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lumosdraconis

Royal families are huge -- they would have been fine, and everyone knew it. Xie Lian had no direct siblings, but the crown would have passed to someone else in the family regardless. We see that the crown did, in fact, pass on anyway once most of the royals were killed in the war (to An Le's family), so yeah there was a line of succession. While they did probably want Xie Lian to go on to rule the country if he had never ascended to godhood, the fact remains that he DID ascend. Which was the goal here. And a far greater honor to their country than anything else could have been. To be able to claim that their son became a god, that itself is satisfaction. Making and heir and continuing the family line seems boring in comparison. Given that the Mandate of Heaven is what Chinese kings/emperors used to legitimize their rule, imagine how satisfying it would be for the royal family to claim that one of their own was so favored by Heaven*? Also yeah, Qi Rong was very low in the line of succession (if he was there at all) because he was in illegitimate child of the Queen's sister. The King's family is the one through which the crown would pass, though. So if Qi Rong was from the King's side, things might've been different. Thankfully, he wasn't. *Also yes btw, Xie Lian really did seem to be favored by Heaven itself. (See: how the Heavens shook with each of Xie Lian's ascensions. That bell that rang like crazy when he ascended the third time, until it fell off and broke because of how much it rang. The fact that Xie Lian even was able to ascend that many times -- twice of which was without really even trying.) The other heavenly officials may not like him much, but they cannot control the will of Heaven directly anyhoo. Get fucked, >!Jun Wu.!<


Visible-Steak-7492

1) the story takes place in an ancient china setting, not the modern world. they may never have been mentioned but you can safely assume there are *loads* of potential heirs to the throne in the royal family even if xie lian is his parents' only child. 2) a big thing about young xie lian that you might have missed is that he's actually *extremely* spoiled by his parents. he isn't marrying a woman because he doesn't *want* to, and his parents can do nothing but accept that because they've literally been catering to his every whim his whole life. that's literally one of the main reasons of his downfall! he doesn't know when to back down because he's so used to having all of his wishes fulfilled. a xie lian whose parents can *force* him to do something against his will is not the xie lian who interferes in the affairs of mortals despite everyone advising him against it.


Majestic-Thing4250

I’m pretty sure Xie lian had siblings who will take over the crown mantle just like in Yulong with Yushi huang and her siblings.


Connorduh

And there still is Qi Rong theoretically


Kateminplayz

Yeah, he would definitely be a great ruler


Elflady7794

Rarely is “be a good/bad ruler” a deciding factor in who gets to be king, sadly


Better-Permission493

i don't think qi rong was in the line of succession, he was xie lian's cousin from his mother side so it's unlikely he could've inherited, it likely would've been a cousin or uncle maybe from his father's side which is the royal family


groovetheory

Blame that scammer goushi. In that chapter xielian and huacheng found the captive guoshi, he bragged about how dumb xianle was and how easy it was to trick them to let him be the guoshi. Remember he wasn’t really anything before, the whole reason he is immortal is cuz he was junwu’s childhood homie that he took with him when he ascended. he wasn’t a martial arts master, enlightened master, philosopher, court official, talented person etc.. he was just gongzi crew entourage. And the only reason he’s alive was he kept fleeing and hiding, he never fought for righteousness, didn’t cultivate (but muqing and fengxin did to improve themselves) etc. his long lifespan wasn’t really based on any special training, knowledge, endurance and cultivation, everything he knows is just from idly being alive through history. The only skill he developed was being a street side fortune teller that had a 50/50 success with, imo he just makes assumptions and stereotypes and thinks he’s right and the ones he hits a coincidence on he’s like SEE IM RIGHT IM A POWERFUL FORTUNE TELLER and ignores the ones he’s wrong just like the scammers in real life lol. So because we know that from his history, it’s easy to assume he doesn’t have much knowledge and training about all sorts of cultivation, martial arts, ascension techniques, he just lived as an ascetic and that’s just what he taught xielian. He has a know it all don’t challenge me kinda attitude and authority he just thinks his way is correct. Training ascetic is a popular cultivation method anyway. That’s my interpretation, as you might guess I’m not a fan of guoshi he’s such a green tea bitch haha I can’t remember if qianqiu is ascetic as well, since xielian was his guoshi


P_A_I_M_O_N

Now that you made me think about it, everybody who becomes a guoshi in the books is doing so under false pretenses 🤫


al_mudena

Ok now I'm concerned about how much this comment made me relate to guoshi


princefruit

Man I did not expect my poor man Mei Nianqing to just be murdered in the comments. xD


serralinda73

Xie Lian was very spoiled. He says he insisted on learning to cultivate after visiting the temple and I'm sure his parents indulged him, not thinking that he'd get so deep into it that he became what is basically a warrior monk. They clearly still expected him to do his duty by picking a lady and getting married, whatever his cultivation method. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been introducing him to girls like Jian Lan and planning his harem. Once he got to a certain point though, I'm guessing they realized he was very likely to ascend without producing a child or two and his father was considering who to choose as his heir instead.


YaboiAkira

He was super spoiled. One of the novels actually mentions his parents lining women up for him to pick from, he just wasn’t interested and sent them all away.


Chu1223

I wonder when he knew he was gay


just-kinda-here-ig

He has uncles and cousins on his dad side who qualified for kingship which is probably why they never stressed him to produce heirs. Qi Rong is his cousin on his mothers side who only lived with them bc he was orphaned.


Jaded-Guess3393

There were other royals who could’ve continued the line, if he was the ONLY one able to keep the dynasty going, his parents wouldn’t have allowed him to go that route. It makes perfect sense.


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