The banquet drew to a close in a relaxed and cheerful atmosphere. Commodus had actually left by the second half. Zhang Heng wanted to leave too, but considering the persona he had established, he had to wait until the banquet ended before departing. Lucilla's visit that afternoon had also served as a reminder: as he became more famous, more and more attention would be focused on him.
Banquets like this were rare opportunities for every participant, important occasions for strengthening relationships and making friends. If Zhang Heng wanted to maintain his image as someone obsessed with power, he could not leave too early.
So although Zhang Heng had no real interest in any of it, he still had to look interested on the surface.
He could no longer remember how many cups of wine he had drunk. Roman nobles liked drinking from lead cups. In addition, red lead could effectively reduce the acidity of wine. The aqueducts supplying the city's water were often made from a mixture of pottery and lead, and there were all kinds of tableware, cooking utensils, jewelry, and cosmetics. Lead products were practically everywhere... Not to mention that Roman noblewomen liked using red lead or cinnabar to make lipstick.
That made it easy to understand why Roman nobles had such difficulty producing heirs.
Zhang Heng did not care much about that, though. He would only be staying in this instance dungeon for a year and a half anyway. Once he returned to the real world, his physical condition would revert to what it had been before he entered the instance dungeon.
So in theory, as long as Zhang Heng did not drink himself to death within that year and a half, this kind of chronic poisoning was no big deal. Yet just as he was drinking