Suspended above the sea between Inazuma and Liyue, shining like a small sun, was the Jade Chamber.
As the spatial barrier rippled, a few figures stepped out from within.
It had already been half a month since Lumine went to the Abyss Order.
In those two weeks, she hadn't received a single diary notification from Su Xuan. In fact, it seemed Su Xuan hadn't written down anything "important" at all during that time.
"I didn't expect that in just half a month, Teyvat would change this much," Paimon muttered, thinking back to everything they'd just experienced in Sumeru. She glanced sideways at Lumine, then snickered. "You're doomed. There's no place left for you in this house."
Lumine curled her lips and didn't bother answering the little white floating chatterbox.
On this Abyss Order trip to find Aether, the siblings had spoken at length about the Order's movements.
Because of the diary's restrictions still in effect, Lumine hadn't been able to tell Aether outright that Celestia had orchestrated everything… but that didn't stop her from telling him one thing very clearly:
How important Su Xuan was to this world.
Aether was no fool.
The Abyss Order's intelligence network had already picked up on Liyue openly using Khaenri'ahn constructs as labor. He knew perfectly well that had everything to do with the "boss" his sister followed.
On their view of Su Xuan, the siblings were in complete agreement:
No matter how the Abyss Order developed in the future,
first, they must absolutely never infringe on Su Xuan's interests.
Secondly, Lumine would help Aether as much as she could—by asking Su Xuan's opinion on key matters and passing the answers back.
The rest of the time, Aether helped Lumine gather some of "her mother's family's" research, so she could bring it back and hand it to the research girls in the Jade Chamber.
That took a while.
So when she finally got back to the main nations of Teyvat and looked around… the world had changed.
The Starskiff that had always stayed in Ningguang's hands was now in active use.
A towering signal spire had suddenly risen in Sumeru, piercing the heavens. That alone left Lumine and Paimon thoroughly confused.
Then they saw Khaenri'ahn constructs hauling heavy cargo through the streets of Sumeru City.
Just as they were about to head to the Sanctuary of Surasthana to ask Nahida what was going on, a small, pink-haired lolita calling herself "Su Xuan's daughter," and going by the name Dori, stopped them.
After Dori's explanations, Lumine finally understood:
Ever since Rukkhadevata returned, she had introduced a technological device called a "mobile phone" to Sumeru.
No need to guess whose handiwork that was.
Phones were produced by a special artifact—one hundred units a day.
The Ministry of Works in Liyue could also manufacture another hundred a day.
Ningguang had set up sales branches in all seven nations.
Unfortunately, each nation got under thirty phones per day to sell.
The price wasn't even that high: three hundred thousand Mora per unit.
Teyvat's population was sparse, sure.
But with production limited and the functions so novel, the moment this thing hit the market, people everywhere rushed to pre-register. There was no such thing as "leftover stock."
Of course, as diary holders, they didn't have to join the buying war.
Everyone already living with Su Xuan got their phones custom-made by the man himself.
As for why Dori dared call herself his daughter…
She also told Lumine about what had happened recently.
After returning, Rukkhadevata hadn't just set up a world-covering signal tower and reshuffled the Akademiya.
The Sages who supported Azar's God Creation Plan were all punished accordingly.
Then, Rukkhadevata tracked down every diary holder in Sumeru and used the "energy batteries" Su Xuan gave her (the pseudo–Gnosis) to grant each of them a teleportation imprint.
With those marks, they could use the Jade Chamber's spatial gates.
In other words, Rukkhadevata had scooped up all of Sumeru's diary holders and "bundled-delivered" them to Boss Su.
While Lumine was chatting with Dori, she ran into a silver-haired, red-eyed girl who'd come to "fence goods" through Dori.
According to Dori's introduction, this girl had been introduced as a client by Alice.
She'd been selling ownerless treasures from the underground and materials from slain Abyss creatures to Dori in exchange for Mora, so she could afford to live in Teyvat.
So Lumine simply grabbed her on the spot.
After that, she went to find Rukkhadevata, who was busy forming a new research team with Cloud Retainer, Guizhong, Raiden Ei, and Lisa.
They gave the silver-haired girl a teleportation imprint,
and brought her straight to the Jade Chamber.
"This house will never not have a place for me," Lumine said, proudly puffing out her chest. "I'm the main wife here."
"Celestia went as far as causing a world-level disaster just to set me up. That proves Su Xuan was right from the very beginning."
"Celestia needs a Descender to take the final Divine Seat, and that Descender is me—the next Lord of a World."
The silver-haired girl beside her thought for a moment.
"Shouldn't this world belong to him…?" she asked.
"That doesn't conflict." Lumine smiled and looked at the girl. "I said I'm the master of this world. That doesn't stop Su Xuan from being my master."
"Skirk, you'll understand in time."
Skirk: "..."
Originally, Skirk had come up because of Su Xuan's hint in the diary about teaching her a sword art.
She'd been wondering how and when they'd meet in Fontaine.
She'd spent all this time thinking about what he meant by "behave and be good".
She hadn't expected that on a trip to dump goods with Dori, she'd run into Lumine—
and then just get carried along to meet Su Xuan early.
Skirk had hoped to learn from Lumine the secret to getting along with Su Xuan.
She wanted to ask.
But didn't know how.
After all, everyone's temperament and history were different. How you got along with him would naturally differ from person to person.
"Come on, I'll take you to him first," Lumine said, waving her over.
She took Skirk and Paimon through several pocket realms, but couldn't find Su Xuan.
Finally, in a sea-view domain, they found a group of people.
Su Xuan was lying under a beach umbrella on the sand, lazily watching a group of swimsuit-clad girls playing beach volleyball.
"There sure are a lot of unfamiliar faces," Paimon said as they walked closer toward him.
Among the girls spiking and diving in the sand, she could see two whose skin tones clearly resembled the desert dwellers of Sumeru.
And at Su Xuan's side—
the two girls massaging him were strangers as well.
One had long red twin tails; the other had short, pale-blond twin tails.
Meanwhile, a white-silver–haired girl was feeding Su Xuan grapes.
After scanning the scene once, Paimon waved to Lumine.
"Lumine, I'm going to the kitchen to see if Xiangling left any good food today!"
She left in a flash.
Skirk frowned a little. "Why did Paimon leave?"
"Among all entertainment venues," Lumine said, chuckling, "the kitchen is her favorite."
"Anyway, we should stop standing around and go change into swimsuits before we say hi to Su Xuan."
"Is that… necessary?" Skirk asked, puzzled.
Her limbs weren't exactly normal "clothes accessories". If she put on a swimsuit, her whole outfit would look even stranger.
"Of course it's necessary. It's easier to move," Lumine answered seriously.
"What I mean is—who comes to the beach without a swimsuit?"
A gleam of mischief flashed in her eyes.
Skirk didn't overthink it. Since she was here, it made sense to follow local "rules".
Besides, the man under the parasol wasn't any weaker than her master, Skirk was sure of it.
In fact, some of the strange artifacts he wielded were things not even her master had seen before.
She'd certainly never heard of anything as outrageous as the Heaven-Earth Mirror.
Once the two girls changed, they walked over to Su Xuan.
Su Xuan felt a little surprised to see Skirk, but watching how stiff and out-of-place she looked, he didn't greet her first.
Instead, he roughly asked Lumine about her trip to the Abyss Order, then introduced the newcomers.
"The two playing volleyball with Shenhe and Eula are Candace and Dehya from Sumeru."
"The girl on my right is the brightest star of the Zubair Theater—Nilou."
"And this one here is Acting Grand Master Jean's little sister—Barbara, a trainee deaconess at the Church of Favonius, and currently Mondstadt's most popular idol."
He spread his arms and pulled Nilou and Barbara into his embrace, planting a kiss on each of their cheeks.
Both girls' faces flushed scarlet in an instant.
Skirk stared, utterly lost.
To her, Su Xuan looked like some decadent noble, basking in a life of wine, roses, and soft pillows.
"This is the Knights of Favonius' maid knight, Noelle," Su Xuan added, glancing at the girl who'd just fed him a grape.
"As for the others…"
He looked toward the nearby reef and laughed.
"Mondstadt's genius astrologist Mona and our adventurer princess Fischl are 'playing' behind that rock."
Lumine: "Hm?"
A sweep of telekinesis told her everything.
She nearly laughed out loud.
No matter how close your relationship was, there was a limit to how "stacked on top of each other" playing should be.
Rather than say they were playing, it'd be more accurate to say they were resting after "playing" with Su Xuan.
"I also saw a few new faces in the Akademiya's hidden labs," Lumine said smoothly, choosing not to bring up Mona and Fischl. "I think their names were Layla, Faruzan, and Sucrose..."
"Mm." Su Xuan nodded lightly. "Layla and Faruzan are both Akademiya scholars. Sucrose is dedicated to alchemy research too."
"So they'll mainly be working with the research team."
"But you—what made you go 'back to your maiden family' this time?" Su Xuan asked with a grin.
"'Maiden family'?" Lumine couldn't help laughing. "Oh, right, I think Liyue has that saying."
"Aether's side really does count as my 'maiden family' then."
Joking as she spoke, she produced the research materials she'd brought from the Abyss Order.
"I snagged some of the Abyss Order's research while I was there. At first I was going to give it straight to Rukkhadevata."
"But after thinking about it, I decided I should let you look it over first and decide whether it's something you want them to experiment on."
"And this is the Loom of Fate's conceptual schematic. Aether said it's something Chlothar left behind, but he's not sure if it's complete."
Skirk's eyes went wide.
So Lumine had gone to the Abyss Order and basically raided the whole place just to bring the loot to Su Xuan.
Truly Aether's biological little sister.
Lumine blinked her bright eyes at him and asked softly:
"Aether wanted me to ask how you feel about Khaenri'ah."
Su Xuan immediately understood what she was really asking.
From his point of view, the people of Teyvat's seven nations had nothing to do with him.
He was not about to start waving a banner of justice for any kingdom.
Everything involving the seven nations' people would always be handled by their leaders—
the women standing all around him.
He'd never actively interfered. Everything he did was centered solely around his relationships with his diary holders.
"In the future without me," he said, "Aether completed the Loom of Fate."
"But thanks to Heavenly Principles' tampering, the ley lines were bound with restrictions. Things weren't nearly as simple as he'd imagined."
"Aether had to rely on the newly formed ley network in Natlan to finish the Loom, and could only use what memories the Abyss Order had left to reconstruct Khaenri'ah's information."
"But with the curse constantly eroding them, most of the Abyss believers' memories of Khaenri'ah are already blurred."
"Even if he gathered them all, the result would never reach the ideal."
"As for my stance on Khaenri'ah…"
"Celestia wants the Loom completed, and a Descender who simultaneously controls both the Loom and Irminsul."
"All of this is a script written by the world's shareholders. It's Teyvat's family business. I'm not taking sides."
Seeing Lumine's expression say, I get it, Su Xuan smirked and conjured three phones out of thin air.
"These are for you."
"You and Paimon."
"The Loom of Fate's blueprint doesn't mean much to us now."
"But since my dear brother-in-law is so cooperative, I'm not going to give him the cold shoulder."
"Give the third phone to Aether. It'll make it easier for you two to stay in touch."
"And tell him this: if he has time, he should gather all the Khaenri'ahns who've turned into monsters in one place."
"I can use the Heaven-Earth Mirror to give them a 'scan'."
Lumine's heart skipped several beats.
The surrounding girls had heard as well.
Smiles tugged at the corners of their lips.
Everyone knew Su Xuan was only helping Aether because of Lumine.
If that didn't prove that following Su Xuan was the best decision of their lives, nothing would.
"I knew you were the best," Lumine cried, flinging herself onto him and covering his face in kisses.
"Alright, alright!" Su Xuan hurriedly stopped her. "Why are you like a little puppy? Look at all this drool."
Lumine's eyes sparkled as she looked up at him.
"Aren't I supposed to be my master's most loyal little thing?"
"Or has master already forgotten the time he made me bark for him?"
Su Xuan: "!?"
Skirk's pupils shook violently at the sight before her.
Her brain crashed. Before she could reboot, Shenhe's voice floated over.
"You're wrong. I don't think I'm any worse than you in that regard," Shenhe said calmly.
"Shenhe is right. You shouldn't use the word 'most'. That makes it sound like you're the only one," Eula added, crossing her arms. "I object."
"Who are these people…" Dehya and Candace exchanged a long, bewildered look.
Barbara, Nilou, and Noelle—who hadn't been here long and were the more timid among them—could only stare anxiously at Shenhe and Eula, whose expressions had turned decidedly dangerous.
"I think we should have a contest," Shenhe said, directly challenging Lumine.
"And me—no, not just me," Eula said immediately, not missing a beat.
Seeing that the situation was about to spiral out of control, Su Xuan quickly got to his feet and set Lumine aside.
He cleared his throat.
"Lumine, you head out first. Make another trip to the Abyss Order."
"There's also someone new here. While you're delivering the phone to my dear brother-in-law, I'll settle things with her."
"When you get back, it'll be just in time—I'll be taking all of you to Fontaine."
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