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When he sees a family out in the empty countryside of the plains struggling to make money, Zhongli walks away. It isn’t that he’s refused to help; it’s merely because Childe held all the money at Northland Bank, and he doesn’t have any currently on him (when does he ever, really?). So like any normal citizen of Liyue, he offers some well wishes, but can offer nothing the family really wants besides the prestige of talking to a high-end assistant of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor. He refuses their pleas because he has nothing to offer.
What he can offer, however, is the utmost somber burial rites. Every citizen is entitled to at least a proper burial, and Hu Tao’s butterflies spend much time roaming Liyue to find all who have not.
When the Traveler asks him to join the party of three other young ones- Kaeya, little Qiqi, and Xiao—he also refuses, this time more kindly. Should he ever lose control of his power, revert back to his old ways beyond his fake Geo vision, all of them would return to dust, back to the Earth. After all, he is still a young mortal. Twenty eight years of mortal age, against eons of godhood. Careful would be an understatement. Zhongli is downright locked inside himself.
Even when the Tianquan asks him to use his power to build a whole new passageway under Liyue for her secret deals, he refuses. When she asks him why, with those golden, cunning eyes of hers, Zhongli says:
“One mere mortal is not capable of tunneling an underground route in less than a day.”
“But you are-”
“Zhongli. And I have work to do for Miss Hu Tao. So apologies, but I must get back to it.”
She steps aside. He almost wishes that she has said something to counter him. Saying nothing further accentuates the fact that he is still, not mortal enough.
Of course, the Tianquan orders some miners from the Chasm to carry out her plans. Of course, in the next week or so, he unwillingly senses a hollow tunnel just outside Liyue’s gate, and knows her plan has succeeded, as they always do.
Her plan, however, has one flaw. Tianquan Ningguang has taken away some of the Milellith stationed inside the Chasm—to which disturbances are rising. He’s almost mad at himself for letting Xiao go find the last remnants of Bosacius.
An immortal asking permission from a mortal. As highly as he knows Xiao thinks of him, he has no power to stop Xiao from going anywhere. A foot has already been stuck into the mortal realm. He must stay that way, lest he hurt even more people because of it.
Guizhong…the other yakshas, and even Azhdaha…all had perished from his lack of sight as a god. Ideally, he should walk away from that cliff above the Chasm mines. He senses lives on the line. A great, green power bursts from under the ground as Xiao forces the others away from him back to aboveground. He scans the disoriented party for any sign of a short, green-haired boy. Nothing. The sound of Xiao's broken Yaksha bell tinkling in darkness is the only thing audible, ringing in his ears, and then----
He realizes two things at that very moment:
Xiao is underground and about to die. Xiao will die. He has expended too much energy. The Last Yaksha, the last legacy of Liyue’s ultimate protectors, is about to fall and never be seen again.
The second thing he realizes, is how blind Rex Lapis of the past was to not notice most of Xiao's near-death plummets. Every time Xiao would come back to him, robes in tatters, mask cracking, wounds deeper than bone, the god has either been too busy to care, or has left him to the care of Guizhong.
But Guizhong is no longer here.
And his sight is now clear.
His glove slips out of his hand. He reaches out his hand, a beacon, a homing device, to find Xiao’s presence underneath the Earth. Anything. This is not the flimsy, half-hearted desires of a mortal. This is an Archon's order and will.
The ground pulses beneath his very feet. The entire earth resonates in response to his panic, just as insistent as him to find the boy. He zones in on Xiao’s presence---mask already broken beyond repair, and curls his fingers. He spreads his godly light to the ends of the space. And just before Xiao crosses the border into whatever death lies beyond life for beings such as him, the beacon of golden Geo Zhongli has formed just manages to pull him out.
He sees Xiao, crumpled on the ground, as the Traveler and the others bend down to make sure the boy is alright. Still breathing, still alive, patching up his wounds, asking if he is hurt, yelling at him for being a self-sacrificing idiot. Thanking him nonetheless for his selflessness. He sees Xiao look up in a daze to where he stands, confusion marring his young face. Zhongli has already turned back.
Rex Lapis, quite literally, could never do such a thing. Couldn’t save a single soul as much as people liked to praise him for it. It was all others under his rule.
It is time to repay. Not in Mora, because as a mortal, he has none, but in the power he holds. Power not to rule, but to see.
The Conqueror of Demons is free, and so is his bygone lord.