The next day, a new edition of the Great Yan Chronicles came out, updating the Heaven Ranking.
Zhao Feng was provisionally ranked third on the Heaven Ranking, which matched the assessment of his strength.
Zhao Feng spent two days wrapping up the official business he was handling, one matter at a time. He handed several affairs requiring long-term follow-up to Yue Lang, Jiang Chen, and the others, while also ordering another contingent of the Dark Guard to infiltrate the Southern Border.
Over those days, he gradually pieced together the connections between three leads.
The first was the reports of anomalies in the Northern Borderlands and the Southern Border: unusual celestial phenomena and tremors scattered along a curve extending from northwest to southeast. Together with Shen Ci's revelation at the Wind and Cloud Grand Gathering that an earth vein dormant for years was slowly becoming active, they formed a picture whose outline was vague but whose direction was clear.
The second was the movements of the Empress Dowager's subordinates. They had begun leaving the palace more frequently. Though everything appeared normal, with nothing unusual about their actions, Zhao Feng knew there had to be a deeper meaning behind it all. He had therefore obtained unrestricted surveillance authority from the emperor and ordered his Dark Guard subordinates to keep an even closer watch on the Empress Dowager.
The third was the young master of the Nine Nether Demon Sect. If the report of his appearance at Greenwood Marsh in the Southern Border was true, its timing was close to that of the first two leads. Greenwood Marsh also lay precisely along that earth vein extending from northwest to southeast, its geographical position falling right at the end of the arc.
In short, Zhao Feng felt that something linked these three leads together.