Chapter Text
At the end of the hallway, the director of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor seemed to have been waiting for her.
There was something eerie about the funeral director, Ningguang realized as she walked closer. The girl’s face was … not really visible, akin to a distorted image of a broken Kamera that was always shifting from one image to another … except for her eyes, big red with pupils like flower petals that stared right into Ningguang’s own eyes.
Ningguang wasn’t sure why she was here—maybe to tell her that it’s finally time to go to the Leyline Flow? Was this game of “marriage” and “friendship” just something to entertain the God of Death, before she finally cast her away after she got bored?
Ningguang saw it, then, ten other pairs of eyes peeking from behind the funeral director, wide and curious.
When Ningguang spoke, she almost startled herself. “What does this mean?” her voice was low, definitely very different from her own, she could feel sharp teeth grazing her tongue as she moved her jaws.
“The Oceanids rejected the ideology the newly appointed Hydro Archon proposed,” Hu Tao said. “They traveled far away from their homeland to find peace within their soul, but one’s fury passed a village in Wuwang Hill, taking away these children who were playing by the river.”
‘Ningguang’ didn’t quite understand, but at the same time, she did, somehow. Slowly, she lowers herself to her knees until she’s very much at the same eye-level as the children. ‘Ningguang’ feels her lips pulled into a smile. “Hello,” she says softly.
“W-who are you?” one of the children asked, trembling. Children had cowered in her presence before, what with her title of the Tianquan, but not like it was as if they were seeing something terrifying.
“I’m the overseer of this palace …,” ‘Ningguang’ looked behind her to a giant double door, charcoal black with gilded carvings, before she looked back towards the children, “and the guardian of that door.”
“Does that door lead … to home?”
“No … no,” ‘Ningguang’ said, unable to figure out why regret dripped from her voice. Something hot pricking at the corner of her eyes. She blinked them away. “It leads somewhere else. Somewhere fun, where you can play as much as you want.”
The children’s eyes lit up. “Really?!”
“That means we don’t have to pick herbs by the river anymore?”
‘Ningguang’ laughed, despite the growing sorrow in the cavity of her chest. “No, no more picking herbs, no more studying, no more washing the dishes.”
“But … What about Mama and Dad?” one of the children asked, fiddling with the hem of her skirt.
“They’ll soon come to join you.” ‘Ningguang’ then stood and offered her hands to the children. She felt her throat tighten, but she forced herself to say, “Come. This big sister will play with you until your parents arrive.”
The children introduced themselves as they all clambered up to her, three in one arm, four in another, and three on her shoulders, and she lifted them all with one smooth motion. The children squealed with joy, their laughter filled the long hallway as ‘Ningguang’ spun around and rocked them in her arms.
“Big Sister, Big Sister said that you’re the … the … uhh …”
“The guardian of the door?” ‘Ningguang’ supplied.
The kid’s eyes lit up. “Yeah! That! But Big Sister hasn’t told us her name! We want to know your name!”
There was a strange melancholy in ‘Ningguang’s’ heart. They’re all here, yet they don’t know who she was. For a moment she was tempted to not say anything, that maybe, with these children, she didn’t have to bear that name. She could be someone else or no one at all, just a passing stranger in these children’s last moments, ‘Ningguang’ couldn’t help but chuckle.
“My name … My name is B—u,” she said, her tongue stiff as if she had just eaten mortar.
The children cheered in her arms. “B—u-jie, B—u-jie, spin again, spin!”
“Make us fly! Make us fly!”
Her heart felt tight, her throat even more. Even with heat pricking the corner of her eyes, all she could do was strengthen her hold and spin the children in her arms.
It was then when one of the children touched her face and said with concern in his face, “B—u-jie, why are you crying?”
Hu Tao had not moved from her spot, staring without expression.
In the end, she couldn’t even hold the emotions that sat on her shoulders like boulders, as she fell into her knees and wailed in front of the children’s feet. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry … I’m so happy to be able to meet all of you.”
Please forgive me.
Ningguang wakes up with tears on her face and heart thumping painfully against her breastbone.
The center of her chest feels uncomfortably warm, all she wants to do is to curl up in her quilt until her tears are no more and the beating of her heart settles, but the more she inhales to calm herself down, the harder it is to hold back the urge to sob. Her whole body feels heavy, each cavity of her bones filled with overwhelming lethargy. The sheets of the bed are suffocating as it is a comforting gravity to the pounding of her heart, as if to give her a promise of a better time, later, later, after she succumbs.
It was clearly not a nightmare, but why does she feel like it was?
Ningguang tries to recall the fragments from the dream. There are some parts that she’s familiar with; the architecture of the room she was in—although she’d never seen it, it looked similar to this palace. There was also Hu Tao. For some reason she cannot remember her face, but she’s sure it was Hu Tao in that dream. She knows it was.
Then she remembers her own voice in that dream. It was definitely not her voice, but there was something familiar to it. Has Ningguang heard it somewhere before? Maybe when she was still alive?
She forces herself to get out of the dreariness of the bed, a war she almost lost.
Her throat itches and her mouth feels dry, the uncomfortable tightness in her stomach makes the room spin a bit. Ningguang wills with the gesture of her hand, her jaws tense and her teeth grind painfully against each other, but nothing materializes between her fingers.
Are you kidding me . Ningguang curses loudly. If they want to kill her, at least let her die with her pipe, Archonsdammit .
It is then that she notices the bowl of water and a set of fresh towels on the table. There’s also a piece of paper: Ningguang picks it up, her heart lurches a bit at the familiar handwriting.
Dear Lady Ningguang,
By the time you read this, I've already gotten back to Liyue. As much as I want to stay, I can’t. I’ll make sure to visit every other day night day time day.
Beidou has prepared food for you. I took the liberty of telling her your preference … The foolish hatchling pleads you to judge her with a strict standard. Do not be fooled with the appearance. I assure you won’t die get sick, though I apologize on Beidou’s behalf for not being able to serve something more visually appealing.
Please be well,
Ganyu
She wonders how many times she’d be able to see this handwriting again.
The water in the bowl is cold on her skin, but the towel is surprisingly soft from the way it looks. She takes her time to wash her face before she finally heads outside.
Ningguang is pretty confident in her spatial intelligence and depth perception. She’s always been good at direction and constructing space, and it only takes her one read of a map for her to be able to roam around an unfamiliar path. It is why she was able to construct so many facilities, and even more blueprints she had yet to realize…
But these corridors feel like they have a mind of their own, misdirecting her and disorienting her, opening a path where she’s sure it wasn’t there, blocking a path where Ningguang could’ve sworn she just came from. The darkness beyond the palace, visible from between the pillars, is all encompassing—oppressive, as if it can swallow her at any time, and the only reason it hasn’t is because it wants to toy with her.
She has never felt so lost and so unsure with the path she takes.
It is when she begins to use ornaments as markers. She finds out that every ornament, every tapestry, and every book in the shelves are different. She would have loved to study each of them, what she sees in passing depicting several sceneries that she can only wildly guess as Liyue, but these corridors don’t make her feel safe.
Eventually, she catches the scent of food—she follows, and she finds a full course meal on a long dinner table behind a heavy double door.
Her joy of finding food soon dissipates as she catches the sight of those meals: a chunk of dark purple … meat with oozing black-red sauce that suspiciously looks like blood, brown-yellow soup with ingredients that look more sinister than a chicken foot, bright blue pomegranates with blood-red leaves, among other things.
She looks around. There’s no sign of life. If the owner of the house refuses to join the dining, so be it.
A cheerful chirp nearly makes her heart jump up to her throat. A blob of red light with a pair of ears soon joins her with an exuberant hop and settles with another exclamation into a seat across from Ningguang.
A … Seelie ?
When the blob seems to notice her presence, it sways left and right excitedly with a high pitched ring, as if to say its greetings. Ningguang is at a loss for words, but her hand waves back in return. The blob deems it good enough as it directs its attention back to the various dishes, and begins to gobble them down.
Ningguang has never read anything about Seelies eating, let alone seeing it with her own two eyes. It’s fascinating, to say the least, how the dishes would vanish without a trace the moment it enters the blob. She takes a seat in her fascination and continues to watch, almost in trance.
The blob notices her stare again and taps a dish adjacent to Ningguang with one of its ears. It chirps with a nod.
“You … want me to eat it?” It’s a wild guess, and quite frankly, Ningguang doesn’t know why she even tries to converse but the blob nods again enthusiastically, so she must be somewhat correct.
She carefully picks the dish the Seelie had pointed out earlier and cuts it into smaller pieces, lest she regret her decision. With an unsure pinch of her chopstick, she puts the strange meat into her mouth.
Maybe she shouldn’t have doubted Ganyu, because it tastes absolutely divine. Admittedly, they’re on the spicier side, but other than that they’re all balanced, nothing too oily, nothing too dry. Everything is easy to digest, rich in flavor but not too strong. It’s almost exactly Ningguang’s preference.
She looks at the Seelie, whose speed of ravishing the food has considerably grown slower.
“May I ask for your name?”
The blob of light perks up at that, completely halting its activity.
“My name is Ningguang.”
The blob of light lets out a high-pitched humming sound before it looks around the table. When it finds what it searches for, it bobs towards it and takes the item between its ears, and brings it to Ningguang.
It’s a kind of fruit (or vegetable?) that strangely looks like a paprika, except for its flaming orange color. “Paprika?”
The Seelie nods with excited chirps.
“Nice to meet you, Paprika. Where are you from?”
It zooms around the table and stretches out its ears in celebration after it finishes its lap. Ningguang decides she doesn’t have enough energy nor will to decipher that.
“How did you come here?” she asks instead.
Paprika points at the door and does a gesture that resembles a shrug with its ears. Right. Of course.
“Are you … the Dragon King’s friend?”
Paprika tilts to the side, not quite understanding her question.
Ningguang hesitates. She doesn’t want to say it, lest it will actually summon the God of Death, like what some of the scriptures had said. But she decides it’s worth the try. “Are you Beidou’s friend?”
The name is weird on her tongue. It’s light, as though she has spoken it a thousand times before.
Paprika nods enthusiastically and jumps around with a little, “ Yipee! ”
Considering she can trust it, that means most likely it knows how to get in and out of the palace, and maybe even …
“Paprika, do you know how to get out of this realm? I need to go back to Liyue.”
Technically, the blob of light doesn’t have a pair of eyes, or any at all, but right now, Ningguang feels like it’s staring right into her soul. Suddenly, it gobbles a plate of suspicious looking stir fry and beckons her to follow it.
Seelies guide adventurers to the treasure, right? Ningguang will only regret it if she doesn’t use everything she can. Paprika may be leading her to her impending doom, but she has nothing to lose.
The Seelie has brought her deep into the maze-like corridor again. This time, Ningguang spots a few familiar ornaments, which indicates that she probably has traversed this part before. As they stop in front of a simple double door made out of stone, Ningguang looks at her newfound guide, who encourages her with a little dance accompanied by short chirps.
As soon as she opens the door, rolls of steam hit her face. Instinctively, Ningguang steps back and closes the door, fanning the space in front of her face to get rid of the searing heat that had just abruptly offended her personal space.
When Ningguang turns to Paprika, the bulb of light keeps reassuring her that they’re indeed at the correct destination, bobbing cheerily while nudging the door.
“Are you sure?”
Paprika chirps and nods enthusiastically.
Whether it’s because of Paprika’s charming round shape or her own bottomless curiosity, Ningguang finally pushes the door open again, ducking to the side as steam rolls out of the gap, circles of jades ready at her back. With another gentle push, she steps in tentatively, vigilant of her surroundings.
There is a short corridor behind the door, the ceiling considerably shorter than the corridor outside and its walls made out of dark rocks, iron minerals, Ningguang thinks as the smell hits her nose. More steam hits her as she walks further inside, the sheer heat making it hard to breathe and causing her to sweat in her robes. Vaguely, she can hear the sound of a river from a great distance that gradually grows louder and louder. As she steps into a room at the end of the corridor, the steam is less oppressive, and she takes a deep breath.
It’s a beautiful cave.
The ceiling is an arch of dark walls, with crevices here and there. The sound that she thought was a river turns out to be a waterfall further into the cave that fills the lake at the base, a bit murky white, though she can see from where she’s standing that the base of the pool is made out of something azure. The ripples of its surface send reflections upon the ceiling like silver threads. She almost missed the springs and steam flowing out from the cracks of the dark rocks.
Ningguang steps closer to investigate the edge of the lake. The ground is wet around this part, so she inches closer one step at a time.
She realizes Paprika is not with her.
She whips her head around, looking for the bulb of red light and its energetic chirp, but finds no one. The corridor behind her is dark—the entrance is closed.
Did something happen to Paprika, or did Paprika trick her into this room … ?
This is still the Dragon King’s Palace. As far as her observation goes, the Dragon King is an agreeable person. Then again, she is a dragon , and souls of the dead pass below her feet.
Ningguang summons more jades behind her back.
She notices it then, movement in the pool. She takes several steps back, her pose ready for combat. The thing, whatever it is, moves slowly towards the surface—Ningguang holds her breath, already formulating her escape plan.
The door is behind her, and it takes several steps to get there—will this thing outspeed her? It most likely will. Ningguang glances to her sides. She can duck and hide in one of the crevices, there is one on her right, quite close but barrow, and there are two to her left with agreeable width and height, but are rather far. The one on the right admittedly looks riskier; Ningguang is a tall woman, and she doesn’t want to lose her life only because she hits her head.
So she mentally chooses the crevice on her left, either of the two as they both have similar heights. If she can duck on time and get in, she can make a geo construct to block the path. She can buy her time with her jades as well.
The surface of the steaming lake starts to inflate with tension as the thing from below gradually rises, its sheer size casts shadow on Ningguang like a mountain that long sleeps beneath the ocean, before the surface of the water rips apart and water drizzles down like rain as the creature touches the ceiling. The escape plan Ningguang had meticulously planned flies to the back of her mind as a pair of familiar eyes blinks back at her: one is a sunset and another is striking yellow.
A dragon, its head clearly taller than Ningguang herself. Its scales are beautiful azure, light and dark blue with shadow, almost indigo with a little hint of red. Two pairs of fangs poke out of its mouth, and water drips down from the mane behind a pair of fins on both sides of its head and the hair beneath its jaws. A pair of horns sit atop its head, akin to those of deers and corals.
None of the paintings and scriptures can compare to this … Breathtaking . “... My Lord?”
A deep growl rumbles from the dragon. Ningguang watches as she crunches her long, thick eyebrows in what seems to be disapproval.
“Did I disturb your rest?”
The dragon snorts a hot breath from her nose and her whiskers twitch. Her expression softens, Ningguang notes amusedly, before she lowers her gigantic head to Ningguang’s level until her snout is just shy of Ningguang’s face and her lower jaw rests on the floor. The growl from earlier has turned into a purr, and the dragon closes her eyes.
For a powerful creature whose mightiness is famed across the lands, and for a god whose tales are awed as it is feared, spectacular as it is for Rex Lapis’ most referred general, the Dragon King looks surprisingly … docile.
Almost like a puppy asking for a pat.
Was she…?
Ningguang notices it, then, a dark color unlike the rest of the scales that streaks across the dragon’s neck, just behind her mane. She almost missed it, seeing how it gives off metallic sheen just like the scales.
Ningguang steps closer, and the dragon growls when she touches the scales above the wound. It may be a normal wound on the dragon, but it’s almost two-third of Ningguang’s height.
“You’re hurt, my Lord,” Ningguang says, her voice soft. She feels ridiculous. “You should treat it.”
The dragon huffs and shifts away, petulant, and Ningguang raises her eyebrows.
“I suppose gods don’t need such mortal necessities,” she muses.
The dragon lets out a rumble. Ningguang begins to wonder if she needs to learn dragon language if she’s to live with this god. The dragon opens her eyes lazily, observing the human, before she closes her eyes once more, sighs, and drags her head back under the water.
Ningguang has seen all sorts of creatures, mythical or not. The adepti’s forms are as majestic as they are portrayed in paintings and operas; the Verdant Dragon of the East is able to shake the ground with its roar and stalk amidst the starry night with the silent whip of its wings; the children of the forest dragon, skulking beneath the waves of gilded sand.
What she has seen just now, however, still manages to bring her into a stupor. She has never seen scales so clean and eyes so bright, commanding her very attention to those orbs of sunset and gold. She has never seen a mane so lavish and graceful, and a pair of horns so imposing yet beautifully captivating.
The ripples on the surface of the water break Ningguang from her train of thought, and soon a body emerges from within the depth of the spring, languid in its movement as a pair of arms hoists them up against the edge of the pool, muscles rippling. Ningguang finds herself unable to look away from the sight of the God of Death herself, steaming water drops from the length of her dark hair and naked body littered with scars of old and new, the most notable one stretching below her jaws where her neck meets her shoulder, bleeding no more yet red against her clear, glowing skin. Her gaze follows the movement as the god swipes her hair to the side, clearing the obstruction to her vision …
… Which falls onto Ningguang.
“My Lady,” the god greets with a polite nod, and Ningguang realizes her throat is dry, very much so. The god glances past Ningguang’s shoulder. “Paprika must’ve brought you here, I assume?”
There must’ve been something weighing her eyes down, or else why does her gaze keep falling—Ningguang forces herself to stare at the god’s eyes and nowhere else .
The Dragon King lifts an eyebrow. “... My Lady?”
“Y-yes?” Ningguang croaks. May Guhua pour down acid rain , she can’t for the love of Archons keep her gaze above face level. So she resorts to another tactic: looking at everything but the very naked god just two steps away from her.
“Are you alright?” the god asks, her tail swishing behind her.
“Yes?” The word turns into a question for how unsure Ningguang is of herself.
“There’s no need to lie just to appease me. I did turn the temperature higher than usual for today.”
“No, no—it’s not that.”
“Then tell me.” Fuck sake, can this god take a hint?
“My Lord, you … you’re uncovered.”
“Yes?” Beidou says, as if wondering why this human states the obvious. Ningguang hears a slap soon after though, followed by, “Ah! How could I forget! My Lady, I apologize—I …”
Forget? Ningguang wants to sneer, but truth to be told, she has bigger priorities right now. Another second with this obnoxious god can probably make her say things that she will regret. No, definitely not because of how said god is without any clothing covering her very well-defined body and large bosso—
Ningguang excuses herself and scampers out of that room as fast as she can. The stone door slams shut behind her and Ningguang’s back rests against it, her legs suddenly feel like they lose all of their ability to hold her ground. She realizes just now how fast and loud her heartbeat is—she buries her flaming face into the palm of her hands, a scream threatening to rip out of her throat.
Ningguang decides, then, that the God of Death is out to make her life miserable.
There is no other reason as to why one would walk around naked , even in the sanctity of their home! Well, at least not with a guest !
Though, technically, she is no guest, is she? The red string around her ring finger grows uncomfortably tight. Ningguang lets her mind wander a bit to the thought of pulling the end of it gently, feeling the string slip off against her skin.
What would happen?
This is absurd. She should be getting out of here. She should be thinking about how she could return home.
That must be it, right? The Dragon King is trying to distract her from her mission. She must’ve sent her spy, Paprika the Seelie, to lead Ningguang to her. She can’t believe she let a harmless looking creature disarm her like that.
Or maybe she’s just slowly losing her mind, that everything was an accident, and she desperately points her finger at the easiest target to re-establish her agency that slowly slips through her fingers.
That, despite everything, her brain has the audacity to replay the image of the naked Dragon King again, and again, and again …
If Keqing was here, she would’ve never stopped teasing her about it.
Somehow, the thought brings a little clarity to her mind. Right. Keqing. Liyue Harbor.
Ningguang keeps running. In the midst of her racing thoughts and loud heartbeat, she registers that the Dragon King has made no attempt to catch up to her,she hasn’t even heard any footsteps following her. Yet still Ningguang runs, runs until her chest hurts. She stops then; though she struggles to catch her breath, her lungs don’t burn.
Then she registers her surroundings, still in the corridor and unfortunately, lost. There are no familiar ornaments that could indicate that she’s close to her room, or at least the dining room. Instead there is an archway, its frame carved with a lion on top and a sphere under its palm. She can see from where she stands a couple rows of bookshelves. The scent of paper invites her in. A library?
The room is bigger than she imagined her to be. Pillars of bookshelves stretch to the ceiling up above her, from one end of the room to the other, probably around three times the size of the Qixing’s office. Ningguang looks around in awe at the sheer volume of books and scrolls.
This is it; she might be able to find something here.
She walks to the shelf most adjacent to her. The books are beautifully bound, the edges showing weariness and some semblance of being eaten by time, but they are perfectly kept, with no dust on them. Ningguang pulls some of them: Ballads Across Guili Assembly, Pledge of the Nine Pillars, Blueprints of Perfectly Planned Machinations Part IV … none of these Ningguang had seen during her time alive, but all of them ring a bell. As if these books have been forgotten by time, until they got picked up by the Dragon King.
Then she got to the other part of the shelf, where the books seem to be newer, a lot newer. Ningguang spots some familiar titles, most of them are children’s books, some of them are … strangely, light novels Ningguang knows are from Yae Publishing House. Legend of Shattered Halberd, Flowers for Princess Fischl, Princess Mina and the Fallen Nation, Pale Princess and the Six Pygmies.
Huh . Does the god frequent the mortal realm to purchase them? Ningguang doesn’t peg her as the type, but appearance can be deceiving.
She spends the next hour scouring most of the books on that shelf. That alone takes her a considerable amount of time, not to mention how long it would be to check all of them … whatever . Her paperwork as Tianquan was ten times more boring than this.
The majority of the books in the library seem to come from the Mortal Realm, and newer ones at that. She catches some interesting titles, but nothing that has any connection with the Dark Sea yet … most likely. Probably . Here’s the thing: during her life she found out that the simplest fairy tale may hold some truth in it. Most of these tomes, pieces of prose, and epics are recounting something Ningguang has never read in tombs and history books. She has a strong feeling that these books are hiding something, but there is no way for her to know that they are actually talking about the Dark Sea.
She eventually moves a number of books to the desk at the end of the room with growing aches on her lower back and bottom, from having spent hours on the floor, and putting the books in a neat stack. She reckons she would have to spend days in this room. Despite all of these tales of Liyue that date back to the time where Adepti roam free among humans, Ningguang feels so far away from home.
Huixing has been recounting her report for almost eight minutes now, and it’s becoming perfectly clear to her that the Captain is not listening at all. She should’ve known from the start, when Beidou arrives with an unfocused stare and a deep frown.
Unpromptly, Huixing slaps both sides of Beidou’s cheeks and forces her to look directly into Huixing’s eyes. “Dajietou!”
That absolutely gains the Captain’s attention. “Yes!”
“Did you meet General Xinyuan?!”
Beidou’s brain stutters. “W-what?! Xin—Minu?! No, I—” then the gear starts to move again, and she’s reminded of the ‘request’. She stands abruptly, breaking away from Huixing’s hold, and clenches a fistful of hair as she cranes forward in agony. “I still have to give it to her!”
The crew around her witnesses her descent into madness. Huixing scratches her head and turns to look at the others, who are equally as puzzled as she is.
“Did someone poison her?”
Sea Drake shrugs. “Dajietou has been holed up in this place for far too long that a beauty from the surface is all it takes for her to lose her mind.”
“Sea Drake, shut up!” Beidou barks. If Huixing is allowed to be honest, it sounds more like a pathetic whine.
“See, I’m not wrong.”
Beidou shoots to her feet and grabs her nearest victim by the shoulder, who unfortunately happens to be Juza. “Why don’t you remind me!”
“R-remind you of what, Dajietou?” Juza stutters. Sweat rolls from his forehead as Beidou releases him and flops down to sit on the ground.
The Captain hides her face in her palms. “I fucked up … I fucked up so bad …”
Huixing approaches the Captain again, kneeling in front of her. “Dajietou, can you tell us what happened? What made you … like this ?”
“I forgot,” the Captain peeks from behind her fingers. The sight is so comical that it takes everything in Huixing not to laugh right in front of her face. “Humans have a decorum of modesty. Oh … she must’ve thought I’m a creep!”
Huixing raises her brows. Just what happened … ?