"Zhongli, Venti, you two are bankrupting the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor with your tabs!"
Inside Wangsheng Funeral Parlor, Chief Hu Tao glared with her plum-shaped pupils and roared. Her anger stung.
Zhongli alone was already extravagant. Now Venti tracked expenses too. Zhongli bought antiques. Venti bought fine wine.
What merit has the Funeral Parlor to host these two hidden talents as guest consultants?
Every bill ended up on Wangsheng's ledger. Two lords, indeed.
"You there, drunkard. You're a Mondstadt native freeloading in Liyue. Get back to Mondstadt." Zhongli said lightly.
"Old man, you spend more than I do." Venti shot back.
Compared to Zhongli's antiques, Venti's wines were trivial.
"Out with you. If you're guest consultants, go find business!" Hu Tao pointed to the door and barked.
Zhongli and Venti exchanged looks and left Wangsheng. In the mortal world, only Hu Tao dared scold the Anemo and Geo gods like that.
…
"So that's why you two were pitching funerary services?" Koji looked at the Liyue vagrant and the Mondstadt drunk and twitched at the corner of his eye.
He expected to live a long time. Funerary services were irrelevant to him.
Those two were the sort to flog services on acquaintances.
"Venti, please do something useful." Eula sighed.
Her Anemo god reduced to a salesman. As a Mondstadter she was embarrassed. Outside, Venti preferred being called casually, not "Barbatos-sama" or "Anemo-sama."
"Ehe~" Venti grinned mischeviously.
"Is Mr. Zhongli an adeptus?" Shenhe felt Zhongli's extraordinary aura. Though she had met some adepti, she had no memory of Zhongli.
"Sort of." Zhongli nodded. He was indeed an adeptus—an adeptus of adepti.
That Shenhe had come down from the mountains made sense to him. The guardian red cord had restrained her temper; without it she might have lost control. The cord, however, also dulled her emotions into something more distant than the adepti. Over long solitude in mountains and fields she lacked everyday common sense and people skills.
"Zhongli, I have a question. Ganyu has worked for thousands of years. Aren't you ashamed?" Koji asked suddenly.
Ganyu had labored since Liyue's founding. Thousands of years had passed. Generations of Qixing secretaries had come and gone. The young man now called "Ganyu-neesan" could easily be her grandson by appearance.
Zhongli fell silent, thoughtful. Indeed—thousands of years. Ganyu had served as a Qixing secretary for an age.
"My goodness, old man, is Liyue a rotten state?" Venti wasn't joking now. Working for millennia sounded absurd. Even a year of that would break him.
Such relentless overtime made Venti envious in a way.
"I'll speak with Ganyu." Zhongli said helplessly.
But he knew her. Even if told, she probably would not rest. Three thousand years of habit had become nature. Ganyu's labor stemmed from her contract with the Geo Archon.
"If Ganyu retired, the Qixing would be in trouble." Koji laughed.
The workload was such that even Keqing, a workaholic, would black out. Ganyu's duties could not be filled by just a few mortals.
"That's solvable. Split Ganyu's tasks and recruit replacements," Zhongli suggested.
Replacing Ganyu with a single person was impossible.
…
"I think I understand. You revived me, so I should call you my benefactor?" Himeko looked at Koji. He had explained everything.
"Call me Koji Aotian if you want. Reviving you was partly coincidence—you had residual consciousness in that shard." Koji tapped the Sword of Descension fragment.
Though dim, it still emitted a warm trace.
"The Sword of Descension…" Himeko recognized it. She had wielded that blade in battle against the Herrscher of the Void. In the end she succeeded in injecting the Godslayer Spear into the Herrscher's body. Before losing consciousness she knew it had worked.
"Can I return?" Himeko asked curiously.
She didn't mind staying in Teyvat, but she wanted to see her students like Theresa and say farewells properly.
"We'll go to your world later. For now enjoy retirement life, Murata Himeko." Koji smiled.
"Retirement sounds nice. Thank you, Koji." Himeko smiled faintly.
"Any wine?" she asked.
Himeko felt good in this body—no disease, no pain. Previously she drank to deaden pain; now she wanted only the taste.
"Of course." Koji produced a jar of Dandelion Wine. He served Himeko the finest—Venti's treasured brew ranks among Teyvat's best.
"Excellent wine." Himeko's eyes gleamed. The aroma surpassed any she'd had—like wind and freedom.
"You, Koji—using my wine to treat everyone!"
A gust heralded Venti's arrival. He stared at Koji, displeased.
"Wendy?" Himeko blinked and recalled another girl with a tragic fate.
"Himeko, you're mistaking—this is Venti." Koji laughed.
"Do I resemble someone you know?" Venti asked lightly.
"Sorry. I mistook you. You do resemble her; her name was Wendy—she was a fine girl." Himeko apologized.
Sensing carefully, Himeko confirmed it wasn't the same person, but felt she could befriend Wendy.
"Tell me about that girl someday." he requested.
"Sure. Do you like wine?"
"Do you?" Venti grinned.
"Let's go!"
(End of Chapter)
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