The "spectator" days didn't last long before new trouble crashed down on them.
Test team members stormed into the office, their faces as grim as if they'd swallowed shit. "Bad news! Players have discovered a bug for farming Lydia's Primogems! They're exploiting it like crazy, and some are even live streaming and selling accounts, claiming they'll get rich off this!"
Everyone crowded around to watch. On the screen, a player controlled the Traveler, mechanically teleporting between several Hilichurl camps.
Each time a camp refreshed, Lydia's figure would appear. After the player destroyed the Hilichurl camp and handed over 100 Primogems, she would slowly vanish with a faint smile.
In just half an hour, the player's Primogem inventory had already surpassed 50,000, while the live stream chat flooded with frantic messages like "Thanks, Mihoyo, you philanthropists!" and "How much can I sell this account for?"
"This is outrageous!" Brother Da Wei, upon hearing the news, stormed into the office area, slamming his fist on the table hard enough to make the coffee cup rattle. "This completely destroys the game's balance! We must punish them severely!"
Technical staff swiftly attempted to ban the accounts, but discovered that the backend permissions were locked down tight. They couldn't even modify the Primogem count in players' inventories, let alone ban the accounts.
Brother Da Wei, refusing to believe in superstitions, personally logged into his test account and joined the "Primogem farming" team.
The first time, Lydia, wearing her familiar attire, smiled and handed over the Primogems, her figure vanishing into the wind as usual.
The second time, she lingered a bit longer, a hint of barely perceptible confusion in her eyes.
The third time...
The fourth time...
By the tenth time, when Brother Da Wei controlled the Traveler to destroy the camp, Lydia handed over the Primogems, but instead of disappearing as usual, a dialogue box popped up on the screen. Beside Lydia, a line of text appeared, her tone bewildered and questioning: "I don't understand the meaning of your actions."
Brother Da Wei froze, his finger hovering motionless over the dialogue box for an eternity.
Finally, snapping out of his daze, he clicked the screen to continue the conversation, but Lydia's figure had vanished like the wind.
He frowned deeply, his confusion eclipsing his anger, and resumed farming.
Each subsequent time, Lydia's dialogue box reappeared, her tone growing colder and her disappointment deepening with each repetition:
"What's the difference between someone blinded by greed and the monsters ravaging Mondstadt?"
"You should stop your little games. The Traveler would never do this."
"You're not her... You're just using me."
"Die..."
On the fourteenth attempt, Lydia's health bar suddenly appeared above the screen without warning, the crimson life bar like a death knell.
Before Brother Da Wei could react, Lydia suddenly raised Festering Desire, its blade still stained with the Abyss's black mist, and plunged it straight into the Traveler's chest!
The screen went black instantly, and the game crashed.
Upon logging back in, Brother Da Wei stared at the account interface.
The familiar login animation, the familiar gender selection, the familiar nickname input... Even the character had reverted to the initial Traveler, as if he had never set foot in Teyvat.
"Damn!" Brother Da Wei slumped back in his chair, stunned for a long moment, his eyes filled with both shock and a strange admiration. "This hacker's skills... it's like Teyvat actually has its own rules."
What he didn't know was that this "rule-based punishment" had already ignited a firestorm among the player community.
Players whose accounts had been deleted flooded forums with furious complaints, posting screenshots of their banned accounts and accusing the "game developers of malicious account bans."
Normal players immediately came forward to refute, filling the comments section with rage:
"It's clearly you who are greedy and insatiable! Lydia's Primogems were her heartfelt gift to the Traveler, not tools for you to hoard and sell for profit!"
"You were the ones crying about how much you cared for Lydia, and now you're using her to farm Primogems? Where's your shame?"
"You're all like Baldy Qiang chopping down trees, but without an axe or wood! I bet you can't even hang your laundry because you've lost all your clothes racks!"
"..."
Even more absurdly, it wasn't long before players discovered that Yunqin's storyline also had a similar punishment mechanism.
A small-time streamer, desperate for views, deliberately exploited a bug to repeatedly refresh the Liyue Harbor map and "randomly encounter" Yunqin, tricking the NPC into giving him Primogems.
On his 11th attempt, when he controlled the Traveler to approach Yunqin near Chen the Sharp, the normally ethereal girl stopped in her tracks, slowly turning her head to look at the Traveler.
The streamer, still grinning smugly, told his audience, "See? Another hundred Primogems!" Suddenly, the screen lurched violently, and a line of blood-red text, distorted as if weeping, appeared against the pitch-black background:
"...You... you're not yourself anymore..."
Immediately afterward, a "Account Deactivated" notification popped up. The live stream audience was instantly stunned, their "hahaha" comments transforming into "Serves you right!" and "Karma's a bitch!"
"Serves you right! Who told you to be so greedy?!"
"Yunqin's Primogems were her reward for helping the NPCs, not for you to farm! What do you think she is?!"
"Lydia and Yunqin have already suffered so much, and you're still bullying them? Don't you have a conscience?!"
The online flame war escalated, sparked by one Red player's comment: "They already gave 70,000 Primogems. What's a little more?"
Even players who had initially planned to just watch the drama couldn't help but retaliate, flooding the comment section with grief and fury.
"Those 70,000 Primogems were Lydia's savings from seventeen years! Her final gift to the Traveler, even as she lay dying! What right do you have to demand more?!"
"They're not tools for you to farm Primogems! They're our friends in Teyvat!"
"A little more? Why don't you ask your parents, 'You've already given me so much money, what's a little more?' Such blatant hypocrisy!"
"How disgusting! They cried and begged the official channels not to nerf Lydia back then, and now they're selling her Primogems for profit? Still not enough?"
"I suggest these newly ascended vermin stop playing Genshin Impact. There's a game called 'GTA' where you can do whatever you want and even rob banks at gunpoint. It's much more suitable for you!"
"Don't use 'it's just a game' as an excuse! Intentions in games are still intentions. If you don't respect what others cherish, you deserve to be punished!"
"..."
The flame war in the live stream was like oil on fire, burning hotter and hotter.
The chat was fragmented by countless barbed words, and even the gentle background music of Teyvat couldn't drown out the audience's furious shouting as they connected to the live stream.
Lu Nanqing's hand, gripping the mouse, trembled slightly as she stared at the image of Lydia on her phone screen—a screenshot she'd casually taken while playing through the story, finding it visually appealing.
The girl stood beneath the great tree at Windrise in Mondstadt, cupping Venti's cheeks with both hands, her smile warmer than the spring sunlight.
Watching the vicious exchanges in the chat, Lu Nanqing cleared her throat, attempting to de-escalate the situation. She seemed to have made up her mind.