Chapter Text
All the people milled about it all like they did any other day. They were just the average person, after all. They knew nothing better. Huei Feng Xi however was in a very, very foul mood. The biggest migraine in the history of all migraines was currently making a nice, cozy home in the crevices of his brain as if it owned the place. The bright sun and sudden load of paperwork didn't help it, either.
"Look, mother, father! I became the Archivist of Liyue! Aren't you so proud of me!?" he could've cried. But no! Instead the office workers dumped all the paperwork that'd built up while The Lady Baiwen had been dead and his brain decided to have a migraine. He could almost feel how the heavens laughed at him.
"Ahahah! Look at this idiot! Ahahahahahah!!"
When he had first gotten it a few days ago, he thought he was dying because he didn't get migraines before that. So, he whined to all the other Archivists, who were all at least a hundred years older than him. The weird one with the wild hair had only said it was normal before talking to another weird one. Actually, they were all weird. He was surrounded by weirdos. The Archivists of Mondstadt and Nod-Krai weren't even there, so he wasn't sure about them. But regardless! They were all weird. And certainly not in a good way.
From what he could understand though, the overflow of information to his brain, which wasn't used to said overflow, caused immense migraines. Supposedly, it happened around a year into the Harkening, but of course, his had to happen less than a year in! He groaned and rested his head in his arms. Was this his life until he learned to block all the information swimming in his brain? No wonder so many Archivists killed themselves, these damned migraines made him want to explode. He'd already thrown up multiple times in the span of a few hours and it was safe to say that he was not going to be eating too much food.
The cherry on top just made everything worse, though. All the paperwork had something to do with the economy, which, just his luck, Huei Feng Xi knew little about. He'd been needing to constantly use an old, thick dictionary written in a very, very old script. Half the things he only knew because his parents had been all too obsessed with old poems and stories. Suddenly, he was very grateful to his parents for all those boring lessons. The other half he could just guess easily enough.
The Lady Baiwen had been the one and only Archivist of Liyue before her death; it was such a shame she died. What she died of was unknown though. People just assumed she had had enough and simply hung herself like all those other Archivists in the past. The people of Liyue were still adjusting to having a new Archivist. They spoke about Huei Feng Xi in mixed ways. Huei Feng Xi personally had too much of a migraine to even care about what they said.
He wrote some wobbly letters before groaning and resting his head on his arms. It was only the afternoon. He missed his home where he'd probably still be in bed currently, reading a book or something. He decided that since he was about halfway through all the paperwork, he could go and take a break. What to do, he wasn't sure. He looked around and caught sight of a large conical hat and found that going outside wouldn't be such a bad idea.
Outside, the sun was bright and the people seemed cheery. Right, the Rite of Descension was near; of course the people would be more cheerful than usual. Huei Feng Xi too found himself on the happier side of the spectrum despite his head. He made his way to Yujing Terrace and was met with a bumbling crowd of people. He groaned and covered his ears. Thankfully, the hat provided ample shade and prevented the sunlight from making the migraine worse.
Unfortunately, he could not be a part of the Rite of Descension himself like The Lady Baiwen had been. Supposedly, with them never needing to plan it out, the Qixing had to figure out how to incorporate him into the ceremony despite never having done it before. He was new, so they had to practice with him, but they didn't actually know how to do that because The Lady Baiwen never needed to do that. It was amazing. Truly. Who would've thought that losing the original Archivist of Liyue would cause so many small inconveniences?
He waited for some ten minutes when the sight of a strange person that moved to stand beside him caught his eye. A boy, and quite a weird looking one at that. He was a bit shorter than himself and had the strangest looking clothes ever. They were, frankly, quite ugly. Baggy pants, a short shirt that didn't even cover the stomach, and possibly the most boring hair ever. He sneered to himself and watched as the ceremony began.
As Ningguang began the ceremony, Huei Feng Xi could practically feel the excitement in his veins in the form of adrenaline. He had seen this a million times, and yet-! A quickened breath, widened eyes, hands clenched tightly into fists. This was the moment! The power from Ningguang's vision surged up into the sky, drilling the darkness of a storm in. He looked up, waiting to catch the moment Morax would descend and bless Liyue with his wisdom. And then-!
The body of the great dragon crushed the table it fell onto like the way a human's foot crushed an ant while they walked. There were two thoughts running through Huei Feng Xi's mind: one, that was not the body of Morax and two, something was clearly wrong.
...
Aether was not all too familiar with the concept of an Archivist, since according to Kaeya, the Archivist of Mondstadt was "asleep." Whatever that was supposed to mean, he wasn't sure. However, upon meeting the Archivist of Liyue, he prayed that none of them were like him. He had been told to go ask him if he wanted answers about Rex Lapis, so he went to go ask him. Instead, he was met with a quiet laugh and somebody who seemed borderline obsessed with the god.
"Morax is not dead, I tell you! I can feel him in this place!" he'd whisper yelled before proceeding to go and throw up in a bucket outside. It was labeled something in the Liyue script, which he was confident in the fact that he'd never learn to read.
"Apologies, boy. Try to ignore that," he muttered after coming back inside. The rest of the conversation was just plain bizarre. The Archivist, who he learned to be named Huei Feng Xi, spoke solely of the geo Archon and would not move on from that one subject.
According to him, he was very much alive and breathing; said he could "feel" it, though if anything he seemed to be a little messed up in the head. He also said a bunch of things like Aether was going to bring about the end. He tried to avoid him after that. Since the Archivist of Liyue was very much alive and well, he decided it was best to learn about what an Archivist actually was so he didn't go around sounding like an idiot.
He went to a library with Paimon and was met with a nice, cool air. It felt nice after being outside in the heat all day running around like a bunch of errand-runners.
"Let's go find the history section of the nonfiction section of the library— there should be something about the Archivists over there!" Paimon said cheerily. "Paimon would totally explain it to you what the Archivists are, but it can get kinda complicated, so she decided the library was the best idea," she added.
While she searched for book to read, Aether looked around and felt across the different spines of the books. They were all beautiful. Some books were old and had worn edges and covers while some were new and pristine. One book had a soft purple cover. He took it out of the shelf looked at the image on the front. It was that of a woman with a beautifully done updo and a... what was it called... Ah, yes, a hanfu. Paimon floated over and peeked over his shoulder.
"Oh! That's a really famous painting of The Lady Baiwen. She's the original Archivist of Liyue, like how Barbatos is one of the Original Seven!" The Lady Baiwen... A nice name. In the painting, she had a serious face, but it wasn't unkind either. Resting, one could say.
"So what about the other guy we just met?"
"Oh, he's the new Archivist. The Lady Baiwen died. Make sure to address her how I am so that you show respect to her," Paimon explained. "Now c'mon. I found a book to read!"
At the table, they were opened to a page with an illustration of an exhausted but happy looking... man? Woman? They looked extremely androgynous; it made it difficult to determine their gender. Beneath it something written in small, neat handwriting.
"Amar, Archivist of Sumeru," Paimon read. "Oh! I know this one; they're the last of the Original Archivists." The last of the original? So how old were they? Aether attempted to follow along as Paimon read the book, but honestly he was totally lost.
When she finished reading, she summarized: "Basically, they're sort of like guardians of their nations. They always know what's happening at all times too, so let's try our best to not make Huei Feng Xi angry. Paimon wonders where they get their powers from. The book doesn't seem to say anything about that though." So the Archivists could stalk whoever they wanted whenever they wanted. That was amazing. He didn't like the thought that the Archivist of Liyue would know what he was doing at all times whenever he was in Liyue.
From what she read out loud, Aether assumed the rest of the book was just about the current Archivists (at the time of the book being written) and their history. What caught his attention was the minimal excerpt about the Archivist of Mondstadt. Paimon noticed it too. "Huh, this one's weird. 'All records lost to time,'" she read.
"How long has he been asleep for?" he asked her. She only shrugged.
"If he even is asleep," she murmured.
Kaeya had said that for as long as the wind could remember, the Archivist had been asleep. Why that was, nobody really knew. He'd asked Jean and she said the same thing. He had even asked Venti, but he only sighed and lolled his head to the side.
"Unfortunately, he's been asleep longer than I awake." The only thing he could tell was his name: Lucifer. Lucifer, the Archivist of Mondstadt.
The rest of his time in Liyue felt like a fever dream. He was hunted and befriended at the same time by Tartaglia, the forgetful man Zhongli was actually Rex Lapis, and Huei Feng Xi seemed to be everywhere. Well, at least he was right about the geo Archon being alive. The rest of their interactions though were the same. He'd spout a bunch of nonsense, Paimon and Aether tried to ignore him, and Zhongli expressed his dislike for the new Archivist.