Crown Prince and Ghost King

Chapter 36

After a pause, Jun Wu asked: «Where's Qi Ying?».

Xie Lian looked around, and indeed there wasn't a shadow of the young martial god. Perhaps because incidents upon incidents kept happening in the heavens, the Palace of Ling Wen was so busy that someone might have forgotten to call him as well.

Ling Wen did have a few more dark circles under her eyes, so it wasn't that far-fetched of an explanation, but Xie Lian had a feeling he was just uninterested in a boring meeting. Remembering how brash and reckless he had acted, back at the banquet, and after managing to learn something more about him thanks to a brief – and rather uncomfortable – conversation with Yin Yu... it made sense for Quan YiZhen to simply not care.

He was a heavenly official that preferred actions to words (and probably needed to learn how to do the opposite).

«It's been a long time since Qi Ying came to these meetings», Ling Wen broke into the conversation. «We've never been able to connect with him».

Her confirmation about Quan YiZhen running his own separate life instead of attend such an important meeting caused some comments to rise up from the crowd of officials, some less polite than others, so Jun Wu cleared his throat to have silence fall once more: «Since we do not know Qi Ying's whereabouts, we will let you know once we find him», he addressed Xie Lian, sighing. «The rest will be figured out when that time comes, hopefully sooner than later. You are free to go, I'm sure you have other... ah, business to attend to».

A bit of a blush coming to the tips of his year, Xie Lian inclined his head in acknowledgment, grateful for Jun Wu not deciding to ask anything outrageous of him.

It could have been staggeringly easy, asking the husband of a Ghost King to follow his duty as a martial god and choose the heavens' side. Once again, the Emperor made a spectacular yet silent show of his brilliant wits by taking an alternative path.

He probably knew that Xie Lian would have rebelled again.

Because he would have.

Without a doubt.

«I'm thankful for the benevolence of my Lord», the Crown Prince made sure to say, he himself making his own show. «I will be taking my leave, then».

Once again, more properly this time, Xie Lian bowed to the Emperor and turned around, but before he could actually leave, Shi QingXuan's voice rose in the silence that fell during that interaction.

«My Lord, I ask for permission to leave», she pleaded, bowing to the Emperor. «I am no martial god, thus I wouldn't be of use in a discussion about war».

In reality she would have liked to stay, if only to listen and learn; the thing was, she was worried for He Xuan. There was no guarantee that some martial god wouldn't try to take advantage of what information Jun Wu just disclosed to face the Ghost King and bring him down. Shi QingXuan herself didn't know how much his power would lessen before coming back to him.

The knowing look Pei Ming shot her, though so brief it could have passed for a slip of the eye, didn't go lost to the Wind Master.

Jun Wu was starting to have some doubts. Without a stable foundation to build those doubts on, however, there was nothing he could do to have the confusing train of thought that just assaulted him make sense.

Right in the middle of a crisis, he did what was most responsible for the time being; he chose to believe Shi QingXuan had no second intentions, and simply spoke up right then because she was a close friend of Xie Lian.