"T-Tabibito, where are you going?" Paimon blurted out when she saw Lumine suddenly sprint off. She hurried after her at once.
Once the two of them were out of sight, Keqing leaned closer to Ryou and asked, "What did you just say to Tabibito?"
Ryou smiled and picked up one of the lottery tickets. "Do you know why I asked an alchemist to help make these?"
"Wasn't it for anti-counterfeiting?" Keqing said.
"Anti-counterfeiting? You can even do that with lottery tickets?" Mona asked, surprised, as she sat beside Keqing.
She pulled out a few tickets and looked them over carefully. Other than the numbers printed on them, they were almost identical.
Xingqiu laughed when he heard that. "I know what cousin told Tabibito to do. It's about those five million Mora, right?"
"If she pulls it off, she'll make ten million Mora in just a few minutes. That's even faster than us."
"What do you mean?" Mona asked, completely lost.
Still smiling, Xingqiu said, "Because Albedo made a special anti-counterfeit material for our lottery tickets."
"Try feeling the middle of the ticket carefully. Doesn't it feel a little different?"
"It does!" Mona said in surprise.
Normally, she would never have noticed it. But if she focused and felt for it carefully, the difference was there.
"That's the key. If a ticket doesn't have that texture, it's fake. That part is essential."
"Otherwise, if people showed up with fake lottery tickets to claim prizes, we'd be paying out until we went broke," Xingqiu said with a grin.
After hearing the explanation, Mona turned to Ryou and said, "You really are amazing. You actually thought of using anti-counterfeit material for anti-counterfeiting."
"Of course I did." Ryou smiled.
"So that means cousin sent Tabibito to cash in fake tickets for five million Mora each, and with two shops, that makes ten million in total," Xingqiu explained slowly.
"Ah! So that's what's going on. No wonder she got so excited," Mona said, finally understanding.
Keqing hesitated for a moment before saying, "Isn't that basically cheating people out of Mora?"
"We're not the ones doing the cheating. We can condemn Tabibito afterward. Just don't go spreading it around," Ryou said with a smile.
"You're awful." Keqing rolled her eyes at him.
"Naturally." Ryou was just about to say more when he noticed Xingqiu, Mona, and Shenhe all staring at him.
He coughed, let go of Keqing, and changed the subject. "Xingqiu, I'll leave the lottery business to you."
"We plan to keep selling lottery tickets in Mondstadt for quite a while, so you can buy a few more storefronts."
"But space the sales out. If we do it too often, the people of Mondstadt will start figuring things out."
"Got it, cousin." Xingqiu patted his chest confidently.
"Alright, then we'll be going," Ryou said with a nod before leaving the lottery shop with Keqing, Mona, and Shenhe.
"Where are we going next?" Keqing asked.
"I won't keep tagging along. I still need to get something from my master's friend, so I..." Mona had already imposed on Ryou and Keqing long enough. She did not want to keep acting like a third wheel.
"No rush. We'll help you find the person first," Ryou said.
"Huh? You know where that person is?" Mona looked at him in surprise, wondering if he was an astrologer too, someone who could divine the past and the future.
"Mm. This has to do with someone specific," Ryou said.
"Who?" Keqing asked, clinging to his arm.
Instead of answering Keqing first, Ryou looked at Mona. "If I'm not mistaken, your master's friend should be Miss Alice."
"T-That's right!" Mona looked stunned, then frowned. "Y-You know astrology too?"
"You can do divination?" Keqing asked, looking at Ryou.
She had already felt that Ryou knew far too much. Just like last time, when Shenhe mentioned Cloud Retainer and he immediately understood.
"I think he can," Shenhe said from the side.
Ryou glanced at Shenhe and said, "I don't need divination for this. Basic deduction is enough."
Then he looked at Keqing and asked, "Have you ever met an astrologer before?"
"Mm... aside from Mona, only once. I happened to run into one while I was on business in Sumeru."
"Her name was Layla. Well, more accurately, she studies the stars. She can do divination, but she's not really the same kind of astrologer as Mona."
"Come to think of it, astrologers really do seem rare," Keqing said, resting a hand on her chin as she thought back.
"Exactly. Real astrologers are uncommon, and Mona is still young."
"It's obvious she's a disciple of some master, and learning under a true astrology master would let her develop all kinds of skills."
"And among Mondstadt's notable figures, there's one person who fits best. Alice."
"The last time I chatted with Klee, she mentioned her, so all we have to do is find Klee," Ryou said, laying out the logic for the others.
"Incredible. You really worked it out just like that." Keqing was genuinely impressed. She would never have reached that conclusion on her own.
"It really is impressive," Mona said, deeply shaken after hearing his reasoning. "Thank you. Then... let's hurry to the Knights of Favonius headquarters."
While Ryou and the others headed for the Knights of Favonius, Lumine and Paimon arrived near one of the rival lottery shops.
Lumine saw that the place was fairly large, with quite a crowd gathered outside.
She heard a middle-aged man saying, "One thousand Mora per ticket? That's ten times more expensive than the other shop!"
Someone beside him said, "Didn't you see people buying them anyway? Their top prize is five million Mora!"
"How generous," Lumine said.
"Isn't that Tabibito?" a woman nearby said in surprise when she saw Lumine. "That place is backed by Goth, the owner of the Goth Grand Hotel."
"He's rich, so there's no need to worry about whether they can pay."
Lumine immediately understood. "Then I'll buy one and test my luck."
"Go ahead. Maybe you'll win," the woman said with a laugh.
Lumine went inside and bought a ticket. While the woman was still watching curiously, she heard Paimon tug at Lumine's arm and say, "Tabibito, Katheryne is still waiting for us."
"Alright... alright," Lumine said, pretending to sound reluctant.
Once they reached an empty area with no one around—
"Tabibito, I memorized the numbers, but... is this really okay?" Paimon asked.
"Relax. Ryou gave me something good. No one will be able to tell there's a problem," Lumine said as she followed the method he had taught her.
A short while later, she headed back toward the lottery shop. The whole process took less than ten minutes.
Lumine put on an uncertain look and said, "I'm not completely sure yet. I only glanced at it earlier, but it looked similar, so I came back to check."
"T-Then hurry up!" The woman followed her back inside.
Lumine walked over to the displayed winning numbers and compared them.
Then her eyes widened. "I won! I hit the five-million-Mora prize!"
"What?!"
"She can't be a plant, can she?" someone shouted.
That woman immediately got angry. "Are you blind? She's Mondstadt's great hero, the Honorary Knight, Tabibito!"
"So it really is Tabibito!"
"I can't believe Tabibito's luck is this insane. She actually won five million Mora!"
...
Upstairs, Goth watched the scene in silence. Then he turned to the man beside him and asked, "Did the number for the five-million prize ticket get put into circulation?"
The man shook his head. "No. Should I throw her out?"
"No. Go check the ticket first," Goth said, glancing at him. "Then we'll decide what to do."
"Yes. I'll go right away."
The man hurried downstairs and stopped in front of Lumine. "Tabibito, may I see the ticket?"
"Of course," Lumine said.
He took the ticket and inspected it for a while, but found nothing wrong with it. Even he was confused.
Had it really been printed by mistake?
The woman who had come in with Lumine immediately protested, "Hey, what exactly are you trying to imply?"
"Tabibito bought that ticket less than ten minutes ago. There's no way there's a problem!"
"I can vouch for her!"
"So can I!" Several others had seen Lumine buy the ticket and noticed that she had only been gone for a short while, so they still remembered her clearly.
The man's expression shifted slightly. "Everyone, please calm down. I'm only verifying the ticket."
"There's nothing wrong with this ticket. Someone prepare five million Mora."
"Yes!"
The people behind him immediately got to work.
After more than twenty minutes of commotion, Lumine finally walked out of that new lottery shop with five million Mora, under a storm of stunned stares.
"T-Tabibito, Paimon was scared to death just now. Paimon can't believe we actually got the five million!" Paimon said, patting her chest in relief.
"I was nervous too. Who would've thought they wouldn't spot anything?" Lumine glanced back at Goth's lottery shop, then pointed elsewhere.
"Come on. Let's hit the other one too."
Half an hour later—
Lumine touched the pocket holding all that Mora and immediately felt rich again.
She had an extra ten million Mora on her now, and her confidence shot straight through the roof.
"Paimon, come on. I'm taking you somewhere nice to eat!"
"Yay!" Paimon cheered, practically dancing with excitement.
Just then, someone stepped in front of them.
It was Kaeya, with several others behind him.
"Tabibito!" Kaeya called out.
"Oh, Kaeya. What is it?" Lumine was still in an excellent mood.
"Tabibito, I'm afraid you'll have to come with me to the Knights of Favonius."
"Goth has already reported the matter to the Knights. He says you used a fake lottery ticket to swindle him out of five million Mora," Kaeya said.
Kaeya did not really believe Lumine was the kind of person who would do something like that, but this time the situation was different.
After all, Lumine had won five million Mora at two different shops in a row. That was obviously suspicious.
"That bastard Goth is unbelievable. So what if my luck was just better than everyone else's?" Lumine clenched her fists.
She was certain the method Ryou had taught her would leave no trace.
And the ticket had already been taken away, so how was she supposed to explain herself now?
Just as she was trying to think of a way out, she suddenly spotted Yanfei and Shinobu walking past ahead of her.
She immediately rushed over and grabbed Yanfei—
[End of chapter]
[200 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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