Winter came and went, and the spring breeze blew through Iberia in the corner of the European continent, through the beautiful land of France, lingering in the always turbulent Italy, and then bringing warmth to the cold interior of Eastern Europe, which seemed to be frozen forever.

Migratory birds begin their annual migration, flying across the vast expanse towards their homeland, which is already getting warmer.

A trace of greenery floated in front of me, and the long willow silk of the weeping willow was already like a huge potted plant hanging upside down in the spring breeze swaying gently.

The refreshing cool breeze blew on her face, and the young woman smiled and jumped lightly running among the catkins, and then turned back to look at her lover mischievously.

In the river not far away, large boats carrying goods shuttle back and forth, and there are also men and women who come out to visit the spring sitting in the boats covered with comfortable silk cushions, drinking wine while enjoying the bright spring light on both sides of the river.

The streets are very lively, and the old bridge that spans the Arno River not far away is full of people.

A few masked men who seemed to have nothing to do wandered slowly through the crowd, but unlike the idle riffraff who saw a young woman as if they had seen a bear with honey, their eyes were always looking at the young man and woman in front of them, who were walking on the bridge in high spirits.

The two young men were obviously a couple, and they walked slowly, a young woman with a girlish life and a ladylike grace intimately holding the masked man's arm, her face always with a sweet smile, and as she walked looked with great interest at the various knick-knacks on the dazzling vendors on both sides of the bridge.

"I like this."

"Then buy it."

"I like this too."

"Buy it."

"I like you."

"I'm not for sale, but I belong to you."

The young woman, who was as light as a girl, stepped forward, and then turned back, her ordinary, but delicately crafted skirt instantly shook out layers of petals with her movements.

Then, at last, the young woman fell silent, and she reached out to take the masked man's arm around the crook of his arm and walked slowly along the long bridge with him.

This is Florence, here is the old bridge over the Arno River.

The flowing river doesn't seem to have changed, time seems to have stopped on this historic bridge, the familiar cries of selling, the people shuttling back and forth, and the flowing water under the bridge, even if it spans several worlds of time, everything here seems to be no different from "a long time later".

"Here, right behind here, there should be a place to stomp." The young man suddenly pointed to a corner outside a protruding railing on the bridge.

"How do you know if you've had a tryst with Lucrezia on the bridge?" The young lady, like a girl, deliberately asked in an unhappy tone.

"No, I just remembered a plot from the game."

"Games? Is it a drama? How did I not know that there was still a drama about the bridge? ”

"No...... It's actually a kind of, well, it's a kind of drama, but it's a kind of drama in which the audience plays itself and watches it, and a lot of people play a role over and over again. ”

"Isn't that stupid, why do so many people play the same role repeatedly?" The young woman asked with some curiosity, "What does that have to do with this bridge?" ”

"Because in that play, everybody had to climb this bridge once."

"Well, that's stupid, isn't it?"

"Well, it seems like it's really stupid......"

The young girl, who seemed to have won a small argument, triumphantly used her strength to sink her lover's arm completely into her "canyon".

"It's nice like this, no one knows us, doesn't we, we can just go on like this until we get tired and stop and rest, no one can disturb us, it's just the two of us."

The sun-like blonde hair fluttered gently in the wind, and a strand of broken hair blew to the girl's forehead, and the young man gently straightened her hair, and then kissed her gently on the smooth forehead.

Looking at the young couple, everyone passing by showed a kind smile.

Florence experienced the glory of the Medici family's rule, and Florence at that time was full of passion and unrestrainedness, but also experienced the beauty and horror of the reign of Savonarola.

Today, Florence is part of the Duchy of Pisa, and the young but popular Duchess of Esterles is the owner of the city.

The mother of the Duchess of Estelles is the famous Roman princess Lucrezia, who now lives in her own palace in Pisa, seriously raising her own two children, spending a lot of time and money to provide a good life for the Florentine artists, and at the same time waiting for the birth of her third child.

Many people wondered why the Duchess didn't move to Florence, after all, the city was so beautiful that the entire Grand Duchy of Thessia could not have found a more memorable place to linger.

But Lucrezia lived quietly in her little palace next to the river, and she waited patiently, knowing that her beloved masked man would always return there.

It was the spring of 1504.

About a year ago, the Iberian Peninsula at the western tip of the Mediterranean Sea underwent a sea change, with the old king leaving and the new king on stage, and Iberia once again entered the era of two kingdoms, one male and one female.

The Mediterranean Sea is still turbulent, as it has been for many centuries, and all the countries bordering the Mediterranean are undergoing various changes around this "sea in the middle of the earth".

On the east coast, the Ottoman Empire was completely plunged into the chaos of a "War of the Three Kings".

Three "sultans" who claimed to have the right to inherit the Ottoman Empire engaged in a protracted civil war across the vast lands of the Ottoman Empire.

It was a war in which there was no retreat, a war in which the losers were doomed, in which the Ottomans showed the world their most powerful and fearsome weapons, except that their enemies were no longer infidels, but their own people who spoke the same language with the same beliefs.

For this reason, both Mehmet and Selim withdrew their armies in Europe in exchange for victory in the civil war, while the "Sultan Peloto", who seemed to be the weakest of them, was strongly supported by troops and weapons from Safavid Persia and Europe.

In the Balkans, the Ottoman evacuation did not bring peace to the land.

At some point, the name "Greater Wallachia" was shouted over and over again in the Balkans.

And the so-called "Greater Wallachia", which includes the Principality of Wallachia, Northern Bosnia, and even the now occupied South Hungary, has grown louder and louder, and those who are so clamoring have turned their attention to the entire Balkans.

"That little bohemian girl not only gives birth to twins, but also hides so much ambition," said the young girl, smiling as she played with a string of shiny colored beads in her hand, "and I wonder if one day she would reach out to Rome and Thesia after she had conquered all sides." ”

"I don't know." The young man smiled and said, "No one is controlled by others forever, so if one day Sophia goes to war against me for power, I will not be surprised, although I regret it, although I know that it will never happen." ”

"That's because you deceived her with sweet words again, and that silly girl is probably counting the days waiting for you to see her now, just as you did with your wife," the young girl hung the beads around her neck and looked at a mirror in the stall, "Do you think I look good?" ”

"You're always the best-looking." be

"Oh, to use your sweet words again, that's what you wrote to me, and I think your letters to other women must have made them blush," the girl turned down in front of the mirror, then took the young man's arm again, and pointed to the crowded stalls on the bridge, as if to proclaim, "I'm going to buy one thing at each of them, so that we can walk on this bridge for a long time." ”

"Then I need to eat something first, this road is not close." As he spoke, the young man walked over to a scented stall and asked for the famous Florentine meat sac, when the girl, as if she had seen something interesting, suddenly ran briskly towards the bridge porch on the other side.

The young man looked back and saw her standing in front of a mask stall full of various patterns and patterns, excitedly selecting.

It's a mask stall, and even the vendors behind the cars wear weird-looking masks.

The girl then picked up and picked around the stall with interest, and from time to time she picked up a mask and put it on her face, then turned back and shook her head at the young man, and laughed merrily.

The young man walked over, and he looked at the girl who was interested in choosing a mask with various patterns and feather ornaments, and asked with some curiosity, "Do you like masks?" ”

"So I can dance with you anywhere on a date," the girl leaned over in her mask and whispered in the young man's ear, "no one will recognize me." ”

The girl's words made the young man feel a wave of emotion in his heart.

Only here, only in this place where no one knows them, can they get along like a pair of lovers so generously.

And once they return to the luxurious but strict court, they are monarchs, commanders, brothers and sisters, but they cannot be lovers.

He also picked up a mask from the stall and put it on his face, tried it on, and then said to the vendor of the mask stall, "Give me one of everything, I want them all." ”

"Okay." The vendor quickly put away a few masks with different ornaments, and then, as if remembering something, he took off the white mask he was wearing without any floral ornaments from his face, "This is an addition to you." ”

"You're so generous, thank you." The girl smiled and took the stack of masks that were worn together, "So that we can wear them many times, that is to say, we can see them many times, knowing that little Alexander should be with his father, not with his portrait." ”

The young man reached out and stroked the girl's golden hair, and then the two of them continued to walk to the other end of the bridge.

They didn't notice that the vendor behind them, who had taken off his mask and showed an ordinary face, first stared closely at their backs, then greeted a few vendors next to them and began to pack up their things.

"Giovanni, you're so lucky today, those two rich people made you make a fortune."

"yes, so I'm not doing business today." The vendor said as he packed up the masked cart and stopped after a few steps under the bridge to the side, muttering, "It's too early to go home, better go have a drink." ”

So saying, he turned to the envy of the other vendors and walked towards the other end of the bridge where the young man and woman had disappeared.

The crowd on the old bridge was endless, and the young man and woman walked slowly through the crowd at random, not noticing that a vendor with a cart was cleverly approaching them not far behind, and the guards around them did not notice anything unusual about the man in the crowd.

As he got closer, the masked man freed up a hand to push the cart and quietly touched it under the cart.

He was calm, and years of assassination experience allowed him to know when to strike, and he knew that his mediocre appearance was the best disguise.

Revenge!

He had waited too long.

By the time he took off his mask, he had already made up his mind, and he had the same patience to find the best time to assassinate!

Closer, the masked man could even hear the young man and woman whispering laughter.

But he did not act in a hurry.

As an experienced Assassin, he knew that his target was surrounded by a large group of guards who were secretly protecting them, and he did not want to die with his enemies.

So he needs to hit the right shot at the right time and flee quickly.

The masked man slowly adjusted his breathing, only about six or seven paces, and at this distance he was absolutely sure that he would shoot his target with the short crossbow in his hand.

The short crossbow was modified to shoot two bolts dipped in poison at the same time, and the poison could be fatal even if it was contaminated at all, not to mention that he believed that it could shoot directly through the heart of the target.

The masked man's arm was quietly cocked, and the terrifying edge of the poisoned crossbow arrows hidden under the wide sleeves pointed at the pair of young men and women in front of them.

Suddenly, a figure appeared in front of the masked man, and a familiar face appeared in front of him.

"Giovanni is you, God, what a coincidence," a middle-aged man who looked like a businessman looked at the masked man with a surprised face, and then he excitedly stretched out his arm and hugged the masked man hard, "We haven't seen each other for more than two years, why are you here, I thought you were in Rome." ”

The masked man seemed to be excited to respond to his friend's enthusiasm, and the two of them hugged each other on the old bridge.

This scene of friends meeting by chance is very common, and no one pays attention to them.

Therefore, no one noticed that the two arms of the masked man who was being hugged tightly by the merchant were hanging down weakly, and his body was also sliding down weakly, but because he was held tightly by his "friend", he leaned on the other party like that.

In the last moments of his life, the masked man's head rested on the shoulders of the middle-aged merchant and struggled to lift up, but his vision was blurred, and he saw that the two figures were fading away, and their voices were gradually blurred like the noise around them.

"Crean ......"

These were the last words spoken by the masked man, and then the fire of his life was completely consumed by the increasingly cold and terrifying feeling.

"What's wrong?"

The girl asked a little strangely, and she saw the young man pause, looking back for something, as if in confusion.

"It's nothing, like I heard an acquaintance talking."

"Oh?" The girl instinctively ducked to the side, and then remembered that she was wearing a mask and would not be noticed.

So she reached out and took the young man's arm again: "Let's keep walking, this bridge is still long." ”

"Okay."

The young man grabbed the girl's waist and walked forward, and the figures of the two gradually disappeared into the surging crowd.

The Arno River flows below the bridge, and the bridge is bustling and bustling.

The Old Bridge, as it did in the past, spans the Arno River.

It also bears witness to the glory of the centuries after the "Alexander Empire......