Clumsy Beast, Keep Your Paws Off-Chapter 304: The Truth Revelation (01)

Once they were settled inside the large tree house, a heavy silence filled the room.

The only sound was the crackling of the small fire in a stone bowl in the center.

Su Mingxuan sat on a fur-covered floor, staring into the flames with a dazed expression. He looked like a man who had suddenly aged ten years in a single afternoon.

Finally, he lifted his head and looked at Lan Yue. His voice was thin and trembling, barely above a whisper. "Child... is Wang Mulan... is she alive?"

Lan Yue looked at him with wide, sympathetic eyes and nodded. "Yes. My mother is alive. She is the Priestess of the Dragon Beast City now."

The color drained from Su Mingxuan’s face, and he let out a long, shaky breath.

"Good... that is good. She always wanted to be a priestess. She was always the most capable, the most intelligent..."

He started to praise her, but his voice broke.

He quickly turned his head away, staring at the wooden wall to hide the tears that were beginning to cloud his vision.

He did not want to show such weakness in front of the younger generation.

Su Qinglan felt a lump in her throat. She had never seen her father, the pillar of the Fox Tribe look so broken. This was also the reason she was always afraid to confront her father, but this day was bound to come sooner or later.

She stepped forward and took his large, calloused hand in hers, slowly channeling her warm, comforting healing energy into him. It wasn’t meant to heal a wound but to soothe his racing heart.

She didn’t want to play games or wait for a long story. "Father," she said softly, looking him in the eyes. "Do you love her? Did you love Wang Mulan?"

Both Lan Yue and Hu Yan gasped at her bluntness. It was a bold question to ask a Tribe Leader.

Su Mingxuan’s shoulders slumped. He couldn’t hold back the flood of emotions any longer.

He looked at Su Qinglan, his eyes red and brimming with regret. "Qinglan... my good child. I am so sorry. Father is so sorry. I have wronged you."

He took a deep breath and began the story that had been buried for twenty years.

"Yes," he confessed, his voice heavy. "I loved a female named Wang Mulan. Twenty-two years ago, I found her in the forest and saved her."

"She was the most beautiful and sensible female I had ever met. She was incredibly knowledgeable—just like you, Qinglan."

"She taught the females so many things. She was actually the one who taught us how to light a fire. But after she left and we thought she died, we lost the knowledge."

We thought we had angered the Beast God for not taking care of her, because a fire once engulfed a cave after her departure. Thankfully, no one died, but the secret of fire died with our fear."

He closed his eyes, a pained smile flickering on his lips as he remembered.

"She was so cheerful. Slowly, we fell in love. We were planning to mate during the Great Feast. But..." his expression turned pale with guilt.

"On that night, there was an accident. I mistook someone else for her, or perhaps it was fate playing a cruel trick... I accidentally mated with Mu Lihua, your mother, instead."

Su Qinglan went still.

"Wang Mulan was devastated," Su Mingxuan continued, a tear finally escaping and rolling down his cheek.

"She couldn’t stay. She left the tribe that very night. A month and a half later, I heard news and went searching for her. I found her in a distant forest, covered in blood and barely breathing."

"She died in my arms... or so I thought. I buried what I believed was her body, but I was so blinded by grief I must have been deceived. Because she is clearly alive."

He looked at Su Qinglan with a broken heart.

"This is why you never felt your mother’s love, Qinglan. Mu Lihua knew I loved Wang Mulan. She was jealous and bitter. She took all her anger and resentment out on you because you were a constant reminder of the life I didn’t want with her. It was all my fault. I caused your mother’s bitterness, and I caused your suffering."

Su Mingxuan finally broke down, burying his face in his hands and sobbing. The powerful Tribe Leader was reduced to a man shattered by the ghosts of his past.

Lan Yue sat in stunned silence. Her mother had lived here? She was almost the mate of the Fox Tribe Leader? It made no sense.

If her mother had been here, how did she travel all the way across the continent to the Dragon Beast City? And who was the person Su Mingxuan had buried twenty years ago?

Su Qinglan sat in the silence, her mind racing.

The story her father told was filled with holes, and for the first time, she began to see the terrifying web of lies that had been spun around him.

She knew a truth that he didn’t: Xuyu, her system, had already confirmed that Mu Lihua was not her biological mother.

As she looked at her father’s tear-stained face, she felt a wave of cold fury toward the woman who had manipulated him for two decades. She needed to know exactly how deep this deception went.

"Father," Su Qinglan asked, her voice steady and sharp. "Did you actually see Mu Lihua give birth to me? Were you there in the room?"

Su Mingxuan stiffened. He looked down at his hands, his voice dropping to a shameful whisper.

"No... I wasn’t there. When she was due to give birth, I received a frantic message that someone had spotted Wang Mulan in a distant forest. I was so desperate to find her that I left. I left the tribe for days."

He let out a ragged sigh.

"By the time I returned, you had already been born. Mu Lihua was cold and full of hatred."