# Chapter 1365: Confession
The bamboo hut was very small, with furnishings that were exceptionally simple and neat, yet it exuded an indescribable sense of peace and warmth.
This petite bamboo hut had been built with green bamboo by Chu Yuechan's own hands back in the day. Over the years, aside from the mother and daughter, no one had entered or even approached it. Yun Che was the first "outsider."
Yun Che's eyes were red and swollen. Without his profound energy, he couldn't even perform the simplest reduction of swelling. If those who knew him and were familiar with his appearance were to see him now with a pair of bloodshot eyes, they would probably drop their eyeballs all over half the Eastern Divine Region.
"Back then, why did you come here?" he asked, his gaze shifting between Chu Yuechan and Yun Wuxin. For the first time, he felt that having only two eyes was far from enough.
Yun Wuxin nestled beside Chu Yuechan's knee, her hands cupping her cheeks, sneaking glances at Yun Che from time to time. Chu Yuechan held her little hand, her gaze slightly hazy. She had clearly changed. Compared to the Ice Cloud Seven Immortals' leader of yesteryear, the Ice Chan Immortal whose temperament was cold to the point of near heartlessness, she now, though still somewhat aloof, possessed a distinct... no, a great deal more gentleness in her expression and eyes.
Because she was no longer the Ice Chan Immortal, but a woman who had abandoned all her past for the "deceased" Yun Che, a mother of a girl.
"Back then, at Tian Jian Villa, everyone thought you had died beneath the 'Sword Control Platform.' It was also at that time that I discovered I was already pregnant. To preserve your bloodline, I left the Bing Yun Fairy Palace..."
"..." Yun Che understood clearly. How could it be simply "leaving the Bing Yun Fairy Palace"? To leave, she had ruthlessly and decisively crippled her own Ice Cloud Art, carried the guilt and blame of shaming her sect, and bore the greatest "scandal" of the entire Cang Feng Kingdom at the time...
But later, as Yun Che's strength and power grew, this "scandal" became a "legend"... When one's power reaches a sufficient level, it changes not only oneself but also everyone's perception of the same thing.
"I originally wanted to find a peaceful place to give birth to our child... But before I even left the Snow Domain, I was ambushed. Those people were extremely powerful, and at that time, I had just crippled my own profound art, so my profound energy was in chaos. I was wounded by them... Fortunately, a blizzard started at that moment, and I managed to escape with the help of the Snow Phoenix Beast..."
"It was Xuanyuan Yufeng!" Yun Che said calmly, but his hands were clenched tightly.
Because of Ling Jie, he had never truly killed Xuanyuan Yufeng, but every time he remembered, his heart filled with hatred... At this moment, it was more intense than ever.
"I recognized them as people from Tian Jian Villa..." At that time, although Chu Yuechan had crippled her own profound art, her profound strength still remained. With her King Xuan Realm power, very few in the Cang Feng Kingdom could push her into a corner, but Tian Jian Villa was certainly one of them: "After I escaped from the Snow Domain, I was unconscious in a tangled forest for a long time... When I woke up, I realized that I wasn't the only one injured; the child in my womb was also hurt."
"What!?" Yun Che's body shook violently. His eyes, turbid many times more than before, flashed with an incredibly terrifying murderous light: "They... injured Wuxin!?"
Yun Wuxin blinked, looked at herself, and showed a puzzled expression.
"At that time, I could only desperately use the last of my profound energy to protect Wuxin, but I had no idea where to go..." As if recalling the situation back then, her voice was ethereal.
"..." Yun Che gripped her hand tightly, his heart spasming violently in pain. Betraying her sect, bearing a stain on her reputation, and then being hunted by Tian Jian Villa... What was Tian Jian Villa back then? The absolute overlord of the Cang Feng Kingdom, an unrivaled and supreme existence!
It was impossible to imagine the despair she faced at that time.
"Do you still remember?" Chu Yuechan's tone shifted slightly, becoming exceptionally gentle: "Back then, in the Dragon God Trial Ground, to keep me awake when I had given up on life after my profound veins were completely destroyed, you told me many stories about yourself and others. Many of them were obviously made up, but some might have been true."
"..." Back then, during that half-year in the Dragon God Trial Ground, more than ninety percent of what he told Chu Yuechan was fake, many were jokes he forcibly fabricated... Although they never made her laugh even once.
"I vaguely remembered you once saying that your Phoenix Flame did not come from the Phoenix Divine Sect of the Shenhuang Kingdom, but from a place called the Ten Thousand Beast Mountain Range. Deep within it lived a declining, unknown Phoenix remnant clan. The Phoenix descendants there were exceptionally kind and simple, and protected by the Phoenix God, so no beasts dared to approach..."
"..." Yun Che was slightly stunned. For an entire half-year, to prevent Chu Yuechan's will from sinking, he held her every day and talked to her a lot—so much that he couldn't even remember what he had said... Just like now, he couldn't recall telling her about the Phoenix remnant clan.
He was even a bit surprised... Chu Yuechan was indeed the first person to know he possessed Phoenix Flame. On the very first day they met, to force out the poison spirit from her body, he revealed the Phoenix Flame in front of her. But the origin of the Phoenix Flame was one of his greatest secrets, related to the safety of the Phoenix remnant clan, and he could never tell outsiders...
But thinking about that half-year in the Dragon God Trial Ground, he gradually let go. The brutal trial of killing 99,999 profound beasts not only kept him in constant danger of fatal attacks at every moment but also required him to protect Chu Yuechan... The mental exhaustion indeed made him so dazed that he blurted out secrets without even realizing it.
"So I came here. However, when I arrived, there was a very powerful barrier here—so strong that even if I hadn't crippled my profound art, I couldn't have broken it." Chu Yuechan said softly.
The barrier Chu Yuechan mentioned was undoubtedly the protective barrier set up by the Phoenix Soul Spirit with its remaining power after Yun Che and Cang Yue had left that year.
"Just as I was about to leave in disappointment, the barrier suddenly opened a gap on its own..."
"It was Wuxin." Yun Che said involuntarily: "She inherited my Phoenix bloodline. My Phoenix bloodline is the source blood directly bestowed by the Phoenix Soul Spirit, and Wuxin is the second-generation inheritor of that Phoenix source blood. So even before she was born, her Phoenix aura was enough to surpass that of fully grown Phoenix descendants."
To be able to influence the Phoenix barrier before birth—neither the Phoenix remnant clan nor the Phoenix Divine Sect, except for Feng Xue'er who had directly inherited the source blood like him, could do it. But Wuxin could... because she was his daughter!
Back then, Chu Yuechan had just crippled her profound art and was injured, hunted by Tian Jian Villa, and then the Shenhuang Kingdom launched a massive invasion... If the unborn Yun Wuxin hadn't opened the Phoenix barrier, he might never have seen them again.
"This place, just as you described back then, is a peaceful paradise. The people here have no evil in their eyes. They were surprised and wary of my arrival. When they saw I was pregnant, they wanted to help me. After I showed coldness and refusal, they stopped disturbing me..." Chu Yuechan closed her eyes gently: "In all these years here, I have hardly ever left this bamboo forest, nor had any interactions with them... because I was afraid. I didn't dare trust anyone anymore... and I didn't dare leave..."
"...I understand." Yun Che nodded, three extremely pale words, but the pain and guilt in his heart nearly tore him apart.
"Your profound strength... it's gone, isn't it?" he asked softly. Although he had lost his spiritual perception, he could still tell through his eyes.
Chu Yuechan nodded, but without regret or desolation—only peace: "The child in my womb, Wuxin, was injured by sword Qi. By the time I arrived here, her aura was already extremely weak. To protect her life force, I continuously forced out my essence blood and source energy..."
"!!!" Yun Che's body shook again, and his face visibly paled.
"Later, my source energy was exhausted, my profound veins withered and died, but Wuxin was finally saved, and then she was born..."
"..." Yun Che's lips trembled. Massive loss of essence blood, withered profound veins, and then childbirth—in his understanding, that was a dead end.
He wanted to ask how Chu Yuechan had managed to survive back then, but before the words left his mouth, he already knew the answer... The only thing that could create such a miracle was a mother.
"I wanted... to entrust Wuxin to them and then fall asleep peacefully... But looking into Wuxin's eyes, hearing her cries, I couldn't bear it..." Chu Yuechan stroked her daughter's hair, her once icy gaze now filled with nothing but a softness that could melt everything: "I wanted to watch her grow up. Hopefully... she would look like you..."
"But I look more like Mother, not at all like Father." Yun Wuxin looked at Chu Yuechan, then gently stuck out her tongue at Yun Che.
Chu Yuechan smiled... This scene was instantly frozen in Yun Che's soul.
This was the first time he had seen her smile...
This was a sight that had only ever appeared in his dreams before. Now, it was presented before his eyes, so close.
Because he was still alive.
Back then, he had searched for Chu Yuechan's whereabouts through countless methods. He had Cang Yue mobilize the imperial power to search within the Cang Feng Kingdom, then used the Black Moon Merchant Guild's power, and even had Feng Xue'er use the Shenhuang imperial power to search the entire Tian Xuan Continent...
All of it yielded nothing.
He had searched so many places, but he had never once thought of the "Phoenix remnant clan."
Because this was an unknown, secret paradise. His Phoenix power came from here, so naturally, he couldn't expose it to the world. Subconsciously, he didn't want to disturb them, and he never imagined that Chu Yuechan would come here.
Five years ago, when he and Feng Xue'er came here, they chose not to disturb the Phoenix remnant clan upon discovering the existence of the Phoenix barrier... It turned out that they had always been so close—only a hair's breadth away.
He also understood why even Mo Li couldn't find her back then.
After Mo Li had re-formed her body and gradually restored her divine power, she had twice released her divine sense, covering the entire Tian Xuan Continent to search for Chu Yuechan's aura... Both times, she told him that her divine power was still lacking and she hadn't succeeded.
It wasn't until she left that she revealed the truth through the soul imprint left by Hong'er that it wasn't that her power was insufficient, but that she hadn't found her.
After Chu Yuechan crippled her own Ice Cloud Art, her aura no longer had the characteristics of the Bing Yun Fairy Palace. When Mo Li released her divine sense to search back then, she could only look for everyone with King Xuan Realm aura. Assuming Chu Yuechan might have broken through, she also searched at the Overlord Xuan Realm level... and even the Sovereign Xuan Realm.
All in vain.
Later, Mo Li hypothesized that Chu Yuechan's profound strength had regressed and forcibly searched for Heavenly Xuan Realm auras... Still, she didn't find Chu Yuechan.
With hundreds of billions of living beings in Tian Xuan Continent, no matter how powerful Mo Li was, her divine sense couldn't meticulously scan every single person—especially those with lower profound strength and weaker auras.
The words Mo Li left for Yun Che told him the cruel truth: there was no trace of Chu Yuechan's aura at the King Xuan, Overlord Xuan, Sovereign Xuan... or even down to the Heavenly Xuan Realm. That could only mean two possibilities—either she was dead, or she had been crippled.
And the latter... with Chu Yuechan's appearance, if she had been crippled, her fate would be worse than death. With her personality, she would rather die...
It was from that moment that Yun Che had to accept the fact that Chu Yuechan was dead.
Only today did he learn that although she had lost her profound strength, it wasn't because someone had crippled her. It was to protect Yun Wuxin, causing her profound vein source energy to be completely drained, withered to the point of death.
Xuanyuan Yufeng...
Yun Che gritted his teeth silently... Even if you are Ling Jie's birth mother, I should have you cut into a thousand pieces!!