Chapter Text
The young director of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor, Hu Tao, was trying to make an important decision. She was staring at the reflection that was looking back at her.
Her hair was down and it flowed down over her shoulder. She grabbed it and brought the scissors right where the red of her hair faded away into the brunette.
Don’t get Hu Tao wrong, she loved the red tips of her hair. It made her feel pretty and spooky at the same time. Throughout its history, hair was an extremely important part of one’s self in Liyue.
However, it is because of that, her hair is a “problem” to some. People have made the assumption that because of her red tips she is not professional, or is cursed by the adepti, which couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Yet she’s noticed how it affects business, possibly even more than her enthusiastic personality of the dead. And while she refuses to change herself as a person for these people, she thought her hair might be something more
Negotiable.
The matter of fact was that the red tips of her hair were natural. She assumed it has something to do with her family’s vague connection to the adepti. She never asked the adepti she met.
What would it symbolize if she cut it off? What was she losing? She cut her choppy bangs all the time. So why was she afraid of severing a different part of her hair?
It wasn’t until the knock on her bedroom door that she came back to reality. “Mr. Zhongli?” She called out, he was the only person she thought it could be but she thought he gone out for groceries.
“Hello, Miss Hu, are you alright?” He asked with concern in his voice. Zhongli always seemed to know when she’s about to make a stupid decision.
“Yeah! I’m fine Mr. Zhongli! Why do you ask?” She cheerfully replied. Zhongli paused for a while, as Hu Tao realized she could smell something good coming from the kitchen.
Was she really contemplating cutting her hair for so long that he managed to get home and make dinner?
No, surely not. He must have ordered some food to-go to bring it home. Yeah, that must be it.
“Miss Hu, I have called you down for dinner 5 times already, not including me calling for you to come down to help me put away groceries, and not a single response until just now.” He claimed with that voice of concern mixed with a father-like sternness. “I would have thought you left if not for your shoes at the door.”
No way. Hu Tao couldn’t believe it. There’s no way she was so lost in her mind that she missed hours of time. Wasted hours of time. Contemplating something that she should have been over with long before.
Another knock.
“Tao, can I come in?”
Shit. He only called her by her first name if he was serious about something. Darn it.
She quickly slid the scissors under her bed and threw one of her stuffed animals on top of it.
She quickly grabbed one of her hair ties, rushing to put her hair into a ponytail, she didn’t have time to put them into pigtails, as she ran to her small desk to pull out a couple unfinished poems.
There’s no way Zhongli would believe her story but she had to try to at least get him off her back for now.
“Uh, yep, come on in!” She shouted, jumping onto her bed and trying to make it look like she was there the whole time.
Right after yelled that, the door swung open. Zhongli had concern written all over his face.
“Tao, what’s going on?” He asked. Darn it, there’s no way he’s gonna believe her bullshit.
“Uh, sorry, Mr. Zhongli! I was writing some poems and must have gotten way too into the flow!” She tried to laugh it off, to make him laugh it off, but she could tell her laughs sounded fake.
Zhongli narrowed his eyes at her before looking around her room.
Shit shit shit. “Uh, is dinner still warm? I’m starved!” She exclaimed throwing her legs over the edge of her bed.
Then she noticed where Zhongli’s eyes were looking. Right at where the scissors were.
“Tao. Were you… hurting yourself?” He hesitated to get the words out, for fear that they were true.
“What?! No! Nothing like that! I was simply trying to do something new with my appearance! It’s not an issue!” She retorted while crossing her arms, angered that Zhongli would even thing she would do such a thing as cut herself, and making such a big deal about it.
He seemed a bit more assured after she said that but something in the back of his mind told him something was off.
Then Zhongli threw her a question that she knew was inevitable. “Hu Tao. You cut your bangs all the time and don’t care if I notice. How come you hid the scissors this time?”
Come on, it’s just some hair. Some dumb stupid hair. Her dumb stupid hair. She’s going to cut it. She has to cut it. So why does it feel like admitting she broke a contract to Rex Lapis himself.
Hu Tao struggled to get the words out properly, which was probably why Zhongli could tell she wasn’t very confident in what she was planning to do.
“Like I said, I was simply going to change my appearance a bit. Thought it was time to grow up and start some change.”
His next question had her frozen.
“Hu Tao. You weren’t going to cut off the red in your hair were you?” He asked firmly, like he already knew the answer.
Of course he did, he was some sort of adeptus, that much she could figure out.
However something deep down told her she couldn’t lie to him.
“So what if I was? People would take me more seriously, like they do with you. Plus people can recognize me without it. All things considered it’s a good move.” She replied honestly.
She couldn’t see the problem with cutting it off. She has breifly considered cutting her hair short like Xiao’s in the past.
Zhongli looked saddened by this but he turned around and left the room.
Hu Tao could already feel disappointment in herself bubbling in her gut.
What did she say that was wrong? Surely what she said didn’t make him that upset.
She was stuck back in her thought before she heard a knock at the door once more, Zhongli was back with a comb in hand, standing in the door way.
He slowly walked towards her as if she was some sort of scared animal. And it felt like a small part of her was.
He sat next to her on the bed and took her hair out the her ponytail. “Your hair is knotted.” He said as he carefully combed his way through. From the bottom to the roots, just as he taught her.
They sat in that uneasy yet somehow comfortable silence for a while until her hair was smooth as silk once more.
Zhongli reached and grabbed the hair tie she left behind before parted her hair to put them in their pigtails.
“Your hair is connected to your soul. Morax, himself, gave it adeptal energy.” He softly spoke to her like he did when she young.
He mumbled something, that she surely wasn’t supposed to hear, but with how close he was she picked it up clearly, and it confused her.
“I don’t understand why we have this conversation every time.”
What was he talking about? She had never seriously considered cutting her hair before this. And hold on; what did he mean by her hair being connected to her soul? And what did he mean by Morax giving her adeptal energy? Sure, her family had connections to the adepti, but being adeptal in nature? She hadn’t heard of such a thing in her family and her family kept records of everyone in her family. Surely, if someone had adeptal powers, it would be written down, right?
Before she knew it, Zhongli was placing her grandfather’s hat on her head. He got up from the bed and turned around. “I’ll go warm your dinner up again.” He smiled, crouching down, taking the scissors from under the bed and walking out the room with them in hand.
Hu Tao sat there with far too many questions swimming in her mind.
She wanted answers. Answers she would get out of her consultant.
She had to.