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Liyue has stood on for thousands of years: born of the blood, sweat and toil of a single god. Many a being has died in this lands, and some joined hands with the Lord of the Earth in shaping the nation it is today.
The years and seasons passed, trees withered and the land itself has changed for the last one thousand years since the world achieved its peace... and now the city has ushered in the modern generation. Iron and glass buildings had sprouted, and concrete paths lined the former pavements, people from all over have made their way into the city, but like it always was since the day it began to be etched in history, remained the same inside.
And even though most of the city of Liyue had flourished beyond the recognizable features of some one millenia ago, some things also remained as it was from then, like the little pieces of history still standing among the newer constructs of the cityscape.
Quite like ghost stories, the legend of the Cor Lapis Tomb spread by word of mouth for generations yet no one truly knows what had transpired in that little corner of Liyue underneath a lonely gingko tree. Many versions of its origin came to pass, most mentioning an individual's undying loyalty and love, whether ot be to a deity or a loved one.
But for a certain nearby family business, another version has come to pass; and generations among generations of them believed it was their very god lying in that same spot until he himself had faded into the elements... Nobody truly knows.
Perhaps the stories hold some truth, perhaps not, yet one thing is for certain: that whomever rests beneath the lonely tomb had been faithful, important even... one whose passing deserved warrant in form of tears of molten gold.
She has not seen him for days, and knowing the one and only Zhongli, he would never have been anywhere else nor miss a working day at his job at the funeral parlor, yet no matter how much she searches there was naught a single trace of even the shadow of the former god...
The last she'd heard was of his excuse from the job to venture out somewhere, which she guessed was with the only other person she knows he would be with: that ginger-headed foreigner, and that was the last time there ever was any news of him.
Hu Tao had somewhat grown accustomed to his absence, but an overwhelming sense of dread followed her everywhere since the last few days realizing her only employee had been gone for such an awfully long span of time. Perhaps she should go out to look for him... or inquire of a certain blonde for help, who in a rather twisted stroke of coincidence, had appeared at the front door of her office: he looked like he had seen a ghost and his face contorted in a way she could only surmise as between sadness and anxiety. He had been pointing out to somewhere, muttering in broken, hurried words and nearly dragged her by her arm had she not calmed him down enough to say where they were headed to.
She had followed him off to the outskirts of the city, a little ways away from the path to the mines, over to a small glade where a lonely wilting tree stood. Wherefore underneath its boughs laid a large mound of glittering golden stone, shaped in the familiar likeness of a human curled into the side of a simple stone slab - a tombstone, the ground underneath it still fresh as if only dug a while ago...
The tombstone bore no name, only the promise of eternal union in the hereafter.