Sect Leader Duan had no idea how long she had lived. To the eye, she was merely a beautiful woman in her thirties, dressed in a resplendent palace gown, like an immortal descended into the mortal world.
After hearing the emperor's words, her gaze flickered slightly. She shook her head and said, "Your Majesty, I don't understand what you're talking about."
Zhang Dongge stood silently to the side, looking utterly bewildered by the situation.
The emperor swept his wide sleeves out and clasped his hands behind his back. He looked at Sect Leader Duan with a faint, unreadable smile and continued, "You don't know what I'm talking about? Heh. I can tell you this: across the entire Great Light Dynasty, there are very few things that can escape my notice. And someone of your stature, Sect Leader Duan, is naturally one of the people whose every move I keep a close eye on!"
"Your Majesty, what exactly are you trying to say?" Sect Leader Duan asked, her voice growing more forceful.
Turning to face the center of the space, the emperor sneered. "There's no need to rush. Since you don't know what I'm talking about, allow me to explain it to you, bit by bit."
At this, the emperor spun around and fixed his gaze on Sect Leader Duan. "Sect Leader Duan, of the three of us here, you're probably the one with the deepest schemes. Five yuan ago, you were the first to discover the Heavenly Emperor's tomb, weren't you? You had already gone down into it back then. Did you think no one would ever find out? Little did you know, your every move was under my surveillance!"
"You didn't come away empty-handed from the Heavenly Emperor's tomb. You obtained a cultivation art steeped in boundless evil—and as