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Zhongli couldn’t help heaving a sigh as he strolled through the catacombs of an underground complex. It was one of the numerous holdouts of the ancient human civilization which he had stumbled upon throughout his long and storied existence. Here and there were undeniably traces of staggering conflicts and heroic last stands mounted by desperate defenders. Zhongli had little idea how long did the original residence of this base managed to stay alive, which weapons they employed, their survival strategies… However regarding the force which had assailed and laid waste to this facility, as well as many other similar to it, Zhongli had no doubt. It was none other than… them.
Inevitably, Zhongli couldn’t help comparing Liyue to this underground stronghold, taking into account the manpower, war materials, resources, technological level… of the harbour city and pitting it against the estimated equivalents of such stuffs in this base, only to come to a painful conclusion, again: if the flame of the civilization belonging to ancient humans - as well as the Kingdom of Khaenri’ah - could be engulfed then Liyue wouldn’t stand a chance.
After spending a few days studying the defense layouts of the underground holdout, Zhongli carefully erasing all evidences of his presence there, and returned to the surface of the ground empty-handed. Everything he ever needed from it was already recorded photographically by his mind.
There was a way to avoid armageddon. As they said “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down”. For its own continuous surviving, what Liyue needed were stagnation and status quo. So long as it could stay low profile, it could slip under the supervision of the power that be which reigned above Teyvat.
Times and again Zhongli had considered that option, but he couldn’t bring himself to enact it. How could he withhold the knowledge of housing constructions when his people lived in caves? How could he not passing down his knowledge about forging and metallurgy when his people banging rocks together for days on end to produce a single crude tool or weapon? And how could he forbid his adepti from teaching the Liyue people anything which could improve their daily lives in this brutal and dangerous world?
No, as their Rex Lapis, Zhongli simply couldn’t. It was better not having a child at all, than letting one’s kid living in extreme poverty and total ignorance…
Liyue was the result of thousands of years of bloodshed and struggles against nature as well as evildoers alike. So many people, humans and adepti alike, had given up their lives for its sake. Many of them were irreplaceable. It was already too late to start all over again.
Even if Liyue as well as the Seven Nations would existed for an additional thousands of years but without any progress, then that would still equal to condemning mankind to a slow and painful death, thanks to the exhaustion of resources.
Eventually all of the resources on Teyvat would run out, and people wouldn’t even be able to maintain their standard of living anymore. And to resolve the resource problem, there was only one way: reaching for outer space - the final frontier.
Only when humanity able to reach the stars and other planets would they be able to secure their civilization, as well as their survival as a species. They would become so powerful that no god or any entity could ever hamper their freedom and wellbeings again.
Until then, it was still his responsibility till the bitter end.
There was one issue though. Recently Zhongli had finally found the love of his life - Hu Tao. That issue kept weighing on his mind, tempting him to go down the complacent path and compromising with Celestia, which would effectively undoing hundreds of years of progress. That way he could be with Hu Tao right away and without the scenario of human race risk losing everything, at least in the near future.
Moreover Zhongli’s mind kept telling him that his thousands-years-old-project was at stake, so he should postpone something seemingly as trivial as love until he had finally overcome it. But that was if he could win at all, as this time the enemies would not be mere rival gods in Archon Wars, but Celestia itself!
And more importantly the last time he did that, it didn’t turn out well for him at all… Guizhong died before he could confess his feelings to her even though he had literally thousands of years prior to do just that. It took him thousands of years to move on from the passing of Guizhong... barely.
Zhongli was able to overcome that selfish thought after a very short amount of time, and felt extremely ashamed about the fact that he even considered doing that at the first place. How could he discard the future of human race because of his love for a woman? And If Hu Tao ever learned about that, it would be tantamount to killing her when she found out that her and Zhongli’s happiness was paid for at the cost of forsaking the future of mankind.
Source: "Three Body Problem PV" on Bilibili
It should be noted that Zhongli took that upon himself because of his benevolent nature. It was not like it was his responsibility at the first place, and had he not learned about the truth behind the destruction of ancient human civilization, it would be quite likely that he would have little reason to oppose Celestia at the first place.
But because of his long life and extraordinary knowledge, he was able to uncover the sinister side of Celestia, and almost immediately became disillusioned. Zhongli was extremely determined to bear witness to the rise and fall of this second coming of humanity. Liyue was Zhongli’s creation, its very foundation was built upon the countless graves of the martyrs, so he had to see it through till the end. Only in death did his duty end - Zhongli told himself.
…One day Zhongli received a telegram from the Tsaritsa - the Cryo Archon who ruled over Snezhnaya. The country had built up its military might on an unrivalled scale for quite some time now. Zhongli couldn’t help but feeling confused, he frowned upon reading it. Morax couldn’t believe in his eyes, he read it from back to back again and again to be sure that he didn’t misunderstand anything. Then he couldn’t help cracking a smile.
Zhongli’s smile was saddled with the sorrows of six thousands years... If he accepted the deal, he would cross the point of no return. If they were to lose, the history of mankind would be wiped out for a second time, thorough and complete… and Teyvat would sleep once more.
The telegram sent by Tsaritsa started with:
_ Morax, I hereby enlist your help with The Storming of Heavens.
As Zhongli slowly looked up from Tsaritsa’s telegram to a certain island on the sky, he muttered:
_ Ruat caelum fiat pactum. Dixi.