Ye Feng was in no rush. As long as the man was still breathing, he could extract whatever information he wanted from him.
In Xili Prison, there was a special type of torture rumored to make even the dead speak.
And Ye Feng happened to be an expert at it.
Whether it was vicious criminals or the God of War-level experts captured during the battle in the Northwest, no one dared to defy Ye Feng to his face, let alone a mere King of Soldiers.
Chapter 39: The Only Choice
Ye Feng had no time to waste here. He stepped directly onto Ye Xianhai's thigh.
*Crack.*
The familiar sound of shattering bones echoed once more.
"Ah!"
Followed immediately by Ye Xianhai's agonizing scream.
Ye Xianhai's face twisted, completely drained of color as he clenched his teeth hard.
He never could have imagined that Ye Feng, who back then had possessed no strength to truss a chicken, could be so terrifying today.
With just a single punch, the man had left him heavily injured—a level of strength Ye Xianhai had never witnessed before. Even against the top-tier martial arts retainers within the Ye family, he was confident he could trade a few blows and hold his ground. He certainly wouldn't have ended up in such a pathetic state.
He no longer dared to guess Ye Feng's true strength, nor did he have the time to do so.
Because in the next instant, Ye Feng's other foot came down ruthlessly, snapping his remaining thigh.
Another horrifying shriek reverberated through the entire conference room, striking terror into the hearts of everyone present. Even Liu Sandao, a veteran of the underworld, couldn't help but admire Ye Feng's ruthlessness. This kind of torture was a thousand times more terrifying than a swift execution.
The most terrified of all was Xiao Jun. His face was now ashen, his eyes hollow and lifeless.
Having conspired with the Ye family to frame Ye Feng and send him to prison, he knew that apart from the Ye family, he was the person Ye Feng hated most in the world. He had no idea what methods Ye Feng would use to torture him, but his fate would certainly be no better than Ye Xianhai's—it might even be far more cruel.
At that thought, his bones turned weak, and his entire body collapsed limply into the chair like a pile of mud.
Xiao Jun cast a glance around the room. The entire conference room was filled with Liu Sandao's men, who had seized control of every single exit.
He had zero hope of escape!
Desperation set in.
Ye Feng broke all four of Ye Xianhai's limbs, yet the man stubbornly refused to talk. Seeing this, Ye Feng watched coldly.
At this point, Ye Xianhai's meridians were shattered. He hovered on the brink of death, reduced to a pitiable wreck. Who would have guessed that this middle-aged man, currently curled up like a dead dog, had been a King of Soldiers just half an hour ago?
Even so, the man still refused to confess to what happened back then.
"Take him away. Make sure he doesn't die."
With a wave of his hand, Ye Feng ordered his men to drag the half-dead Ye Xianhai out.
Every director's gaze was fixed on Ye Feng. He couldn't carry out overly bloody executions out in the open, so he had to put the matter aside for the moment.
Before long, a few men hauled Ye Xianhai away, along with the other members of the Ye family who had been beaten to the floor.
After a quick cleanup, everyone filed out of the conference room.
The space, which had just been packed with dozens of people, suddenly felt vast and empty. What had just transpired felt like a fever dream; only the bloodstains on the carpet bore witness to the fierce violence that had just taken place.
Once again, Yunfeng Group had fallen under Ye Feng's control.
Facing his old classmate, Xiao Jun was completely panicked, consumed by an intense wave of terror.
Five years apart, Ye Feng was still the exact same Ye Feng. Even after walking out of prison, he showed no signs of decline; if anything, his edge was sharper and more piercing than ever—like a gleaming sword suspended right above his heart.
"Old classmate, don't you have anything to say to me?"
Ye Feng walked straight up to Xiao Jun, causing the latter to shudder and almost slide out of his chair.
"I... I have nothing to say!" Xiao Jun stammered.
"Xiao Jun, I treated you well back then. I brought you along to start a business and gave you the largest share of the company."
"In the end, why did you join forces to betray me?"
Ye Feng's chest heaved violently as he leveled a hysterical interrogation at him.
Recalling the past made his heart ache. Above all, his imprisonment had led directly to his mother's death—a grief he could never let go of for the rest of his life.
Hearing this, the dull, lifeless gleam in Xiao Jun's eyes suddenly flared with a burst of defiance.
He roared angrily, "Why?"
"Why should you always live in the spotlight while I remain trapped in your shadow?"
"Why is everyone singing your praises everywhere you go while nobody even knows my name?"
"You're asking me why?"
Gathering his last shred of courage, Xiao Jun shouted back at Ye Feng with all his might. This was his final burst of defiance.
The moment the words left his mouth, it was as if all his strength had been drained away, and he collapsed flat onto the floor.
"Just for that?"
"That's your reason for betraying me?"
Ye Feng sneered.
A classmate of many years, ultimately destroyed by the corrosion of jealousy.
Ye Feng took a deep breath, a decision seemingly forming in his mind. He slowly closed his eyes and said in a deep voice, "Xiao Jun, handle it yourself today. I don't want to get my hands dirty."
"Hahaha, you want me to kill myself?"
Xiao Jun froze, then burst into frantic, manic laughter.
Ye Feng said nothing.
Allowing him to end his own life was the final bit of dignity he could afford him after all these years of friendship. If Xiao Jun failed to choose a dignified exit, Ye Feng would simply have to help him find one.
Xiao Jun knew that as the loser of today's upheaval, no matter how much he struggled, the outcome could not be changed.
Death was his only choice.
With a heavy heart and eyes devoid of any lingering light, he slowly pushed himself up from the floor.
Looking straight at Ye Feng, he said softly, "Ye Feng, you won!"
With that, under everyone's watchful eyes, he walked toward the window of the conference room and stopped.
For a moment, Xiao Jun felt as though he were dreaming. Just a short while ago, he had still been threatening the board directors.
The view from the top floor was breathtaking; he never expected that he would be the one to take it in all by himself.
A moment later, he slowly turned his head and looked at Ye Feng. "Fengzi, if you still have even an ounce of our old friendship left, leave my family a way out."
Ye Feng gave no reply.
Xiao Jun let out a self-deprecating laugh. Now that the two of them were bitter enemies, how could the other man possibly let his family go?
"Goodbye..."
Xiao Jun took a deep breath, lunged forward, and vaulted over the sill, his body tracing an arc as he slipped outside the window.
It was over.
Everything was finally over.
Accompanied by a piercing shriek, Xiao Jun's body plummeted from the thirtieth floor of Yunfeng Mansion and crashed heavily onto the ground below.
The directors stared blankly out the window toward the spot where Xiao Jun had just leaped.
A sense of surreal disbelief hung in the air. Just like that... Xiao Jun was dead?
The arrogant, overbearing Xiao Jun of moments ago had just committed suicide.
With Xiao Jun's death and the removal of the Ye family's faction, Yunfeng Group was once again firmly under Ye Feng's control.
Ye Feng slowly closed his eyes to steady his emotions, then turned around, walked to the chairman's seat, and sat down.
"Let's continue the meeting, everyone."
Only then did the directors snap back to their senses.
"Congratulations to Chairman Ye on your return!"
Around the boardroom table, every single director shouted in unison.
Ye Feng's reinstatement at the head of Yunfeng Group was bound to trigger a massive reshuffle.
Some would rejoice, while others would despair.
The few directors who had remained loyal to Xiao Jun wore grim expressions, while the rest beamed with delight. Zheng Zhongzhong in particular was ecstatic; Ye Feng's success meant his own status within the corporation would soar, and he would undoubtedly be entrusted with heavy responsibilities.
"Chairman Ye, I know where Xiao Jun's family is staying. Shall I root them out completely?"
At that moment, an executive skilled at reading the room stepped forward to curry favor.
Chapter 40: Slapped to Death
The speaker was a middle-aged man holding the position of executive president at Yunfeng Group, named Xu Yang.
Earlier, Zheng Zhongzhong had handed Ye Feng a file detailing the newer board members added in recent years—all of whom had been promoted personally by Xiao Jun and placed into key positions to serve as his power base in the company.
The man spoke up now simply because he saw which way the wind was blowing and wanted to flatter Ye Feng as a demonstration of loyalty.
Xiao Jun never could have guessed that his own people would be so impatient to betray him, proving that the men he employed lacked any principles whatsoever.
Ye Feng cast a disgusted glance at Xu Yang and said coldly, "They are just a widow and an orphan. What do you suggest we do?"
His feud with Xiao Jun was strictly between the two of them; from start to finish, he had never intended to annihilate an entire family. After all, women and children were off limits—he couldn't bring himself to strike them down. Furthermore, despite his deep hatred for Xiao Jun's betrayal, the two of hearing shared a history of friendship. Ye Feng knew how to draw the line between gratitude and vengeance.
Hearing this, Xu Yang eagerly offered a strategy: "Chairman Ye, they live right inside Hanlin Garden..."
"Drag him out. I don't want to look at him."
Ye Feng interrupted him with a wave of disgust, cutting off whatever else he was about to say.
Talking to scum like this was an insult to himself.
Without missing a beat, Liu Sandao stepped up and kicked the man straight out of the room.
"Chairman Ye, I'm telling the truth!"
The fellow was naive enough to think Ye Feng simply didn't believe him, completely unaware that Ye Feng didn't even want to spare people like him a second glance.
The man had betrayed Xiao Jun without a moment's hesitation and even tried to goad Ye Feng into wiping out Xiao Jun's wife and children. How could Ye Feng possibly keep such a person in the company?
He was a ticking time bomb.
There was no telling when, if he ever crossed paths with someone more powerful, he would sell Ye Feng out just as easily—someone like members of the Ye family, for instance.
As Xu Yang was dragged away, the remaining two directors who had consistently backed Xiao Jun turned pale. They knew that after today, they would have no place left on the board of directors. Yet the fact that Ye Feng hadn't taken direct action against them already felt like a stroke of immense good fortune. Just looking at Xiao Jun's miserable end sent a chill down their spines.
Afterward, Ye Feng methodically chaired the remainder of the board meeting, implementing a comprehensive reshuffle of personnel.
He appointed Zheng Zhongzhong as executive president—his greatest reward for his loyalty.
With a few simple adjustments completed, Ye Feng handed the rest of the operational work over to Zheng Zhongzhong and left Yunfeng Mansion directly, accompanied by Liu Sandao.
Downstairs.
Xiao Jun's corpse lay in a pool of blood, his body completely contorted from the fall. Fortunately, most of the company staff had already been given the holiday off, preventing a crowd of onlookers from gathering.
Ye Feng got straight into a car and left with his entourage.
Ye Xianhai and his subordinates had already been rounded up and hauled away by Liu Sandao's men, leaving not a trace behind.
Ye Feng had also instructed Zheng Zhongzhong to strictly keep his identity and today's events under wraps, announcing to the outside world simply that Xiao Jun had committed suicide.
As for Xiao Jun's widow and children, Ye Feng had no intention of wiping them out; he instructed Zheng Zhongzhong to settle them properly after stripping away the equity they held in the company. With that, the matter was closed.
This was the extent of Ye Feng's leniency toward Xiao Jun.
He didn't linger at Yunfeng Mansion, confident that Zheng Zhongzhong had the competence to handle matters there.
Xingxing Pub.
Down in the basement, Ye Xianhai lay paralyzed in a pool of blood, battered, bloody, and suffering from multiple fractures all over his body. He was barely breathing, hanging on to half a life.
Upon bringing him back here, Ye Feng had immediately subjected him to the most horrifying tortures used in Xili Prison.
Countless criminals and foreign intelligence agents had broken under these very methods, obediently spilling every single secret they held—let alone a mere nobody like Ye Xianhai!
Ye Feng recalled a foreign God of War in Xili Prison whose pain tolerance was exceptionally high. Captured personally by Ye Feng and initially tight-lipped, the fellow had received the highest-level treatment. Possessing an iron will, he had managed to hold out for a full three days before finally breaking down and confessing.
Under Ye Feng's hospitality, Ye Xianhai had lasted just over an hour before spilling every detail about what happened years ago.
The fog cleared from Ye Feng's mind in an instant, laying bare the truth of the past.
Back then, his interactions with the Ye family had been limited, and his understanding of them was shallow—which was precisely why he had been easily ambushed later on.
The Old Master of the Ye family had sired three sons and a daughter. The eldest son was Ye Feng's estranged father, Ye Xianxian; the second son was Ye Xianru; the third son was Ye Xianhui; and the youngest daughter was named Ye Changge.
The ones who had moved against Ye Feng back then were the second and third households—namely, Ye Xianru and Ye Xianhui.
The Old Master's intention to groom Ye Feng as his successor had directly threatened their interests. After all, when it came to family succession, who would willingly step aside? Realizing they couldn't stop it, they had struck first, swiftly arresting Ye Feng and throwing him into prison.
If not for the covert efforts of the Ye family's Young Aunt and his own estranged father behind the scenes, Ye Feng would likely have been nothing more than a skeleton by now.
As for his mother's death, Ye Xianhai had provided some information as well.
He only knew that after Ye Feng was imprisoned, Chen Mei had gone to the Ye family estate, though she hadn't managed to see either Ye Xianxian or the Old Master. Instead, she had met the Old Madam Ye—the person who had despised her bitterly from the very beginning.
Shortly after that meeting, Chen Mei returned to Liancheng and passed away from illness in less than a month.
With these pieces of information falling into place, Ye Feng clenched his fists, his chest heaving as a suffocating fury threatened to erupt.
Regardless of the mysteries surrounding Chen Mei's death, the debt had to be settled with the Ye family—especially with Old Madam Ye, the one who had met her face to face.
Ye Feng took a deep breath, his gaze turning icy.
The Ye family...
Forcing down the rage in his chest, he looked down at the dying Ye Xianhai on the floor.
With a single palm strike, Ye Feng crushed the man's skull. A burst of fresh blood sprayed across his own expensive Armani suit as Ye Xianhai drew his final breath.
Ye Xianhai's death was merely a starting point, not the finish line.
The fire in Ye Feng's heart could only be quenched by the blood of those people in the Ye family.
By the time he stepped out of Xingxing Pub, it was already noon, and a cold wind blew across his face.
The disposal of Ye Xianhai's body and the cleanup of his subordinates could simply be left to Liu Sandao. Handling such matters was second nature to them; back when Xie Haisheng's martial arts school was running, people died regularly, yet they always cleaned things up without leaving a flaw.
Leaving the pub, Ye Feng headed straight home.
The next day, Xiao Jun's death hit Liancheng like a stick of dynamite, stirring up monstrous waves.
Chapter 1: Shocking Liancheng
Almost overnight, the massive upheaval at Yunfeng Group swept through the entire city.
Xiao Jun's death, in particular, was shrouded in bizarre circumstances. Although Yunfeng Group officially announced that he had suffered from depression and jumped from the roof of the corporate headquarters under immense pressure, ending his young life prematurely, families across Liancheng suspected that internal corporate power struggles lay behind his demise.
Yet in Liancheng, who would dare touch Xiao Jun, a man backed by the powerful Ye family?
Because Yunfeng Group tightly locked down information, most people remained unaware of the fierce struggle that had unfolded inside the building the day before, catching only fragments of gossip through the grapevine while the rest remained shrouded in mystery.
This left many prominent families gripped by a sense of crisis, a dark cloud hanging heavy over Liancheng.
The Chen family, in particular, had been on edge ever since the destruction of Xie Haisheng's operation.
With the year coming to a close, every faction in the city was stunned by the tectonic shift at Yunfeng Group.
To Ye Feng, however, such petty troubles were beneath notice. Xiao Jun's death was just desserts.
As for the Ye family's influence, they were targets he was determined to eradicate.
His objective went far beyond settling accounts with a minor pawn like Ye Xianhai; his true target lay far away in the provincial capital—the deep, heavily guarded compounds of the Ye Family Estate.
Some people residing there deserved to die far more.
A minor branch member like Ye Xianhai was merely a sacrificial lamb Ye Feng used to herald the coming storm.
Only the heads of those sitting in high places within the Ye Family Estate—the aloof Old Madam Ye, Ye Xianru, Ye Xianhui, and their ilk—could extinguish the hatred burning in Ye Feng's heart.
In Ye Feng's eyes, even the blood of all of them combined could never buy back his mother's life.
Over the next few days, Ye Feng had little spare time; he needed to map out the strategic development plan for Yunfeng Group over the coming years.
Lacking the kind of visionary planning Ye Feng had provided years ago, the corporation had gradually been heading downhill. Now that he was back in control, he naturally intended to build the enterprise into an industrial titan.
Given Yunfeng Group's current foundations, developing it into a hundred-billion-dollar enterprise within the next few years would be no difficult feat according to his commercial blueprint.
Just as Ye Feng was preparing to head out, Luo Yan arrived at his home, breaking into a bright smile the moment she saw him.
"Brother Feng, come out with me today, okay?"
In her mind, since Ye Feng had just returned and was currently unemployed, his schedule must be wide open.
Ye Feng spread his hands helplessly. "Xiaoyan, I really don't have time today."
"Why don't you call Qiuhong out and go check out the malls instead?"
"Brother Feng, what have you been up to these past two days? You're never free."
"I've got appointments with some friends to see if I can line up a decent job."
Ye Feng didn't mention Yunfeng Group to her. The matter was still confidential, and he didn't want word leaking out prematurely.
Hearing that Ye Feng was actively looking for work, Luo Yan's face lit up with delight.
"Really?"
"Then you have to work hard, Brother Feng!"
In truth, over the past couple of days, she hadn't missed the snide remarks whispered about Ye Feng among the neighbors. The most frequent gossip was that a man with a prison record would find it practically impossible to land a respectable job.
Every time she heard such talk, Luo Yan would burn with indignation, desperately wanting to retort, only to feel utterly powerless because the critics made logical points. After all, Ye Feng was indeed currently unemployed.
If Ye Feng could successfully steer his life back onto the right track, Luo Yan would genuinely be happy for him from the bottom of her heart.
"Of course. When has your Brother Feng ever lied to you?"
Ye Feng flashed a faint smile.