Things suddenly clicked for him when he made that statement and when he looked at Yang Qing, he realized Yang Qing seemed to have come to the same realization as him.
"Do you remember when you started moving from place to place or has it always been like that since the first moment you met?" asked Yang Qing.
Ma Yuan paused as he tried to recollect the timeline and details since he met his wife. The missing details in the memory that came to the surface seemed to have triggered other things that he had overlooked over the years.
"When we met, we moved from place for the first three years. I didn't think much of it at the time since I assumed she was a rogue cultivator like myself, where moving from place to place is part of the norm. I used to move from place to place, especially with the infamous reputation I had built with the Rapid Spears sect. To evade their sect master and elders I had to move from place to place.
I assumed Fei'er may have been in the same circumstance or she just liked traveling from place to place. However, all that stopped when she got pregnant with Ma Ling.
The year she was born we decided to settle down in a little town in Gemini kingdom. We stayed there until she was three, then we moved, but at that time it was because the Gemini kingdom was too remote and barren. The resources available could not satisfy our requirements, so we moved.
We ended up settling at..." Ma Yuan paused as he tried to recall the name of the place.
"It was Monk's Birch town, one of the towns under the rule of the Wild Birch sect. We stayed there for a year and things were going well, however, the higher-ups of the Wild Birch Sect got wary about having two core formation experts of unknown origins settling within their territory, especially when they were just a rank 4 sect themselves.
To avoid any unnecessary confrontations we moved again to Fairymoss County of the Green Hollow Kingdom. The area was remote, filled with resources and the kingdom had a loose policy in regards to those who wanted to settle there.
We made that our home for six months until Fei'er asked us to leave out of the blue. She never gave any reason for it, we just upped and left in the middle of the night.
Come to think of it, a few days before that she had been behaving funny, and I just chalked it up to her quirky social awkwardness.." Ma Yuan said with a pensive look.
"What happened?"
"We went to the market one day to buy a few things and out of the blue I saw her freeze and then she suddenly dragged me and Ma Ling to a nearby restaurant.
I had thought she was just overwhelmed by the crowd since she wasn't used to large crowds. But for the next few days, she'd leave for the market alone, and when she came back a few times, she'd have this lost look to her.
I never pried too much about it in respect for her privacy and it didn't seem like a big deal at the time. A couple of days later, she came back and asked us to move.
After that, for the next four years everywhere we lived was on a short-term basis. We never stayed one place for more than three months. Even if the sudden movements were strange, i didn't mind it that much as long as I had her and our daughter.
Actually, Leek Valley is the only place in the last four years that we have managed to stay at for so long." said Ma Yuan.
Even though his wife wasn't much of a talker, based on their interactions and how she was, he knew she had a complicated past that still affected her to the present day. He never asked her about it since people were entitled to their own secrets. So even with the strange habits and behaviors, he never asked or thought too much about it.
But now, he couldn't help but wonder if he should have tried to get her to open up more rather than let things be and move at their own pace.
During those few years they moved from place to place, it was very likely that his wife seemed to be running away from something.
....
Yang Qing had pulled out his map at some point and started marking certain points from it. Those points were the areas Ma Yuan and his family had lived in.
He started with Gemini kingdom, then moved to Monk's Birch and then Fairymoss in Green Hollow Sect, and then traced the line up to Mandrake province in Qian kingdom, which was the last place they settled at.
He filled in other places after consulting Ma Yuan on them. There was Flowing Boar town of the Bandicoot kingdom, Yellow Flame County under the Burning Flames sect, Rapid twin of the Lunar Bug sect, and the list continued. In those 4 years, they had settled and resettled in 14 different places with their last place in Leek Valley being taken into account.
There seemed to be no rhyme or pattern in the movement, as all these locations were in completely different directions from each other.
"Did you decide the places you settled at or did your wife do it?" asked Yang Qing as he scrutinized the map and the locations he had marked to see if he could dig any clue from them.
"She was the one who chose those locations. Other than where I grew up, I didn't know much about other places but Fei'er was a walking trove of information," Ma Yuan answered.
"Mmmh," Yang Qing offhandedly answered as his eyes bored deep into the map.
"This might actually be something," Yang Qing said as he smiled. Ma Yuan had no idea what Yang Qing was hinting at but for some reason, he felt excited and mildly hopeful from seeing Yang Qing's reaction.
"Ma Yuan, when you were running away from the Rapid Spears sect, how did you choose the location you fled to?" asked Yang Qing with a glint flashing in his eyes.
"At first I didn't have any clear direction, I just ran randomly in any direction but the moment their sect master and elders set their eyes on me, I chose areas they'd less likely track me to, like dangerous ruins, mysterious realms or territories of powerful organizations or those that had a terrible relationship with the Rapid Spears sect." Ma Yuan answered as he helplessly chuckled at how he lived his early years.
"Bingo," Yang Qing said with a triumphant smile.
"Look at these," Yang Qing said as he excitedly guided Ma Yuan's view to the map.
"All the locations you lived at are evidence that your wife subconsciously created. By the way, did she ever tell you about her past?" Yang Qing suddenly asked.
"No she didn't, and I felt awkwarding asking about it when it clearly seemed like she never wanted to talk about it much," Ma Yuan said as he sighed.
