"Nangong Elder, why must you put yourself through this? I truly sympathize with what you've been through, but for you to so openly deliver this child into my hands… think about it yourself. Are you helping me or harming me?" Ling Xiao said faintly. "Though I'm not afraid of the Crown Prince—and His Majesty the King likely anticipated that—I've never had a good impression of those who try to use me. His Majesty… he couldn't resist setting me up one last time, even on his deathbed. Did he think I would covet power and install the Third Prince as a puppet king? And that this would inevitably draw the ire of the Western Li Family, leaving him to watch as I went to war with them?"
Ling Xiao's words left Nangong Elder speechless. He was right. Both he and Elder Rong knew His Majesty the King's temperament all too well—he was the kind of man who would try to outmaneuver a few more people even as he lay dying.
