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The sun is beginning to set, and Zhongli watches as the footsteps along the city’s streets begin to fade. Liyue’s people head home for the evening, another day of work done, windows faintly aglow with fireplace-red as the colder months begin to settle in.
“Not going home for the day?” A voice from behind him pulls him out of his thoughts and he turns, a faint smile tugging at his lips. The calendar perched at the edge of the table catches his eye as he does so, his gaze skimming the numbers.
It’s already nearly the last day of the year.
“Director Hu,” he says in response. “I was thinking of taking a walk.”
Normally, he would have invited her to join him (she doesn’t always agree, but she’s obliged him every now and then for a stroll around the harbour), but not tonight. Hu Tao doesn’t make mention of it, either, nodding her head as she checks the time. “I guess I’ll see you for work tomorrow, then! Have a good night.”
“Goodnight,” he echoes, watching as she gathers her things and steps out. The rest of the employees at the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor have retired for the evening as well, and he waits a moment more before reaching out to flick the light switches off.
The blink of an eye, a whisper of flickering gold, and then he’s gone from sight.
His feet touch soil in the next moment, the crunch of leaves underfoot a familiar sound. The breeze over Mt. Aocang blows a little stronger at this time of the day, but it’s not an unbearable chill; the fabric of his sleeves brush his skin as he walks, the remnant traces of sun dappling faint, burnt hues across the grass.
Liyue used to be colder than this, after all. How many decades have passed since the weather changed? There is a lot that has been lost to time, he thinks, like ink on pages forgotten. They remain a hazy memory, close enough to be remembered, distant enough to be blurred, like a letter soaked in water. How many years since Mondstadt was in eternal winter? How many years since the earthen hues by the river had been washed away, faded by erosion? He cannot remember the specifics. Perhaps the tree, uprooted by storm and lying on its side that he walks past, fell thirty years ago. Or maybe it was three hundred.
Both numbers are not insignificant ones—not in the eyes of humankind. He’s come to realise this a long time ago, but more so now that he works in close relation with a funeral director; to some, thirty years is the remaining limit of their lifespan. To others, thirty years is but a forlorn wish, a silent plea for the sand in the hourglass to run just a little longer. Some don’t even make it to thirty.
Yet to him, thirty and three hundred may as well be the same. He knew of this long ago—and he knows of this now. He has visited countless graves, and he knows that in time, every human soul in Liyue Harbour will be another gravestone to pay respects to. Generations will rise and generations will fall, and he will continue to watch, just as he has always done.
Once, he had tried to fight. He had struggled to remember everything—every name, every event that transpired within his nation, every little occurrence that crossed his path. He had tried to endure the erosion, like rock against river flow.
But it had been futile, the same way sand in hourglass never stays suspended, the same way trees fall and don’t come back upright, the same way cold ebbs away into warmer land. He knows that this is a fight he cannot win. He doesn’t stop trying to remember, but he knows that he will someday forget, the same way earth inevitably splits apart and crumbles to dust.
Zhongli crosses over the water that laps at the river bank, feet touching solid ground on the other side. The round stone table is just as he remembered, and he takes a seat to the south-east.
Yet there are some things he will never forget. Like how, come midnight, this will be the last day of the year. Like how, four thousand years and one day ago, a day like this meant nothing to him, and like how, four thousand years ago, a day like this started to mean everything to him.
Three hundred years mean little to him, and a few hours but a blink of an eye. Night cascades over the mountaintop, swathing him in dark with the faintest sliver of moonlight, but he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t need to see to be able to hear the flutter of wings, pale blue glinting to his left.
“You came,” Cloud Retainer says by way of greeting, settling down in her seat. The wine jar before her has been empty for centuries, but she has never made any move to fill it back up. In a way, it doesn’t feel right.
“I always do,” he responds.
The last day of the year is here.
The area is silent, save for the faintest rustle of leaves falling against the water. Even the usual sound of distant Geovishaps have been eradicated, and when Cloud Retainer speaks, voice barely above a whisper, it’s audible all the same. “... Happy birthday, Rex.”
The corners of his lips tug upwards, and his eyes soften. “You know that’s not my name anymore.”
“You know that’s who you’ll always be to me,” Cloud Retainer replies in turn. There’s a shrug in her voice, and he can’t help but chuckle.
“I suppose you’re right.” His gaze trails to the empty spot at their table, opposite from his own. The chopsticks that sit atop the stone were carved from the finest material, spotless still through the centuries. He remembers holding them once, back when he’d been taught how to use them for the first time. “And I suppose that’s who I’ll always be to her, too.”
He wonders what she’d say if she knew. How she’d react to him, the same as always but so different now, like a soul wrapped in a different body, half a ghost and half not.
For a long time, Cloud Retainer is silent.
And then she says, quietly, “I think she would be happy to see you like this.”
“Like this?”
He wonders if she’s watching from wherever she is. If she’s seen him come to this stone table by the waters on the last day of each year for the three thousand years following her death.
“As Zhongli.”
It’s the day which she gave him, after all.
His birthday.
“Maybe she would.”
Cloud Retainer hums in agreement. “She loved them the most, after all—the little people the two of you protected together.”
Guili Plains, four thousand years ago. The people had all gone to bed by the time he returned, wings tucking themselves away as he landed on the small hill overlooking the village. He remembers the conversation they’d had back then over dinner—not in full, but in blurs and extracts. He remembers enough. He saw no need for food then, and neither did she, but she insisted on having meals with him anyway, just like the people of their village. On occasion, he didn’t have the heart to say no.
(He eats meals with the people of Liyue every day now.)
They had spoken about the people. This he remembers. He’d never quite fathomed Guizhong’s affection for them, or the way she always spoke so kindly of them. He had protected them out of duty, and partly for her, but she had watched over them with something else. Love, maybe. It was an emotion he didn’t understand then.
“One of the children celebrated her birthday yesterday, while you were out.” He recalls her telling him this. He cannot remember the child’s name. Perhaps her descendants still walk amidst the harbour today, or perhaps her bloodline had faded out thousands of years ago. He cannot remember. “She came to me and asked for a blessing.”
So what did you give? He remembers asking. You couldn’t possibly have bestowed powers upon a mere child.
Guizhong had laughed, like he had been telling some kind of joke. “I gave her a flower,” she had responded, looking out over the city. He cannot remember what kind of expression she’d worn on her face, but it must have been a tender one. “It was only a simple gift, but she was happy.”
And he remembers, too, being astonished at the notion. How could someone be happy over something as plain—as meaningless—as a flower? And Guizhong must have seen the look on his features, for she had only laughed some more, shaking her head. “You’ll understand in time, Rex,” she had promised. “You’ll understand in time.”
Perhaps that had been the first time he really came to know of the concept of birthdays, for he remembers asking her about it. “It’s a celebration of the day you were born, Rex.”
That much he knows, but he didn’t understand the need for a celebration then. To this day, there are some parts to it he still thinks he doesn’t truly understand, but his bemusement hadn’t phased Guizhong. He didn’t remember the day he was born—time has never been of great importance to those meant to last millenniums—yet Guizhong had taken it upon herself to declare the need for a celebration anyway.
“Then tomorrow will be your birthday, Rex,” she had declared, and she had sounded so delighted by the idea that he hadn’t managed to find it in him to refuse. “We will celebrate it tomorrow.”
Four thousand years ago, Guizhong wished him a happy birthday—at the very end of the year, just like now, though the seasons were colder then and the nights clearer. He had obliged, not so much because he understood but more so because she had wanted him to.
“What is the purpose of this celebration?” he had asked. There had been no contract for it, no need for it, no real reason behind it.
“Because the fact that you came into this world calls for a celebration,” Guizhong had replied. “I’m glad that you exist, Rex.”
He cannot remember what his response was, or how he had felt in that moment. But he remembers hours later, after night had fallen that Guizhong had carefully extracted a flower from the earth’s embrace and presented it to him. She had always loved glaze lilies, and it glowed a soft hue in the dark like a star. “Make a wish, Morax.”
He does not remember what his first birthday wish had been. He only remembers the one he had made in the year following her passing, cradling a flower in shaking hands and wishing for her back. His wish hadn’t come true—of course it hadn’t—and he’d watched as the glaze lilies dwindled in number over the years, till they were reduced to a few along the highest cliffs and the pavements of the city (which he not-so-inconspicuously takes a stroll by every now and then).
Four thousand years ago, Guizhong had given him a flower and whispered “happy birthday” to him with a kiss to his forehead. He hadn’t understood it then, just like how he hadn’t understood every other human tradition, and he remembers telling Guizhong, once, that he doesn’t think he’ll ever be like her. That he’d never be as close to the people as she had been, and that he’d never truly view the world the way they did.
Again, she had only laughed, watching the flower glint like moonlight on water in the night. You’ll understand someday, she had said.
Four thousand years on, Cloud Retainer presents him with a lone glaze lily. Its shade hasn’t changed since back then, and it still smells the same, too. She complains about how difficult it had been to find one, but he knows she doesn’t really mean it.
“Thank you,” he tells her, taking the flower with his hands and laying it down on the spot opposite him, right by the empty bowl and the chopsticks they once held.
He hadn’t understood it then, but he thinks he does now.
It is only a simple gift, but he is happy to have received it, too.
“Happy birthday,” Cloud Retainer says again. There’s a softness to her tone, light with tenderness and heavy with nostalgia. “Make a wish.”
The corners of his eyes crinkle.
Wherever you are, I hope we’ll meet again someday.
The owner of a teahouse with the blood of a girl Guizhong protected during the war. Working at the funeral parlour in this mortal body of his, touching the world with these mortal hands of his. The way the city has grown and flourished under the rule of her own people, just like Guizhong always dreamed of.
I have a lot of stories to tell you this time, Guizhong.
Above them, the stars glow a little brighter.