"You don't need to do that," Yang Qing said as he helped Ma Yuan whose body was mildly convulsing because of his current agitated state. Yang Qing used some of his qi along with a soul cultivation art, to help calm Ma Yuan's nerves as he was lifting him.
"The Order was founded for exactly these types of cases, so there's no need for you to do all these nor do we need an oath of servitude from you. Since you have presented your case, it's our responsibility from this moment forth to bring the case to a successful conclusion.
If you want to help us, there are various areas you can do so, the primary one being on the case itself.
As a matter of fact, there are a few areas that you could help shed a light on," said Yang Qing as he poured Ma Yuan another cup of the spring water rice wine.
"Thanks," Ma Yuan softly said as he grabbed the wine urn. His hands were trembling as he picked up the urn.
"If there's anything you need, please feel free to ask Judge Yang Qing. I'm willing to do anything that I can, to help find my wife and daughter," said Ma Yuan.
"There are a few areas I'll need clarification on, first it's the woman who barged into your home and took your wife and daughter. You said she was blurry, the blurriness, did it seem to appear suddenly out of the blue or did it seem like it was ever present?' asked Yang Qing as he took a few light brown incense sticks from his storage ring.
"I'm not too sure because I was too agitated at the time that I barely concentrated on it. Let me see..." Ma Yuan closed furrowed his brow as he closed his eyes trying to remember the details Yang Qing was asking about.
"You can start the recollection from what you did that day all the way leading to that point. It will be easier on your mind that way. I'll also be using incense sticks from a 20,000-year-old spirit-strengthening morning dew Yew wood. It will help in strengthening your spiritual consciousness especially if it was forcibly tampered with," said Yang Qing as he lit four of the seven light brown incense sticks, he had taken out of the storage ring.
"So what happened that day?' Yang Qing's voice had a bit of ethereal mystical quality to it. He had strengthened his voice with his soul to help Ma Yuan in his recollection.
If his memories were forcibly tampered with, Ma Yuan's attempt at remembering those events carried an inherent risk to them which would result in an injury to his mental sea. Yang Qing's voice had a special soul art attached to it, which acted as a buffer in Ma Yuan's mental sea.
…
The impact of Yang Qing's voice seemed to have dragged Ma Yuan into the memory of that day. The memory appeared in his mind like a scene from a recording talisman and he was watching the events in the third person.
"We started the day like usual; Fei'er guided our daughter in her cultivation, as per the morning routine while I was working on the garden.
She may have zero people skills, but she had talent when it came to comprehension, which made her a better tutor than I.
I on the other hand worked in the garden since the inheritance I got, did give me a bit of knowledge and skill in the growth and care of spiritual plants and alchemy.
After the training, we had a meal together, then went to the town's market to offload some of the herbs I had, while we bought a few things for our cultivation.
We came back home late in the afternoon. My wife and I both went to our respective cultivation chambers to cultivate and we left Ling'er to watch the house.
We finished our cultivation session in the early stages of the night. I prepared a quick meal for us after that.
We then went on to set the table after everything had been prepared, huh, Fei'er seems shocked," said Ma Yuan.
The spectating version of himself moved closer to his wife as he scrutinized her face with sorrow and surprise in his eye. In that scene, Fei'er had her pupils shrink in surprise and then she hurriedly masked it.
The spectating Ma Yuan wasn't too sure, but he saw a look of melancholy and regret flash in her eyes during that brief second as her gaze fell on both Ma Yuan and their daughter who were trading laughs at the time.
"It looks like she detected it before it all happened. But how?" wondered Ma Yuan with a lost look as his gaze fell on his wife. It was then that he noticed something that made his pupils shrink.
His wife, Fei, was holding onto something, it was a small octagon-shaped object that looked like it was made out of ice crystal. Even at a glance, Ma Yuan knew exactly what it was, it was the controlling disc for the formation array of their house.
He didn't know much about formation arrays and the one in their house had been set by his wife and he and his daughter were each given a similar-looking disc to help control the formation. From what he could remember when his wife set the whole thing up, she said it was strong enough to defend against a 10th-stage core formation expert.
Ma Yuan remembered how amazed he was when she said that since his wife was just at the seventh stage of the core formation realm at the time. Creating a formation that could stop a cultivator a few minor levels above her, showed how skilled she was in formation arrays. Ma Yuan didn't suspect she was lying or bragging because the woman had zero social skills to pull either. He even wondered at times, if she had even ever told a lie.
…
"Fei'er, why did you let her in?" Ma Yuan wondered as he saw her use the disc to shut off the arrays protecting the house. He was also confused about why he couldn't remember some of the things that happened that day. Some of the things he saw right now felt completely new to him.
He may have had his cultivation crippled, but he still had the body and senses of a core formation expert including the mental sea and spiritual sense of one. He could remember things that happened 30 years ago with so much detail as if it had happened at that exact moment, however, he seemed to have memory gaps from something that happened just 7 years ago.
He couldn't understand why since the woman who attacked them, hadn't even shown up yet.
..
"Ma Yuan, what happened next?" Yang Qing's gentle-sounding voice appeared in Ma Yuan's mind. He had gone silent in his narration from the moment he saw the shocked look in his wife's eyes.
"It looks like my wife may have detected the intruder much earlier than I thought and she even let her in by deactivating the formation array laid around the house," Ma Yuan said in disbelief.
"Why can't I remember any of it, despite being there," said Ma Yuan as he furrowed his brows.
"After the table was set we went on to share a meal together like we always did. If I had known this would be the last time together, I would have savored it more," Ma Yuan painfully said.
"Ten minutes passed like that, then Fei' er did something out of the norm. She kissed me on the forehead. She's come so far." Ma Yuan's spectating body and the real body that was seated in front of Yang Qing with closed eyes, both smiled at the same time.
"This?!!!!!"
Seconds later the smile turned to an O-shaped mouth of shock.
In the flashback, the spectating Ma Yuan saw a small rune appear on the forehead of the memory Ma Yuan. It appeared on the exact spot where his wife had just kissed him.
"Fei'er what's happening? What are you doing?" the spectating Ma Yuan couldn't help but ask the wife in his memory even though he wouldn't be able to get any response from her. His question echoed out in the real world too.
Fei'er looked at the memory Ma Yuan with a loving look before her earlier calm look returned and she went back to her sit leaving a silly grinning Ma Yuan who was boasting to his daughter, who giggled in return.
"This is when she barged in," Ma Yuan lifelessly said. At this point with how many surprising things had happened in the flashback, he wasn't even sure that memory was his or if it was even real. He couldn't make sense of it at all, especially where his wife was involved.
Just like he said, a lady in a pure white robe that had a crystal shine to it, barged into their house through the roof. However, something was different now, he could clearly see her image but none of that brought him any comfort because, in addition to seeing the barging lady's face, he also saw the rune in his forehead shine the moment the lady appeared. From what Ma Yuan could see, it had been triggered by his wife when she mumbled a silent incantation a few microseconds before the lady in white robes barged in.
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