Three Wars and a Goddess

The War Gods General

Two months Later

Zhe Yans recovery was slow and painful.  Every day he had to endure dressing changes which his rather softened and pampered body barely managed to cope with.  As the worlds number one Medicine King, he had seen all manner of injuries and witnessed many miracles due to his vast knowledge and ability to block out his emotions when healing others, especially those he cared deeply about.  However, he soon learned quickly that it actually increased the pain because The Celestials Medicine King, like himself, adopted the same strict code.  In that all emotions were swallowed back so professionalism could take over.

There was no warmth in his eyes as he deftly pulled the old gauze from his open wound and nor did he seem to care for the scream that erupted as he repacked it.  The pain was horrendous, but always there was Bai Qian, Bai Zhen or Zhe Zhe at the ready to assist him with the energy to get him through it.  However it was the visible lack of compassion that made the ordeal that much , that harder for him,  he realized he might be the Medicine King of them all, but even he still had things to learn.

It was very difficult for them to see him this way.  Always he had been the strong one, the one with words of encouragement and his vast skills and knowledge always brought some kind of solution to their many problems which they were all guilty of dumping on him.  But regardless, this was a Zhe Yan that Bai Qian found very difficult to deal with.

To see him writhing in agony was just as painful for her, and though he didn't cry from the pain, she did.  And it was because of her tears that Mo Yuan was given a deeper understanding of the close relationship the Fox children had with Zhe Yan.

Their father of course was a very close friend having been raised together on the Mountain since they were very young, but he hadn't realized the children had spent much of their childhood with Zhe Yan, and the way Bai Qian cried for his pain said she loved him just as much as her own father.  It was most pitiful to see, so he tried not to have her in the room when the dressings needed changing if he could avoid it.

And the few times it could not be avoided, he was always there for her at the end of it despite the pressing issues he himself was dealing with. Because her tears suddenly became his concern, whether she meant for it or not, he could not bare to see her cry.  So sometimes he would take her for walks about his vast grounds to clear her mind of the distress, other times he would play his zither for her by the lotus pond which always had her smiling, and sometimes he would just sit quietly with her at the East Wall as she talked of a man he thought he knew only to learn that he was far more complex than he thought.

Zhe Yan had not only undertaken her training personally, but also her brothers.  When they were younger, he rarely involved himself in any kind of confrontation preferring instead to talking his way out of any given situation, and for the most part it worked for him, because he had the ability to use words effectively.  If anything, the man was more of a Taoist Priest than he was when it came to speeches, his wisdom ran deep, and it was because of his ability to articulate so fluently and elegantly that he not only talked himself out of most confrontations, he also earned his place among the High Gods as a Wise God of immense knowledge.

So to learn that it had been Zhe Yan himself who had given her the training he had seen erupt on the battlefield was rather shocking.  As far as he was aware, Zhe Yans battle skills were mediocre at best, instead he had always preferred to use his zither to fight when his speeches fell on deaf ears because being a rather vain man, he didn't have to get himself dirty with it.   

His Zither was a weapon of illusion.  Certain notes when played together in harmony with his energy, could produce either mental or physical illusions of his opponents greatest fear which the zither would drag out of their minds as he played, thus turning his opponent on themselves.   And if that failed, he could use it to create enormous illusion barriers that effectively ended any fight before it began.  It was a passive aggressive weapon which required a tremendous amount of skill and knowledge to use so it was one that suited him perfectly.