These air vents were not conspicuous. Basically, they were on the back of the statue. If one did not go around, they would not be able to see them. Other than the air vents, Zhang Heng could also see that the stone slab itself was movable. This meant that the base of the statue was not solid. Instead, it was built with an arched structure like the Amphitheatrum Flavium.
Zhang Heng removed the stone slab and saw that the space below was very small. Basically, it could only accommodate a child no more than fourteen years old. Zhang Heng also found some bread crumbs and an unfinished bowl of water in it.
Other than that, Zhang Heng did not find anything else. After that, he went around to the back of the temple, where the priests lived.
The young priest who opened the door to welcome him had now returned to his bed and entered dreamland. Apart from him, there were two older priests and six attendants who did odd jobs.
Zhang Heng searched their residence without waking them up, but he did not find much. After that, he returned to the hall with the statue, opened the bronze gate, and quietly left the temple.
A quarter of an hour later, Zhang Heng stood in front of the temple of Queen Juno.
Just as he was about to use the same trick and throw the stone in his hand, the gate of the temple suddenly opened on its own.
A woman dressed like a priest walked out of the temple with a group of children.
Zhang Heng did not have time to climb to the roof. In a hurry, he could only roll sideways to the edge of the cliff. When the gate was fully opened, he hung his body on the cliff and used one hand to climb the rock wall.
His movement was fast, but because it happened so suddenly, the first child who stepped out of the door noticed something. The child stopped and looked at the cliff where Zhang Heng was hiding in confusion.
"Priestess Vera, I think I saw something."
The priestess named Vera glanced in the direction indicated by the child, but she did not find anything unusual. After that, she said, "That's just the wind. Mosmill, let's hurry up. You all have to get up early tomorrow."
Mosmill blinked. He did not think that what he saw was the wind, but he still listened to the priestess and continued to walk forward. The other children followed behind him.
After the children left, the bronze gate did not close immediately. Instead, a priest came out from inside. But compared to the priestess, he did not pay as much attention to etiquette. After watching the children leave, he walked directly to the edge of the cliff, unbuttoned his pants, and was about to pee.
Unexpectedly, it was not his urine that flowed out first, but his blood.
A black shadow with an aura of death suddenly appeared behind him and slit his neck. At the same time, it hugged his body so that he couldn't scream when he died. The priest reached out and grabbed the murderer's sleeve as if he wanted to keep the murderer here. However, he only held on for a few seconds before he gradually lost his strength.
After that, Zhang Heng laid the priest's corpse on the side. He grabbed the priest's right hand and looked at it. There were many calluses on the priest's index finger and thumb, and there were also scars on his arm. Obviously, he had undergone strict military training before, and he might even have participated in the war. Instead of calling him a priest, it was better to say that he was a soldier wearing the priest's coat.
And judging from his appearance and skin, he should not have been born in Rome. If Zhang Heng was right, he should be an elite soldier brought by Altrus from the frontier. He was also one of his most trusted guards.
Zhang Heng knew that he had come to the right place this time.
Speaking of which, Zhang Heng had Clint to thank for finding Altrus's hiding place. If it weren't for the information that Clint revealed when he was chatting with him in the dungeon that night, Zhang Heng would not have found this place.
Clint described Altrus as witchcraft. He could enter a person's mind and know what they were thinking. Since Altrus had been drugged before, Zhang Heng thought Clint was talking about Altrus using the truth serum.
However, there was a big problem with using the botanical alkaloid in scopolamine to pry open a person's mouth. First, there was the problem of toxicity. Although Zhang Heng did not know what method Altrus used to neutralize some of the toxicity, it did not completely disappear. With Zhang Heng's physical fitness, he might not have much of a problem drinking that cup of medicinal wine. However, it was hard to say for ordinary people.
In terms of efficiency, this was not a good way to collect intelligence. Altrus needed to make the target drink the medicinal wine first. He also had to find a way to bring the target to a place where there was no one around before he could start interrogating them. In this way, he could interrogate seven or eight people a day at most. It was impossible for him to know the secrets of civilians and nobles like Clint said.
And Zhang Heng did not think that Altrus would waste scopolamine on civilians.
He should have other means to collect intelligence. Scopolamine was more like a special method he used to deal with certain emergencies.
Other than that, Clint also mentioned that Altrus suffered a setback three years ago. The dock workers at the Tiber River asked for wages, and the traffic on the river was paralyzed. Altrus did not get any news about such a big incident in advance.
These things didn't seem to explain anything separately, but when they were put together, the answer was obvious.
Altrus was collecting intelligence through the temples.
Temples and baths were probably one of the few places that were open to the poor and nobles. They were also the two places where people liked to discuss secrets the most. When the believers prayed, they would not hesitate to tell the most secret wishes in their hearts. Similarly, many people liked to talk about business and personal matters in the baths.
What made Zhang Heng rule out the possibility of going to the baths was what Clint said about Altrus three years ago. He could not get the news about the dock workers in advance because most of them were Jews. They either believed in Judaism or Christianity, and none of them would come back to the temples to pray to the Roman gods.
At the same time, Zhang Heng was more inclined to go to the temples. There was another reason why Altrus was sentenced to death by a single sentence from the court priest. If it weren't for his father's soft-hearted decision to send him away, he would have died at the age of four. In the end, although he survived, he lost his identity as a prince, and he would never be able to live under the sun again.
After many years, he returned to Rome and regained his power. Zhang Heng did not believe that he would not retaliate against the priests in the temples. In this way, he could control these temples and turn them into his intelligence collection centers.
The hiding place Zhang Heng found under the stone base of Jupiter's statue was the best proof. And the group of children taken away by the priestess should be Altrus's ears.
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