Chapter Text
Rex Lapis was dead.
His lifeless body had literally dropped from the sky during the Rite of Descension, delivering a blow to Lumine’s hopes of finally getting answers from one of the Seven – and taking away her and Paimon’s freedom, apparently.
As outsiders who stood out way too much, watching the ceremony suspiciously close thanks to their eagerness to get to the Geo Archon, the two were seen as suspects of the god’s murder. Running away looked bad, for sure, but being detained by the Millelith was no good either. Lumine had no time to get entangled with yet another nation’s troubles.
Still, that’s exactly what was happening, of course. Did Lumine seriously think she would waltz into Liyue and meet Rex Lapis with no major incidents? She should have known better after the whole thing in Mondstadt with Venti and Dvalin.
Although it made Lumine grit her teeth, she had decided to follow the advice from Childe, the Fatui Harbinger who aided on the escape from the Millelith. The man had ‘trouble’ written all over his face and accepting the Sigil of Permission he offered felt wrong, but they had no other choice. Searching for the legendary adepti, powerful beings known by serving the Geo Archon in the past, seemed to be their only option. The Liyue Qixing wouldn’t get off their backs with an honest explanation – not when their own actions were so suspicious – but if Lumine and Paimon had the adepti vouching for their innocence, the rulers of Liyue would be forced to leave them alone.
Besides, if there really was a god-killer around… well, Lumine sure wanted to have a word with them. She had to stick around and find out the truth – and she wouldn’t be able to do so from behind bars.
“Is that the inn? Is it?! Pleeease, tell Paimon that we are close!” the fairy squealed next to Lumine, wobbling in the air as they trailed the road through Guili Plains. “Paimon is so tired… and so hungry that her stomach hurts. Paimon needs some… some meat! Some Sweet Madame! We’ve had nothing but mushroom soup for days…”
“Are you really complaining about my food, Paimon? I had to improvise, you know? Maybe I’ll leave the cooking for you, next time. How about that?” Lumine muttered, resisting the urge to add ‘or maybe I’ll just cook you’.
“Uhh… ok, I don’t think Paimon’s cooking would taste so good,” she hovered near Lumine’s face with a repentant look. “Hunger is making Paimon grumpy… sorry…”
Lumine half-smiled at her little companion. "Don’t worry about it. I promise I’ll cook something full of meat as soon as we’re done with this whole adepti thing, ok?” Narrowing her eyes at the horizon, she let out a long sigh. “Looks like that is the inn, indeed. We are almost there.”
Paimon grinned, floating ahead with seemingly renovated energy.
The monolith where the Wangshu Inn was located stood against the blue sky in the distance. After so many days of climbing Liyue’s mountains up and down, eating mushroom-based meals and having bone-chilling encounters with three adepti, they were finally at their last destination.
Although Lumine kept it to herself, she did share Paimon’s feelings. The adepti they had met so far were illuminated beasts, ancient beings with both majestic and terrifying forms – and they were all pretty angry. Lumine couldn’t blame them, considering she was delivering the news about their master’s sudden demise.
It all worked out well, in the end, but becoming a pawn in another nation’s politics was exhausting, to say the least.
The first adeptus they had met, after a long climb to the top of Jueyun Karst, was called Moon Carver. Enraged by the shocking news, he had sent Lumine and Paimon to seek three other adepti to deliver the news to them. They couldn’t exactly refuse the angry request from a being like that.
Two of them, Mountain Shaper and Cloud Retainer, had been a handful already. What would it be like delivering the message about Rex Lapis’ death to the last one, a being with a title like ‘Conqueror of Demons’?
Lumine could only hope the meeting would go well and end quickly, so that she and Paimon could finally breathe… and eat something that didn’t include mushrooms.
The travel companions finally arrived at the inn. They had passed by previously, when they first made their way to Liyue Harbor, but this was their first time entering the place. It sat at the top of a monolith, almost as tall as the ones from Jueyun Karst, with wooden stairs built all around it. A beautiful Sandbearer tree stuck out at the very top, its leaves hovering like a golden roof. At the ground level, people of all sorts hung around in a cheerful yard, drinking and eating at the tables set by the Inn.
There was no hint of anything similar to an illuminated beast, though.
“Where do you think he could be hiding, Lumine?”
“Hmm. I don’t think he'll be drinking tea around here, or hanging around where there’s too many guests,” she said, craning her neck as she looked up, and spotted just the place. “Let’s check the terrace. He might prefer high places if he’s anything like the other three.”
A winding staircase led up, but luckily for Lumine’s aching legs, there was an elevator.
“Are we really going to find an adeptus here?” Paimon asked, her voice mixing up with the squeaking made by the elevator’s mechanism as they made their way up. “This place doesn’t seem as… uh… mystical as Jueyun Karst, does it?”
“Maybe this one prefers a modern atmosphere,” Lumine suggested with a grin when the elevator stopped.
They stepped into an empty balcony, although a staircase inside the building led up to another one, even higher. As the two climbed the staircase that led to the top, the hair on Lumine’s arms suddenly stood up.
An odd presence loomed over the place, growing stronger with each step. It caused chills but, at the same time, it warmed her chest. Lumine had never felt anything like it.
Just… what was that?
The puzzlement caused by that sensation was partially swept from her mind when they stepped into the highest terrace. There wasn't a soul in sight, but the view that greeted them made Lumine forget why they were there in the first place.
The inn was so tall that it allowed them to see the peaks of the Stone Gate, far at Mondstadt’s borders, painted in orange by the setting sun. With the night approaching, mist was already forming all around them over the glistening waters of Dihua Marsh.
Both Lumine and Paimon were rendered speechless, leaning over the rail and gaping when a voice came out of nowhere.
“To the blind, everything may not be as it appears,” it said, reverberating through the silent evening.
Lumine almost jumped out of her skin as she snapped her head to the young man now standing beside them, right where there was absolutely no one a second before.
“EEK! A ghost!” Paimon shrieked, hiding behind her back.
“Shush,” Lumine muttered, unable to look away from him.
It was like he had materialized out of thin air. As he approached them with calm and poised steps, it became evident that the mysterious presence that lingered on the balcony and caused all that fuzziness in Lumine was that man’s doing.
Although he didn’t look like an illuminated beast, he had to be the adeptus.
“Greetings,” Lumine bowed her head slightly, in the same manner as she had done with the other adepti. “You must be the Conqueror of Demons.”
He narrowed the amber eyes, outlined in blood-red. They didn’t quite fit the young-looking face, much like Venti’s back in Mondstadt. They were the eyes of someone who had seen and endured countless centuries.
“Ooh, so he’s the adeptus! Paimon was starting to think that Moon Carver was mistaken about this one being here…” the fairy mumbled, coming out of her hideout.
“Moon Carver?” the man asked, a hint of curiosity in his voice. Although he remained mostly expressionless, the way he crossed his arms was not friendly at all. “Who are you?”
Something flashed as he moved – an anemo vision, attached to the glove on his left arm. Lumine had no memory of those dangling anywhere on Moon Carver or the other adepti. Didn’t they have powers regardless of visions?
The man seemed to evaluate Paimon, watching her with undisguised suspicion as she wobbled in the air. The poor thing whimpered and hid again, so the adeptus snapped his eyes back to Lumine’s, waiting for an answer.
“I’m.. uh…” she muttered, dazed. Her heart was racing and her thoughts were a scrambled mess, for some reason. She gave an unwitting step back before reaching for the Sigil of Permission in her pouch, extending it in his direction.
The adeptus eyed the ragged paper as a cool breeze swept through the terrace, waving his dark hair. The huge jade spear hanging from his back, its sharp tip pointing to the sky, didn’t exactly help in making Lumine feel at ease.
“You came prepared. This only prevents me from hurting you myself, though. Doesn’t stop you from getting hurt in other ways,” he said in a low voice.
“Uhh… Paimon doesn't get it…” she peaked from behind Lumine’s shoulder.
She resisted the urge to frown at him. Was that some kind of threat? The man didn’t seem to be angry, exactly – annoyed, maybe. In fact, he didn’t look as menacing as Lumine had anticipated.
He wasn’t very tall, appearing to be in his twenties, although she knew his actual age was probably far beyond that. There was a gentle quality to his face, almost naive-looking. Still, that looming aura seemed to weigh around him, as if the adeptus hid something ominous behind the boyish facade.
Perhaps the title of ‘Conqueror of Demons’ was more well-deserved than Lumine was giving credit for.
“Uhm, anyway,” she blurted, willing to end that interaction as soon as possible, “we came to see you because –”
“Too much contact with our world is breaking the rules,” the man interrupted her, maybe fed up with their interaction. “Mortal souls are not as robust as those of the adepti, nor can your blood stand this level of adeptal energy. You must leave,” finally looking away, he turned on his heels. “It’s for your own good.”
“Wait! We came here to –”
The adeptus was gone before Lumine could finish, disappearing in a silent turmoil of shadows and what looked like anemo energy. She could still feel his presence faintly, but the man was nowhere to be seen.
Lumine scowled at the empty space. “That’s a pretty convenient power.”
“Ugh! Paimon’s… peeved!” her companion shot back into the air, kicking and waving her closed fists at the sky as if she were challenging the empty balcony. “The adepti are so full of themselves! Paimon wants to give this one an ugly nickname… but if you tick off an adeptus, the only thing you’ll probably ever find in treasure chests are cabbages. Bleurgh!”
“We need him to talk to us if we want to be able to enter Liyue Harbor again. I guess screaming ‘Rex Lapis is dead, you moron!’ at the top of our lungs is not a good idea, right?”
“Yeah… oh! We could ask the boss of the inn about just how they manage to talk to the guy!” Paimon suggested. “If he’s always hanging around, Paimon recons the boss has got to know a thing or two about him, right?”
That was an idea as good as any, considering how much choice they had. The pair made their way down the stairs back to the reception, and found it now occupied by a woman. She wasn’t there before, was she?
“Hello!” she greeted warmly. “My name is Goldet. How can I help?”
“Hi! Hum… what can you tell us about the grumpy adeptus hanging out on the terrace?” Lumine asked. “We need to talk to him, but he just said a couple of words and disappeared.”
Goldet seemed genuinely surprised at that. “Ara, you’ve met Xiao?”
“... Xiao?”
So he had an actual name.
“Not bad. Not often he’s in a good enough mood to agree to see people, much less talk to them.”
Lumine frowned. How kind of him, to appear only to ignore them completely.
“That was his good mood?” Paimon asked with a groan.
“Oh yes,” the boss answered, seemingly amused by the whole thing. “The adepti are very hard to come by. Many people go their whole lives praying to them, never once getting to see one.”
Paimon exchanged with Lumine a glance that said the fairy was thinking the same as her – imagine praying your entire life only to be greeted by that good mood.
“When the Geo Archon built Liyue, he borrowed power from the adepti,” the boss continued, “but most of them only know how to protect the city by fighting… so for many millennia, it has been the humans who have led Liyue instead, while the adepti have lived hidden in the outskirts.”
“You really know a lot, huh, boss lady?” said Paimon.
“Please, call me Goldet. Well, seeing as you have the favor of the adepti, things should be a lot easier. If you want my opinion, as long as you keep Xiao in a good mood, it should be ok.”
“Uh… can’t imagine what it would be like to not have that guy’s favor, then…” Paimon muttered.
“Heh! Would be interesting, don’t you think?” Goldet giggled, although Lumine didn’t find any of that funny. “Come to think of it, I’ve never seen him smile… say, how about this? Go see the chef in our kitchen for a bowl of almond tofu. It’s one of the few human foods Xiao likes. You can use it as some sort of offering, so maybe he’ll be willing to talk to you.”
Cook? Lumine had to cook for that rude guy?
She stomped her way into the inn’s kitchen. If she ever met the Unknown God again, she would beat the crap out of her. Not only did she spirit her brother away, but it was also because of her that Lumine now had to cook to keep a grumpy adeptus happy, just so he would listen to them.
Yeah, she would definitely kick that god’s ass until her feet hurt.
Paimon followed her merrily, probably because “kitchen” and “food” were mentioned, but the place was empty. They found the chef taking a break on the balcony just outside and swearing to the archons he wasn’t going back inside. According to him, there was a ghost hanging around and haunting the place.
“Well… do you know how to make almond tofu, Paimon?” Lumine asked when they went back to the empty kitchen.
“Of course not! Such a specific dish to please this Xiao guy… wait, what if we solve this ghost problem? Then the chef can come back inside and cook all sorts of delicious things, right? I mean, besides the tofu…”
“Guess we don’t have a choice again, do we?” Lumine sighed. They seemed to find themselves in that kind of situation a lot.
Sure enough, with night approaching and shadows taking over, Lumine and Paimon started hearing the occasional giggling while hanging around in the kitchen. Just as Paimon groaned and clung to Lumine’s arm, a little girl ran across the kitchen – only, she disappeared through the wall, and was translucent.
With Paimon shrieking unintelligible words, they chased the little ghost, who kept appearing and disappearing down the staircase to the ground floor, looking back at them and laughing. The place was empty and silent, since all guests were probably asleep, so the companions were led to the woods near the inn.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Lumine muttered when the ghost stopped by the broken carcass of a ruin hunter.
The little girl smiled deviously at them, then disappeared. Before Lumine could breathe, the ruin hunter lit up.
“Yep, thought so,” she unsheathed her blade.
“What? She possessed that thing? That little –”
“Hide, Paimon. Let’s make quick work of this.”
The fairy squealed and flew behind a tree.
That wasn’t the first ruin hunter Lumine fought, but still, those were a huge pain in the ass. If she’d had all her powers back… but that wasn’t the case, so she’d have to break a sweat. Just a bit.
Soon as the machine was down again, twitching and beeping, the little girl reappeared, looking as if she were in some amusement park. She jumped up and down, giggling and singing.
“Hey, scaring the guests at the inn is not nice, you know?” Paimon said, now by Lumine’s side again. The ghost ignored her. “Hey! Paimon’s talking to you!”
The girl kept on singing merrily, so Lumine placed her hands on her waist and cleared her throat loudly. “Listen here, young lady!”
The ghost finally settled down, pouting. “Dusky Ming just wanted to play, is all…”
“I understand, Dusky Ming, but some people at the inn are a bit frightened. Can you promise me you won’t scare anyone there again? Especially the big guy in the kitchen?” Lumine asked in a firm but gentle way. It was just the ghost of a little girl, after all.
“Alright, Dusky Ming won’t scare the chef anymore… that is, if you promise to stop by to play with Dusky Ming again!” the girl-ghost giggled and winked, then vanished into the air.
When Lumine and Paimon finally made their way back to the top of the Wangshu Inn, dawn was already approaching. They found the chef taking another ‘break’ on the terrace, even though he had probably just started his shift. They explained how Dusky Ming would leave him alone for good, hopefully.
“So, almond tofu, was it?” the chef asked with a big, kinda scary smile.
Some time later, with a deliciously smelling bowl, Lumine and Paimon finally walked to the top of the inn again. Lumine could feel the adeptus’ solid presence, same as before, which should mean he was around again. The two exchanged a look, nodded confidently at each other, then stepped into the terrace.
He was there, sure enough. Arms crossed, spear on his back, staring into the marshes as the sun rose higher. The adeptus turned around as soon as Lumine set a foot on the terrace, looking as unfriendly as before.
“... you two again.”
“Wait, don’t go disappearing!” Paimon promptly took the bowl from Lumine’s hands and flew towards him. She hovered the plate in front of his face, as if she wanted to make sure the guy could smell it.
The adeptus didn’t flinch. “What’s this?”
“It’s Almond Tofu! We made it for you! You know, so that you’d listen to us…?”
The fairy practically shoved the bowl into his face, so the man took it with a sigh. To Lumine’s surprise, though, he didn’t send them away nor disappeared. Instead, he stared at the tofu with what looked like… interest. Or maybe he was indeed hungry.
When he wasn’t annoyed or bored, the adeptus looked… kinda cute.
As Lumine stared at him and pushed that thought aside, Paimon elbowed her.
“Oh… right. Hum, we came here after speaking to Moon Carver, Cloud Retainer and Mountain Shaper to tell you that, hum…” Lumine stammered as the guy fixed the cold amber eyes on her. “Rex Lapis is… dead. ”
“What?” he asked, the ‘kinda cute’ disappearing immediately from his face.
“R-Rex Lapis was… murdered. After the Rite of Descension, they considered us suspects and we were chased by the Millelith… but we had nothing to do with it, seriously,” Lumine added quickly, unsure if the man would laugh at their faces or try to kill them. “We went after the adepti for help. To get the Qixing off our backs, I mean. It was Moon Carver who sent us here to deliver the news.”
He stared at Lumine, dubiously at first, but perhaps her mention of their meetings with the other adepti gave her the credibility she needed, because the amber eyes soon widened. Xiao turned on his heels and Lumine gasped, believing he was about to teleport away and escape them again, but he didn’t. He just approached the rails on the balcony, placing the bowl of almond tofu carefully on it, and stared at the distance, utterly still and silent.
Lumine and Paimon exchanged worried looks. Unlike the other adepti, who had seemed enraged and revolted by the news, Xiao looked downright shocked.
After long minutes, in which the only sound around them was the wind sweeping through the dark marshes, Lumine decided to put aside the grudges caused by all the tofu hassle. It was impossible to not feel sorry for the guy.
“Are you ok, Mr., uh… Mr. Adeptus?” Lumine approached him, followed by a teary eyed Paimon.
“How could this be? Rex Lapis…” Xiao muttered in a voice much softer than before, still staring at the horizon. He shook his head, as if trying to recompose himself, and when his eyes finally returned to Lumine’s, his expression had gone from shock to the utmost suspicion. “How are you two related to this?”
Paimon immediately hid behind Lumine, who stepped back.
“W-we were just watching the Rite,” she blurted as Xiao approached her again, the spear in his back gleaming in the sunlight. “The Millelith chased us and this, uh… this guy suggested we look for the adepti for help.”
It would do no good to mention that the guy in question was a Fatui Harbinger. Lumine hadn’t seen Xiao fighting, but she could tell with just a glance that he and the other adepti were on a whole different level than treasure hoarders and some of the Fatui. In her current state, there was no way she could fight him if things went south. She didn’t dare to move while the adeptus scrutinized her, as if evaluating something. Paimon was trembling against her back.
After what felt like a tense eternity, he sighed heavily and seemed to relax a bit. Lumine sighed too, not even having realized she had been holding her breath.
“You two couldn’t have taken Rex Lapis down,” Xiao said.
“Hey!” Paimon picked that moment to regain her courage and came out from behind Lumine's back. “Are you calling us weak?”
She scowled at the fairy. Was she trying to get them killed?
Xiao didn’t seem bothered by her, though, and just shook his head. “That is not what I meant,” he evaluated Paimon for a moment before continuing. “You… although your aura is odd, I do not sense any evil in it.”
Paimon crossed her little arms and nodded, apparently satisfied with the answer.
“As for you,” Xiao narrowed his eyes slightly at Lumine, “your aura is… warm. Bright. Almost like the –” he stammered, clearing his throat before continuing. “Never mind. In any case, you two are no cold-blooded murderers.”
Lumine held a surprised grin, although she couldn’t stop her cheeks from heating up. Was he about to compare her to the sun or something like that?
Well, that was kinda cute.
“Though times have changed, I have never imagined a Liyue without him,” Xiao continued, looking truly dejected. “I… it is just hard to believe it.”
Although the adeptus had been a pain for them to deal with, it seemed like he had been really close to the Geo Archon. Lumine wished there was something she could say to make him feel better, but she knew firsthand that there wasn’t much that could be said or done when you lost someone you cared about.
“The ruling Qixing… just what role have they played in this?” Xiao reached for the spear on his back, apparently ready to leave once again. “I will seek Moon Carver, Mountain Shaper and Cloud Retainer. It is time they, too, made their decisions.”
“Will the adepti interrogate the Qixing?” Lumine asked.
“I do not know what course of action we will take, but adepti do not turn on their duties. I have my reasons to not want to interact with the mortal realm, but responsibilities are responsibilities. Our god is the God of Contracts, after all,” he said as he stared at the sky once again, then turned to Lumine. “Go now. I will see to it that the Qixing and Millelith leave you two alone.”
Lumine sighed. Finally.
“Wait! Paimon still has one last question!” she approached him, apparently not scared anymore.
Xiao stared at her in silence, waiting.
“You see, earlier, there was a ghost here. She called herself Dusky Ming –”
“When cleansing the land from demons, I occasionally come across spirits who have never hurt anyone, but are also not yet able to move on. I asked the innkeeper and the boss if they could keep her here for a time,” he shrugged slightly. “She’s not harmful.”
Paimon peaked over her shoulder at Lumine before speaking again. She seemed about to cry. “So the inn was actually taking care of her? Because you asked them to do it?”
Xiao nodded. “You two must leave now. With whatever it is that is going on, you will be safer in Liyue Harbor.”
“Hum, Conqueror of Demons?” Lumine called before he could disappear again. She smiled, truly grateful that they were done with all that. “Thank you.”
The adeptus stared at her for a moment, then nodded again. “Just call me Xiao,” he said, and disappeared.
Paimon wiped her eyes a bit. “Aw! Despite all that antisocial act, Xiao is actually kind of a nice guy, isn’t he?”
Lumine was still staring at the place where he had disappeared.
“… yeah. I guess he is.”