianople against the Visigoths, he became overconfident and launched an attack without waiting for reinforcements, believing that his army of farmers could defeat the Visigoths who were roughly equal in number. Unfortunately, it turned out that farmers couldn't beat the Visigoths in a battle of similar numbers. This arrogant guy ended up losing not only the battle but also his life.

  The name of Constantine comes from the emperor Constantine II, who was active in the mid-7th century and resisted the Arabs on the front line. This emperor defeated the Slavs of Sklavenia, withstood the Arab invasion, won many victories in Italy to the west, and more importantly established the embryonic form of the military district system, and was also a versatile emperor who was both civil and martial, but was eventually assassinated in the bathroom.

  Maurice had a bigger background, among the Eastern Roman Empire emperors in the early 7th century, there was one who could beat the Persians to the point of begging for an alliance, and also behead the barbarians until they cried out for their parents. He became the strongman of the Roman emperor who crossed the Danube River again after more than 200 years. However, he was still killed by his own people.

  As for me, I also have no reason to be spared by that freak with a collection of excellent military exploits. My name is Nikephoros, which means "Victory Bearer" in Greek, and the provider of this name was a god-like figure in history who defeated the Arabs in Syria and was even called the "White Death God of the Saracens". But what's the use of being the White Death God? In the end, I was killed by my nephew with one knife cut while sleeping at night. The tragic degree is similar to that of Zhang Fei, I don't know if this guy has crossed the language barrier and exchanged ideas with Zhang Fei in the underworld.

  From Alexander who swept across the world but died of illness on his way home, to Valens who traversed Asia Minor but was defeated and killed in Europe, and then there's Constantine who excelled in both literature and martial arts but died in a bathroom murder case. Adding to that, two people who were unmatched in their time but were killed by their own kind, my father might think this is very heroic, but I think the five of us can form an "Unfinished Ambition, Five People Group".

  The aura of a turtle, no, it's the aura of resentment and grievance that is causing chaos everywhere...

  It's a bit disappointing, I really don't know what the implication of "cheap father" is, whether it means we can have outstanding military achievements like the former, or end up like them, being in the prime of life with great prospects, only to be quickly killed off by various gods.

  It's easy to imagine what I would have done when I was a kid after learning about the origins of our names. I asked my father, who gave us such distinctive names, "Why not give us names like Caesar, Augustus or Octavius?"

  "I'm just a rookie Caesar myself, and you two want to take such a big advantage?" That guy sourly retorted back at me.

  In fact, traditionally the two sacred words Caesar and Augustus have long been struck off the naming list, just like in China you would give your kids names like "Ah Cat", "A Dog" or "Dog Leftovers", but not names like "Emperor", "Overlord" or "Heavenly God", unless you want your kid's second half of life to be more creative and constructive than that old man Probus Severus.

  It seems that the ancient land was not suitable for nurturing talents with rich imagination like Picasso. The group of experts and authorities in ancient China who gave Qin Shi Huang the title of Emperor were considered creative, knowing to take two characters from each of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors and combine them together, rather than directly taking the names of the five emperors - Huangdi, Zhuanxu, Diku, Yao, and Shun - and slapping them on Qin Shi Huang's head. In comparison, foreign countries were much simpler, directly taking the names of Caesar and Augustus and slapping them on.

  I don't know what thoughts the First Emperor of Qin had when he was proposed to be called "Huangdi, Zhuanxu, Di Ku, Yao, and Shun". Fortunately, Alexander's successor wasn't like Caesar, he didn't have an heir named Octavius, otherwise the emperor living in the Heavenly Dynasty would feel a lot of pressure. I guess he would think that the person doing the same business on the west side was called Caesar Augustus, but it's also possible that after knowing the ruler sitting in the same position on the west side was called Pressure Mountain, he would have a feeling of sympathy and be unable to control his emotions.

  And this old brother Alexander now gives people more pressure than a mountain.

  I don't know how much pressure those contemporaries of Alexander the Great in ancient Greece had, but I do know that the pressure on my shoulders now is not small. This Alexander, who is my older brother, wants to become a Caesar and Augustus-like man! In other words, he wants to make this name sacred by establishing a series of great achievements, as he puts it, "making those who come late arrive early".

  In my understanding, he wants to conquer the world and then add another name under the title of future rulers. Of course, he can't do it alone, this isn't a Western fantasy or an Eastern fantasy, there's no divine power, no aura, no magic, Alexander is strong but not strong enough to create a massive energy ball or break the earth with a single punch, at most he can wrestle a lion or swim and fight a hippopotamus. Also, after my 14 years of observation, Alexander doesn't have a system that allows him to summon thousands of soldiers by consuming points, nor has he been lucky enough to pick up any secret martial arts manuals or undergo genetic modification that would change his body. In other words, my brother wants to conquer the world but still needs to rely on the people around us.

  Yeah, declaring war on the world is a very clichéd slogan, but I'm clear that Alexander's "world" actually just refers to the area around the Mediterranean. Later when chatting with others, he can say with a straight face, "Want to go take a bath in my bathtub at home?" That's all. It's fortunate that his ambition didn't extend to the universe; otherwise, one day we'd receive a mission to fight against extraterrestrial life forms like those from the Pleiades, which would be simply fatal. In fact, if Alexander's ambitions were achieved, I'd also feel very annoyed, because I don't dare imagine what it would be like in future times when a large group of people shout slogans with the highest respect to their ruler: "Hail Alexander!"

  I think this is quite unlikely, isn't it?

  The Eastern Roman Empire, which should have been beheaded by the Turkish sword in the 15th century, still stands tall in this world. What is impossible for this world?