Zhang Heng rushed to the palace before dark, and now the guards outside the palace are also familiar with him, knowing the red man in front of him Commodus, seeing that he is no longer in the way.

Of course, with a secret passage leading to the study like Aotrus, Zhang Heng estimates that he will never have such treatment.

Commodus's trust in Orterus had reached a level that no one could match, long since the relationship between the Emperor and his advisors.

From this point of view, Zhang Heng can understand why the Balance Blade, which has considerable political resources, must get rid of Aotrus, because there is basically no way to separate Aoterus and Commodus except for assassination.

However, in this way, Zhang Heng also became a little curious about the position of the Blade of Balance, not knowing which side they were on, whether killing Aoterus was to weaken the emperor's power and make Commodus unusable, or whether he didn't want Commodus to continue to be bewitched by Aotrus.

Of course, this kind of thing has little to do with Zhang Heng, Zhang Heng just thought about it casually on the way to the carriage, he handed over his Persian short sword to the maid on the side, and then followed another maid into the palace.

There were already a lot of people in the hall at this time, but His Majesty the Emperor had not yet appeared, and Zhang Heng had not seen anyone who was suspected of being Otrumus.

However, Clinder arrived early, shuttling through the crowd, and it could be seen that his popularity was quite good, basically everyone respected him, Clinder also saw Zhang Heng, patted the back of a young man who was talking to him, and then walked over.

"Welcome, I heard about the mine, and you handled it very well, so that the bronze statues could be delivered on schedule." Clint said, then lowered his voice, "Have you found out who is behind it?" ”

Zhang Heng shook his head, "I don't know, I found Elder Diwo Bureye, hoping that he could provide me with some help, but he rejected me, but then the matter was resolved." ”

"Divobraye?" Clint raised his eyebrows, "That old fox, it's not surprising that he rejected you, because that guy is just a wallworm, and no one wants to offend, but why did he help you solve this matter secretly after that, is it to show favor to us?" ”

Clinder seemed a little puzzled.

"I've heard you're having some trouble over there, too." Zhang Heng helped Diwo Burye draw another wave of attention and then changed the topic.

"Oh, someone tried to thwart the launch of the new copper coin, I killed some people, so the rest were honest." "Some people in the Senate seem to be living too comfortably and forgetting where the power in their hands came from, and His Majesty's father was too lenient with the Senate during his reign to make some people get carried away, and we need to change that, if nothing else, this is what we will do next." ”

Clint inadvertently revealed some future plans to Zhang Heng, which was also one of his small means of wooing political allies.

The two chatted for a while, Clinder didn't talk about politics anymore, but shifted the topic to eating, drinking and having fun, and recommended Zhang Heng a few famous restaurants in Rome.

After a few more moments, Commodus finally entered the hall as well.

Everyone stopped talking, saluted the young emperor, who seemed to be in a good mood tonight, waved his hand and said, "Today's dinner is for a new friend, and there are no outsiders here, so you don't need to be too restrained." After finishing speaking, he looked at Zhang Heng.

Seeing this, Zhang Heng walked in front of Commodus, and was grabbed by the shoulders of His Majesty the Emperor, Commodus said with great interest, "Next, I would like to introduce you to my new advisor, I believe you are no strangers to him, because there is no one in the entire city of Rome who does not know his name, and all the women are crazy about him - he is the gladiatorial champion of the Flavi Amphitheater, who can subdue a bison with his bare hands, he is Zhang Heng from another distant eastern empire!" ”

His Majesty the Emperor deliberately raised his voice when he pronounced Zhang Heng's name, so there was also a warm applause in the banquet hall after that.

Waiting for the applause to be a little smaller, Commodus continued, "I bet, all of you together may not be Zhang Heng's opponent, but don't think that he is just a reckless man, in fact, his wisdom also amazes me, you know the southeast city, the security problem there has existed for one or two hundred years, which has given the emperors a headache, but most people have nothing to do with it, but Zhang Heng spent two months, and it only took two months for him to make the security situation there greatly improved, His intellect is what I find more precious than his strength, because my father used to say that the head is always more useful than the sword in governing a country. ”

Everyone nodded when they heard this.

Commodus took two glasses of wine from the waiter's hand, gave one of them to Zhang Heng, and then raised the glass in his hand, "Let us salute this magical Oriental man who will never let him down, welcome him to join our cause, and let us make Rome a greater place together!" ”

Hearing this, Zhang Heng also raised his glass and added, "To our Majesty, under his leadership, Rome will be full of glory." ”

"To Your Majesty, to our new friend, Zhang Heng!" Everyone also raised their glasses and shouted.

After that, Commodus asked Clinder to take Zhang Heng to meet the people attending the dinner.

Zhang Heng shook hands with all the guests one by one, and listened to Clinder's introduction, but his heart gradually sank, because he found that his target Otrous did not appear.

At tonight's dinner, Commodus's basic plate is almost all there, except for the most mysterious Ortrus.

In this way, not only did Zhang Heng's previous plans all be nullified, but he also found that he couldn't find a way to get close to Aoterus in a short period of time.

If Ortrus was so cautious that he would not even attend such a dinner party, which would mean that no one could see him except Commodus, and it would be very difficult to assassinate him, let alone hand him over to the priestess's men for a while before killing him.

Zhang Heng didn't have the heart to meet any new friends after that, his purpose was different from that of everyone here, after all, he was just a passerby to Rome in the second century AD, and even if he mixed into Clinder's position, it didn't mean anything to him.