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Zhongli, in Azhdaha’s words, has a brain of cor lapis. Few moments of the past escape his memory, and even fewer are the moments he forgets deliberately. Another as old as him may find memory so impeccable bothersome, for it is bound to cause one to miss that which had been, ponder on what could have been and perhaps compare the past to the present and find the present always lacking. But Zhongli is glad for it.
It is thanks to his memory that he can best lead his people forward, remembering and learning from the mistakes of the past; that he can reflect on moments long lost that bring him joy even millennia later; that heroes who deserve to be remembered can still be honoured for all they have contributed to make Liyue what it is today. Even so, there are days when even he falls prey to the temptation to count his losses.
Days such as the day he finds a single glaze lily in the wild near Guili Plains.
Wild glaze lilies have been thought to be extinct since the day Guili Assembly had fallen. He and the adepti had scoured the area for them, but they could not find even a single one to offer to Guizhong at her Rite of Parting. In the end they had had to make do with a bouquet from Qingce Village. This has always been something he regrets.
And yet, how fateful is it that he chances upon one, finally, when he is preparing for his own retirement?
He does not know how this glaze lily came to be. Perhaps it is from an ancient seed, finally awakened for the same reason grass has begun growing on these plains once again in recent years – perhaps this means there will be more like it. Perhaps it is simply a lost child carried here from Qingce Village or Liyue Harbour by the wind or some unwitting creature.
… Perhaps, it is a sign from Celestia.
(Zhongli does not know how he feels about that, so he will assume it is one of Guizhong’s.)
He makes himself a stool beneath the shade of the nearest tree and simply… sits down, and stares at the flower.
And reminisces.
He thinks of glaze lilies and traditional Liyuean musical string instruments and the sessions they had affectionately termed ‘Guizhong Evenings’. Morax had seldom participated, but it had been while watching one of those evenings from afar that he had first felt the stirrings of curiosity – not of the detached kind – for mortals and their practices. The songs they sang were by no means melodious or otherwise pleasant to the ears, and yet there was an inexplicable warmth to the way they all knew the words and the tune – though not necessarily how to follow it – and even the dances.
(There will always be a part of him that is dragon and hence reptile, and very easily swayed by warmth. He had watched and thought to himself, that if something this simple can bring about joy even in war, then surely it is worth remembering.)
Those were the more cheerful sessions. There were others, too. The ones when Morax dismayed at the forces lost, while what had remained of the army grieved. They would sit around and tell stories for naught but to make one another cry. It would always be a categorical waste of water and an altogether messy affair, so he had never stayed long for those. Now, of course, Zhongli understands death, eulogies and grief. He still thinks their soldiers had been afforded a luxury few other gods would have allowed, and he is glad for it. He would not have any soldier who had fought for him go unhonoured.
Before he knows it, the rays of the sun have turned distinctly orange and he realises he is long overdue to be back at the funeral parlour. At this point, Hu Tao would hardly mind if he should stay out a little longer, so he makes no move to get up.
He thinks instead to all the others who have been left behind – whom he will leave behind, soon, if only in name. He is not the only one who has his overly sentimental moments. It comes with age.
Case in point: Cloud Retainer. Despite the fact that she often entertains guests and even collects human disciples from time to time, there is still a stool on Mt. Aocang reserved for Guizhong, a legacy from the times when they would fight over the best seat depending on the time of the day. (Both the sunrise and the sunset can be seen from the table in the middle of the pool, so the southwest seat is least popular at dawn and the south-east seat is least popular at dusk. In the end, they resolved the never-ending fight with a game. As is the natural order of things, Guizhong won, and Morax lost, though they did eventually take pity on him and plant a tree west of the table to block the harsh rays of sunset.)
Or, take Mountain Shaper, who in recent times mainly uses his power to control karst crawlers to trap living beings in amber, which keeps them alive for however long it takes for the plants to completely drain them of their energy. (For the tiniest finches, that is about two centuries.) Zhongli cannot think of anything, save little Qiqi’s vision, that is more reflective of one’s desire for time to stand still.
And there is, of course, Xiao. More than two thousand years after the death – inasmuch as creatures like them can be dead – of the Chi, fresh apples are still placed at his shrine, near unfailingly, every morning. The leaf butterflies and glaze lilies on Guizhong’s shrine have colours that are never even marginally faded. The cups and jug at Azhdaha’s tree are always filled – with wine of the highest quality, untouched by nature, Zhongli knows because he had given in to his curiosity once. The many yakshas’ shrines littered across Liyue have fallen into varying states of neglect, but Zhongli would swallow a rock whole if Xiao does not have a shrine dedicated to all of them somewhere – likely in his room at Wangshu Inn – that he cleans and makes offerings to every day.
(In fact, part of the reason Wangshu Inn exists is so Xiao does not have to travel to a thousand shrines and resting places across Liyue every sunrise.)
Should he ask why, Xiao would simply say that the offerings keep their spirits calm so they would not end up amongst the demons he must fight. If Xiao says his dedication makes a difference, then it must – though there must be another reason he does not voice, because Zhongli knows for sure that their spirits stir anyway. Whatever his reasons are, his conscientiousness is eminently alarming, and just as humbling. And it reminds Zhongli that, whatever he has lost, he will never be the one who has lost the most.
It was never meant to be a competition, but if the value of everything they have lost can be put into a single sentence… Everything Morax has lost, lives on still, ever brightly in his memory, and all of it he considers himself blessed to have gained to begin with. Xiao has lost everything owed to him, everything Morax had given him in an attempt to make up for that, and then some.
But of course, if Zhongli were ever to voice these thoughts, he would simply be told in no uncertain terms that a, nobody is owed anything, least of all Xiao; and b, there are things that Xiao has still that cannot be truly lost – all while he thinks to himself that he nothing has ever truly been his anyway.
Worst of all, he is obstinate in his conviction that he deserves it. The karma reinforces this idea, and nothing Zhongli says ever seems to convince him otherwise. Not that Zhongli has spoken much of it. Even now, he often finds himself at a loss for words when it comes to Xiao. Xiao is adamant that he does not require any form of assistance, and Zhongli is no longer in the business of imposing his will on anyone, especially when even he knows it is impolite to tell someone who has been carrying out his job perfectly for over two millennia how to do his own job.
Nevertheless, there are times when intervention is necessary, such as when someone routinely loses the motivation to stand up again. Zhongli had attempted to consult Cloud Retainer once, but she had no suggestion that Xiao would deem acceptable.
(If Guizhong is truly disappointed in him for anything, it would surely be how little progress he has made in getting through to Xiao.)
Then again it has been many a century since he has last heard Barbatos’s music carried over the border into Liyue, so perhaps Xiao has resolved the… situation, after all. He has attempted to check on Xiao more than a handful of times, but he has been more elusive than ever. In fact, since he began living life as Zhongli the funeral consultant, Xiao has only ever consented to speaking with him about Hu Tao or other matters relating to Liyue Harbour’s safety, and he vanishes once he deems the conversation over.
It is of no consequence. Surely if Xiao truly needed help – he would neither call for nor seek out Zhongli. He sighs; the Conqueror of Demons is singularly proficient in making Zhongli feel utterly helpless. In any case, he is insistent that he will not die, and he has yet to fail at any task he has promised to complete. No avoidance lasts forever, and nobody is more stubborn than Zhongli. There will be opportunities for them to speak in the future.
The last rays of the setting sun are gone now, and the petals of the glaze lily part slightly – it will not bloom fully, not without Guizhong’s (or Barbatos’s) music. If he stays here any longer, he may even be sneaked up on by a certain troublesome child. It is best not to risk her trampling on the delicate flower, so Zhongli gets to his feet.
In the morning surely this pensive mood will be gone.