At that moment, the diary before Lin Mo's eyes recorded the very day Alice left.
[November 17th, Sunny]
Grand Master Varka is taking the elite knights of the Knights of Favonius on an expedition!
Oh right!
Sister Jean has been appointed Acting Grand Master of the Knights of Favonius!
From now on, I should call her Grand Master Jean!
And also~
Because Mama is the very, very best witch ever, she's been invited to join the expedition too~
But…
When will Mama come back?
Papa…
He seems to have been gone for a very, very long time too.
No one is willing to tell Klee when Papa will come back…
…
This page bore marks left behind after water had dried.
Lin Mo guessed that Klee must have been writing while tears fell, one drop at a time.
Sure enough, every page after that showed similar stains.
Lin Mo gently brushed his fingers over the watermarks on the yellowed paper.
He could feel Klee's loneliness and helplessness from that time.
Fortunately.
During the days Alice was away, the people of the Knights of Favonius all took it upon themselves to look after her.
[January 3rd, Sunny]
Brother Kaeya saw that Klee was unhappy, so he took Klee to the middle of Cider Lake to go fish blasting~
Wow~ There was such a long, long road made of ice~
Klee blasted sooo many fish today~!
Brother Kaeya is a good person!
[January 4th, Sunny]
So strange—Grand Master Jean actually invited Klee to join a Knights of Favonius subjugation mission.
I think it was… to Windrise, to deal with a group of hilichurls invading Mondstadt.
But Grand Master Jean said
Klee could blast to her heart's content!
Hehe~ I'm really looking forward to it~
But…
Wasn't Windrise blown apart by Mama back then?
Papa told me that place was very dangerous and said I shouldn't go there if I could help it.
Oh well, Grand Master Jean will be there—nothing bad will happen!
[January 5th]
Waaah… Klee caused trouble…
Windrise got blown flat by Klee. From now on it has to be called Windrise Plains, QAQ~
Thankfully no one was hurt, and Grand Master Jean didn't scold Klee~
Papa was right!
Windrise really is dangerous!
But Papa… where are you?
Did you run into some kind of danger too?
…
When he reached this page, a smile unconsciously appeared at the corner of Lin Mo's lips.
From this page onward, the yellowed paper no longer bore Klee's tear stains.
In the diary, Lin Mo saw one new friend after another enter Klee's life over the years.
Albedo, Razor, Diluc, Amber, Bennett…
Everyone cherished Klee dearly.
With their companionship, Klee spent several joyful years.
Soon, the diary reached its final page.
[December 1st, Overcast]
Stormterror is so scary, so scary~!
But… Papa's diary for Klee is going to be completely filled today, QAQ~
It's okay!
Klee can go out and collect materials herself!
Then I'll ask Aunt Lisa to help Klee make a brand-new diary exactly the same!
…
Seeing this, Lin Mo finally understood.
Why, even with Mondstadt suffering from a dragon crisis, Klee would still sneak out of the city.
She had gone beyond the walls to gather materials to make a new Dodoco Diary.
He remembered how he'd once mentioned that, for beauty and durability, all Dodoco-series books used Cuihua Wood for their covers.
Then Sunsettias, carrots, and valberries would be ground into a red dye and brushed onto the cover.
Right now, inside Klee's still-unzipped backpack, were exactly those materials.
"You little dummy…"
Lin Mo let out a bitter smile.
"Just to make a new diary, you snuck out of the city at such a dangerous time?"
As he spoke, he couldn't help flicking Klee lightly on the forehead.
"Klee promised Papa that she'd write in her diary every single day!"
Klee put her hands on her hips, looking perfectly justified, showing no awareness that she'd done anything wrong.
"Ah… what am I going to do with you?"
Lin Mo couldn't bring himself to scold her.
He could only lift her up and let her sit on his arm, smiling as he said,
"Come on. Since you've gathered all the materials, Papa will make you a new diary~"
"Yay! Yay!"
Klee immediately beamed with happiness, sitting on Lin Mo's arm and swinging her little legs.
On the way back to Mondstadt, Klee finally asked the question she'd kept in her heart for so many years.
"Papa~ where did you go all these years?"
"Why didn't you ever come back to see Klee~?"
Her voice carried a faint note of grievance.
Lin Mo didn't even need to look down.
He knew that little girl must be staring up at him with her big, blinking eyes.
Of course, he couldn't reveal that he'd lived through a hundred lifetimes of missions.
"Papa…" he said gently, smiling,
"has traveled all across Teyvat over these years."
In the form of stories, he told Klee about everything he'd seen and experienced along the way.
From Mondstadt to Liyue.
He spoke of the terraced fields of Qingce Village,
of the idle cranes and drifting clouds atop Mt. Aocang,
and the vast sea of clouds he'd seen from Qingyun Peak.
Then from Liyue to Inazuma.
He told her about Mt. Yougou, blanketed in cherry blossoms,
about the beautiful shrine maidens of Narukami Shrine,
about the dreamlike Watatsumi Island,
and the thunder-wreathed Seirai Island.
He painted the scenery of his travels,
introduced all sorts of interesting companions.
He talked until his throat felt dry.
Casually, he picked a Sunsettia by the roadside and walked to a nearby lake to rinse it.
But the moment Lin Mo reached the water's edge and saw the reflection on the lake's surface—
He froze.
The face reflected in the water was not the one he had worn as Klee's father.
Compared to that lifetime, it only resembled him by about half.
"Klee…"
He spoke softly.
"How did you recognize Papa at a single glance?"
…
…
Meanwhile, in Mondstadt, at the Knights of Favonius headquarters.
Perhaps because of the ongoing dragon crisis, Acting Grand Master Jean was utterly exhausted.
She had collapsed onto her desk and fallen asleep.
After what seemed like a long time, Jean slowly opened her heavy, drowsy eyes.
"This is… the Knights of Favonius…"
Confusion flickered in her gaze.
Soon, she remembered—she had worked herself to collapse under the mountain of tasks brought on by the crisis.
"That's strange…"
Jean frowned slightly, murmuring to herself.
"I clearly only slept for about two hours…
So why did the twenty years in that dream… feel so real?"
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T/N:
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