Chapter 717: The Secret of the Yunding Secret Realm

That slender figure fell from the night sky, landing on the Edge of a giant pit strewn with broken stones.

Moonlight bathed her, revealing a pale face almost without any color of blood.

Xie Qingxue.

Xie Family's legitimate daughter, the most gifted woman among the younger generation of the Yunding Secret Realm, had already entered the Heavenly Person Peak at twenty‑three.

But at this moment she was Standing There, her dress soaked with dust, hair in disarray, eye sockets swollen red, lips chapped.

She hadn't even had time to steady herself before she fell with a thud, kneeling on the broken stones.

The broken stones scraped her knees, and blood Immediately seeped out, staining the hem of her plain skirt red. Yet she didn't even furrow a brow.

"Cousin!"

Her voice trembled, yet she poured all her strength into it, as if fearing Jiang Feng might not hear.

"I beg you… release my father!"

Jiang Feng was Standing at the opposite end of the giant pit, and he did not turn around.

Xie Qingxue, kneeling on the Ground, crawled forward two steps, the broken stones beneath her knees emitting a harsh scraping sound.

Her Tears fell in large drops, striking the broken stones and leaving dark wet spots.

"Cousin, I know you hate the Xie Family. I know about Aunt's death… the Xie Family has wronged you."

Her voice shifted from choking to a near‑pleading Crying shout.

"But my father… he has his reasons! He really isn't what you think!"

"Shut up!"

Xie Zhennan thrust his head up from the pile of broken stones, his cracked face full of terror.

He struggled to rise from the Ground, but his left arm hung limp, countless ribs broken, each movement producing a grinding sound of shattered bones inside.

He barely lifted half his body before collapsing back into the broken stones, spitting a mouthful of blood.

"Qingxue… don't… don't say…"

His voice shook violently, and in those murky old eyes appeared for the First Time something Jiang Feng had never seen.

It was fear.

A fear deeper than death.

"Father!"

Xie Qingxue's Tears flowed even more fiercely; she knelt on the Ground, watching her father's blood‑splattered, maddened form, Crying to the point of being unable to breathe.

"Why can't you speak? Why have you hidden it for so many years? Look at yourself now! Look at the Xie Family now! Aunt is dead, you will die too, the entire Xie Family will be gone… are those secrets still important?"

"You shut up! Shut up!"

Xie Zhennan seemed pierced at the deepest part of his soul, and his whole body sprang up from the Ground.

He didn't know where the strength came from, battling broken ribs and shattered shoulder blades to stand, stumbling toward Xie Qingxue.

From the tip of his right hand's Fingers, a golden light flashed.

That light ignited at his Fingers, spreading up his wrist; where it passed, the skin turned translucent gold, veins and tendons clearly visible, as if something inside his body was being ignited.

"Father! No!"

Xie Qingxue's eyes widened; she recognized it.

It was the Xie Family's ancestral forbidden technique, the Burning Soul Art.

By burning one's own Divine Soul as a price, it exchanges for a burst of peak combat power.

Using it guarantees death.

"I forbid you to speak!"

Xie Zhennan's voice had completely changed, no longer the previous madness or fear, but a deeper, soul‑deep obsession.

The Golden Light on his body grew ever more intense, turning the tiny flame into a raging blaze.

Every inch of skin glowed, every tendon burned, his gaunt face twisted under the Golden Light into a shape that chilled the heart.

"Xie Zhennan."

A calm voice rang out in the night sky.

Jiang Feng, at some point, had already turned around.

He was Standing less than three feet away behind Xie Zhennan, a hand resting on Xie Zhennan's Shoulders.

No one saw how he moved.

The raging golden flame on Xie Zhennan's body was extinguished the instant Jiang Feng's palm fell, as if doused with a bucket of water.

No, it wasn't extinguished.

It was forced back into Xie Zhennan's body alive.

The golden light flowed back along Xie Zhennan's tendons, as if an invisible hand pressed it back into place.

Throughout Xie Zhennan's body, it quivered violently, as if a silent war raged within.

His mouth was open but no sound emerged; his eyes stared wide, pupils filled with resentment.

Jiang Feng's five fingers gently curled, and a white Light Thread seeped from his Fingers, slithering like a living snake into Xie Zhennan's Shoulders, spreading down along the meridians.

Wherever those Light Threads passed, Xie Zhennan's tendons were sealed one by one.

From Shoulders to Fingers, from waist to soles, thirty‑six major acupoints, seventy‑two tendons, all were locked at that moment by the white light.

Xie Zhennan fell like a statue stripped of all supports, upright and collapsing.

His body hit the broken stones with a dull thud.

His eyes remained open, still staring toward Xie Qingxue's direction, lips moving in a silent opening and closing, but he could no longer move a single Finger.

Jiang Feng withdrew his hand, looked down at the motionless Xie Zhennan lying on the Ground, his gaze as calm as if looking at a stone.

"I don't want to kill him."

But he wants to die himself, and I can't stop him.

He paused, his gaze shifting from Xie Zhennan to the trembling Xie Qingxue kneeling on the Ground.

But before that…

He took a step forward.

Tell me everything you know.

Xie Qingxue knelt on the Ground, watching her father's immobile form after his tendons and vessels were sealed, and Tears kept streaming down.

She lifted her sleeve to wipe her eyes, but the sleeve had already been soaked with Tears, and wiping only made her face look even messier.

She took a deep breath and, bracing against the Ground, stood up.

"Cousin…"

"Don't call me Cousin."

Jiang Feng cut her off.

His voice remained calm, yet each word carried a cold indifference that kept others at a Thousand miles away.

"I'm not your Cousin. The Xie Family has no connection with me."

Xie Qingxue's Mouth twitched, and new Tears welled up in her eye sockets.

She grew up in the Yunding Secret Realm and knew from childhood that she had an aunt named Xie Yinniang.

When she was a child she didn't understand why no one in the family ever mentioned the name; as she grew up she slowly realized that her aunt had been executed by her father.

But she didn't know the reason.

Until today.

She, in the Xie Family City, saw that scene from afar.

She saw Jiang Feng pounding Xie Zhennan fist after fist into the broken Stone, saw Xie Zhennan kneeling on the Ground, howling for death, and saw Xie Zhennan recount the events of that year.

Her Throughout world collapsed at that moment.

The father she had always revered killed her own biological sister. To seize control of the Yunding Secret Realm, he personally killed his own biological sister.

But she cannot watch her father die at Jiang Feng's hands. She cannot see the Throughout Xie Family perish.

"Jiang… Jiang Feng."

She struggled to change her words, and her voice dropped lower than before.

"I know you don't believe. I know that in your eyes everyone from the Xie Family are murderers. But my father… the decision to kill our aunt back then was truly not made by him alone."

"He had his reasons."

When Xie Qingxue said this, Xie Zhennan, lying on the Ground, suddenly thrashed violently.

From his throat came an extremely hoarse, almost beast‑like wail, a sound squeezed out of his sealed vocal cords, so unpleasant it made one's scalp tingle.

His eyes stared rigidly at Xie Qingxue.

He was using all his strength to stop Xie Qingxue.

Xie Qingxue looked at her father's eyes, and Tears once again burst from her eyes.

She clenched her hand into a Fist, her nails digging into her palm, drawing blood.

But she didn't stop.

"Jiang Feng, do you know?"

She lifted her head, looking at Jiang Feng, and her voice suddenly became calm.

"Yunding Secret Realm… was never the property of our Three Great Families."

"It never was."