The night deepened, hour by hour.
Moonlight fell in broken patches. The darkness grew soft and hazy.
In the second-floor room of Wangsheng Funeral Parlor, Zhongli sat at the writing desk, Sword and Fairy 2 spread open before him.
The lamp flame wavered. The pages had taken on a faint, familiar yellow with age.
Words filled the page.
The story had reached its end.
"A human life is nothing but a vast and hollow dream — youth and white hair alike, gone in the blink of an eye. Only the Way of Heaven endures, cycling onward, unchanged forever."
Zhongli murmured the words aloud as he read — the words of Mu Rong Ziying, white-haired, standing at the cliff's edge with his back to Liu Mengli, watching the clouds roll and drift below Qingluan Peak. Something in his expression shifted, ever so slightly.
In his view, the story of Sword and Fairy 2 surpassed even the first by no small measure.
Fang Qiu was writing Yun Tianhe's story, yes — but in truth, she was using Yun Tianhe's eyes to write the lives of every person encountered along the way.
Beneath the Nüluo Rocks: the conflict between humans and demons.
In the ancient tomb: the price of chasing immortality.
In Quanzhou: the heart-wrenching, lamentable love between Jiang Qin Ji and Jiang Shi — a love to be cherished while it lasted.
In Jimo: the scholar and the foolish girl, bound together life after life, faithful unto death.
In the Dragon God's Grotto: the cruelty of ascension.
Mu Rong Ziying's vow: I gave you my word, and I will keep it all my life.
In the Ghost Realm: the bonds of family, and the truth of reincarnation.
Each arc told a different life. Each arc carried a different truth.
Each one struck deep.
These lives and truths were the colors brushed onto Yun Tianhe, who had begun as a blank page. And after living through it all, Yun Tianhe looked back — and the words Zhulong had spoken to him, when he bestowed upon him the curse of immortality through Zhulong's Breath, finally held their full weight.
"After everything you have been through — will you still be as carefree as you are now?"
Zhongli closed the book. He looked out toward the darkness beyond the window and said quietly, "Sometimes, living too long is not such a wonderful thing, I think."
To live long is to endure loss.
The longer one lives, the more is lost.
Outside the window, a gentle breeze moved through the night. The osmanthus tree swayed softly, its branches trailing.
A long silence.
With a quiet sigh, Zhongli set Sword and Fairy 2 on the antique shelf and walked to the window, looking down over the hall below.
The hall was empty.
A fallen leaf spun a slow circle in the air, settled on the stone railing, then was lifted again by the wind and carried into the river, where it turned once in the current and drifted slowly onward.
Hu Tao — who on any other evening would have been perched on that stone railing, reading Fang Qiu's latest book — was nowhere to be seen.
The wind picked up.
The osmanthus tree in the courtyard rustled and shook, leaves raining down like a quiet shower.
"Quite a wind tonight," Zhongli murmured. "I wonder how that drunken poet is faring."
He followed the direction of the wind, letting his gaze travel north.
The breeze swept past the window of the Yuehai Pavilion office, catching Ganyu's soft whispered words — "I gave you my word, and I will keep it all my life" — and carrying them away.
It wound around the rolling hills, brushing lightly over the Violetgrass clinging to the cliffsides, and over Qiqi and Baizhu standing at the foot of the mountain, heads tilted back, gazing up at the rock face above.
Qiqi pressed a hand over the talisman on her hat. When she confirmed the wind hadn't blown it away, she let out a small breath of relief.
"Cool wind. Qiqi likes it."
Then the breeze swept onward into the boundless expanse of Dihua Marsh — reeds bending, reed blossoms drifting and scattering on the air.
Wangshu Inn stood tall above the marsh.
The great tree growing from the stone roared softly as the wind moved through it.
A young man with dark green hair sat on the rooftop, eyes closed. The wind lifted the hem of his clothes and stirred the loose strands of hair at his brow.
He opened his eyes a fraction and raised his head, gazing at the bright moon hanging over the horizon. He stayed like that a moment, then lowered his gaze to the inn below.
"Have you lot read Old Thief Fang Qiu's latest?"
"What new book?"
"Sword and Fairy 2, obviously! I read the opening — it's incredible. That feeling of descending into the mortal world, it's just perfect."
"Hss… I'd completely forgotten about that. I need to go buy a copy — if I miss it, my wife's going to kill me. She's a die-hard fan of Fang Qiu's."
"Your wife likes Old Thief Fang Qiu's books? Doesn't seem like her taste — at that last gathering, didn't she recommend everyone read A Legend of Sword? And that book… well. Words fail."
"Who's Fang Qiu? Are they famous?"
"Wow, brother, which mountain did you just climb down from? You don't know Fang Qiu? That old thief is one of the hottest names in Liyue Harbor right now. Even Yuheng of the Liyue Qixing and the Qixing's head secretary Ganyu are fans. And Tianquan Ningguang had Sword and Fairy adapted into a film — it swept all of Liyue. I couldn't even get a ticket."
"True. That person is almost giving the famous opera star Yun Jin a run for her name recognition. Shame no one knows if they're a man or a woman. If they turned out to be a beauty, they could probably match Yun Jin in fame outright."
"Don't get your hopes up. With how ruthlessly that person writes? Even if they were a woman — I'll eat slop for three days straight if they're any kind of beauty."
"Fair point. Sure, there's been rumors going around that Fang Qiu is some striking white-haired beauty — but think about it for two seconds and you know that's not realistic. What kind of girl writes with that much cruelty? Setting aside Your Name, is there a single happy ending in the whole catalogue? And even that one — the two of them ended up forgetting each other… Every time I finish one of that old thief's books, I need to go be depressed for a good while afterward…"
"Fang Qiu?"
Xiao's brow lifted slightly. From what they were saying, even the Liyue Qixing read that person's books?
He wasn't particularly interested, though.
He let his gaze follow the wind northward.
The wind continued sweeping north.
Out of Liyue, pressing on.
Along the way, dandelion seeds caught the current and lifted into the air, drifting outward toward the horizon.
It swept through Springvale, where the Windwheel Asters swayed gently in its wake.
It skimmed the clear surface of the lake, blew into Mondstadt City — and finally came to rest on a young man who had just been thrown out onto the street by the bartender at the Angel's Share.
The young man was dressed in the green garb of a traveling bard: a green hat pinned with a delicate Mondstadt Cecilia, a green cape flowing behind him, his slender, straight legs clad in fine white stockings.
His features were strikingly pretty — beautiful, almost, like a lovely girl — with two small gradient braids framing either side of his face.
At the moment, he was thoroughly drunk. His fair cheeks flushed a tempting rosy red, and his bright green eyes swam with hazy light.
"Just one more drink — Barbatos will bless you for it."
He had only just been pushed out and was already trying to turn around and go back in, only to be stopped without mercy by the bartender.
"You've already run up a thirty-thousand-Mora tab at this bar. Come back when you've earned enough to cover it."
The bartender said, "Lord Barbatos, the Anemo Archon, is not going to bless me just because I let some idle drunk have one more glass of apple cider."
"Trust me, he really will bless you for this."
The young man looked like he had more to say — but was once again turned away without a shred of mercy.
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