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Lihua wasn't even fully mortal but she was already winded. As she clambered up the stone steps up the mountain, huffing and puffing, she threw a wary glance back down the way she came and sighed. She must have climbed maybe another two flights of stairs.
As she turned her gaze back to the mountain peak, a splash of vibrant red and pure black against the autumn and gold hues of the rock walls caught her attention. An arch, and a small pavilion next to it.
Thank the Archons, finally a rest stop... How on Teyvat did these adventurers ever get around?
After another few painstaking minutes of putting one foot in front of the other, her field pack clinking on her back, Lihua finally made it to the rest stop that previous adventurers had set up. A cosy little scene lay before her: an unlit campfire with a pot hanging over it and some stones circling it, and a pavilion behind the arch further up. She groaned as she trudged over to the small pavilion and collapsed onto the bench, dropping her things next to her and leaning her head against the warm terracotta.
She could close her eyes here and just stay the night. At that point, she should just live here. Make this place her own domain. Everything else could wait.
Lihua opened her eyes, half-unwillingly, and looked out towards where the sun was rising over Jueyun Karst. She never got tired of that, the way the golden hues would come down and highlight every shade of grey and red into such a pretty picture. The rope bridges that hung across the vast and empty spaces that led down into the winding rivers gently swayed with the breeze, and Lihua imagined if one were daring enough, one might try gliding around on them.
Evidently, this place had been recently visited. As her eyes scanned the landscape before quietly coming back to the rest stop before her, she noticed footprints in the tracks. From the looks of it, a whole group had come through here, about five of them maybe within the past hour. As much as she'd love the help up here, she wasn't sure if she'd enjoy the company.
The wind rustled calmly through the whole scene and Lihua heaved a sigh of relief as its cooling touch washed over the entire scene. Next to her, a Jueyun Chilli Pepper plant shivered in place, and Lihua's attention was piqued the longer she stared at it.
She could have sworn that in the months she'd started taking this trail, this specific Jueyun Chilli Pepper plant had been stuck in this state, even since day one. Half-withered, all droopy, with little brown spots peppering entire swathes of its leaves like a bad case of acne... By all means, it was a dying plant.
But never truly dying...
Tilting her head curiously, Lihua set her satchel down at the bench and got up so she could inspect the plant a little closer, stretching her shoulders and back. As she knelt down to examine the leaves, something seemed to shift in the wind, and the smell of adrenaline reached her nostrils...
Lihua silently let out a really loud mental groan of anguish. She could not catch a break around here. As she stood up straight and turned back to the pavilion, she found the edge of a blade levelled directly inbetween her eyes as an entire group of Treasure Hoarders had suddenly sprung out from their hiding places, wielding varying weapons all pointed at her.
"Woah, what the heck is wrong with your face?!" The Hoarder with his sword in her face demanded as he backed up slightly from surprise.
"Yeah, thanks, I've heard that one before." Lihua nodded lethargically. It was way too early in the morning for this. Behind him, his fellow Treasure Hoarders were all already going through the contents of her stuff. Like the dabao she'd gotten from Xiangling's place back in Liyue. Lihua scowled despite the immediate danger. "Can you guys not-?"
"Is she like part-reptile?" One of them narrowed his eyes at her while the guy next to him ribbed him and laughed. "What the heck is part-reptile?"
"I heard in Inazuma-"
"You hear too much, Zhihao!"
"Yo... Hey, I don't think we should mess with this mug, Zhu." One of the Hoarders flinched with a grin on his face as he watched his friend threaten her. "She might bite your head off."
The rest of the Hoarders sniggered and chuckled but the one closest to her maintained his permanent snarl, grimacing as he held up her satchel. "You're not carrying a lot of Mora on you, so I'll make this easy for you and you can be on your way. Your books that you're carrying. What are they worth?"
A sting of irritation stabbed at Lihua's chest. What were they worth? Could be more than this guy's life, for sure. Lihua closed her eyes and sighed. "Okay."
"Okay what-?"
A polearm shot out of the ground in-between her and her assailant at breakneck pace, sending fresh earth and shards of rock flying. It clanged against his sword and sent it flying backwards whilst all his Hoarder friends yelped and exclaimed in alarm. Wrapped in vines and money plants, Lihua grabbed the familiar cool leather handle of the weapon and tore it from where it jutted out from, whirling around and performing a pirouette that sent all of them scattering back in panic. Wielding and levelling the speared tip at them, Lihua's eyes focused and locked in on her individual targets as she entered her battle stance.
"Okay, bring it."
Like any other vagrants, they were woefully disorganized and hopelessly undeterred by her sudden show of force. The first Hoarder who was so confident with a sword in his hand pulled back, growling as he let his boys rush past him. One of them came charging in with a paddle, waving it about as he swung on her. Lihua parried and knocked the wooden handle away, seeing her opening and plunging her bladed edge past his guard until it was right up against his neck. Without need for words, she leveraged both their weapons and threw him aside with the butt of her spear before parrying another strike from a boy with a dagger.
This fellow must have thought he was some kind of prodigy with the knife, dropping his dagger mid-deadlock and catching it below her guard before slashing upwards. The blade narrowly missed her face, but now his body was wide open.
Lihua smacked the blunt edge of her polearm right into his stomach, knocking the air out of him in a violent wheeze as he fell to his knees and collapsed to one side.
The Hoarder named Zhu and one more were now cautious, the former bending down to grab his sword while the other one held onto a spherical vial of orange liquid and threw it like a fastball at her. Lihua wasn't stupid, she'd already seen the vial earlier and had already begun dodging a second ahead of when he'd thrown it. All was going to be well until, by sheer luck, she saw that the vial full of liquid Pyro Slime essence was headed straight for the Jueyun Chilli Pepper plant from earlier.
There was a rushing sensation of instant regret as Lihua stopped exactly where she was and thrust out a hand towards the flying vial. Vines and roots shot out from the ground and grabbed ahold of the vial, narrowly avoiding the glass shattering against the plant. Lihua whirled around with fury in her eyes as she twirled her polearm.
"Okay, that's ENOUGH!"
The plants behind her reared back as they flung the vial right back at the thrower, the vial exploding against his coat as he hit the ground covered in the Pyro Slime essence. The bright orange liquid steamed and hissed against his clothes as he yelled out in agony, quickly withdrawing yet another vial, this time of Cryo, but before Lihua could stop him, he uncorked the bottle and began pouring it all ove rhimself.
Lihua made to take the bottle away from him but could now only clench her teeth and suck in air as she watched the Hoarder yell out in pain and roll around on the ground. The Melt reaction was already at work.
She was at a total loss for words. "Why-Why would you... You know that's gonna scar, right?"
"It is?!"
Lihua ignored the last question and spotted Zhu running up the steps away, sword in hand. She made a grabbing gesture with her free hand, and watched as the nearby tree branches sticking out of the cliff faces slingshotted backwards before releasing and smacking right into Zhu. The Treasure Hoarder went tumbling down the stone steps, rolling down before finally coming to a stop at her feet.
The half-adeptus put her hands on her hips and sighed. "Well? Which is it, do you want me to drop you off with the Millileth, or leave you guys to wander Jueyun Karst defenseless? The monsters here get pretty crazy..."
As she looked around at all of them on the ground, a cold sensation began to creep in. She saw five pairs of footprints, but she had four Treasure Hoarders on the ground right then. The slightest, almost unnoticeable bit of movement drew her attention up towards the top of the cliff next to her as she held out her polearm just in time for the blunt metal end of a crossbow bolt to clang against her weapon. The force of the projectile knocked her back, and suddenly her foot did not connect with the ground as she fell backwards off the cliff.
A vine shot out from the ground and wrapped itself around her wrist, and in the same motion, Lihua hissed and made a snapping motion with her hand as the sound of a thousand leaves rustling to her will began to sound out like alarm bells. The plants on the cliff face began wrapping themselves around the shooter up top, grabbing him by his ankles and hoisting him up from his hiding spot as the vines on the ground began securing the Hoarders and tying them up, dragging them all to one side as Lihua stepped back onto the mountain and dusted herself off, the vine that had saved her now holding onto her polearm.
"Well, guys, what did we learn today?"
One of the Hoarders groaned as he threw his head back in defeat. "Zhu, I told you, man-"
The Hoarder from earlier with the wooden paddle began yelling over him. "You crazy- You stabbed me in the neck! I'll bleed ou-"
"I did no such thing, I nicked you, and second off," Lihua held up her arms. "You're not even bleeding anymore- Ah, who am I kidding, it's not worth talking to you guys." The half-adeptus pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed amidst the clamoring and yelling of the Hoarders. She slipped a vine over all their mouths like a makeshift gag while she sauntered back to the pavilion and began picking up her belongings. It didn't look like they'd done any damage to anything yet, so lucky them. Archons knew what she'd have done if they did.
After packing everything up and slinging her satchel back over her shoulder, she walked back up to the tied up squad of goons and shook her head. "Okay, listen, I'm going to keep you all tied here until the next Millileth patrol comes along."
They all protested through their gags, making outraged or begging sounds while Lihua rolled her eyes. "Hey, at least I'm not throwing you guys off the cliff, right?!"
As she was about to leave, she paused right before passing through the arch, standing still in the wooden walkway. Her gaze drifted back to that Jueyun Chilli Pepper, the one that looked like it should have withered months ago.