Chapter 722: Li Qianlin Alone

"Nothing but the hand of your daughter!" Zhang Lie replied.

"State your demands directly—at this point, is there really any need for false pretenses?" Li Zongming couldn't believe Zhang Lie's words.

His strength was more than sufficient to kill Li Zongming and claim the worlds of east and west for himself, but this man was claiming, after he had defeated all challengers, that he had done so solely for his daughter?

As a ruler and an ambitious man in his own right, Li Zongming could hardly accept such reasoning. His daughter was certainly a jewel, worth a city or kingdom, but wasn't an entire world too much of a stretch?

There might not be many women whose beauty was on par with Li Qianlin in the world of the east, but there were surely a few—like Dong Mingxing, for example.

Was a woman really worth offending two kings of the realm and their representative countries? If Zhang Lie were a rash and reckless youth, Li Zongming would at least be able to rationalize his behavior, but Zhang Lie was strong enough to beat him and had enough foresight to have controlled the entire fight from beginning to end!

Furthermore, it looked as though he still had a trump card up his sleeve.

Would someone like this really be a rash, reckless youth? At the very least, Li Zongming wouldn't believe it.

Zhang Lie countered, "You want to marry your daughter off to forge a political alliance with the world of the west, don't you? What if I claim the world of the west for myself?"

Li Zongming blinked. "And what do you want after conquering that world? For me to support you to become the king of the realm?"

"Do you think I would need your assistance to become king?"

Li Zongming sighed. "In that case, you intend for my daughter to become the queen of the western world?"

Zhang Lie replied firmly, "As I've claimed, I'm not interested in anything besides Qianqian, let alone the position of the king of the realm. The entire world of the west shall be my bride-dowry. What say you?"

Li Zongming replied, "I want to make sure you understand that the world of the west won't be as easy to take down as you think. What you killed wasn't the king of the west, but rather just one of his clones.

Zhang Lie did know that; the king of the realm of a large world could hardly die so easily. Nevertheless, he repeated himself. "That's not something you have to worry about. Whether or not I can conquer the world of the west is my own affair."

Li Zongming asked once more, still somewhat skeptically, "And for this feat, you only want my daughter in exchange?"

"Qianqian might be nothing to you other than a bargaining chip, but she's a priceless treasure to me."

Li Zongming snorted. "Ridiculous! My daughter is a priceless treasure to me as well."

"In that case, why would you marry her off to such trash?"

This was a question Zhang Lie very much wanted to find out the answer to.

In his past life, although both the eastern and western worlds had attempted to chase down Li Qianlin, the eastern forces were lackluster and lackadaisical, as though Li Zongming wasn't taking the hunt seriously at all.

The reason Zhang Lie chose not to deal Li Zongming any lethal blows was partly because he was Li Qianlin's father, and partly because of his leniency in the past.

This represented that Li Zongming at least had some shred of a conscience.

On the other hand, if Zhang Lie were to kill Li Zongming, his relationship with Li Qianlin would become far more fraught—Li Qianlin and her father were still rather close, and they weren't enemies just yet.

Killing Li Zongming meant that Li Qianlin would treat him like a murderer, an enemy, a nemesis.

Given Li Qianlin's personality, she would never be able to entertain a relationship with Zhang Lie if that were the case.

As a result, if Zhang Lie truly wanted to build a long-lasting relationship with Li Qianlin, he would need Li Zongming's support. That said, if Li Zongming had married off his daughter to such a wastrel simply for power and an alliance with the west, Zhang Lie would surely give him a beating before deposing him from kingship.

Li Zongming countered, "Who else but the son of the western king would be qualified for my precious daughter?"

Zhang Lie: …

"...did you ever make any attempts to learn about that son's personality?"

Li Zongling sniffed. "Do you treat me as a fool? I wouldn't just hand my daughter off to any man! I've met Duan Gen quite a few times, and he's both handsome and talented—"

Li Zongming peered at Zhang Lie and coughed. "Well, relatively talented, as all things go."

Compared to Zhang Lie, that western prince was nothing more than trash. Zhang Lie and Duan Gen were so different in strength that they were simply incomparable.

Zhang Lie felt as though he had come to a sudden realization. Li Zongming did love his daughter, and he wanted to give her the best of everything. However, "best" didn't take his daughter's thoughts into account. Perhaps this would have been a viable strategy while she was small, but it became more and more problematic as she grew older.

Li Zongming folded his arms. "I only agreed to the wedding after significant investment on western king's part."

Li Qianlin was unable to hold her words any longer. "Father, you were grossly mistaken! Duan Gen's a bastard—he pretends to be the perfect man in front of you and the king of the west, but he's the vilest person I know! Did you know that he was the one who killed Tao?"

Li Zongming snorted in disbelief. "And whose nonsense did you listen to this time? How could I be mistaken?"

Li Qianlin gaped. Her face flushed red. "You were mistaken, and not only that, he almost—"

Zhang Lie covered up Li Qianlin's mouth.

"I'll be bringing her with me so both of you can cool off. We'll return once I claim the western world!"

"Hold it! Leave my daughter behind!" Li Zongming shouted.

Zhang Lie retorted, "After our marriage vows, Qianqian belongs to me—she's a member of the Zhang family! To be quite honest, I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving her with you, given the history of your past decisions."

He vanished with Li Qianlin in a bolt of light, and the wounded Li Zongming was hardly in any shape to give chase.

The lifeforms that had participated in the blockade on Mt. Yun also slowly retreated. One of the king's guards stepped forward and asked, "Your majesty, will you really allow that man to leave with the princess?"

"What, you want to chase after him?"

The guard immediately lowered his head, bowing and clamping his mouth shut.

Another guard asked, "Your majesty, what should we do with the western king's son?"

Li Zongming waved a hand airily. "Wrap him up and send him back to the world of the west!"

He wasn't certain that Zhang Lie would succeed in his task, so it would be unwise to completely alienate the king of the west.

However, if Zhang Lie were being truthful, the western world would end up facing a tumultuous period ahead, and the king of the west's anger would be completely concentrated on Zhang Lie rather than on the king of the east.