A Trial by Halves

Deductions

"Qing Cang?" he whispered beyond stunned.  His eyes were bulging in his head as he watched his wife silently flop back down against the pillow and her eyes once again close.  The cold chill in the air that had sent a shiver up his spine and drained the colour from his face would have frightened her to death had she awoken at that moment, because he looked like death.  

His body remained rigid against the foot of the bed, his eyes had yet to return to their normal size and his hands were visibly shaking and all the while a million questions assaulted his fragile mind as plausible explanations began to gather.

Very very slowly, Ye Hua began to piece together the information he had managed to garner from her sleep talking.   It was painstakingly slow, because he was still in shock, but beginning with his very first meeting with her, when she rescued him from the cave, the sudden image of a Lotus pond and a boy dressed in white running away from him soon had him pausing as an inkling to where his thoughts were going saw him once again in a classroom as a child solving riddles in order to win treats from his teachers.

Su Su had also mentioned the Lotus Pond via the tune she still hummed from time to time even though he didn't think she realized it and that had him wondering yet again where it was exactly the vision of the Lotus Pond was, or rather memory, because that was the impression it always gave him.  And it was definitely a Lotus Pond, because the dream and visions always came with a strong scent of Lotus flowers.

But as his mind went over the untold topics of Higher Learning she had mentioned mainly in dream state, he then began to wonder about this so called Shifu she constantly mentioned and that had him realizing her unusual nightly discussion were becoming more and more frequent.  And not only was the knowledge becoming more indepth and at times profound, but he also began to realize she had mentioned many things and even names of people who actually existed.

And that brought to mind Qing Cang.  The only Mortals who may have learned of him would have been those he used for his own unsavoury purposes and usually those Mortals would die once he had what he needed, because even though he had dabbled in affairs that broke Heavens laws, even he would never allow a mere Mortal to know of his existence, their world and even their wars, because every Immoral faced severe consequences for doing so and being a proud man whose pride was legendary, he could not allow himself to fall from Heavens graces let alone suffer the humiliation.

 But it was the Ghost War he focused on next.  He had learned everything there was to know about that war, right down to the smallest of details which included the models that were now held in the Celestials archives which had been quickly gathered by Di Jun who oversaw the investigation immediately afterwards.  Though it was obvious from the records he had studied, that Di Jun had been greatly affected by the War Gods death, because his investigation had been meticulous but what surprised even him, was the official story he had released in order to prevent a full scale search for the War Gods body and that of his Seventeenth Disciple.  If anything, Ye Hua had a strong feeling that he had learned everything there was to know and in the end chose to make his disappearance seem trivial or rather flighty.

And that then had him returning once again to Su Su and their initial meeting.  At the time, he had been rather shocked to see her in the possession of the The Jade Purity Fan of Kunlun that had once belonged to The War Gods Seventeenth Disciple.  It was such a rare artifact and after losing sight of it, he then found it again in the possession of the Ghost Tribes Overlord and Qing Cangs son Li Jing who was also on Mount Junji looking for The War Gods Seventeenth Disciple.

He had heard rumors that the two had once had an affair and because of it, he had not faltered in his search for him since the day that war ended.  And so once again he was drawn back to Qing Cang, The Ghost Tribe and a war that saw thousands die tragically and two very important people who disappeared without a trace.