The sun had fully risen into the sky.
And Liyue Harbor, too, awoke from its slumber.
The sailors, who hadn't been able to sleep a wink all night after reading The Forest of Fireflies' Light, set about their work one after another, beginning the preparations to salvage the treasures.
Kaedehara Kazuha's eyes were a little red—clearly he hadn't slept well either.
After greeting the Traveler—who was standing at the bow, discussing with Paimon just what Jack and Rose's movements in The Eternal had been like—he pushed off lightly with his foot and stepped onto a small boat, landing nimbly; the hull only swayed ever so slightly.
Though he had no intention of showing off, it still drew applause and gasps of admiration from the gathered sailors.
"That's Kazuha for you."
Paimon exclaimed, hovering beside Lumine.
Lumine nodded as well.
Just then, Beidou and Xinyan also emerged from the cabin.
"Hey, you two had better not be discussing the... positions from The Eternal on my ship... I'd rather this boat of mine didn't sink quite so soon."
Beidou said, stretching out her body.
"Speaking of which, the day we read The Eternal, the fleet very nearly rammed head-on into an iceberg."
said Xinyan, following behind Beidou, her eyes red.
"There was really something like that?"
Paimon asked in surprise, "So how was it resolved in the end?"
"Sister Beidou split the iceberg open with a single slash."
said Xinyan.
"That's Beidou for you."
Paimon was silent for a long while before exclaiming.
After all, this was the woman known as the Uncrowned Lord of the Ocean.
After the sailors had eaten breakfast, they all began the salvage work.
Beidou and the others boarded the Traveler's ship as well and started the salvaging.
"Come to think of it, that Fang Qiu has gone and written another tragedy. Once we're done with all this, I'm going to give those cheeks of hers a good pinch."
"I cried for ages last night after finishing The Forest of Fireflies' Light—didn't sleep well all night."
"Us too. The Forest of Fireflies' Light was just too moving."
Chatting about Fang Qiu, they rowed off toward the nearby waters.
Meanwhile, Fang Qiu was slowly stirring awake from her dreams.
By the time she woke, Yun Jin had already finished making breakfast.
Two bowls of plain noodles.
Both of them wanted to eat chili, but neither of them could.
For Fang Qiu it was a physical matter; for Yun Jin it was to protect her voice.
They finished breakfast.
"Well then, I'll take the manuscript back to the Yun-Han Opera Troupe first. Miss Fang Qiu, your foot injury hasn't fully healed yet, so you'd best rest at home for a day."
said Yun Jin.
Though Fang Qiu was curious about what Yun Jin had written, she didn't ask her to let her have a look.
It would reveal itself in due time.
After Yun Jin left, Fang Qiu tried gently moving her ankle. Though it had mostly healed, moving it still brought a faint, dull ache.
In this state, resting was no problem... but if she walked around on it, there was no telling whether she'd be able to get out of bed the next day.
Fang Qiu felt rather dejected.
She had promised Ningguang she'd go supervise the production of the Your Name animation....
Having finished her cat food, Tingyu gave a little hop and returned to her cat bed.
"If only Tingyu could turn into a catgirl right now and help me walk."
Fang Qiu sighed.
Just as she was fretting, a knock came at the door.
It was Hu Tao, who happened to have come by to hang out.
So Fang Qiu asked her to help her over to the studio.
Although Hu Tao was a little worried seeing that Fang Qiu had sprained her ankle, Fang Qiu insisted again and again, so she didn't refuse.
She hadn't expected Hu Tao to arrive so opportunely—it was something of a lifesaver in her moment of need.
There was just one problem, though...
And that was that she was wearing panda pajamas. With her sprained ankle, she'd have to sit down to change, otherwise that injured foot simply couldn't bear her weight standing.
Changing clothes with Hu Tao present was somewhat awkward.
And so, with Hu Tao's help, Fang Qiu managed to strip herself bare and then, with some difficulty, change into her usual going-out clothes.
Then, supported by Hu Tao, she made her way toward the studio.
The place where the animation was made and the place where the films were made were one and the same. As soon as they arrived, a secretary led her all the way up to the topmost floor.
After they knocked, it was a youth who opened the door.
From his attire to his features, this youth was clearly not a Liyue native.
"This is Miss Fang Qiu, the original author. Teacher Chalk, please keep her identity confidential. And this is Miss Fang Qiu's friend, Hu Tao, the current director of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor."
the secretary introduced. "And this is Teacher Chalk, the lead artist Miss Ningguang invited from Mondstadt."
"Hello, Teacher Chalk."
Fang Qiu greeted him.
Anyone personally chosen by Ningguang as lead artist had to be extraordinary.
Hu Tao greeted him as well.
"Miss Fang Qiu, Director Hu, hello."
Looking at Fang Qiu, the greater part of her body all but leaning against Hu Tao, Albedo fell silent for a moment before greeting them.
Their affectionate posture reminded him of two people.
After exchanging a few simple pleasantries, they walked into the office together.
The office was piled high with an enormous quantity of artwork so exquisite it was beyond compare. Fang Qiu was utterly stunned.
Could this really be achieved by hand-drawing?
It was practically monster-tier....
Many of the pieces had even reached the level of the Your Name film from her past life.
Hu Tao's eyes, too, were full of shock.
"Did you draw all of these yourself, Teacher Chalk? This is just too amazing, isn't it?"
Fang Qiu asked, swallowing.
"This is nothing."
Albedo shook his head and marveled, "I'd thought that Yae Publishing House's manga, pairing pictures with text, was already a wildly imaginative idea. I never expected you'd come up with a way to make the pictures move. It was precisely because of this that I agreed to come to Liyue to produce the animation."
After a round of mutual professional flattery, the formal work began, and the only one liaising directly with Fang Qiu was Teacher Chalk.
It had to be said, the animation team led by Teacher Chalk was extremely professional.
Not only had they perfectly reproduced the images of Miyamizu Mitsuha and Tachibana Taki from the cover—which she'd had the original artist revise many times over—but, without altering those designs, they had refined the character art to be even more exquisite.
Her memory of Your Name was deeply vivid.
She remembered that in her past life, when she'd gone to the cinema alone to watch it, she'd discovered that the seat beside her had been taken early on—by a yuri couple.
As for how she knew they were a yuri couple—
it was because the two of them were locked in an embrace, French-kissing, kissing with such passion.
It wasn't until she sat down that the two of them stopped.
After the two faces parted, she realized that these two people kissing in each other's arms were both her... teachers...
Those two teachers were very young; rumor had it they lived together to save on rent.
And so, the situation grew quite awkward for a moment.
In order to force herself to forget everything, she watched that screening of Your Name with extraordinary concentration, not daring to glance to the side even once....
Fang Qiu shook her head, shaking those messy memories of her past life out of her mind.
Drawing on her past-life memories of Your Name, she began offering revision suggestions to Teacher Chalk.
Albedo listened while taking notes, and the more of Fang Qiu's suggestions he heard, the brighter his blue-green eyes grew, and the more astonished he became inside.
Every insight Fang Qiu offered was genuinely useful, each one truly able to improve the viewing experience; quite a few of them even opened the doors to a new world for him.
Once she had finished going over the parts of the artwork that needed revising, Albedo had the secretary Ningguang had assigned to her gather the artists to prepare for the changes.
"Miss Fang Qiu, it was a pleasure to meet you. I hope we'll have the chance to work together again in the future."
said Albedo.
"Teacher Chalk, I too am very glad to be able to work with you, Teacher Chalk."
Fang Qiu nodded.
Films were different from animation. With films, one only needed to capture people's movements, and most of the special effects could be handled by Visions, saving the bulk of the cost of producing effects.
Animation, on the other hand, required drawing a colossal number of original frames—a truly massive undertaking—and with no convenient production tools, it could only be done by hand.
So before she'd come, she'd anticipated that reaching even one-third of the original work would already be the limit.
But she'd never expected that Teacher Chalk could lead his team of artists to achieve this level in such a short time.
It was, one might say, terrifyingly impressive.
Speaking of which...
To this day she still had no idea just how many artists Ningguang had recruited to produce Your Name....
She didn't dare imagine.
After bidding Albedo farewell, Hu Tao supported Fang Qiu all the way toward the music-scoring department.
After Hu Tao helped Fang Qiu away, Albedo, for his part, headed off toward the art studio.
"I should go buy some of Miss Fang Qiu's other works to read later as well."
Albedo murmured to himself.
To date he had only read Your Name.
"I wonder how Miss Fang Qiu's books are selling in Mondstadt."
And at this moment.
Mondstadt, the Cathedral of Favonius.
Having seen off the devotees who came to pray to Lord Barbatos and the West Wind, the nuns were able to take a break.
They gathered together, chatting idly about amusing tidbits.
For instance, this morning a thoroughly drunk bard had falsely claimed to be Lord Barbatos and had been hauled off to the Knights of Favonius.
Not because he'd impersonated Lord Barbatos, mind you, but because he'd eaten breakfast with no money to pay and had tried to bluff his way out of it under Lord Barbatos's name.
Or, for another, some of them had seen this morning a great convoy of carriages loaded with large Jumpy Dumpties setting off.
They'd even been guessing whether it was to go blow Starsnatch Cliff flat.
Only later did they learn that the caravan's destination was Liyue, which had set her trembling all over at the time, thinking the Knights of Favonius were about to go to war with Liyue.
As if they were going to go bombard Liyue Harbor.
In the end they learned it was actually dolls the Liyue folk had ordered.
Or, for yet another, while passing by the alchemy laboratory.
It was said that because the chief alchemist Albedo was away, Miss Sucrose had accidentally triggered an explosion while conducting an experiment.
Apparently a potion vial containing something called a Type-6308 Anemo Unit had fallen to the floor, and amid the rampaging Anemo power it had detonated the Pyro elements in the lab, causing them to spread.
Although the Knights of Favonius eventually put out the flames.
the experimental results Sucrose had been researching in seclusion for so long had also come to nothing at the very final step.
Still, thankfully no one was hurt.
Though no one was hurt, Sucrose was also barred from entering the laboratory until Albedo returned to Mondstadt.
Chatting about these amusing matters.
As they talked on and on, the conversation turned to Fang Qiu's books.
Once someone brought it up, the topic became unstoppable.
Deaconess Barbara had wanted to join the nuns' conversation, but she hadn't yet finished even the first of Fang Qiu's books, so it wasn't really her place to join in.
She planned to finish reading first and, once she understood Fang Qiu's books a bit better, to then discuss them with the nuns.
And after that, to go find her sister and the others to talk about books.
So, holding her book, she found a bench to sit on, then took out Your Lie in April from her bag.
The reason she was reading this book first, rather than The Eternal, which was set in Mondstadt, was that this book had music as its theme.
When she'd been buying books, she'd overheard someone recommending this one to a friend.
Saying it was deeply healing to the heart—a story about redemption through music.
As an idol who hoped to soothe people's weariness with lighthearted songs and dance steps, she naturally wanted to see what the book was about.
She had already read up to the part where Arima Kousei, under Miyazono Kaori's guidance, decides to perform together with Miyazono Kaori.
Just as she was about to read on, she noticed that Rosaria was at that moment slumped over in the very back row of the cathedral.
So she put away Your Lie in April and walked all the way over to stand before Rosaria.
She saw Rosaria slumped over the table, looking thoroughly drunk.
"Sister Rosaria, please wake up. Please don't sleep in the cathedral."
Hearing Barbara's voice, Rosaria raised her head somewhat irritably, took out a cigarette, and made to light it.
"Smoking isn't allowed inside the cathedral either."
said Barbara.
"Fine then, I'll go smoke outside."
Rosaria waved her hand, stood up, stretched lazily, and said with a thoroughly indolent expression, "Do me a favor and ask Victoria for leave on my behalf, would you? Just say I've gone out to convey to the people... mm... the Anemo Archon's guidance... uh... what was it again? Ah, right... 'Let the Wind Guide You.'"
"Sister Rosaria, you didn't just forget the Anemo Archon's divine name, did you?"
Barbara asked, looking exasperated.
"As if... Isn't it something like Barbatas? Anyway, I'm counting on you for the leave. I've got things to do."
Rosaria yawned and made as if to leave, only to be called back by Barbara.
"Sister Rosaria, it's not 'Barbatas'—it's the Anemo Archon, Lord Barbatos."
Barbara said with a sigh.
"What he's called doesn't matter. So long as one's faith is devout enough, that's all that counts, isn't it?"
said Rosaria.
"What kind of devotion is it when you can't even remember the god's name?"
Barbara pressed a hand to her forehead.
"All right, all right, I'll be more careful next time."
said Rosaria, waving her hand.
"By the way, I've got a really interesting book here. Want to read it together?"
said Barbara after a moment's thought.
She thought it over.
Since Fang Qiu's books were so popular, perhaps Rosaria would come to like them too.
And once she took a liking to Fang Qiu's books, she'd surely settle down and read properly.
By then, perhaps she wouldn't be so restless and flighty as she was now.
Perhaps it might even strike a chord with Rosaria.
Most importantly, reading together would bring them closer, and perhaps she could come to understand Rosaria better and thereby change her.
Even if nothing changed at all, at least it would keep Rosaria in the cathedral.
"I refuse."
Rosaria waved her hand and said, "I haven't got that kind of free time. I'd rather sleep than read."
"How about this: if you can finish reading this book with me, I'll get you three days' leave from Sister Victoria."
After being refused by Rosaria, Barbara was taken aback for a moment, then threw out a new condition.
"Bring the book over, then."
said Rosaria, weighing the pros and cons and sitting back down in her chair.
Sure, she could skip out on her duties herself, but every time she did, the nuns would nag endlessly, which was unbearably bothersome.
Being able to take proper leave was, naturally, much better.
As for the reading part....
She'd just go through the motions.
"Mm."
Barbara nodded, jogged off to the back of the cathedral, and jogged back with a book in hand.
It was another copy of Your Lie in April.
Rosaria took the book absentmindedly, turned to a page, and began to read.
Barbara, meanwhile, smiled, sat down beside her, and began reading along as well.
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