Chapter Text
“Keqing, my darling, my dearest, could you please help me with something?”
Keqing looks up from her heaps of lists of things she has yet to do, and she gazes upon her lovely, beloved half-qilin girlfriend. “Yes, Ganyu, what is it?” she asks, secretly a little worried because of how rarely her girlfriend asks for anything.
Ganyu trots a little closer, a very particular sort of spring in her step, and crouches next to Keqing’s seat like a schoolchild hiding from the teacher as they visit their friend’s desk across the room. “So, I was spending time with one of my cousins recently,” she begins.
Keqing raises an eyebrow. “Yanfei?” she asks, but Ganyu shakes her head.
“Xiao,” she corrects, and immediately, Keqing frowns.
That bitch, she thinks, and she finds herself grinding her teeth a little. But, her beloved is still speaking, and so Keqing keeps her opinions inside for the moment and listens closely to what Ganyu has to say.
“I was visiting him at Wangshu Inn earlier this week, and I couldn’t help but notice that there was something up with him,” Ganyu continues, awkwardly poking her pointer fingers together.
Keqing sighs. “There’s always something up with the Conquerer of Demons,” she says dismissively. “Can’t you just let him mope it out as always?”
“Keqing, part of our job as the Qixing is to care for the health of our nation’s history and culture,” Ganyu gently reminds her. “Besides, it’s different this time. I think I know what specifically has been bothering him as of late.”
Keqing quirks an eyebrow yet again, this time also folding her arms across her chest in skepticism. “Oh?”
Ganyu’s expression suddenly picks up, and she fidgets with excitement. She gestures for Keqing to come closer, so the distinguished Yuheng of the Qixing slips off her chair, and together, she and the General Secretary squat underneath her work desk like schoolchildren about to play a prank on the teacher.
“I think,” whispers Ganyu excitedly, “he’s in love with someone.”
Keqing jerks back so quickly from the shock, she would have knocked her head against the wooden desk had her hair not softened the blow. “Ganyu, be serious here!” she hisses.
“I am being serious, Keqing!” Ganyu insists, leaning into Keqing’s space as if to prove her earnestness. “I saw that he started keeping a pot of flowers in his room, which is unusual enough for him on its own, but firstly, they’re flowers from Mondstadt, of all places, and secondly, they’ve historically been associated heavily with this immortal bard from Mondstadt who was once close friends with Rex Lapis—”
Keqing, a little dizzy with the proximity, puts her hands on Ganyu’s shoulders and reinstates her professional bubble. “Okay, okay, I get it,” she says, settling criss-cross applesauce on the floor beneath their desk fortress. “But why are you so interested in this all of a sudden?”
Ganyu’s expression becomes a little shy and sheepish as she, too, makes herself comfortable on the floor. “Well, um, it’s just that my relationship with you makes me so happy, and even though Xiao and I aren’t especially close the way Yanfei and I are, he’s still my senior among the Adepti, and I want him to have something nice like that, too.”
Keqing chews the inside of her cheek for a moment.
“Ganyu, I have work to do,” she says after a bit, even though she’s planned out Liyue’s future in such meticulous detail that she could fall into a ten-year coma and still come back to a city with twenty years’ worth of orders left to execute. “Work that does not involve getting a repressed two thousand-year-old adeptus laid.”
Ganyu clasps her hands together and makes that perfect, adorable, and incredibly charming pleading face of hers.
Keqing feels her wall of excuses crumble to dust in the span of a tenth of a hundredth of a thousandth of a second.
“Okay, fine,” she relents.
Ganyu squeals in delight and grabs Keqing’s face to plant a quick, overjoyed kiss to her lips.
(Keqing’s cheeks flush redder than in the winter wind.)
“Perfect!” Ganyu sings, clapping her hands together. “I’ll get to organizing everything and everyone we’ll need to set him up with that bard right away.” Her eyes crinkle at the edges from the sincerity of her smile, and her entire form seems to exude so much gratuity, Keqing wonders why she even considered denying her girlfriend’s request.
“I love you!” Ganyu exclaims, which isn’t unusual, even when they’re at work. “I love you!! I love, love, love you, Keqing, you make me so happy, and I love your stubborn attitude, and your commitment to improving people’s lives with your own two hands, and your laugh and your frown and—”
“Lady Yuheng?” one of Ningguang’s secretaries calls out. “The Tianquan requests your presence in her office.”
Keqing’s face starts burning all over as she quickly crawls out from underneath her desk. “Yes, coming!” she calls, speed walking to the doorway. Clearing her throat, she adds: “Sorry, I was just finishing up a very important impromptu meeting.”
Baixiao, to her credit, does not miss a beat. “Of course, o venerable Yuheng. Lady Ningguang often has similar with that pirate captain in her own office.”
Ganyu chooses to poke her head out from under Keqing’s desk at that exact moment, cheeks still flushed such a pretty pink from excitement. “Well, I’m off to Wangsheng Funeral Parlor for an important meeting!” she says, planting another kiss on Keqing’s cheek before she hurries off.
“Stay safe!” Keqing calls to her girlfriend, who nods in happy acknowledgement. Then, she clears her throat and turns her attention to the expectantly watching and waiting Baixiao. “Well? Let’s get down to business.”
Wangsheng Funeral Parlor has a lot of unusual clients coming through their doors. Hu Tao likes to joke that Zhongli’s incredibly potent old man energy is their secret weapon to attracting local eccentrics to their services like bees to bananas, but she knows that in truth, it’s her invaluable attitude towards her line of work.
“Morbid morning, dearest customer! Welcome to Hu Tao’s funky fresh funeral parlor; how may I help you today?” Hu Tao sings as she turns around in her fancy director’s chair to see who came in. Then, eyes widening in recognition, she excitedly cries, “Ganyu! So nice to see you! Here to visit ol’ Peepaw again, or have you finally found the time to sort through your extensive centuries’ worth of family records?”
The secretary of the Qixing gives the young and eccentric director of Wangsheng Funeral Parlor a frazzled, but very excited smile. “Good morning to you, too, Hu Tao!” she says, blazing with a purposefulness perfectly befitting of a woman who fought in the Archon War as she walks right over. “Unfortunately, no, I still haven’t found the time to sort out my family records, but I appreciate Wangsheng for continuing to house them for all these years.”
“Of course!” Hu Tao merrily chirps, bouncing in her seat. “Our contract and services go on in perpetuity~!”
“As for Mr. Zhongli, I would like to consult him later for some private affairs, maybe, but I actually wanted to speak with you first, Hu Tao,” Ganyu replies.
Hu Tao’s eyes float into her bangs, and she puts on her winning smile. “Is that so, Miss Ganyu? Well, what’s the name of the grave?”
“It’s about Xiao.”
Immediately, Hu Tao sobers. “Xiao, you say, huh? I haven’t sensed anything unusual about the Boundaries lately, but—”
Ganyu’s eyes widen, and she quickly waves her hands around to gesture her mistake. “Oh, no! No, no, he’s not dying.” She briefly frowns. “Not that I know of at this moment, that is,” she amends, then lights up again. “He’s in love.”
Hu Tao feels an explosion of excitement bubbling like lava inside her heart. “In love you say???” she says, folding her hands in front of her as she smiles so widely, she’s sure her teeth will fall out. “Well, now this is exciting. With whom?”
Ganyu makes a beeline for the consulting chair across from Hu Tao, who instantly pours her a cup of piping-hot tea. “So there’s this immortal bard from Mondstadt who would visit Rex Lapis sometimes,” she says as she settles in.
“Uhuh, uhuh.”
“And I’ll admit, I hadn’t really noticed anything about Xiao’s relationships since the other Yaksha— or maybe I just forgot, since it has been a few hundred years since he last came up…”
“Yes, go on.”
Ganyu blinks several times in a flurry. “Right! Well— so, a lot’s been happening recently—”
“—tell me about it,” Hu Tao agrees.
“—but now that it seems like the dust is finally finished settling, I decided to pay Xiao a personal visit, rather than a professional one between adepti, over at Wangshu Inn the other day, and~ I found myself noticing that he got a new potted plant in his room.”
Hu Tao gasps. “I’ve never seen Xiao keep anything alive in his room, not even himself!”
Ganyu’s eye takes on its keen archer’s glint. “Exactly,” she says, “and so I asked him about it, and he said it was a gift from ‘Venti’.”
Hu Tao leans back, balancing a pen on her upper lip. “‘Venti’, huh?”
Ganyu nods. “Yes, it seems that’s the name the Anemo Arch— uhh, I mean, the immortal bard— goes by these days.”
Hu Tao whistles, long and loud. “Wow, the Anemo Archon, huh? That’s fun,” she muses, plucking her pen from her upper lip to idly draw random words in the air. “I’ve always wanted to meet him; his pranks are simply legendary. Iconic, even!”
Ganyu hides a laugh behind her hand. “Yes, well, the way Xiao said his name was just so wistful and yearning that it reminded me of me right before I got with Keqing.”
Hu Tao drops her pen and barks with laughter. “Oh, so he’s down bad, bad!” she cackles as she slaps her palm against the wood of her desk. “Ohhh, this is priceless; I gotta write a poem about it later to embarrass him…”
“Wait, but before you do that, I have something to ask of you,” Ganyu says, and she reaches over the desk to clasp one of Hu Tao’s bejeweled hands in both of her own.
“And what would that be, good Lady Ganyu?” Hu Tao asks, feeling a little bit like an actress pretending to be a freshly-minted wealthy widower who murdered her own evil tycoon of a husband and is now faced with his loyal, desperate, grieving servants who wish to accompany her out of the country.
“Will you,” starts Ganyu with incredibly level, somber conviction, “help me set them up?”
Hu Tao blinks several times. “Like, on a date?” she asks, the prior actress-y feeling fleeting away. But, before Ganyu can reply, an idea creeps into the mortician’s mind like a ghoul in a graveyard, and she grins wickedly. “Actually, I think I can do you better than that— and I know just the person to get involved!”
Ganyu is now visibly vibrating with excitement. “Really? Who?”
Hu Tao puts her elbows up as she rests her head on her hands. “My girlfriend, Yanfei~”
Ganyu gasps, clapping her hands together in delight. “She can get them married!”
Hu Tao jumps out of her seat and points excitedly at Ganyu. “EXACTLY!!!!”she shouts.
Ganyu gets to her feet as well, infected with Hu Tao’s energy. “Well, then it’s a good thing she was the next person I was going to recruit. We need both her and Keqing’s analytical planning skills to pull this off.”
Hu Tao is bolting towards the door before the other woman is even finished speaking. “Well, what are you waiting for?” she calls, skipping in place. “Let’s go!”
“Yanfei-baobei-ah~” sings a delightfully familiar voice as the door to Yanfei’s Legal Agency opens, followed by excited cackling.
“Hu Tao-wuwu,” Yanfei calls in reply, putting down the fancy pen her father recently sent her from Fontaine and turning her attention to the door.
“I have an adventure in the works~!!” Hu Tao sings, which, to its credit, definitely piques Yanfei’s curiosity.
“Oh?” she asks, now putting away her case files. (Her lunch break is coming up soon anyway, so she might as well pack them in a few minutes early.) “Tell me more, Taotao; we’ll work out the loopholes.”
“Ah, sorry, Feifei, not that kind of adventure,” Hu Tao clarifies as she walks through the door. Meeting Yanfei’s eye, she flashes a grin, flicks her head in belated greeting, and gives a lazy, two-fingered salute. “Yo!” she brightly says.
But Yanfei is distracted by the other person to come through the door. “Ganyu-jiejie!” she gasps, leaping out of her seat to hug both women. “What are you doing here?” she asks, while Hu Tao plants an obnoxiously loud kiss on Yanfei’s cheek.
“Oh, don’t worry, no one’s died,” Ganyu reassures her, soothingly stroking Yanfei’s hair.
“We’re setting Xiao up with his crush!” Hu Tao promptly and cheerfully explains.
Yanfei’s brow instantly furrows. “The Conquerer of Demons has a crush on someone?”
“Indeed he does!” Hu Tao crows, using Yanfei’s shoulder as an anchoring point as she jumps up and down. “It’s actually more like he’s completely and utterly head over heels with yearning, but, like, details!”
While Hu Tao is busy waving her hand around dismissively, Yanfei looks to her cousin for confirmation. When Ganyu nods, the lawyer’s mind instantly starts to race through all the implications.
“Ohh, but civil cases aren’t my strong suit,” she says worriedly. “Is the Conquerer of Demons’s partner a citizen of Liyue? Do they have a copy of their family registry, or did it get destroyed in the Osial incident— wait, does the Conquerer of Demons have an existent family registry? He’s not at all integrated into mortal society— can he even read?? Is he—”
Ganyu places a soothing hand on Yanfei’s shoulder, gently shushing her. “He signed a contract with Rex Lapis thousands of years ago; of course Xiao can read.”
“It’s possible that he just had the contract read out loud to him,” Hu Tao cheerfully points out. “Or, since it’s been so long since he had to really read anything, maybe he forgot!”
Ganyu gives Hu Tao a sharp look. “Xiao can read,” she says. Then, under her breath: “…I’m pretty sure.”
“Maybe that’s why he likes to listen to Venti’s singing,” Hu Tao thoughtfully adds. “Even if he’s unable to read any poetry for himself, he can at least appreciate it when sung out loud.”
“Who’s Venti?” Yanfei asks, now officially lost.
“The object of Xiao’s affections,” Ganyu explains, tactfully.
“The Anemo Archon,” Hu Tao says at the exact same time, very tactlessly.
“Hu Tao!” Ganyu scolds, putting her hands on her hips.
But Hu Tao simply sheepishly shrugs. “Well, it was going to have to come up in the marriage papers eventually! I’m pretty sure the Mondstadters would want to know if their god is getting married, after all!”
Yanfei’s thought process turns to static. “I… I think I need to sit down for a moment,” she mechanically says, and she shuffles back to her seat. “So… the Conquerer of Demons is getting married, you say…”
“Weeeellllllllllllllll,” Hu Tao says, and Ganyu quickly takes over to give the poor lawyer a proper explanation, one that would actually hold up in court as accurate and truthful.
“Okay, I think I understand the situation now,” Yanfei says, much more confidently this time. At some point during the explanation, Hu Tao crawled onto her lap and started feeding her some rather suspicious-looking dried fruit that she keeps in her hat pocket between questions, but since that’s not much different from Yanfei’s usual lunch breaks spent with her lover, no one bats an eye. “I think the first thing we need to do is find out where this bard is so that we can keep track of him.”
“Ganyu, you know all of The Seven personally,” Hu Tao pipes up.
Nodding, Ganyu says, “To an extent, yes.”
“Where do you think we’d find him?”
Ganyu taps her chin thoughtfully. “Well, assuming he’s in Liyue, then probably either busking or drinking.”
Yanfei starts to push Hu Tao off her lap. “Perfect! We can go to Wanmin for lunch and keep an eye out for little green bards from Mondstadt!”
“Oh boy, I hope Xingqiu and Chongyun are there,” Hu Tao says, popping one last dried fruit into her own mouth before putting her hat back on. “Maybe a poetry battle in the streets will summon him!”
“By the way,” Yanfei asks as the trio exit her office, “What’s Keqing doing?”
“I do believe that’s all I needed to discuss with you at the moment, Lady Yuheng,” says Ningguang as she carefully gathers her stacks of important documents in her claws. “Unless you have something else that requires my attention, you may take your lunch now.”
“Actually, there is one last thing I’d like to discuss with you, Lady Ningguang, if that’s all right with you,” Keqing says, much to Ningguang’s surprise.
Oh? the Tianquan thinks, and she looks up to see Keqing’s eyes slightly furrowed.
“Although, perhaps this is more of a personal matter than usual,” Keqing adds, albeit with an unusual amount of hesitancy, which is any at all.
Deciding this must be an important matter to bring the talented and headstrong young Yuheng to such concern, Ningguang sets aside her documents, delicately laces her fingers together, and says, “If this is about your engagement plans to Miss Ganyu again, I have already told you that the anti-fraternization laws regarding the Qixing were repealed—”
Keqing waves her off. “No, no, it wasn’t that,” she says, each word seemingly fumbling out of her mouth as her cheeks pinken. “I haven’t been able to find a good enough ring just yet, that’s all.”
Ningguang hums. “Just commission someone,” she blandly suggests.
Keqing frowns further. “No, then everyone will know what I’m doing, and I want this to be a surprise.”
“Get your assistant to commission it on your behalf, then.”
Keqing groans. “My latest assistant is on leave to care for her aging parents, and I haven’t found anyone willing to help me schedule hourly plans more than six months in advance,” she says. “Besides, this ring has got to be perfect, and even if I were to commission someone for it, I’d want as few middlemen as possible in order to maximize the fidelity of the final product to my vision.”
Ningguang resists the urge to pull out her lighter. “Tragic,” she says. “You might as well make the ring at that rate.”
She says it sardonically, but Keqing pauses as if to actually consider it.
“I do have the experience working as a miner in the Chasm,” the Yuheng says quietly, half to herself. “And if I ask Blade Master Zhang to teach me metalworking, people will just assume I’m there for my sword…”
The skills that go into fine sword smithing, while incredibly valuable in their own right, are a slightly different specialization from jewelry smithing. While some smiths are capable of producing fine quality of both, Ningguang knows that Master Zhang lacks the delicate motor skills for truly exceptional jewelry due to a cargo incident in his youth.
Unable to stand the idea of Keqing proposing with even a slightly suboptimally produced ring, Ningguang casually taps her claws against her desk and says, “Isn’t one of her relatives a tinkerer? Master Zhang does some admirable weapon work, but we do not use ceremonial weapons in battle for a reason.”
“True,” Keqing concedes, though she continues to falter. “But I don’t want to have a meeting with her family about this sort of thing without every last detail planned out. If I don’t, then they’ll think I’m not serious about the relationship.”
Ningguang runs a mental list of the children in the Harbor and their various specialties of knowledge and personal connections. “What about that little girl Ganyu has taken under her wing, Yaoyao?” she suggests. “She seems like a sharp child, and very attentive to Ganyu’s needs and desires.”
Keqing considers it for a moment. “I’ll consider it,” she says, then finally regains her strict edge. “Anyway, that’s not what I actually wanted to talk about, which would be the Conquerer of Demons, Xiao.”
Ningguang’s interest in the conversation briefly wavers. While the Conquerer of Demons technically falls under the Qixing’s responsibility, he has repeatedly expressed a strong desire for zero mortal interference in his affairs. Of course, the Qixing have historically conveniently ignored this (and now Wangshu Inn is one of the nation’s greatest cultural attractions!), but with the rise of true human governance, Ningguang thinks they can probably sit out whatever Adeptal shenanigans might be looming on the horizon.
“As I said earlier, this is more of a personal matter than anything, but essentially, Ganyu has requested my aid in her desire to set her cousin Xiao up with someone.”
Ningguang purses her lips. The last yaksha being the massive recluse he is means that the massive economic gains associated with Adeptal weddings absolutely will not exist when he is involved. As such, while the personal affairs of the Adepti are often of national concern— Rex Lapis’s funeral was still not too long ago a scandal relative to the nation’s sprawling centuries of history— the request itself being made on a personal level gives Ningguang the room to decline involvement.
However, viewing it on that same personal level… Keqing is one of her dear friends as well as a rare, trusted coworker. It is not hard for Ningguang, whose frequent mental simulations of Liyue Millennial may very well be the closest thing anyone in the universe has gotten to inventing and playing 4D chess, to see how these types of romantic shenanigans could simultaneously help the poor Yuheng with her own engagement endeavors.
“I see,” she says carefully, evenly, while summoning her Geo pipe to twirl upon her fingertip in pretend disinterest. “And how much money are you requesting for this project, then?”
“We… haven’t run any financial calculations quite yet,” Keqing admits, once again showing Ningguang how uncharacteristically ad hoc these suggested matchmaking efforts are shaping up to be. “We’re in the preliminary stages of brainstorming right now, and I just wanted to get your approval before we incur any sudden costs.”
Ningguang closes her hand and returns her pipe to the ether. “Of course,” she evenly replies, and she rests her claws on the polished wutong of her desk with a series of satisfying clicks. “I’ll be sure to contact Verr Goldet about it at the earliest possible opportunity, as she’s head of the branch responsible for the last yaksha’s well-being.”
“Of course,” Keqing crisply answers in turn, gathering herself to go.
Right at that moment, the door to Ningguang’s office in the Jade Chamber bursts open, and a familiar, jaunty pirate swaggers in. “Yo, Ningguang! I brought Wanmin!”
“Captain,” Ningguang greets, barely able to contain her smile. Although Keqing knows about her relationship with Beidou, the Tianquan still cannot shake the stifling mouth of propriety breathing down her neck, demanding that she sever all connection with a woman of Beidou’s origins immediately.
(The all-knowing eyes of judgement are stupid, Ningguang knows, and far too ignorant of her own humble origins to leave anything but a bitter taste on her tongue, which is why they are certainly not allowed in her Jade Chamber.)
((Still, her time on the ground left a deep impression on her, so she brings up a hand to hide her pleasure instead.))
“So wonderful to see you haven’t yet drowned on those reckless seafaring adventures of yours.”
Beidou huffs with laughter. “Sorry we’re late, baobei, but you wouldn’t believe the rhymes Kazuha was busting in front of Wanmin earlier! Our little poet was holding his own in a three-way battle against Hu Tao and Xingqiu! You should have heard some of the fire he was blowing!”
The poet of the hour comes fluttering in behind Beidou like a leaf on the wind, his cheeks as red as autumn.
“Lady Yuheng,” he says, drawing out every syllable like each one is worth its own breath, “your friends are waiting for you at Wanmin Restaurant. They ordered you extra golden shrimp balls.”
Keqing lights up at the news. “Thank you for telling me, Kaedehara.” She briefly bows in the direction of the Tianquan. “I will be taking my leave now, Lady Ningguang. I appreciate your support.”
Ningguang waves the Yuheng off as the latter hastily exits the Jade Chamber, then turns her full attention to her wife and son. “Care for a game of chess, Captain?” she asks as she fishes out the paper bag of top quality Naku Weed she ordered from Inazuma to hand to Kazuha.
As their son fumbles with the childproof seal (courtesy of Yanfei’s friend Shinobu) on the package, Beidou gently places down their meal and plops herself down in her usual seat.
“Oh, please,” she says, digging through the takeout boxes for something in particular. She grins when she finds it, flashing Ningguang with her mouth full of sharp teeth as she holds it out. “I’m so hungry I’m going to eat the pieces if you try to start one now.”
Ningguang smirks as she takes the still-warm Mora Meat from Beidou. “Are you sure you’re not just looking for more excuses to justify your inevitable loss?”
(I missed you.)
“AHAHA, in your mora-plated dreams,” Beidou cackles, then gestures Kazuha over to the round dining table. “C’mon, let’s eat.”
(I love you, too. I want us both to eat well.)
Not only are Xingqiu and Chongyun present at Wanmin for Hu Tao to do battle with, but their ensuing rapid-fire verses are apparently legendary enough to draw the attention and participation of a very certain Anemo boy.
(No, not that one.)
(Not that one, either.)
“A butterfly at dawn will never fly for long,” taunts Hu Tao in her signature morbid style.
“On behalf of freedoms yearned, the morning sky is burned,” Kazuha finishes, but before Xingqiu can step up to the plate and have a turn, Chongyun raises his hand and blows a whistle.
“Kaedehara,” he says, holding up a set of fingers. “Your first line had too many syllables.”
Off to the side, Beidou loudly boos, but Kazuha merely nods politely and exits stage left.
Still, at least meals at Wanmin are never wasted, as by the time the dust has settled and Hu Tao is declared the winner of this particular round of poetics, Keqing has already eaten half the golden shrimp balls, while the Anemo boys relevant to their scheming remain nowhere to be found.
“Well, we can’t really do much without confirming both targets’ locations,” Yanfei says, and the rest of the girls sigh.
“What would Rex Lapis do…” Keqing mutters beneath her breath. Beside her, Ganyu finds herself wondering much the same.
However, Ganyu also feels her post-lunchtime nap creeping up on her like clockwork, and instead of suggesting they raise the mountains bordering Stone Gate even higher to keep, quote, “that capricious thread of wind no better than a fart” from blowing by before they each have at least one bottle of wine in them (as she remembers her Lord Rex Lapis doing quite often some thousand-odd years ago), she lets out a ginormous yawn.
(It takes her a sleepy moment to realize why the other girls are staring at her.)
Ganyu’s hands fly up to her mouth. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” she immediately apologizes and tries to subtly summon a bit of Cryo to cool her cheeks.
Keqing lays a hand on her arm. “Don’t worry, love, you’ve had a long morning. You deserve a soft rest.”
Yanfei nods vigorously. “Yes, you and Granny Ping have always impressed the importance of proper rest upon me growing up! We should find you somewhere cozy to rest as soon as possible.”
“Wangsheng Funeral Parlor has an extensive collection of coffins and caskets for you to try!” Hu Tao chimes in. “Free of charge! While normally, I would personally recommend the coffins for their cost-conscientiousness, eco-friendly simplicity, and ease of cremation, a casket would likely be more suited towards your current needs with their extra space and fine, plush cushioning!”
Ganyu’s eyes flutter as she yawns again, and she feels her girlfriend carefully slip an arm behind her back and beneath her thighs to pick her up.
“Just the couch is fine,” she hears Keqing say. “I’ll make sure she’s comfortable myself.”
“Whatever you say, Lady Yuheng~” Hu Tao shrugs and sighs.
Something else seems to be going on too, but, safe and warm and surrounded by love, Ganyu closes her eyes and…
…someone shakes her shoulder.
“Ganyu!” she hears, whispered into her ear by a hushed, but desperate, Keqing. “Ganyu! Usually, I’d let you sleep through anything but the end of the very world itself because I love you and I want you to rest well, but this is pretty close…!”
Ganyu yawns, and a quilt embroidered with flaming butterflies drifting on billows of smoke slides off her shoulders. “It’s okay, I’m ready to return to work,” she assures Keqing as she rubs the sleep from her eyes. “What seems to be the emergency?”
Keqing frantically gestures to the side, and Ganyu follows her instruction.
“Oh, Lord Barbatos,” she says when she spots the boyish green figure sitting on the table. “We’ve been wondering about your recent whereabouts.”
“Olah, Miss Ganyu!” Barbatos sing-songs with a chipper wave of his hand. “My, it’s been a while since we’ve last met! You haven’t aged a day, I see~”
(Keqing drapes a protective arm over Ganyu’s shoulders.)
“Well, I’m glad you guys managed to finally find him,” Ganyu says, still not quite fully awake despite her best efforts. “We can proceed with the plans now. Isn’t that great, Keqing?”
Keqing does not reply, but the Anemo Archon does laugh.
“Ah, yes, your plans to set me up with the Vigilant Yaksha, correct?” he asks with a clap of his hands. Swinging his legs carelessly back and forth, he says, “Ehe, if I may, I have but a single request regarding you ladies’ plans.”
For some reason, the elephant in the room still has not registered for Ganyu. She nods along and reaches for a notepad that does not exist as she says, “Yes, of course, the Qixing are always listening to the needs and requests of the people.”
For some reason, Venti and only Venti seems to find this amusing. “I can see why your aiqing insisted on letting you sleep now,” he muses. “I’d have been fine with it, too, but someone in the parlor insisted that all parties involved with planning must be present when finalizing an agreement.”
Out of Ganyu’s line of sight, she hears the God of Geo “hmph.” Despite recognizing the former Archon’s voice anywhere, she still does not register anything unusual about this discussion.
(Keqing hands Ganyu one of her own personal pocket notebooks to keep her girlfriend from continuing to blindly grope at her ponytails.)
“Anyway, back to the subject of you ladies’ matchmaking scheme,” Venti blithely continues. He folds his hands and smiles brightly at each individual in the room before settling it on Ganyu again.
“I want in.”
There is a significant pause as everyone processes his statement.
Then finally, everything clicks in Ganyu’s head.
“WHAT???” she is the first to shout, much more loudly than she ever has or ever intends to again in her life. The birds peacefully existing just outside the window fly away in shock from the sound.
Ganyu quickly clamps both her hands over her mouth, then just as quickly whips her head to check on Keqing, upon whose lap she finally realizes she is practically sitting.
While Keqing swerves to avoid Ganyu’s horns, Venti bursts into laugher, followed by Hu Tao, while Yanfei clutches her head.
“Your friends walked into my office earlier requesting my help regarding your plans, only for Director Hu to realize mid-sentence that the…” Zhongli grimaces, his expression radiating deeply rooted displeasure. “…desponsiary in question had called in pretending to be a customer seeking consultation on replacement headstones in order to trick me into clearing my schedule for an afternoon tea together in my office.”
“I thought you liked tea, Grandpa,” Yanfei says. “Didn’t you invent it?”
Zhongli heaves an exasperated sigh from deep in his chest. “No, that honor should actually be attributed to the Stove God Marchosius—”
“GUOBA INVENTED TEA???” Hu Tao howls incredulously, slamming her palms down on her desk in shock.
(Ganyu can practically see the ex-Archon aging in real time.)
Zhongli sighs even more deeply (if that were at all possible) and says, with a resignation drawn from the molten core buried far within his soul, “Unfortunately, this disgraceful buffoon who calls himself a bard caught wind of your plans quite quickly after that and has now gotten his empty, little head simply riddled with ideas of romancing my last yaksha—”
“You make it sound like I tried romancing all your other yaksha!!! That is simply untrue, Morax; what happened to your commitment to the accurate preservation of history?!?” Venti loudly complains, though he shuts up when Zhongli summons a tiny meteor to orbit threateningly around his head.
“When faced with the mountains of stories across thousands of years of history,” Zhongli says, “what is important is not whether a story is provably true or not, but instead whether those listening to it find it worth believing or not.”
Venti makes an offended noise, then hops off the desk to dig around in its drawers. “Where are your cellar keys; I’m too sober for this…”
There is a flash of golden light, and Venti jumps back as the desk seals its locks with solid Geo.
“I find it hard to believe that a bard would fail to find faith in the power of story,” Zhongli dryly comments.
Venti stares up at the ceiling. “I need a drink.”
Ganyu furrows her brow. “Lord Barbatos, does the thought of others being involved with your love life upset you?” she asks, as kindly as she possibly can.
“Well…” drawls Venti, pointedly rolling his eyes and landing them on Zhongli. Crossing his arms, he says, “Maybe a little bit—”
“Hang on a second!” Yanfei cries, hopping up and down to catch everyone’s attention. “We didn’t misinterpret your intentions with the Conquerer of Demons, did we? You’re not trying to get involved because you have a series of clarifying incidents in mind planned to dissuade us from setting you two up, are you?”
Venti’s eyes go wide, and his hands fly up to wave around in denial. “No! Oh, for the love of—” he says a frantic string of ancient Mondstadtian words no one, save perhaps Zhongli, can understand, then puts a hand to his chest and sighs, seemingly to calm himself.
With a smile that looks more strained than anything, he says, “Please rest assured that I am fully aware of Xiao’s feelings towards me. The wind hears every prayer spoken in its devotion, after all.” (He takes a moment to pay a glance to Zhongli, and he sticks his tongue out at the stone-faced old man.) “Although it’s true that the wind cannot be forced to stay tied down, I still find myself drawn to Xiao’s devotion. I admire the strength of faith he places in the things he chooses to believe in, and his sweet and gentle nature is endearing.”
Here, Venti lets out long sigh, wistful as the sweet scent of qingxin on the thin mountain breeze. “While I might not agree with his self-destructive lengths he takes his loyalties to, he really is trying to be good, at his heart… It’s really too bad he’s developed such a severe allergy to even the thought of having desire; I’ve spent centuries simply waiting for his confession at this point!”
…He really needs a drink, Ganyu thinks, a swish of pity brushing at her breastbone. “What keeps you from confessing, then?”
Venti gives her a lopsided smile. “Oh, and I suppose you think every piece I’ve ever played in the empty marshes of Dihua has only been for practice?”
The melancholy tune of the Dihua Flute has become something of a legend in Liyue over the centuries, often as a ghost story from how frequently it happens when the monsters roaming reach their height. For it to have been the God of Song all these years would make sense in hindsight, but as a confession to the Conquerer of Demons, whom Ganyu knows to be shy about the subject…?
“Ahh, like Xiao would even think those tunes were being played with such intent,” Hu Tao dismissively argues before Ganyu can reconsider the situation they’re working with. “He’s always complaining about how unfathomable he finds human ritual to be, especially when their intentions are never stated outright. Aren’t you a bard, Mr. Venti? Why haven’t you just told him with those words of yours if you’ve been waiting for so long?”
Zhongli clears his throat. “If I may, I believe it is more fair if I take the fault for that.”
Hu Tao and Yanfei gasp in unison, and they grab onto each other like girls going through a test of courage. “Grandpa, you didn’t forbid their union or anything, did you??”
This time, Venti laughs. “Like that would have stopped me,” he says. “The first thing I ever learned was how to be a rebel. No, the blockhead’s fault in all this lies in saying his ideal lies in ‘contracts’ and not ‘fairness’. Because of it, it seems that Xiao has come to see himself as a perpetual weapon bound to his duty to protect, rather than a person seeking to repay his debts. As such, I cannot in good faith ask if he’ll be with me for as long as he also sees me as someone who saved his life when he most thought himself worthless.”
The bard’s personal investment in Xiao is nothing if not practically physically palpable in the room at that moment, and everyone else, having grown up in the typically more reticent culture of Liyue, find themselves at an awkward loss for how to reply.
“…You’re just afraid of the weight of your own feelings potentially binding you down in some way if they were to be reciprocated, and of something lovely coming out of it, aren’t you?” Hu Tao says slowly, narrowing her eyes.
Venti scoffs and tosses his head like a horse balking. “Of course not!” he snips, putting his hands on his hips. “I’m also afraid of Xiao lacking the self-certainty to say yes because he wants a relationship as well and not just to make me happy.”
Ganyu suddenly feels her own ancient age bearing down on her at the thought of waiting for something for so long with only the tensions between duty and desire holding her back. She is only half qilin, yes, but half is far from nothing.
As far away as she may often feel from the closed-off world of the fully-fledged adepti, living in the Harbor as she does, Ganyu still feels the draw of history upon her person, soaking in her blood and pulling deeply on her bones. Her cousin may scoff at the way she allows the various parts of her identity as hun-xie carry equal weight in her decisions, but if half her human nature is enough to war against her qilin blood, then she’s certain that whatever tiny wish gave him the Anemo Archon’s eye is enough to tug upon his very Liyue heart.
Oh, she thinks, and she searches for Keqing’s steady hand to ground her. While Ganyu knows she always has been (and always will be) her own person without Keqing by her side, the vast multitudes contained within human identity and complexities of their longings are difficult to parse alone. More than ever does Ganyu wish that Xiao could understand what profound good her relationship with people— what her relationship with Keqing— has provided for her own sense of self-identity.
(Keqing laces their fingers together and drops her other arm from Ganyu’s shoulder down to her waist, so as to hold her girlfriend even more steadily on her lap.)
“Besides,” Venti adds, “the saying says to ‘Let the wind lead’, not ‘Let the stormy gales sweep you off your feet and drag you to your fate’. I’m more than willing to show Xiao that I’m very interested in him, but if this relationship is going to work, he’s going to have to take the initiative to ask me to be his partner. Otherwise, I fear he may never feel like our relationship was borne just as much from his own choices and desire as mine.”
There’s another bit of lengthy pause following Venti’s speech, sort of like the somber, almost grievous, feeling children get when they’ve spent a summer afternoon watching drizzles drop from rooftops rather than playing in puddles.
Fortunately, Hu Tao is quite adept at handling gloomy situations, so she walks up to Venti, pats him on the arm, and says:
“Hey, don’t worry about it. What if we faked your death?”