The old woman shook her head and made a startling declaration.
"The heavenly Dao tribulation was never the key to bringing Zhong'er back to life."
"It was only a shield, a fig leaf to draw the attention of those old undying ones in the heavens—and the will of the Heavenly Dao!"
What?!
At those words, Li Xiang and the others' pupils contracted sharply.
Heavenly punishment was only a shield?! Then what was the real contingency?!
Ignoring their shock, the old woman slowly turned toward Chu Tian, who stood to one side.
More precisely, she looked at his double pupils, now closed after bleeding from his glimpse into heaven's secrets.
"Double-Pupiled One."
The old woman suddenly spoke, her voice carrying an unfathomable meaning.
"In the Netherworld, outside Wangsi City, you used those eyes to glimpse the thread of karma left behind by the First-Generation Yin Tianzi—the First Emperor."
"You told Li Xiang that the First Emperor had intended to use the Twelve Golden Figures as vessels to return to life against the current, only to be obliterated by the heavenly Dao tribulation the moment the Yin-Yang Boundary River opened."
Chu Tian shuddered. He said nothing, merely nodding in acknowledgment.
"But you saw only the result, not the cause."
The old woman sighed.
"The First Emperor possessed such extraordinary vision and ambition. Since he dared devise a scheme to defy heaven and return to life, how could he have failed to foresee the heavenly Dao tribulation?"
"He failed not because the Heavenly Dao was too powerful."
The old woman's gaze suddenly sharpened as she enunciated every word.
"But because, in the Netherworld, someone... no, a god, did not want him to return alive to the Living World!"
"A supreme being within the Netherworld stabbed the First Emperor in the back at the