## Chapter 131: Dumas’s Greed for Wealth
Outside the Greenwich Police Station, Fiona, dressed in a long skirt, tucked her golden hair behind her ear. She looked at the pipe in her hand, her heart filled with mixed emotions.
Behind her stood the members of the “Cambridge Brothers,” who were released along with her.
These young men, of varying heights and builds, looked at Fiona’s ambiguous expression and one by one came forward to comfort her. “Fiona, it’s nothing big. Isn’t it just like the usual, selling your body? At least the brothers are all out. These next few days, your expenses are on us.”
Fiona couldn’t help but roll her eyes at them. “What selling my body? This time, it’s my soul! We have no turning back now, you bunch of idiots!”
The guys looked at each other, confused about what their leader was on about today.
Someone whistled nonchalantly, teasing, “Selling your soul? Is that some new skill you’ve developed lately?”
Fiona, however, didn’t hesitate to slap him.
A crisp sound of “smack” echoed in the air.
The guy covered his reddened cheek, stunned for a moment before remembering to get angry.
He rolled up his sleeves and glared, “You bitch! You think I won’t hit you back?”
“Try it,” she said. As soon as the words left her lips, Fiona pulled out a flintlock pistol and shoved it into the guy’s mouth. “James, listen up. From now on, everything you do, everything you say, is my call. If you don’t like it, I’ll send you to meet God right now.”
James, with the gun barrel in his mouth, beads of sweat forming on his forehead, felt a sense of familiarity about this posture.
“Y-you… where did you get that gun? Our… our guns were confiscated, weren’t they?”
“Where do you think I got it?”
Fiona used the gun barrel to stir around in James’s mouth, finally pressing it against the roof of his mouth. She seductively played with her golden hair with her fingers, then threw a flirtatious glance towards the front of the Greenwich Police Station.
There was no one else at the station entrance except Arthur Hastings, a police inspector leaning against the door, smoking.
Arthur noticed Fiona’s actions. He emptied the ashes from his pipe and said nonchalantly to Fiona, “Don’t kill anyone, at least not here.”
Then, Arthur turned and walked back into the police station.
Fiona covered her chest with one hand, her face radiating unmasked, overflowing happiness. “Darling~ I’ll do whatever you say.”
Hearing this, the guys couldn’t help but swallow hard.
They asked, “Fiona, are you seeing him?”
“T-that cop, he seems pretty high-ranking.”
“So… so you’re going to be a police officer’s wife?”
Fiona raised her chin proudly, surveying her underlings. “I don’t have that kind of luck, but with our relationship, if you guys make me unhappy, I can still get him to put you in jail! Like I said, you all have to listen to me from now on. Whatever business I say we do, we’ll do it! As long as we don’t make him angry, we’ll be rich soon.”
The guys looked at each other, hesitant.
But when they saw Fiona’s gun starting to point at them one by one, they quickly followed their instincts.
“Alright… alright, we’ll do whatever you say! As long as we make money, what business we do doesn’t matter, right? We always believe in your clever mind, and besides, you are now…”
Before he could finish, Fiona’s gun was pressed against his temple. “Don’t mention his name. Our relationship is between us. Anyone who dares to talk about it outside, don’t blame me for not considering our past friendship.”
Looking at Fiona’s vicious expression, the guy stiffly forced a smile and nodded slowly. “Alright… Fiona, whatever you say.”
Fiona smiled and nodded. “Also, from now on, don’t call me by my name. Fiona isn’t something you should call me. Like when I first met you, call me by my last name, Miss Ivan.”
Inside the Greenwich Police Station, the Red Devil stood on top of Arthur’s top hat, looking out at the scene.
Agareus chuckled and rubbed his hands. “Oh! My dear Arthur, it seems you’ve chosen a fine little girl to be your underground agent. She’s barely gotten the power you’ve given her, and she’s already eager to use it. Seeing her reminds me of an old friend, damn, it’s a bit nostalgic.”
Arthur glanced at him, standing in the corridor and asking, “With your terrible personality, you actually have female friends?”
Agareus covered his mouth and chuckled. “Oh, Arthur, I have plenty of female friends. It’s just that I befriend them not because they are women, but because they possess certain qualities I admire. I’m not like your friend Eldred, possessed by Asmodeus, who can’t take his eyes off the opposite sex.”
“So, how is Fiona like your old friend?”
Agareus smiled and flapped his wings. “Do you know Nemesis?”
Arthur laughed. “You actually know the Greek gods? Nemesis, the inevitable goddess of revenge residing on Mount Olympus. Agareus, I thought you devils, born in the land between the rivers, had nothing to do with those gods.”
The Red Devil didn’t pay attention to Arthur’s question. He swept through the Greenwich Police Station like a gentle breeze, his voice echoing in the hall.
“Every region has its own beliefs, every era has its own gods. It’s nothing big. What has passed doesn’t mean it’s truly gone, and what exists doesn’t necessarily mean it will last forever. How the future unfolds depends on your own efforts…”
Arthur picked up his handkerchief to wipe the dust off his face. He couldn’t help but shake his head. “When it comes to playing pretend, you’re the best.”
He opened the door to his office and saw a fat man sitting in his chair, frowning while holding a quill.
Arthur walked over quietly, afraid of interrupting the fat man’s thoughts.
He leaned over the back of the chair and peeked. He saw a familiar title written on the draft paper in front of the fat man – “The Count of Monte Cristo.”
Dumas pulled at his head, feeling like it was about to split.
He muttered to himself, “Although the main plot is set, how do I start it to draw the readers in?”
“How about a broken engagement? A genius, or let’s say, a promising young man, suddenly finds his bright life plunged into darkness for unknown reasons, even his fiancee runs off with someone else. I think nothing is more attractive to readers than this.”
Dumas turned his head sharply, surprised. “You know how to write books?”
Arthur shook his head. “I don’t, but I’ve read them. But speaking of which, you suddenly started writing a new book. Is this a change of heart, finally deciding to pay me rent?”
Dumas snorted disdainfully. “What do you know? This is a sudden inspiration for a playwright, a desire to create bestowed by God, and money is just a minor driving force. Besides, you keep me by your side all the time, I can’t go to see other plays, and the restaurants in London have no appetite for me. I have to find something to keep me going.”
Arthur leaned against the wall and nodded. “So your driving force for survival is just a title? The scammers on the London Stock Exchange know how to release some news, but you’re going to fool the readers with a title? You’re still lacking the skills to be a writing scammer.”
Dumas was furious. “You talk as if you’re an expert. You’re just a Scotland Yard cop. You don’t know, you’d think you wrote ‘Henri III and His Court’!”
Arthur said, “I’m not really an expert, but I think I can offer some reasonable help and advice. Next week, I’m going to General Codrington’s house for a party. He told me that besides scientific knowledge, we can also talk about literature or other things. If you can write the beginning by next week, I might be able to help you build a reputation in London’s upper circles at that party.”
Dumas was skeptical. “You British are so kind?”
Arthur shrugged. “Believe it or not. It’s not entirely to help you, though. I feel that with my personal scientific knowledge, I might not be able to handle a private party that lasts three or four hours. Rather than being questioned on various scientific issues, I’d rather talk about literary skills with them.”
Hearing this, Dumas finally believed him. He nodded. “You’re quite honest. But I have to admit, the idea you just mentioned is pretty good. Finding out his fiancee ran off with someone else at the beginning, his promising future ruined, this is indeed in line with my thinking.
I was planning to make the protagonist a promising sailor, who was falsely accused and imprisoned, then sent to an island prison. If I add a broken engagement at the beginning, it would indeed make the readers more furious, and when the protagonist starts his revenge later on, it would make them feel even more cathartic.”
Arthur, hearing this, asked, “Then have you figured out how to make the protagonist escape from the island prison?”
“That… I haven’t started thinking about that yet. I’m still thinking about how to write the beginning.”
Arthur smiled, leaning down. “I think you can set up a mentor-like figure for him in the island prison, like…”
“Mentor?” As soon as he said that, Agareus appeared from nowhere. The Red Devil, wearing a monocle, nodded. “Speaking of mentors, it should be a knowledgeable and talented devil.”
Arthur glanced at the guy and continued, “I think the mentor could be an erudite old prisoner, a chemist, or a naturalist…”
(End of Chapter)