In history, the only relatives of Commodus after he succeeded to the throne were his sister Lucilla.
But this does not mean that he has no other brothers and sisters. In fact, Aurelius still has a lot of children, but most of them did not survive to adulthood, and in the end only two children were left after his death.
If those children who died young are included, Kang Maode has many brothers, and among them, the one closest to Zhang Heng's inferred age is Kang Maode's twin brother, who died when he was four years old. Leliu held a funeral for him, and the Senate at that time adjourned for a day to express his condolences.
Ordinary citizens in Rome, as long as they are not too young, can remember this incident.
Therefore, at the social level, Commodus's twin brother is indeed dead.
This is why Zhang Heng didn't think about it at first. Of course, these are just Zhang Heng's guesses now. If he really wants to prove that Ortrus is the dead twin brother of Commodus, Zhang Heng still needs to collect more evidence.
Considering the special nature of the palace, almost all political forces will secretly place their personnel here, so there are no secrets in this complex. It is obviously impossible for a prince to continue living in the palace for so many years after "death" Therefore, no matter what the reason is, if Aurelius wants his child to continue to live secretly in the world, he can only send him away from the palace. The safer choice is to send Otruu Sent directly out of the city, and as far away as possible.
It's like Zhang Heng sent the little slave girl on a long journey.
The good news now is that in view of the disease that Otrus suffered from, it is impossible for people in the place where he lived and grew up to have no impression of him, and as long as you find out who the most trusted people in Aurelius were sixteen years ago, And find out the nobles with relatively remote fiefdoms, and visit there to basically confirm Zhang Heng's conjecture easily.
But the bad news is that Zhang Heng found that he had no time to do so.
Especially when Zhang Heng went to the perfume shop again and found that the owner had changed there, and the clerk who had served him had disappeared, Zhang Heng knew he had been abandoned.
This kind of abandonment does not mean that the balance blade threw him to the hound, but that the war between the balance blade and the hound has probably already begun, and both sides are tense, and the balance blade is obviously against Zhang Heng, an alternate core member. Insufficient trust in him, coupled with the fact that there were traitors in the organization, he simply put aside his unfaithful unstable factor at this critical juncture and went to play on his own.
If that's the case, Zhang Heng doesn't really care too much, because his original plan is to paddle, and it's not a big deal if no one pays attention to him. But the problem is that Zhang Heng heard a new news right after that. Commodus planned to inspect a military camp 20 miles outside Rome, and the accompanying personnel included the name of Otrus besides him and Klind.
You must know that the aristocratic politicians in Roman politics are not unfamiliar with this name, but no one has seen the true face of Otrus. In the past, the owner of this name has been living in the dark, but to put it bluntly, Otrus Si is probably the second most powerful figure in the city of Rome now, after the Emperor Commodus of the Empire.
Normally, under such circumstances, he would be easily feared and guarded by His Majesty the Emperor, but Commodus seemed to have incredible trust in himself, the chief advisor, and never suspected him at all.
This also made Klinde and other consultants extremely envious and jealous, and this time the emperor announced in a high-profile trip that Otrus was among his companions, which seemed to mean that Commodus was going to gradually push this subordinate who had been behind the scenes Come to the stage, so this routine inspection has become particularly eye-catching.
Not only the nobles and veterans wanted to see the true face of the emperor's first minister, Klinde and other advisers also became nervous, feeling a sense of crisis. Otrus behind the scenes had already Great influence, once he stepped onto the stage, he began to use his power and influence to make friends, form his own forces, and even possibly control the Senate and even the entire country in the near future.
What Klinde and others don't understand is why Commodus would watch this happen. No matter how much he trusts Otrus, doing so will undoubtedly damage the imperial power.
Klinde even gathered a group of people who had a good relationship with him, and planned to persuade Commodus together.
He naturally didn't forget about Zhang Heng, a newcomer that Commodus liked very much recently. During this period of time, Zhang Heng's speed has no precedent in the entire history of Rome. Noble, it took Zhang Heng a little more than half a year to complete the triple jump that other families needed to complete. It was so fast that even Klinde regretted bringing him to Commodus. up.
It's just that now that Klinder has more troublesome opponents to deal with, he has no time to spare Zhang Heng.
However, when he left Zhang Heng's Domus, his face was so gloomy that he almost dripped water. Klinder never expected that Zhang Heng would reject him, although he didn't really regard Zhang Heng as his political ally. But the last cooperation between the two was quite pleasant, and Zhang Heng also showed some intentions to join hands with him to deal with Ortrus.
It was precisely because of this that Klinder agreed to help, and asked Zhang Heng to scare the big forces in the southeast city by pulling the tiger skin of the imperial guards. As a result, not long after that, Zhang Heng tore up the alliance agreement, making it clear whether it was true or not. He intends to participate in the fight against Ortrus led by him.
Klinde almost failed to maintain his usual gentle and elegant image, and slapped the table to stand up, but he obviously didn't want to make new enemies at this juncture, so he just gave Zhang Heng a cold look before turning his head and leaving.
In fact, Zhang Heng really hoped that Klind and his group would succeed, because it was clearly a trap to deal with the Blade of Balance, and Zhang Heng was one of the few people who knew about Ortrus' physical condition. , Knowing that it is impossible for him to appear in front of the public at all, but Zhang Heng is also very clear that Klind and others have no chance of winning this time.
The final result was not as expected by Zhang Heng. Klinder and others were not able to dissuade Commodus. His Majesty the Emperor still insisted on bringing Otrus to the inspection two days later, as if to tell the world how much he trusted him. Same as my advisor.
And Zhang Heng also realized that he had to meet the priestess before this inspection.