Mm.
Mm?
Who?
Tian... Tianquan?
Staring at the young girl standing before her in a Yuehai Pavilion secretary's uniform, Fang Qiu's mind went momentarily blank.
Tianquan... was this that Tianquan? The Tianquan Star the storytellers always spoke of — the one who, in the Jade Chamber, had torn up her commercial intelligence reports and scattered the shreds out the window, sending them drifting and swirling through the air like a flurry of crushed snow?
She had already met one of the Liyue Qixing, Yuheng — that is, Keqing — and had even helped her with a tunnel excavation project. But Keqing had never given her the sense of someone lofty and untouchable. If anything, after spending some time together, she had come across as quite approachable.
Aside from when she was working, that is — when Keqing was on the job, she was every inch the Yuheng Star. But in casual conversation, she was just like any ordinary girl.
Well... to be fair, Keqing seemed to be working most of the time.
But Tianquan Ningguang was different.
Back when she used to go listen to the storytellers with Hu Tao, the tales she heard most often were about the now-departed Rex Lapis — and after him, Tianquan Ningguang. Having heard so many legends about Ningguang, Fang Qiu had come away with a deep impression of her power... and at the same time, a sense of awe. The feeling of someone utterly beyond reach.
After all, the ballads said it plainly: Drifting and falling like snow descending from the clouds above. Word by word, each one precious as a rare gem. With a single thought, she could swallow rivers and mountains whole. All the world knows — Tianquan reigns supreme.
Of course, none of that was actually the point right now.
The point was... she had just overheard that conversation between Sister Beidou and Xinyan. Something about developing her...
Surely this Lady Ningguang wasn't planning to do something strange to her.
Scared.
"R-Right now?" Fang Qiu swallowed reflexively, her fist tightening with a trace of nerves as she asked.
"If there's anything inconvenient for you, Miss Fang Qiu, I can wait," the Yuehai Pavilion secretary said with a gentle smile.
"No, no, it's fine — let's go." Fang Qiu shook her head quickly.
"Miss Fang Qiu, please follow me," the secretary said.
After locking her door, Fang Qiu followed behind the secretary and made her way toward Yujing Terrace.
Along the way, she learned the secretary's name.
Baixiao.
One of Tianquan Ningguang's trusted aides.
Before long, they arrived at Yujing Terrace. Looking up at the towering building before her, Fang Qiu felt a little overwhelmed.
They stepped inside — and then Fang Qiu saw the elevator.
That's right. An elevator.
She had read in the Teyvat Travel Guide that Alice had written about the Wangshu Inn out in Dihua Marsh — how it had not only a spiraling staircase that wound upward around a massive boulder, but also a lift on the left side of the inn's facade, capable of carrying both people and cargo. Alice hadn't called it an "elevator," exactly.
But it amounted to the same thing, just without electricity.
And here in this building, there was one of those same devices.
Come to think of it, that made perfect sense. A figure like Ningguang would obviously live at the top of the building. The image of her climbing and descending flights of stairs every single day was just... too absurd to picture.
Together with Baixiao, Fang Qiu rode the lift up to the top floor and came to a stop outside Tianquan Ningguang's office.
"Lady Ningguang, Miss Fang Qiu has arrived," Baixiao said softly, rapping on the door.
"Come in."
Moments later, a cool and clear voice answered from within.
Baixiao pushed the door open, and Fang Qiu followed close behind her.
The moment the door swung open, Fang Qiu's field of view seemed to expand all at once.
The room was enormous. "Office" was almost too modest a word for it — it was closer to a small hall. It had the same feel as those offices of domineering CEOs she had seen in romantic dramas in her past life. The décor was nothing short of opulent.
Directly opposite the door was an enormous terrace, open and unobstructed, with an unbroken view stretching as far as the eye could see.
Fang Qiu shifted her gaze to the right.
A woman with exquisitely beautiful features and flawless looks sat languidly behind a desk of evident craftsmanship — one that clearly hadn't come cheap. She was dressed in a cheongsam of black, white, and gold, with silver-white hair falling around her.
What a beautiful woman.
It felt a little self-absorbed to think it, but this woman before her was a match for even herself. There was less of a fragile, beguiling softness about her — and more of the dignified grandeur of someone born to reign above all others.
It was Tianquan Ningguang.
"Miss Fang Qiu. I've been expecting you." Ningguang set down the book she had been holding, closed it, and rose to her feet.
"Lady Ningguang, good afternoon," Fang Qiu said, exhaling a long breath inwardly.
"No need to be tense. Please, sit." Ningguang gestured for Fang Qiu to follow her, leading her to a chair.
"Mm." Fang Qiu nodded and took a seat across from Ningguang. The moment she sat down, Baixiao appeared at her elbow bearing a cup of hot tea.
The fragrance that rose from it was rich and layered.
Just from the smell alone, Fang Qiu could tell this was not the sort of tea she could ever afford.
"You should already have some idea of why I asked you here. Let's get straight to the point." Ningguang lifted her teacup and took a delicate sip.
Fang Qiu blinked.
The word develop — the one Sister Beidou and Xinyan had mentioned — immediately leapt to the front of her mind. But the question was: develop what, exactly?
"Your books," Ningguang continued. "I've made time to read them."
"My books?" Fang Qiu blinked again.
Come to think of it, Ningguang had appeared to be reading something when they arrived. She had only caught a brief glimpse as Ningguang closed the book — but now that she thought about it, the cover had looked like Sword and Fairy.
All at once, a faint flutter of anxiety ran through her chest.
The calm she had only just managed to pull herself together with began to crumble again.
Surely the Tianquan herself wouldn't go to the trouble of summoning her just to give her grief over something like this... right?
"Do you think," Ningguang said, "that your books have any commercial value beyond the sale of the books themselves?"
"Other commercial value?" Fang Qiu paused — and then it clicked.
Oh. So that was what Sister Beidou and Xinyan had meant by 'developing' her. Developing her commercial potential.
She couldn't help but feel equal parts exasperated and amused. If only they'd said the full thing — she wouldn't have let her imagination run wild like that.
But at the same time, a quiet warmth bloomed in her chest.
Without Sister Beidou's introduction, she likely never would have had the chance to sit face-to-face with Tianquan Ningguang. Since Sister Beidou had gone out of her way to do this for her, she couldn't afford to squander that goodwill.
And so, after a brief moment of thought, she shared with Ningguang some of the ideas she carried from her past life — the concept of an integrated entertainment ecosystem.
The basic idea was to use the novel as a starting point and expand outward into other formats. For instance, adapting a novel into a manga — though that was already covered in her contract with Inazuma's channels, where the manga would be produced by an artist on their end. Then there was using a projector device to film adaptations based on the novels as scripts, and screening them in taverns across the region for a fee. And beyond that, producing merchandise based on props and items from within the novels for sale.
"Oh? Interesting." After hearing Fang Qiu out, Ningguang's gaze shifted with a hint of approval. "You could also draw the story frame by frame, record those drawings with a projector device, and assemble them into moving pictures to be screened. I suppose that covers it roughly."
"Yes, more or less," Fang Qiu said.
It wasn't that she was being reckless in laying all of this out so openly.
First: Sister Beidou had made this introduction, and she trusted that Sister Beidou would never lead her into harm's way. Second: Tianquan Ningguang's reputation spoke for itself. The foremost commercial powerhouse in all of Liyue — she was hardly going to stoop to swindling her. If she were that sort of person, she would never have risen to where she was. It was a matter of vision.
And third: Fang Qiu understood her own weight.
Setting aside the idea of producing films — what Fontaine apparently called "yingying" — even producing a single episode of animation would likely drain every last Mora she had saved. And with her connections, a single episode might take one or two years to pull together — to say nothing of the promotion and distribution that would follow.
She might pour several hundred thousand Mora into it and end up with nothing to show for it.
But if she had Tianquan Ningguang behind her, all of that became remarkably simple.
Hu Tao had once said something about Ningguang when describing her: "Tianquan Ningguang — fabulously wealthy, devastatingly beautiful, with eyes and ears that reach everywhere and hands that can move the world."
Wealthy. Beautiful. Connected beyond measure.
If even Hu Tao said so, that was proof enough of what Tianquan was worth.
As for whether Ningguang would profit from this arrangement — Fang Qiu didn't particularly care. A collaboration should be a mutual win. Who won more and who won less didn't matter.
She had overheard a flower shop owner once muttering that watching someone else make money hurt him more than losing his own. That kind of person — one glance was enough to know their vision was small. They would never amount to much.
"You truly are someone Beidou thought worthy of her attention. I hadn't expected you to have such a head for business as well." Ningguang smiled faintly, her eyes narrowing slightly. "More than a few of your ideas align with what I had already been considering — which saves me the trouble of explaining myself at length. Though I don't know how much you may have held back, you've said enough to make your intentions clear. You're open to working together, I take it?"
"Yes," Fang Qiu said, giving a small nod.
"Then — if we were to produce a film, which of your novels should we begin with?"
"Sword and Fairy," Fang Qiu said without hesitation.
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