Historically, Commodus's relatives after succeeding to the throne were only his sister Lucilla.

But this does not mean that he does not have other siblings, in fact, Aurelius still has quite a few children, but most of them did not survive to adulthood, and eventually left only two children after his death.

If those children who died are also counted, Commodus has many brothers, and among them, the closest to the age inferred by Zhang Heng is Commodus's twin brother, who died at the age of four, Aurelius held a funeral for him, and the senate at that time adjourned for a day to express mourning.

This incident was remembered by ordinary citizens in Rome who were not too young.

So on a social level, Commodus's twin brother is indeed dead.

This is also the reason why Zhang Heng didn't think of this aspect at the beginning. Of course, these are just Zhang Heng's speculations now, and if he really wants to prove that Ottrus is Commodus's dead twin brother, Zhang Heng still needs to collect more evidence.

Considering the special nature of the palace, almost all political forces will secretly install their people here, so there are no secrets in this complex, and it is obviously impossible for a prince to continue to live in the palace for so many years without being discovered after "death", so for whatever reason, if Aurelius wants his child to continue to live in secret, he can only be sent away from the palace, and the safer option is to send Oterus directly out of the city, and the farther away the better.

It's like Zhang Heng sent the little slave girl on a long trip.

The good news now is that in view of the disease that Otlus suffers from, it is impossible for the people in the place where he lived and grew up not to have any impression of him, and as long as you find out who Aurelius trusted the most sixteen years ago, and find out the nobles whose fiefs are relatively remote among them, a visit there can basically easily confirm Zhang Heng's conjecture.

But the bad news is that Zhang Heng found that he didn't have 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 received him before was gone, Zhang Heng knew that 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 is likely to have begun, and both sides are nervous, and the Balance Blade obviously has insufficient trust in Zhang Heng, an alternate core member, coupled with the reason that there are traitors in the organization, so he simply put aside his unstable factor with little faith at this critical juncture and played by himself.

If it's just like this, Zhang Heng doesn't care too much, because his original plan was to paddle, and it's not a big deal if no one pays attention to him. But the problem is that immediately after Zhang Heng heard a new news, Commodus planned to inspect a military camp twenty miles outside of Rome, and the entourage included the name of Orterus in addition to him and Clinder.

You must know that the aristocratic politicians in the Roman political arena are not unfamiliar with this name at all, but no one has yet seen the true face of Otlus, the owner of this name has been living in darkness in the past, but to put it mildly, Otlus is probably the second most powerful person in the city of Rome now, after His Majesty Commodus, the emperor of the empire.

Normally, under such circumstances, he would easily be feared and wary of His Majesty the Emperor, but Commodus seemed to have incredible trust in his chief advisor, and he never doubted the other party.

This also made Clint and other advisers extremely envious and jealous, and this time the emperor made a high-profile announcement that there was Otrous among his companions, which seemed to mean that Commodus was ready to gradually push this subordinate who had been behind the scenes to the front of the stage, so this inspection, which was originally just a routine matter, became particularly eye-catching.

Not only did the major nobles and senators want to see the true face of the emperor's first minister, but Clinder and other advisers were also nervous, and they all felt a sense of crisis, Aoterus behind the scenes already had such a big influence, once he came to the fore, he began to use his power and influence to make friends, form his own forces, and even control the Senate and even the entire country in the near future.

What Clint and the others didn't understand was why Commodus would watch this happen, no matter how much he trusted Ortrus, there was no doubt that doing so would damage the imperial power.

Clinder even gathered a group of people with whom he had a good relationship, and prepared to go together to persuade Commodus.

He naturally didn't forget Zhang Heng, a newcomer that Commodus likes very much recently, during this time, Zhang Heng's speed of rise has no precedent in the entire Roman history, from slaves to commoners to consultants, and then to obtain fiefs to become veritable nobles, this triple jump that other families need to complete in several generations Zhang Heng actually took a little more than half a year to complete, which is incredibly fast, and even Clinder regretted getting him to Commodus.

It's just that now Klinder has more headaches to deal with, so he doesn't have time to free up his hands to suppress Zhang Heng.

However, when he left Zhang Heng's Domus, his face was gloomy and almost dripping, Clint didn't expect Zhang Heng to reject him at all, although he didn't really regard Zhang Heng as his political ally, but the last time the two cooperated was quite pleasant, and Zhang Heng also showed some intentions to join forces with him to deal with Otlus.

It was precisely because of this that Clint agreed to help and let Zhang Heng pull the tiger skin of the Praetorian Guard to scare the big forces in the southeast city, but not long after that, Zhang Heng tore up the alliance agreement, making it clear that he did not plan to participate in the matter of dealing with Otrus led by him.

Clint almost failed to maintain his usual gentle image, slapping the table, but he obviously didn't want to set up a new enemy at this juncture, and finally just glanced at Zhang Heng coldly and turned his head away.

In fact, Zhang Heng hoped that Clinde's group could succeed, because this matter was clearly a trap used to deal with the Blade of Balance, Zhang Heng was one of the few people who knew Aotrus's physical condition, and knew that it was impossible for him to appear in front of the public at all, but Zhang Heng also knew very well that Clint and the others had no chance of winning this time.

The final result was not what Zhang Heng expected, Clinder and the others were not able to dissuade Commodus, and His Majesty the Emperor still insisted on bringing Otlus with him two days later, as if to tell the world how much he trusted his advisor.

And Zhang Heng also realized that he had to meet with the priestess before this expedition.