"Your Majesty, when you sent people to kill me that night, were you also paving the way for the princess?"
"If that patrol could truly kill you, it would only prove you were unworthy of being Yun'er's Dragon Lord, unworthy of being my son-in-law."
The Purple Sky Dragon King made no attempt to evade the question and answered frankly. "If you could not even stop those men, how would you shield Yun'er from the blades hidden deeper in the shadows in the future? If you survived, it would prove I had judged you correctly. If you were killed, it could only mean you were not qualified."
Lin Shisan fell silent for a long time.
The light churning in his jet-black eyes gradually settled into a steady glow.
"Your Majesty, you never intended to take my life from the beginning?"
"I merely wanted to see whether you were worth Yun'er's journey to Dragon Snow Mountain to plead for you."
Lin Shisan's nose stung.
He opened his mouth, but several breaths passed before he found his voice. "Then the injuries Your Majesty suffered on the Life-and-Death Platform..."
"When I fought Ning'er that time, I was already suppressing old injuries, and I forcibly unleashed the Ninth Layer of Stacked Waves."
"Between the hidden injuries from the backlash of that palm strike and the toll of Mo Jiao's Gu Poison, I have far less life remaining than it appears."
"Since Your Majesty knew you could not hold on much longer, why expend your strength on all this? If you rested quietly, perhaps you could still..."
"Rest quietly?"
The Purple Sky Dragon King gave a low laugh.
"If I rested quietly, who would clear away those hidden agents for Yun'er? Who would force those waiting to see her falter out into the open, one by