Chapter Text
Fingers ran down the column of the page as Zhongli quickly tallied the day’s sales and made a mental note of which suppliers to place orders with the following morning. The smell of jasmine tea lingered in the back office the size of a closet, kept neat and tidy as only he could.
A good day, he supposed.
An excited fiancé picked out his betrothed’s favorite colors, tempered only by Zhongli’s caution for the meaning of the flower itself. The usual orders from nearby inns for the foyer and large suites. A fascinated pair of twins with a mother who needed a break as she picked flowers for a funeral she was attending in Mondstadt. He let her make a list as he regaled the history of glaze lilies, the children enraptured by the story of a young woman in a field.
And there was, of course, the large order from Wangsheng Funeral Parlor. The contract between his store and Wangsheng went back centuries and was acted upon with regularity. He wasn’t always Zhongli when he owned the floral establishment, of course, but his own continuity lent itself to a great partnership.
It had been Guizhong who suggested it. A shrewd but practical maneuver. Much like the sprinkler system in the greenhouse, the hanging system for the climbing plants, and the cash register that kept track of the day’s cash-flow. At her suggestion, he laid out the store so the plants that needed the most sun were always exposed to the light and put the arrangements in an accessible spot for customers who needed a quick gift.
Thousands of years later, she was still present in most innocuous ways. If he listened hard enough, he heard her laugh. Sometimes, he saw her graze the petals of her glaze lilies as she tended to them when she wasn’t in her workshop.
Zhongli rose from his seat and stepped towards the entrance to the greenhouse in the back. The Glaze Lilies he carried were carefully tended to, well-loved. He could never do the tune that Guizhong sang to them quite the same justice but he did try. He sang softly as he inspected petals, pruned any curling leaves, until he came to one pot, set off from the rest.
Guizhong cared about one species in particular, one he had yet to come across again in any other capacity that seemed to never bloom. It outlived her and several hundreds of generations of Liyue citizens. The secret to their proper growth was never imparted to Zhongli and no matter what he tried, it didn’t want to open to the world.
Even Xiao, who was in charge of taking care of the greenhouse, left it alone. Sometimes Zhongli caught him looking at it for long periods of time but the other Adeptus never shared his thoughts.
The lily’s unique species was all but faded from memory, much like Guizhong, and kept alive only by his hand. The flower never wanted to reveal its secrets.
Stubborn one, this Glaze Lily. Just like its caretaker before him.
“Perhaps one day, my shining gem, I’ll figure out just what you left behind.”