Chapter 485 - 482: Heartache

Chapter 485: Chapter 482: Heartache

She lifted her head, her face twisted with terror and a madness that bordered on a complete breakdown. "What do you want to know? Why don’t you go ask her? What are you asking me for? I don’t know anything!"

She shrieked incoherently, her panicked gaze darting everywhere but at Jiao Yuan or Bai Wanwan.

After speaking, she once again gripped the arm of a completely dumbfounded Coral, using all her strength to practically drag her away. They stumbled out of the forbidden area under the astonished gazes of the crowd.

She staggered away, a wretched figure, as if a man-eating monster was hot on her heels!

Lan Yi’s reaction was too abnormal. All the Beastmen of the Flood Dragon Clan could see that something was wrong.

With complex expressions, they turned to look at their Clan Leader, Jiao Yuan.

The hand Lan Yi had flung away remained frozen mid-air; Jiao Yuan had forgotten to lower it, simply staring in a daze at the female’s retreating, panic-stricken back.

Filled with bewilderment, he took a deep breath, trying to suppress the turbulent emotions inside him.

He turned around, forcing an apologetic smile onto his face as he explained to Bai Wanwan, "Female Bai Wanwan, my sincerest apologies. My female... she might really not be feeling well, and her emotions are a bit out of control. Please, don’t take offense."

Hearing this, Bai Wanwan tilted her head slightly. "She certainly must be unwell. After all, how can one’s body be well when they’ve done something to feel guilty about?"

Her voice wasn’t loud, but it pierced Jiao Yuan’s heart like a precision probe.

Jiao Yuan’s expression darkened. He suppressed the fire of his indignation, his voice growing heavy. "Little female! I am immensely grateful that you saved our clan—it is a debt we can never repay! However, I must ask that you also respect my female! I will not allow anyone to slander her like this!"

His attitude didn’t surprise Bai Wanwan. ’In this world, all males dote on their females unconditionally.’

The coldness of abandonment, the humiliation of being treated as a useless female, the pain of struggling on the brink of life and death... all these memories of the body’s original owner flooded her mind in an instant.

It was only by occupying this body that she was able to meet and mate with her Beast Husbands. Therefore, she had a responsibility to get justice for the suffering the original owner had endured!

Bai Wanwan’s gaze was placid as she swept it over Jiao Yuan’s face, which was tight with suppressed anger. "If I’m not mistaken, Jiao Yuan Clan Leader, I am the one who should be your daughter."

The anger on Jiao Yuan’s face turned to stunned disbelief. For a moment, his eyes went blank with incredulity. "You... you’re my daughter?"

He had just considered countless possibilities, but the one thing that had never crossed his mind was that this little female was his own daughter.

"You just saw it with your own eyes. I can awaken the Life Tree, but Coral cannot."

"No... impossible."

Jiao Yuan felt as if he had been struck in the chest by a great, invisible force. His legs gave way, and he staggered back two steps, each one as heavy as if he were treading on the edge of a muddy abyss.

His tall frame swayed, and his lips trembled, but he could only repeat those few, feeble words.

’The daughter I raised with my own hands, pouring more than a decade of fatherly love into her... isn’t my own flesh and blood?’

"I know you can’t accept this right now, Clan Leader," Bai Wanwan’s voice broke the suffocating silence in the valley. Her calm gaze swept over Jiao Yuan, who stood frozen like a stone statue.

There was no mockery in her eyes, no expectation—only a detached tranquility that seemed to see through the ways of the world. "It’s alright. As for what the truth is, I believe Lan Yi knows it far better than anyone else here."

Having said her piece, she no longer looked at Jiao Yuan, nor did she have any intention of basking in the looks of awe from the clan members who owed their new lease on life to her.

It was as if her only purpose for coming here was to awaken this ancient tree that held the clan’s fate in its branches.

Mission accomplished, she had no reason to linger.

She turned, her movements crisp and decisive, without a hint of hesitation.

Her Beast Husbands closed ranks around her, their powerful auras forming an invisible barrier that blocked out the world and all probing gazes. They walked away at an unhurried pace, following the small path out of the valley.

Jiao Yuan could tell from her retreating back that she felt no attachment to this place, and the realization struck his heart like a heavy hammer.

"Clan Leader!"

A highly respected clan elder finally couldn’t help but step forward. His voice was heavy and held an urgency that could not be ignored. "This is no small matter! It concerns the very core of our clan’s bloodline and the future continuation of the Life Tree. You must investigate this thoroughly!"

The other elderly Beastmen nodded in agreement, their eyes filled with worry and solemnity.

But at that moment, Jiao Yuan was like a hollow shell, his soul ripped from his body.

He remained frozen in place, his vacant gaze following the direction Bai Wanwan had gone. The elders’ words reached him as if through a thick fog, indistinct and unclear.

"Uncle Yuan..." a low, concerned voice sounded beside him.

Jinying had appeared at his side at some point. Seeing the usually majestic and powerful Clan Leader looking so utterly crestfallen, he sighed. "I know you must be in terrible pain right now."

Jiao Yuan’s eyes shifted with painstaking slowness, his focus finally landing on Jinying’s face.

Jinying’s voice was calm, stating a simple fact. "But Bai Wanwan has no reason to lie to you about something like this. Awakening the Life Tree is the most irrefutable proof."

He paused, as if weighing his words, but ultimately decided to speak. "Bai Wanwan’s life before... it wasn’t good. It was actually very difficult."

"Difficult?" Something shifted in Jiao Yuan’s eyes as they finally came into sharp focus.

"Yes." Jinying’s gaze drifted to where Bai Wanwan had disappeared, his expression profound. "At the Tiger Clan Leader’s mating ceremony, I overheard some things about her. It’s said that she met Chou Rong in a very small tribe..."

He trailed off, not describing the specific humiliations and hardships she might have faced. In the Beast World, small tribes could be wiped out at any moment, so one could only imagine what kind of life she had led.

"Did the person who swapped her back then not intend to kill her?" A sharp, cold glint flashed in Jinying’s eyes. "But it wasn’t her fate to die, and she toughed it out. The hardship involved in that... Uncle Yuan, can you even imagine?"

Jinying’s words were like countless cold steel needles, stabbing viciously into his heart.

A colossal, delayed wave of guilt and heartache, so immense it nearly drowned him, erupted from within like a volcano!

Even more heart-wrenching than the truth itself was the suffering his own biological daughter had endured!

This realization struck him like a sudden enlightenment, instantly washing away his lingering attachment to Coral and leaving only a sharp, tearing pain and self-reproach!

His desperate gaze swept over the crowd, searching for the figure that had just left.

But the valley entrance was already empty.

"Jinying..." After a long while, Jiao Yuan finally, with great difficulty, found his voice.

He slowly turned his head to look at him. "You knew her before. Those powerful males with her... are they her Beast Husbands? Are they good to her?"