Liyue Harbor.
Cao Zhong and Chongyun walked together through the streets, taking in the warmth of the nation that felt, more than anywhere else in Teyvat, like the homeland of his past life.
"Zhongyuan offal soup — good food, fair price!"
"Kites for sale~~~"
For a fleeting moment, Cao Zhong felt as though he'd been carried back to the land of his previous life. A strange, drifting feeling came over him.
Chongyun caught the look on his face and found it baffling.
This guy isn't thinking about some old flame again, is he?
Tch. Scoundrel.
Auntie, please don't blame me.
I'm doing this for my own happiness too.
Chongyun offered a silent internal prayer.
Cao Zhong, meanwhile, shook himself back to the present.
Let yesterday's troubles stay in yesterday.
"Come on — I've heard Wanmin Restaurant's cooking is the finest in the world. Let's go try it."
He pulled Chongyun along, already set on a proper meal.
There was a decent chance he'd run into Xiangling there as well.
Not that Xiangling inspired a certain kind of feeling, exactly — but those legs of hers were genuinely worth appreciating.
Just as he was heading in that direction, two figures stepped directly into his path.
Cao Zhong looked up.
Millelith soldiers.
"Mr. Cao Zhong. Come with us."
The Millelith didn't waste words. They moved to take him away without preamble.
"Hold on — what have I done?"
Cao Zhong looked at them in genuine bewilderment. He'd only just arrived in Liyue. He hadn't even had time to do anything yet.
"Is there no rule of law here? No justice?!"
He looked at the two soldiers with exaggerated anguish, attempting to argue his way out.
The two Millelith soldiers were entirely unmoved.
They'd been fed up with Cao Zhong for a long time.
The man was insufferable.
Between the two of them, they hadn't so much as held a girl's hand in years — and here was this person who had apparently charmed half of Teyvat. It was genuinely outrageous.
Today, they were acting on Tianquan's personal orders to bring him in.
They were overjoyed.
Lady Ningguang has finally had enough of this scoundrel. She's going to sort him out herself.
"Anything you have to say, Mr. Cao Zhong, you can say before Lady Tianquan. Now move along — or we'll have to be less polite about it."
The Millelith were not interested in negotiation.
Cao Zhong read the room.
They mean business.
"Fine. Let's go. Like I'm scared of you."
He turned to Chongyun. "Go find your auntie — tell her the man who's going to be her future husband is in trouble and to come save me quickly."
You have absolutely no shame.
Chongyun stared at Cao Zhong's utterly self-assured expression and had to physically restrain the urge to punch him.
You don't even have an agreement with her yet and you're already talking like that.
And so Cao Zhong was led away by the Millelith.
[Hu Tao]: Oh oh oh — I was on my way to Bubu Pharmacy to find Qiqi just now and I'm pretty sure I just watched Cao Zhong get taken away by the Millelith!
[Kaeya]: @Hu Tao No way — are you sure you didn't mistake someone else for him?
[Chongyun]: It's real. I was right there.
[Hu Tao]: @Kaeya My eyes don't lie.
[Kaeya]: Excellent. Excellent.
[Venti]: Heavens above, earth below — whoever pulled this off, you have my eternal gratitude!
[Bennett]: Nicely done.
[Xingqiu]: @Cao Zhong Get out of Liyue — stop coming here to ruin our women!
[Liyue Man A]: Cao Zhong get out of Liyue — stop coming here to ruin our women!
[Liyue Man B]: Cao Zhong get out of Liyue — stop coming here to ruin our women!
...
[Tartaglia]: Cao Zhong get out of Liyue — stop coming here to ruin our women!
[Hu Tao]: ?
[Hu Tao]: @Tartaglia Childe, aren't you from Snezhnaya?
[Tartaglia]: Ah. Well — I've come to think of Liyue as a second home, honestly.
[Xingqiu]: @Tartaglia You don't need to explain yourself. Whether you're Fatui or a treasure hoarder — if you're willing to go after Cao Zhong, you're one of us.
[Tartaglia]: Fair point. Cao Zhong — I've been putting up with you for far too long, you absolute scoundrel!
[Kaeya]: YES!
[Venti]: YES!
[Bennett]: YES!
Cao Zhong, being escorted by the Millelith to parts unknown, looked at the group chat piling on him and finally snapped.
[Cao Zhong]: Are you people even human? You all call me brother day in and day out — and now that I'm in trouble, you're just sitting there making jokes. Your hearts are black.
[Kaeya]: What kind of talk is that? What kind of people do you think we are? The sort who'd leave a friend to suffer?
[Cao Zhong]: Heh.
[Bennett]: We just don't want to help you!
[Cao Zhong]: ???
[Venti]: @Bennett Don't be so blunt about it. Put it more gently. We simply can't bear to watch you go further down the path of wrongdoing.
[Bennett]: @Venti Noted, noted!
[Hu Tao]: Low EQ: we don't want to help you. High EQ: we can't bear to watch you go further down the path of wrongdoing.
[Cao Zhong]: You are all beyond help.
Cao Zhong closed the chat with a huff.
Not a single reliable person among the lot of them.
He looked around, taking stock of his surroundings.
Something's off.
This didn't look like the road to any prison.
Everywhere around him was refined, atmospheric architecture — distinctly, elegantly Liyue in style.
What kind of prison was built like this? Who had that kind of money to waste?
He also noticed a steady stream of young women hurrying past on all sides, arms full of documents, clearly very busy.
I think I have a rough idea of where I am.
This had to be Yujing Terrace — the working headquarters of the Liyue Qixing.
And sure enough.
Before long, he spotted a familiar face.
Long blue hair drawn back behind her head in a natural ponytail. A single stubborn ahoge at the crown. Two small black-and-red qilin horns curving from either side.
A golden cowbell hung from the collar of her high-necked top. She wore a white short qipao with gold embroidery over a fitted backless bodysuit, black silk stockings with gold trim hugging her legs. The shoulder straps were thin — fragile-looking things, straining under the weight of a very present reality, the kind of sight that made a person instinctively want to reach out and offer support.
Cao Zhong genuinely considered it.
I am truly such a good person.
It was none other than our Ganyu — elder sister to the world.
Sometimes, Cao Zhong reflected, the women of Liyue really did have an unparalleled sense of fashion.
There were, broadly speaking, two schools of Liyue style.
The first was the Crane School, pioneered by Cloudretainer herself — the philosophy of which could be summarised as: wrap the entire body in fitted black silk and somehow still make it the most devastating thing anyone has ever seen.
Its representatives were Ganyu and Shenhe.
On the surface, both were dressed with perfect propriety — not a single overtly exposed area. And yet the effect was entirely the opposite of modest. The backless cut in particular — striking without vulgarity, impossible to look away from.
The Crane School also championed the admirable virtue of frugality: one outfit shared efficiently between two people.
Only that woman could have devised something so elegantly economical.
The second school was the Lotus School, headlined by Old Lady Ping — its philosophy being the opposite of restraint. If it can be shown, show it. Nothing to hide here.
Representatives: Xiangling, Yanfei, and Yaoyao (the last of whom should perhaps be reconsidered for this list).
This school put youth and charm front and centre. There was something genuinely refreshing about it — though whatever it lacked in mystery it made up for in energy.
(Possibly a matter of available resources.)
Just look at Yaoyao's pure, wide, impossibly innocent eyes.
There were only two words for it: unbearably cute.
If forced to choose between the two schools, Cao Zhong would take the Crane School every time.
Size was not the primary consideration — it was the philosophy of thrift and elegance that won him over.
Even after transmigrating, some virtues were worth preserving across the ages.
Cao Zhong's entirely unrestrained, absolutely shameless appraisal was making Ganyu distinctly uncomfortable. Combined with the rumours circulating in the group chat lately, her cheeks had gone faintly pink.
Unable to hold back, she stepped firmly onto his foot.
"OW—"
Cao Zhong looked up at her with watery eyes. "Ganyu-jiejie, are you trying to murder your own husband?!"
"You—"
Ganyu was seething. This man was every bit as insufferable as his reputation.
[Kaeya]: @Cao Zhong Where are you? Say something — don't tell me the Millelith actually got you?
[Venti]: If they did, I'm cracking open the champagne!
[Hu Tao]: The sincerity of this friendship is something I could never hope to replicate.
[Cao Zhong]: Bit busy trading banter with Ganyu-jiejie. No time.
[Kaeya]: With who?
[Venti]: Trading what?
[Bennett]: I understood that immediately. I am no longer clean. 😭😭😭
[Ganyu]: ?
[Ganyu]: What on earth are you all talking about?!!!
[Hu Tao]: I see it now — every single one of you has a gutter for a mind!
Ganyu's face flushed scarlet. How could they.
This was slander. Blatant slander!
"Ganyu-jiejie, don't be upset — I'll tell them off for you."
Cao Zhong stood beside her, barely suppressing his laughter.
"Stop calling me that. In a professional setting, use my title."
She shot him a withering glare.
"Then... I'll call you..." Cao Zhong grinned. "...Secretary Gan."
(TL note: Secretary Gan — is an obvious pun/reference. 甘 is Ganyu's surname, but "secretary Gan" immediately evokes a certain archetype from lowbrow fiction, which is exactly the face Cao Zhong is making.)
Ganyu had the nagging sense that those three syllables sounded distinctly off coming from his mouth — though she couldn't quite put her finger on why.
She decided to let it go.
"Follow me. Lady Tianquan wants to see you."
She was done engaging with this smooth-tongued man.
Cao Zhong, who had been perfectly happy to keep trading words with Ganyu, stopped at that.
Tianquan Ningguang wants to see me?
Before long, Cao Zhong was brought before Ningguang.
She sat with effortless poise, platinum-blonde hair coiled up and held with black-and-gold hairpins, the long fall of it splitting at her back and draping all the way down to her calves. The crimson tassels at her brow matched the colour of her eyes. Black sleeves and gold finger-guards adorned her arms, the wide cuffs hanging gracefully at her sides. A white scarf at her throat. The qipao she wore played with gold, white, and black, its hem shaped like a bird's tail, a golden phoenix traced along the neckline. A deep-gold fan-shaped ornament at her waist, from which her Geo Vision pendant hung. Her legs were bare; a red tattoo curved along her left.
Cao Zhong would be the first to admit he'd always been curious about Tianquan Ningguang.
A girl who had once sold odds and ends at the harbour docks — how had she climbed, step by step, to the very peak of power?
There was a saying in Liyue: behind every successful man stands a woman quietly supporting him.
It worked the other way around too, Cao Zhong thought.
He rather wanted to be the man standing behind Ningguang.
No misreading that — he meant it quite literally. (He did not mean it quite literally.)
As Cao Zhong was studying Ningguang, Ningguang was studying him in return.
She wanted to see, for herself, exactly what kind of person could sweep up the women of Mondstadt all at once.
She and Captain Jean had maintained a correspondence for some time. She knew Jean to be a capable, clear-headed woman — someone who would never give her heart to a man who was mediocre, directionless, or hollow.
And now, looking at Cao Zhong for the first time, her immediate impression was simple:
He's very handsome.
Ningguang had seen a great deal over the years. Young lords from Yujing Terrace. Heirs to major merchant guilds. Men who had pursued her were beyond counting.
But someone with Cao Zhong's particular bearing — that she had not encountered before.
Those eyes especially. The aggression in them. Something about it made her shift almost imperceptibly in her seat.
All the men she'd known before had approached her with careful caution — anxious, calculating, forever trying to find the right way to please her.
This man was different.
He didn't seem to care about her rank or her power. He was simply looking at her the way a man looks at a woman.
Hm.
You've managed to interest me.