A Scheme Within a Scheme, a Trap Within a Trap

"Hall Master, rumors are running wild outside. They say an elixir of immortality has appeared at Blackwater Pool."

Li Xiang looked at Hong Tianbao, who seemed utterly unruffled, and asked, "Aren't you tempted? It's an elixir of immortality. Eat it, and you'll never die."

He had always thought Hong Tianbao was an ambitious man. Otherwise, why would he have set a three-year deadline to fight his way back to Tianjin?

"Tempted? How could I not be?"

Hong Tianbao smacked his lips, a note of wistfulness in his voice.

"Even the First Emperor, who led his entire court in Ascension, spent his life chasing that elixir. I'm just an ordinary mortal, and I haven't had my fill of living. Of course I want to live forever."

At the mention of the First Emperor, longing flashed in his eyes.

"The First Emperor was the oldest emperor in recorded history, and the most audacious of great men."

"What we know of him comes from scraps of writing dug out of the ruined walls of the First Emperor's Mausoleum."

"They say the First Emperor received his mandate from Heaven and was promised everlasting prosperity. But he refused to believe in that 'Heaven.'"

"And why should he? A man born between Heaven and Earth shouldn't spend his life bowed beneath another, least of all the First Emperor, who had united the realm."

"He did something so defiant that no one before or since has matched it..." Hong Tianbao's voice grew heavy. "He led his entire court in Ascension—and set out to slay Heaven!"

Li Xiang's heart shook.

An entire court ascending to slay Heaven?

It was nothing like the history he had learned in his previous life. It was steeped in the mythic grandeur unique to this world.

"Did he succeed?" Li Xiang couldn't help