Yang Qing saw it clearly on the map. If all the cities the Sacred Emperor had subdued in recent days were joined by an invisible line, they would form the unmistakable outline of a phoenix.
The phoenix's eye lay precisely at the resting place of Eastern Splendor's ancestors, which they had stumbled into back in Xiangyang City.
There stood a Heavenly Stone that recorded the secret of immortality.
The phoenix was the legendary undying divine bird, while that Heavenly Stone recorded the secret of immortality. To say Yang Qing still could not see through the Sacred Emperor's true intentions would have been a joke.
Bu Er and Jiang Zhizhou had already fetched a brush and were connecting the cities they had discussed with the finest of strokes.
When the final stroke fell, a phoenix spreading its wings in flight appeared before them.
"This is simply beyond belief! Hasn't the Sacred Emperor already been reborn? Why is he still so obsessed...?"
Bu Er spoke softly to Jiang Zhizhou, but halfway through his words, both of them thought of a certain possibility, and their expressions changed at once.
Emperor Zhetian had indeed been reborn, but his original plan had been to seize Yang Qing's body. In the end, however, their interference had caused an unexpected twist, and he had possessed Gongsun Ze instead.
How could Emperor Zhetian, who had always held himself in such high regard, possibly take that outcome lightly?
Moreover, though Emperor Zhetian had indeed been reborn, that rebirth was presumably only the first step toward reviving his grand ambitions. His ultimate goal was still immortality.
Only then could the Gongsun clan's imperial dominion endure for generation after generation.
If Bu Er and the others could think of this, Yang Qing had naturally thought of it long ago.
"Perhaps the