Chapter Forty-Nine: The Macedonian Legion

Pericles sat alone, clad in a leather jacket and autumn trousers, isolated in the Senate. The golden scepter rested at his side, the doors closed, no one nearby, as if the whole world had been shut away. His face bore an expression of utter resignation; he remained motionless, like a statue or a wax figure.

The more he thought, the more uneasy he became. What had those three done to Athens? Once prosperous, confident, and vibrant, the city now buzzed like a slave market, filled with talk of cultivating immortality, fellow Daoists, and core values... and yet they had been rewarded with honorary citizenship. The thought alone was suffocating.

Only foreigners who made great contributions to Athens could be granted honorary citizenship!

“No, those three—when they reach Olympia, who knows what chaos they’ll stir up next,” Pericles muttered. He summoned a trusted aide: “Take a talent of silver and contact the Macedonian mercenary corps. Have them ambush those three Chinese on the road!”

A talent of silver equaled sixty mina; one mina was a hundred drachmae, and with just ten silver coins you could hire a man. In theory, those coins could hire over five hundred men! Even well-equipped, battle-hardened veterans could number in the hundreds. Pericles was paying a considerable price.

Yan Luo and his companions had no inkling that the Athenian magistrate was willing to spend so much to hire mercenaries. The three received badges representing their honorary citizenship and credentials to participate in the Olympic Games. Wang Dongwei and Zhu Xiaoyong were elated, deeply moved, and even felt on the verge of tears.

It hadn’t been easy!

At last, they could participate in the Olympic Games. Was this a roundabout way to save the country?

“The elders of Athens really have no taste. My shirt and shorts cost barely ten bucks, and they’re second-hand, yet he’s as thrilled as if he’d received a treasure.” The poet elder who had made the suggestion was the very one bribed by Zhu Xiaoyong.

Wang Dongwei packed their belongings: Greek-style skirted leather armor like that seen in Trojan films, the spears used by soldiers, Greek iron swords, and bronze-covered round shields... They couldn’t take them out, but these items could be used in the inner world.

Yan Luo changed back into his original black jeans and black-and-white striped shirt. With a program’s storage space, all manner of miscellaneous items and food for the journey could be stored inside.

The three were not traveling with the athletes of Athens; there was still a week before the Olympic Games officially began, so they had to set off now—according to Wang Dongwei, Athens was about two hundred kilometers from Olympia.

In ancient times, this was a considerable distance. Of course, besides walking, they could ride horses, but none of them knew how, and horses of this era lacked saddles, making it difficult for the untrained. This was why the main fighting forces at the time were infantry and chariots, not cavalry.

Upon learning that Yan Luo’s group was preparing to leave, Socrates, Herodotus, Thucydides, and others all came to see them off.

The city was crowded as they departed; after all, Yan Luo had stunned everyone at the ceremony, whether with his bold physique or his talent in debate with the scholars.

There was little to be said about the scene. Yan Luo, devoid of emotion, was not touched by these people. He was a modern man from the surface world, while they were ancients of the inner world. Zhu Xiaoyong, on the other hand, felt some reluctance to leave; the lamb legs these days had been quite satisfying, and as a chubby fellow, he had for the first time felt respected.

When the scholars learned that Yan Luo’s group would not return to Athens after the Olympic Games, they were regretful.

Many Greek scholars brought gifts.

Sophocles gave him a manuscript of his plays. In the real world, it would be a priceless artifact, but here, it had no value since it couldn’t be taken out.

Herodotus gifted a thick gold chain—a large, heavy piece of jewelry that could be taken out, much like the jade Wang Dongwei had bought for two hundred points. If sold in the Dream Space, it should fetch several hundred points of bioenergy.

Hippocrates presented a gold headpiece set with rubies. Seeing Yan Luo wearing a gemstone on his head, he assumed the Chinese custom was to wear headpieces. Although this gift was more valuable, it couldn’t be taken out, making it less useful than the dog-collar-like gold chain.

Euripides offered a Persian slave girl, only twelve years old, resembling a modern Arab child—big eyes, cute as a green apple. For Yan Luo’s group, slave girls from the inner world were of no use, so they refused.

Socrates’ gift was a palm-sized marble statue carved by his father, which could be taken out. His father was reportedly sculpting a life-sized statue of Yan Luo, to be placed in the Parthenon as a symbol of Chinese wisdom, alongside the statue of Athena. That would take years to complete.

Leaving Athens, Yan Luo and his companions set out for Olympia.

The journey was roughly two hundred kilometers. Wang Dongwei’s plan was for the three to walk forty kilometers each day, arriving in five days. There were many city-states along the way; with their honorary Athenian citizenship badges and Olympic credentials, they would not be detained, as Athens was currently the strongest in Greece.

After two days, Zhu Xiaoyong was struggling; eighty li per day was an immense challenge for a man weighing over three hundred pounds. To accommodate him, their pace slowed—but it didn’t matter, as long as they arrived on time.

On the evening of the fourth day, not far from Olympia, the three stopped by a river in the wild, built a fire, and roasted food—Yan Luo had shot a wild rabbit with his word bullet. Suddenly, a distant rumbling sounded, like an army on the march.

The setting sun illuminated the horizon, where a legion gradually appeared.

The leader wore bronze chainmail and rode a horse. In this era, saddles hadn’t been invented; animal pelts covered the horse’s back. Four other horses carried bundles of wooden spears, each over five meters long.

The legion consisted of over a hundred soldiers: about twenty wore leather armor and carried round shields; thirty held two-meter spears and large shields half a meter in diameter; fifty wore ordinary cloth and carried bows, axes at their waists.

“Cavalry, infantry, light infantry, and auxiliaries?” Wang Dongwei mused. “This must be a Macedonian army. I never expected to see Macedonian troops on the Peloponnesian peninsula... Where are they headed?”

As he wondered, the legion advanced towards them, stopping two hundred meters away.

The leader seemed to issue an order. The auxiliary archers lined up in three rows, each nocking arrows and drawing their bows.

“Danger!” Wang Dongwei’s pupils contracted sharply. He hurriedly pulled a bronze-covered round shield from his phone’s storage space; Zhu Xiaoyong grabbed his shield as well, half-kneeling and raising it over his head.

In the next instant, the air was filled with the whistling of arrows, their trajectories arcing through the sky, descending like rain upon the trio!