"That God wields 'Contract'."
"In his realm, everything was built upon contracts, with fair trades and no one being cheated, regardless of age."
Lin Qingyue's voice carried no seductive magic, yet it possessed the weight of absolute truth, slowly unfurling across this Ash World.
"He taught the people to farm and forge, using sturdy rock spears to defend them against the gods from the deep sea."
She used no ornate language, only the plainest words to tell the tale of a God and his people.
Feng Yan listened silently.
Within those dead eyes, she saw the reflection of her own past, when she had time and again burned her body to ashes, incinerating calamity.
It was an understanding that required no words.
It was the most primal resonance with the word "God."
She was the Vermilion Bird, the Guardian reborn from flames.
Each of Lin Qingyue's words acted like an ancient seal, perfectly aligning with the deepest-rooted convictions in her soul.
"Once the realm stabilized and its surroundings grew peaceful, he no longer intervened personally, choosing instead to issue divine oracles annually to guide the nation's course."
"He was a majestic Rex Lapis, loved and depended upon by his people, revered as the eternal guardian and the incarnation of truth."
"Such days continued for thousands of years."
Lin Qingyue paused deliberately here, observing Feng Yan's reaction.
Feng Yan's face, frozen for an eternity, showed no change.
But the fingertips hidden beneath her crimson palace gown curled slightly.
It was a subconscious movement.
Through the endless ages, her own fingertips had also touched the weight of "protection" and "dependence" countless times.
Thousands of years...
To her, it was but a flick of a finger.
Yet the words "dependence" and "protection" were deeply embedded in her soul, never loosened.
The corners of Lin Qingyue's lips curved slightly as she abruptly shifted the topic.
"But, that Rex Lapis, he grew tired."
These words were spoken very softly.
Yet they caused Feng Yan's body to shudder violently.
A giant rock had been thrown into that silent Soul Sea.
Tired...
How many years had she forgotten this word?
She had even grown so tired that she forgot what "tired" itself felt like.
"He watched his subjects go from eating raw flesh and drinking blood to building a majestic port city, from lighting the first campfire to igniting the lamps of ten thousand homes."
"One day, at the port, he heard a mortal boss say to a worker: Your task is complete, you can rest now."
"At that moment, he began to ponder a question."
"Could my own task... also have a deadline?"
This question rippled across Feng Yan's silent Soul Sea, wave after wave.
Her deathly still eyes truly focused for the first time.
They were no longer empty voids.
Instead, they were a mixture of incomprehension, confusion, and a faint light she herself could not decipher.
A deadline?
Rest?
What an extravagant luxury those words were for an eternal Guardian.
"But if I am gone, what will they do?"
Feng Yan's face tightened; this was the nightmare that tormented her after every Nirvana.
Too many times she had witnessed the civilizations she protected crumble into the dust of history after losing her shelter, either through internal strife or natural disasters.
This deepened her suffering and made her even more certain: mortals could not survive without gods.
"So, he orchestrated a grand 'death'."
Lin Qingyue dropped a true bombshell.
"Then, he withdrew behind the scenes, silently observing how his people would react after losing their god."
Feng Yan's once undisturbed gaze finally shattered.
It wasn't emotion.
It was a systemic error caused by a violent assault on her core logic.
Confusion.
Incomprehension.
Absurdity.
Voluntarily relinquishing power?
Orchestrating one's own death?
This ran so counter to her lifelong creed of guarding that she simply could not comprehend it.
Yet beneath that bottomless confusion, a strange, faint current of electricity softly coursed through her dead soul.
A tiny tremor of interest in a certain "possibility."
Death as liberation was an unattainable wish.
Then, could this "death" be another kind of possibility?
"The whole of Liyue, and even the wider continent, trembled because of this. The demons stirred, and evil forces that had long been lurking sought to seize the opportunity to overturn everything."
"For the first time, the mortals truly felt the panic and unrest of losing their god."
Lin Qingyue's voice carried a hint of exaltation,
"A massive crisis capable of toppling the entire nation descended. An Ancient God, once personally sealed by Rex Lapis, was awakened."
"But soon, the people of Liyue united. The mortal elite and the leaders of the Adepti set aside their past differences, deliberated on countermeasures together, and prepared to face an era without a God."
The story reached its climax.
Lin Qingyue did not dwell on the brutality of the battle, focusing instead on the "people."
She told of how the merchants, usually so calculating, gave their entire fortunes to support the front lines.
She told of how the soldiers of the army used their bodies of flesh and blood to build a defensive line against the Ancient God.
She told of how the seemingly weak mortals used their wisdom and courage to fight side by side with the ancient Adepti.
"In the end, they won."
"Without the help of a God, mortals and Adepti joined forces to once again subdue that Ancient God."
"They used their own strength to protect their homeland."
"The cost was that the 'Tianquan', head of the Liyue Qixing, personally threw down her beloved flying fortress, the 'Jade Chamber'."
Feng Yan fell completely silent.
She looked at Lin Qingyue, her gaze seeming to ask: How is this possible?
How could mortals, so fragile, short-lived, and flawed, ever achieve such a feat?
She had countless times watched civilizations crumble after her "departure."
Yet this story offered her a completely different answer.
The deep-seated sense of destiny, the "must protect," began to loosen in the depths of her soul.
"After that, the Ancient God's wife and His last follower returned to wage war."
"This time, the mortals did not even pray for the Adepti's help, but managed to resolve it on their own."
"After witnessing this, Rex Lapis finally set down the last burden in his heart."
Lin Qingyue's voice softened.
"He realized that his children had grown up."
"They no longer needed an aloof Deity to guide and protect them at all times. They now possessed the strength to decide their own future."
"And so, he chose to 'retire'."
The word "retire" was equally strange and distant to Feng Yan.
She understood its meaning, yet had never experienced it.
Her eyes, still as an ancient well, clearly reflected a sense of confusion, as well as a faint, distant longing for the concept of "laying down one's burden."
"He abandoned his identity as a god, took the name 'Zhongli', and became an ordinary mortal, living in the nation he had built with his own hands."
"He would go to hear storytellers narrate his own tales, purchase antiques he admired on the street, and leisurely drink tea by the roadside, watching the crowds pass by and the clouds drift across the sky."
Lin Qingyue raised her own teacup in a distant toast to Feng Yan.
"He is no longer the Rex Lapis who carried the weight of an entire nation on his shoulders, he is just 'Zhongli'."
"He can finally shed the responsibility and memories of thousands of years, and enjoy a freedom and life that belong only to 'himself'."
"In this way, he defies 'Erosion'."
The story was over.
The Ash World fell into a silence deeper than before.
Feng Yan lowered her head, gazing at the tea in her cup that had long since grown cold.
In the tea's liquid, her bloodless face was reflected.
And so was the confusion on her face, so intense it bordered on collapse.
Why would a god voluntarily give up everything?
The life of a mortal...
Wasn't that very much the synonym for fragility and transience?
A life born in the morning and dead by evening.
A struggle filled with birth, old age, sickness, and death.
What exactly was there that was worth a near immortal god experiencing?
She could not understand.
But this story was like a key, forcibly jammed into the heart lock that had been sealed for eons, and violently turned.
Click.
A faint, almost imperceptible sound seemed to emanate from the depths of her soul.
The giant, charred Parasol Tree that had always stood silently at the center of the Ash World.
On a branch long dead, that faint green bud.
In a corner where no one noticed, it quietly unfurled a small, tender leaf.