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IMPORTANT MESSAGE BEFORE YOU READ THIS:
This work is actually not one written by myself, but someone very dear to me who I urged to upload it. Not wanting to do it on her own account, she asked if I would be so kind to do it here, which I happily agreed to. All the credentials given will go through to her, and I can assure you, I'm more than happy to have this story show up in my feed. I was moved to tears as I read it myself, and everyone who reads this should be prepared to do so as well. Big kudos to my sister for writing this!
Heed the tags and warnings, and maybe get some tissues ready (ouchie hours open)
The good is always a precursor for the bad.
Throughout history, a time of relative peace has always predated the most devastating catastrophes. It’s a history a being as ancient as he has personally lived through, a history that has taught him first hand the dangers of complacency.
Monsters surge when people are most unprepared, when the calm ensures they sleep soundly, when a feeling of security redirects their thoughts from survival to more trivial matters. As such, periods of repose are a warning that he should sharpen his attentiveness, rather than allow himself to become pliant and weak.
So long as he is there in time to dispel the dangers, it won’t ever become the mortals’ problem to deal with, and their age of illusionary peace continues unperturbed. That is the reason he’s earned the title of “Vigilant Yaksha,” and it’s a title he intends to live up to.
Things have been quiet since the resurgence of Osial, an all-encompassing, undisturbed kind of quiet that’s persisted too long to be anything but foreboding. Even if Rex Lapis’ passing is in a spiritual sense more so than a literal one, the death of a god always carries massive ramifications. Who would know this better than Xiao himself?
It’s as if the whole world is holding its breath and he’s just waiting for its supply of air to run dry, waiting for it to exhale a gale so devastating it’s gonna blow over the buildings and every bit of infrastructure they’ve spent millenia establishing.
But the insurgence of mayhem never comes, the monsters and miasma stay suspiciously docile. In fact, their activity level is so unusually low he completes his purging before the sun has fully set most days. It leaves him with too much free time, time to think, time to grow impatient, time for the enduring tension to tie knots in his shoulders.
He spends too many nights on the roof of Wangshu Inn, awaiting a threat that he knows is brewing and simply waiting for the opportune moment to boil over, but, as if aware of his watchful gaze, resolutely refuses to show itself.
Even a pristine blade forged from the most resilient steel serves no purpose beyond slaughter. A weapon has no place outside the battlefield, and the perpetual feeling of purposelessness is starting to agitate him more than he wants to show. It slips into the conversations he’s forced to have, an acrid bite to his usual dismissals that he doesn’t always intend but does not feel remorseful enough to apologize for, since the humans are the ones disturbing him in this crucial time where it is paramount he doesn’t lose focus.
It’s weeks later when all his pent-up apprehension seemingly culminates and pays off. A curtain of black clouds drapes over Liyue, the sky ruptures in a fit of rage, drowning the world in misery. Big, luminescent cracks shatter the fabrics of reality itself, thunder clapping loud enough to burst his eardrums.
It’s worse than any storm in Xiao’s recent memory, but monsters thrive in the disarray of a natural disaster, chaos acting as a stimulus for yet more chaos. As Liyue’s Guardian Yaksha, he should be heading directly into the heart of danger to dispatch it at its source, before it’s blown out of proportion and his hands alone won’t be enough to deal with it.
It is in a time of crisis a weapon is needed most, and this is the precise crisis he’s been expecting, preparing for.
Verr Goldet, however, does her utmost to bribe him inside, with promises of freshly made Almond Tofu and a warm bath and dry clothes. That he should prioritize comfort over duty is a preposterous proposition, but the stubborn woman will listen to none of his reasoning, and even starts scaling the slippery roof tiles to… what, forcibly wrestle him to the ground?
As Verr Goldet clammers to the Inn’s support beams, clearly fearful for her own life yet still insistent that he come down and join them before they barricade the Inn’s entrances, it progressively becomes more obvious that this is not a battle in which he will reign victorious.
Xiao teleports off mid-argument, leaving the Inn owner to finish her rant at her own leisure. He doesn't exactly need her approval to go do his job.
The bloodhound is on the prowl again.
Dishua Marsh is more like a swamp in these disadvantageous conditions, typically walkable dirt turned to a layer of mud deep enough to submerge his feet. His mask does protect his eyes, but the rain is like an onslaught of needles against his skin, the wind bellows in outrage as it passes through canyons and swirls around mountains, dodging every obstacle in its path to blow against him with an intensity one would need the might of the Anemo Archon to subdue.
The forces of nature may be enough to impede his movements, but not his resolve. Xiao fulfills his duty without complaint, striking down demons as they catch whiff of the disturbance in the mortal realm, rising to feast on the karma hanging sickeningly pungent in the air.
He kills, kills monsters infested, kills monsters not yet infested, kills the disease before it spreads, leaving a trail of death wherever he goes, a whirlwind of destruction and bloody footprints.
Monster, why must you alone evade death.
Xiao himself is a plague, like the one he sets out to eradicate, only he kills and destroys while aware of its inherent depravity. So perhaps it’d be less correct to say he leaves a trail of death in his wake, and more that death leaves a trial in which he dutifully follows. It is more a path he willingly walks, and less a curse unjustly inflicted upon him.
Therefore, Xiao does not look back. A murderer does not get to grieve the loss of the lives they themselves are responsible for taking away. They are not his people to mourn.
You say that like you have any regard for life at all, for the potential you have deprived so many of.
His body count would shame any serial killer, his experience has amassed to a sum unmatched by even the Gods themselves.
But this is an increasingly steep incline Xiao finds himself ascending. Fending off both monsters and the weather and karma all at once proves grueling, even for him. Adversity after adversity, unending struggle and pain makes the night an insufferably long one. Yet it is far from endless.
Nothing in this world lasts eternally, and the seemingly unappeasable storm, too, passes and the torrential downpour subsides to a pleasant, light drizzle that cleanses his body instead of tearing flesh from his bones.
The sun rises, and the rain stops, but Adeptus Xiao does not. Scalding rays of light dries his clothes and hair, and with the rain no longer present to wash it away, blood dries too.
Red stains everything.
From his eyes to his hands, even seeping in between the crevices of his clothed feet. It's in splatters across his previously white shirt, seeping into his pores, hair sucking it up like a sponge.
His lips have long since dried up and have split, pouring red as well. His throat, raw and cracked from too much screaming, spurts it like an active volcano. Salty, sticky, liquid coats his tongue and glues his gums together, tasting worse than if he were to eat the dirt raw, rather than the horrid sand-blood concoction that he's ingested after being knocked face-first into the ground too many times.
The worst part is that Xiao can’t tell if it’s his. Blood tastes the same, no matter its origin, and there is too much red to link the puddles to the corpses.
He's knocked down repeatedly, landing painfully on a back wound after a hilichurl with a club gets a lucky hit. His mask shatters, and there's a fresh, wet coat of red on his hand as he pulls it away from his throbbing face. This time it's his nose that leaks; blood, there’s more blood on his fingers.
Xiao does not lick his wounds. He barely stays down long enough to acknowledge them. He fights. He fights and he fights and he fights, until the smell of death clogs his nose, until he’s drenched yet again by his own sweat, until he can’t tell if the dried blood beneath his fingernails is from an hour or a millenia ago.
Exhaustion taxes his mind as heavily it does his body. He kills with less precision, less force behind his blows. It makes killing difficult and killing mercifully even harder, as it ends up taking repeated stabbing rather than a single swift, well-placed swing.
He doesn’t know if his body is dragging behind his mind or if it’s the other way round, he only knows that both are failing him. The longevity of bloodrush has his heart beating against his ribcage, pleading to be let out, as if escaping from his chest would be a fate kinder than overworking itself into a cardiac arrest. His muscles are about to tear, his clothes are frayed, unrecognizable scraps of fabric sticking to his skin; blood acting as an adhesive, blood making the grip on his weapon slippery and unsafe, blood in his eyelashes, irritating his eyes every time he blinks.
It hurts to simply exist, even more than usual.
Far more than usual.
Incomprehensible, to think the Bloodhound’s thirst for blood has actually been quenched.
After eons of bloodshed, is it finally enough?
You are undeserving of such a luxury.
The only end destination in sight for you is your own grave.
His breathing is slowly becoming unhinged, matching up with that of the wild beasts that he slaughters. His spear ends up doubling as a walking cane, his gait is more like a staggering limp, but he does not concede, he does not even slow down, because the monsters do not either.
A hilichurl encampment is the next stop on his crusade for mass-eradication.
He takes them down without any of the refinement or litheness that is characteristic of his fighting style, all brute force and sloppy swings, evasion less tactic and more raw instinct. It leaves him with a brand new collection of wounds to be piled on top of the previous, more hurt to be packed up and disregarded.
(Disregarding it is starting to take up more attention than he can realistically spare, and dividing focus in battle would be handing the enemy an invitation to his own funeral. The afterlife is full of imbeciles whose thoughts strayed too far, who got lost within themselves and let the dangers standing right in front of them slip from awareness)
A full night and half a day spent in consecutive battles has worn and chipped away at Xiao’s typically astute senses, making them dull, corroded, and substandard at best.
That’s what allows one of the last stragglers to unexpectedly ambush him from his left, latching onto his spear and trying to dislodge it from his hands.
He knees the demon in the stomach, off-setting its balance and making it tumble onto its back, where Xiao keeps it in place with his foot.
Dizziness pulsates, momentarily stunning him as well. Xiao sways as his entire worldview suddenly tilts steeply, but he never wavers, never is his list of priorities disarranged. From a proximity this close, it doesn’t matter that his accuracy could be unduly amiss. He raises the spear above his head, ensuring there is enough power in the thrust to end it instantaneously, he blinks and-
“No, no! NO! Please! No! NO!”
And it’s a little girl pinned underneath his boot.
Xiao falters, staggering back a wobbly step.
But he blinks once more, and his adversary is once again a hilichurl; a hilichurl now free from his hold, charging at him with claws poised to stab.
Xiao gracelessly lurches himself out of its path, just fast enough to avoid it notching his side.
He somersaults, getting mud up his nostrils and grime in his wounds, but his concentration doesn’t shake, not again. This time he doesn’t hesitate before springing off of the ground, swiping his weapon across the monster’s chest as he dashes past it, leaving an incision deep enough to cut through internal organs, deep enough to deal fatal damage.
Behind him, another body thumps as it hits the ground, another threat dispatched, another guiltless monster slain before it has had the chance to be tainted by the unerasable mark of karma.
The hillichurl’s deathcry is unmistakingly human.
Frigid tendrils of terror coil around Xiao. Suddenly the fuel pumping blood through his veins isn’t the unstoppable, intoxicating stream of adrenaline, but icy cold, paralyzing fear that freezes him in place.
The seed of his disquietude is not the horrifying misplacement of a child’s high-pitched voice on the battlefield. Rather, it’s familiarity.
Xiao can’t resist the bellowing alarm in his head, a blaring curiosity that’s too frightening to act on with any kind of willingness. He doesn’t make the active choice to break conduct, but he does nothing to stop it from happening either.
Slowly, mechanically, his neck rotates.
It’s not the body of an innocent child that lies at his feet.
It’s a whole cluster of human corpses.
Of course, hunting defenseless prey is what the Bloodhound does best, after all.
The waters of Dihua Marsh run red. It’s a picturesque landscape turned grotesque battlefield. Limbs intermingle in a disheartening display of devotion; parents swathe their children in their own bodies; couples interlock fingers, undying love that now literally outlives its hosts.
Xiao has survived longer than he ever dared to ask for. Seen too many ends to have exclusively seen it from the one perspective he has seen primarily. Even in war time there will be people who perish from old age or disease, childbirth or accidents wholly unconnected to the front lines.
Death isn’t innately evil. One can find respite and resolution in the natural end to a completed existence. Some corruption can only be distilled through the ultimate penalty. Some crimes are too immense to deserve a sentence any lesser.
There’s nothing peaceful or just about murder. Victims of slaughter always look the same; unfinalized facial expressions, mouths open in a silenced scream, eyes popped with unquelled terror. They’re people with unfulfilled futures, insentient carcasses stuffed full of real lives.
It’s as unnatural and immoral as anything in this world has the power to be.
Something viscous and lumpy curdles in Xiao's gut. His abdominal muscles cramp, wanting to heave it all the way out his mouth. He leans his full weight into the unyielding grip he has around his spear, the only thing keeping him upright, while other hand folds across his stomach, trying to mitigate the rising nausea.
Such a defenseless position makes him too slow to react accordingly to the next attack.
It’s a Mitachurl, right arm a hunking shield of geo-infused rock, and it barrels straight for him.
A spear is poor for defense against a shield, and the blunt force of the collision knocks it from his hands, knocks his back flat against the ground. The Mitachurl towers over his prone body, blocking out the sun so he can take in its full size without being blinded.
His ears ring at a frequency shrill enough to pierce the booming heartbeat hammering against his skull. His sight fades in and out of focus, flickering between clear and hazy, sounds switching between muffled and comprehensible, like his head is being continuously dunked in water.
Protruding from the fog is not a mindless beast driven by animalistic instincts, but an enraged young man raising a pitchfork at him. An ordinary commoner acting out in self-defense.
Xiao blinks excessively, trying to banish the hallucination, trying to clear away the mounting panic, but the image stays crisp while the rest of reality blurs and distorts.
“ YOU!” The man hollers hatred while his eyes cry sorrow. Vengeance burns with an unparalleled fire, the kind that’s hot enough for even a mortal to burn an adeptus. “You killed my family! You took everything from me! You deserve nothing more than to slowly rot in an unmarked grave, a fate kinder than you have bestowed so many. Death would be too generous a penalty for such a wretched thing as you, but I will not allow you to go on creating more victims! You die here , today, by my hand!”
He raises his weapon high, to skewer him as he skewered his kin, and wouldn’t that be a stupendously befitting end?
Accept your penance, foul beast!
It is the only way to atone!
It will be the only righteous thing you have done!
Xiao rolls out of the way in just the nick of time.
Except he doesn’t.
Even centuries of abuse couldn’t prepare him for this pain. Sizzling, scorching-hot acid rushes upwards from his leg, burning every pain receptor in its way to ashes, an unforgiving inferno ravaging his entire nervous system. It boils over in his head, seeping out even further into his facial extremities, his eyes, it blinds him in a flash of searing white .
His blood is like magma, disintegrating his organs. Slowly, agonizingly, crueller than any torture he has ever been made to endure.
He doesn’t scream. The air required to do so expels from his lungs, or at least it makes a valiant attempt to do so, but it is jammed midway through his throat by a blockage so tight it makes getting air past it, in or out, impossible.
For the first time in his life, pain is enough to immobilize him. But the outside world doesn’t abate its hostility at his plight, it rather gathers every scrap of it it can find, turns it all around at points it directly at him, preparing to unleash it on him while he’s helpless to stop it.
“KILL HIM!”
“LET THE MURDERER SUFFER LIKE HIS VICTIMS!”
“SPARE HIM NO MERCY!”
“LET HIS BLOOD FLOW!”
“LET IT FERTILIZE THESE LANDS!”
“IT WILL BE THE ONLY GOOD TO COME FROM HIS EXISTENCE!”
Xiao’s teeth dig into his lower lip, intensifying the iron flavor in his mouth. The tiny prick of pain does nothing to diminish the immeasurable damage to his body, but it provides him an opening to at least think for himself.
Focus, focus, focus, focus, his selfish sense of self-preservation clamors, a mantra that by no means drowns out the vehement jeers, but it does detract from them, however little.
Enough that he can follow through with his own instructions.
Clawing at slippery mud and digging his nails into soft earth gets him nowhere. Xiao stabs his elbows into the ground and propels himself forward on his stomach, eliminating the last inch between him and his spear.
Although his hands tremble, the grip around his weapon is deadly. Just as he hears footsteps darting towards him, Xiao twists his upper body and plunges it straight into the belly of the man that looms over him.
A distraught husband whose retribution is wholly justified.
A shower of blood rains down on him. Alatus closes his eyes, the last thing still unsullied by battle’s gunk.
They don’t stay closed. Alatus doesn’t retract from the atrocities he himself is responsible for inflicting. Denying the death of his victims is the only thing worse than being its catalyst. Bearing witness to the grisly gore is the least of punishments he is deserving of.
The man is looking right back at him. His eyes contain that precise wide-blown disbelief he’s seen on the face of every dead man. But he isn’t dead, only teetering precariously on the cusp of it. His lips part, but all that leaves is a croaked wheeze and a mouthful of blood that splatters over Alatus’ chest.
It’s the last thing he does before the glint of life is extinguished from his eyes. His body goes slack, gravity tips it to the side. It lands with a wet squelch, spear still embedded in his midsection.
Air grates against his windpipes. Course, grinding, painful, it hurts, it hurts, his lungs refuse and greedily gobble up the vital life resource all at once, but the air doesn’t stop coming, his chest rises and falls in an eternal cycle of pain and relief, pain and relief, pain and relief-
He’s alive. Two tiny words that hold no power by themselves, but sewn together create a truth too heavy for his broken and bruised form to carry; a truth so unbelievable it by all logic should be a lie.
Alatus lets his muscles go lax, lets the accumulation of pain and exhaustion be unpacked in one, big pile on top of him, lets it restrain him against the blood-caked ground.
The battle is not yet over. There are still more enemies out there, lurking on the other side of the horizon, out of reach of his senses that he can no longer extend beyond the roaring pain inside his own skin.
The battle is not over. And yet… he’s staring into a cloudless blue sky, surrounded by chirping birds and rustling leaves that divulge none of the horrors that have gone down. It’s like it didn’t happen at all. Peace obstructs conflict as much as conflict obstructs peace; it takes away all the woe in the world and pretends it doesn’t exist past the vicinity of himself and his own circumstances.
It’s stiffening, even moreso than the chronic uneasiness he’d suffered from days prior. Suddenly he’s breathing too much, air acclimating in his lungs at a rate too fast to reel in and regulate.
Xiao… Xiao does not bring harm to mortals. He swore, he swore. It was an oath woven within the unbreakable words of his contract with Rex Lapis, never, never again was he to kill a human, never, never, never again-
Alatus smushes his eyeballs with the heels of his hands, a worthless attempt at erecting a blockade in front of his tear ducts, because they open not a second later. Tears spill, salt stinging his wounds as they cascade down his cheeks, big, fat, and unstoppable.
The scream that spews forth from his throat makes him sound every bit as inhumane as the voices in his head claim him to be.
The sun is near blinding, reflecting off of the glistening raindrops that coat every uncovered surface. The heat, unbearable on its own, mixes with the humidity to make for a clammy and unbreathable quality of air.
Scavenging for medicinal herbs is a routine excursion Baizhu is more than familiar with after years of repetition has turned a once exciting adventure into a mundane chore. It was his original intention to get it over with yesterday, as they've been running too low on too many essential materials to go ignored any longer, but the rainstorm dropped by unannounced and postponed an already overdue schedule, which means they don’t exactly have much choice but to put up with the horrendous working conditions.
They complete their respective herb plucking in silence, with only the occasional interlude; Qiqi getting distracted by frogs or birds or other tiny or not so tiny critters that Baizhu continuously has to remind her isn’t the aim of their expedition.
He doesn’t care, not really. Recognizable behavior strews a familiar pattern, making it all the easier to find something good to remember about this otherwise drab errand.
It happens without a preface.
A blood-curdling cry tears through the normality, through nature’s tranquility, scaring off a murder of crows and striking some deep, primal part of Baizhu’s conscience.
Qiqi stops rummaging through the nearby shrubbery and looks to him for answers, like she always does. When he doesn’t immediately address her unspoken unease, she vocally probes, “What was that?”
Her undead eyes sparkle with a very human glint of fear.
Baizhu stands up, for a moment just expectantly awaiting any other auditory or visual cue that could explain such a disturbing outburst. When uncountable seconds pass and the only thing he hears is his own deep breaths and steady heartbeat, his legs begin to move all of their own accord, chasing the answer to that very question.
His pace starts at an anxious jog, quickly accelerating to a very fearful and very determined full-powered sprint, but all his built-up momentum is ultimately halted at once.
Blood. There’s so much blood.
The grass, or the sparse clumps of it still left intact; mounds of kicked-up dirt and mud and overlapping footprints signifying an intense struggle, has been discolored, dyed a stark, unnatural crimson. The puddle he steps in is tinted pink. Rusty iron scents the air heavily, and exposing his lungs to the overwhelmingly astringent stench is downright nauseating.
However, that’s not what truly makes him clasp a hand over his mouth; a final safeguard should the churning contents of his stomach decide to make an escape attempt.
Corpses. Baizhu can attest to having never seen them in such an extensive quantity before, even if they’re all hilichurls and other such vile creatures most likely deserving of such brutal extermination.
Or, upon a more comprehensive scan of the bodies, not all of them are.
Amidst the horde of bloodshed and wreckage lies a lone, trembling, weeping form, undeniably human.
He couldn’t be described as anything other than a boy , thin frame and lacking height made all the more prominent by the way he’s hyperventilating into his own hands, clawing at his forehead and cheeks in what can conclusively only be a desperate measure taken to redirect otherwise unbearable pain.
Where there should be a healthy left leg is only a thigh, a knee, then nothing but a geyser of blood.
Baizhu kneels beside him faster than he knew himself capable and tears the boy’s hands from his face. A set of feisty golden eyes glare back at the sudden intrusion, and he fights, snarling and snapping at his face like a rabid, cornered animal, surprisingly strong for somebody of his size and, most worryingly, condition.
It’s not enough to break free, but any amount of movement could stimulate his circulation and expedite blood loss, so Baizhu presses his shin against his torso in a bid to keep him still.
“Boy? Child? Can you hear me? Calm down, I’m not out to hurt you!”
He’s experienced as far as violent outbursts are concerned. It’s practically in the job qualifications to be able to withstand those on a daily basis when choosing to work in the line of customer service.
If the boy just fought against this swarm of monsters and, impossibly, came out on top, the adrenaline would most definitely be yet to drain from his system, which explains the frenzied fervor, it’s reasonable, it’s realistic, it’s predictable, it gives Baizhu something logical he can wrap his head around and use to calm himself a little.
Still there’s something about the dire, terrorized manner in which he struggles that makes him have to swallow an asphyxiating lump in his throat before he can try to force any more words out.
“Calm down, please. I’m not gonna harm you, but you will end up dead if you keep struggling!”
It takes repeating the phrase a few times, but eventually he does still, though his eyes are no less distrustful, instead thin, scrutinizing lines trying to threaten him, though the glare loses its intended effect under the many layers of hurt glossing over his eyes.
As… alarming as such an immediate dismissal of his good intentions is, it at least means there’s still some semblance of awareness buried deep under the pain. It means his senses aren’t completely lost to shock yet. It means there may yet be time.
Another glance down at the bloody hunk of dismembered flesh quickly quashes any shred of hope, insides coiling with both disgust and despair.
Where does one even start tackling a problem this indomitable? This far out he has no access to either the necessary equipment or medicine, he doesn’t have bandages, needle or thread or anything to close the wound, not even so much as a band-aid, as much good as that would do.
He really should have brought medical supplies. He’s undertaken this journey enough to know the dangers, he should be aptly prepared for such a probable eventuality as stumbling across an injury. He should have at least brought a first aid kit, something, anything to improve the situation by even a modicum.
Has familiarity made him blind to the facts? Familiarity breeds comfort, and letting that comfort dull his rationale because he let himself think that he knew what to expect is an utmost egregious blunder.
A small set of hands suddenly latch onto his bicep, tiny torso pressing against his arm. His head snaps up, directly into the frightened face of Qiqi. Her dull eyes communicate thousands of worries all competing for vocalization, but the unmoving, steadfast presence of another heart beating in tandem with his own is precisely the kind of support Baizhu needs to tether himself to the here and now.
The weight of two children has never been so heavy.
He sucks in a big mouthful of air, to even out his irregular breathing before it spirals out of control.
Do what he can. That’s all he can do.
…But archons, he’s a doctor, not a surgeon. He specializes in treating ailments that he’s got hours, days of meticulous research to disassemble and concoct a treatment for. It’s the entire reason he works at a Pharmacy. This boy’s had his leg cut off, and he’s staring up at him with terrified eyes, terror directed at him rather than a byproduct of his circumstances.
The boy has stopped squirming, arms lying limp on either side of his head, whether because he’s realized the futility of his efforts or because he no longer has the strength to resist.
His lips part and sound is squeezed out, completely inaudible if Baizhu didn’t bend down to have his ear hover directly above his mouth.
“Please…”
He doesn’t think before acting.
His cape is an inconsequential price to pay for somebody’s life, so he tears it into strips and begins dressing the wound. The boy whimpers tortured cries at the contact with the mutilated flesh, struggling starting anew.
“N-no! No! Please! Please, it hurts!”
“Qiqi, help me hold him still!”
He’d rather spare the child from having to watch another child suffer so cruelly, but there’s really no choice. Every drop of blood lost might as well be another minute taken off of the boy’s rapidly deteriorating lifespan. Qiqi wordlessly complies, and from how weak the boy is quickly becoming, even she doesn’t have much trouble.
“ Mercy! I beg you! It hurts, it hurts, Master, please, PLEASE! Mercy! MERCY!”
“I’m trying to help you. I know it’s painful, but please bear with it.”
His screams don’t dampen in the slightest, no matter Baizhu’s word choice or volume. Qiqi gently strokes his hair, muttering sweet “It’ll be ok” s as well, but the boy's mind isn’t present to register their attempts at solace, off somewhere at an entirely different time, from the sounds of it.
Baizhu ties the last knot extra taut, scooping up his newest patient without a second of indecision. He doesn’t weigh much, probably wouldn’t even if it wasn’t for the missing limb. He wouldn’t run any slower even if that wasn’t the case.
As they dash over grassy fields and trampled paths, the fight slowly drains from the boy’s muscles and the fire in his eyes is washed out too suddenly by an emotionless haze. A vicious battle for wakefulness is fought in Baizhu’s arms, but eventually the boy concedes, or his willpower is bested by sheer exhaustion, and his eyelids slide shut completely.
Not for good though. Not for good.
He’s just unconscious, and Baizhu isn’t telling himself that just for the sake of artificial reassurance, because an uncontrollable heartbeat hammers against his chest just as fast as his own.
For how long?
Not long enough.
The race to Bubu Pharmacy feels impossible to win. It’s a gamble to see which is stronger: his legs or the boy’s grasp on life.
No matter his speed he still can’t outpace the laws of the human body. If he goes into hypovolemic shock so far from civilization there’s nothing he can do.
Come on, come on, you survived battle once before, you can overcome this one too.
Death has never been quite so literally on his heels, but adrenaline and panic is as effective as any miracle, so Baizhu doesn’t pray for one, he only prays the boy can feel how unrelenting his grip around him is even from the depths of unconsciousness.
I’m not letting go of you so long as you don’t let go too.
A proverbial knife is lodged so deep in his side that air comes to him in the form of strained, spasmodic bursts. Magma pools in his lungs and makes every inhalation a gulp of fire, but Baizhu doesn’t address it, not when the clash between life and death is still so far from decided.
He reaches Liyue Harbor in what must be a breach of human ability, kicking down the door to his own home and practically dropping the boy onto his bed.
“Qiqi, get me some bandages and sewing materials. Prepare for a blood transfusion. ”
His little assistant scampers off without a fuss to go fetch the requested materials. He collects a blood sample in the meantime.
Over-the-counter pain medication is the first thing he injects. The boy is uncannily still compared to his anguished wailing from earlier, which is much preferable, but with him unresponsive there’s no way to know if he’s feeling the affliction to his body or not. The poor child has suffered enough as it is, and if… if it does turn out that he was too late, then he doesn’t deserve to go out with the last sensation from the living world being pain.
It also wouldn’t end well if he were to wake up while they’re still treating him if he’s gonna be as uncooperative as before, so he also gives him a sedative that should at least buy him a few hours.
He undoes the emergency binding and gets started with antiseptics and cleaning away blood, revealing marred tissue and jagged edges that further curdles the dread in Baizhu’s stomach. It seems that whatever caused such a horrific disfigurement wasn’t so merciful as to do it cleanly.
He stitches the flaps of skin together as best he can with his limited comprehension of amputations while Qiqi stands on a stool beside him, silently applying pressure.
When he’s done he disinfects as thoroughly as he can and re-wraps it with gauze and bandages much more sterile than the torn cloth from before. There isn’t much else he can think to do as far as the leg is concerned, but he’s far from finished.
Qiqi hustles around doing what she can, wiping sweat from his brow, bringing him water, but this is something that takes the adept hands of somebody much more qualified and knowledgeable than her, so he’s left to determine for himself the line between a critically and acceptably weak heartbeat, to listen if he’s stopped breathing altogether or simply breathing too shallowly to be discerned.
Pulse, blood pressure, hydration, all is accounted for in a systematic order that would be completed way quicker with more hands to assist, but for all that Baizhu’s mind compiles a list of likely complications and replays the procedure for CPR on loop, the boy’s heart doesn’t give out, his breathing only quiets and slows but never fully stops.
There’s a collection of comparably superficial lacerations also marring his skin in more places than Baizhu can assess, but those are patched up with far less urgency.
In the end, the only thing left to do is make him as comfortable as the circumstances realistically allow, and give him the rest he is well deserving of.
Baizhu tucks in his young patient with the warmest blanket he can find, brushing away a stray lock of hair from his face. His forehead feels slightly hot as his fingers graze it, eliciting a frown. He’s gonna have to keep an eye out for any incline in temperature, in the event of an infection.
For now he steps back and simply watches, eyes hungrily soaking up the imagine of the boy’s chest rising and falling in a constant, steady rhythm.
All too suddenly, the fear that had served as his only source of fuel for the past untrackable amount of time flushes from his system. Gravity tries to pull him to the floor, adrenaline-induced numbness subsiding and ache assaulting his overworked muscles, even seeping into his bones.
Relief is heavy, and such an overwhelming amount of it all at once is too much to carry. Baizhu stumbles backwards into a chair, collapsing more so than seating himself in it.
His hands tremble with lingering fear, much more intensely now that they’re unoccupied. He breathes as raggedly as when they first arrived, and oxygen deficiency blurs his vision, world melting into a kaleidoscope of colors.
Baizhu has never before felt so happy about nearly fainting.
“Dr. Baizhu…” Qiqi swoops in in a surprise attack and hugs him from the side, nestling her nose in his ribs.
The unabashed show of compassion is unexpected enough to bring a bit of warmth into his ashy cheeks. Baizhu manages a smile that isn’t entirely forced.
“I’ll be ok. Are you alright, my sweet Qiqi? That was quite the ordeal, wasn’t it?”
“I am fine,” Qiqi announces in that typical dead voice that makes it hard to gauge her sincerity.
Baizhu sighs, a light exhalation through his nose, reaching out to stroke her back. He stops himself before making contact, however, taking notice of how his skin has been discolored; smeared in red, some of it yet to dry. He'd rather not stamp her dress with a big, red handprint, so his arm drops back down to hang slack by his side.
Baizhu lets silence engulf the two of them, absorbing the peace that blossoms in its placidity. It’s calm like this, jarringly so when contrasted to the non-stop turmoil of the past few hours.
Fatigue quickly starts to infect the tranquility, weighing down his eyelids as heavily as the rest of his body. It’d be no good to fall asleep like this, so Baizhu stands in one swift motion, much to the protest of his weary bones and the confusion of Qiqi.
“Why don’t you go get cleaned up?” he instructs, more so than suggests. After she nods and runs off he relocates to the bathroom to do the same.
He’s still scrubbing the blood off from under his fingernails when the unmistakable sounds of rustling sheets reaches his awareness. He dashes back to his office, finding that the boy is already straining to get up.
“Oh no, don’t you even think about it,” Baizhu berates, stepping towards him in warning.
The boy snaps to attention at the sudden intrusion of sound, and thankfully makes no attempt to move further. Foggy eyes squint in his direction. They don’t focus on him, exactly, instead phasing straight through his body, as if seeing something incorporeal standing in his place. A hallucination, perhaps?
“Morax..?”
Baizhu stiffens. The boy is undeniably something extraordinary, to have survived such a harrowing ordeal, but to speak a name so ancient it’s been stashed away into the history books to collect dust… he is delirious though, and patients can say the most disjointed things; call the names of strangers or famous people wholly unconnected to them.
It could be that suspected fever taking root, or perhaps it’s an adverse side effect of some of the medicine he gave him, or perhaps his blood pressure is still too low…
Regardless, it isn’t a good sign. He steps away and digs through a drawer, fishing out a thermometer and calling out to Qiqi to go acquire some antibiotics and more saline just in case.
The boy is sitting, a relatively secure position, but still he sways like an unstable tower about to topple over. He reaches out and grabs a fistful of his shirt the moment Baizhu steps within arms reach, seemingly to keep himself steady. Dizziness most likely, an unfortunately foreseeable consequence of intense blood loss. Baizhu calmly plants his hands on the boy’s shoulders, attempting to push him to lay back down, but the hold he has on his clothes strengthens and the boy curls in on himself instead, rejecting his aid.
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”
His voice is as broken as the rest of him, worming its way through Baizhu’s ribs and wringing his heart like a dish towel. He puts the thermometer aside on the nightstand for now, figuring an exact reading can wait now that his life isn’t in immediate danger.
“What are you apologizing for?” Baizhu asks, maneuvering his arm around to ensnare the boy’s trembling shoulder, reaching up and feeling his forehead while keeping the boy still.
He doesn’t need the thermometer to feel the fever broiling his skin. That cobbled with the highly probable likelihood of the painkillers having lost their potency most definitely would make for an unpleasant combination.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to…” The boy speaks like he’s deaf to the outside world. “Morax… Zhongli… I failed… I failed… I’m sorry… I killed them… I killed t-them all… I broke the contract, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m worthless, please, punish this sinful one for its transgression but don’t tell Bosacius, please, don’t make them hate me, I don’t wanna l-lose them, even though I don’t deserve their affection, please, please…”
Baizhu sits, momentarily stunned at the unabashed resentment the child directs at himself.
If possible, his already shattered soul gains yet another crack.
All he can do is squeeze the boy tight against his chest, a gesture of affection that sadly also goes unnoticed, if his barely suppressed hyperventilating in any way measures his anguish.
Of his string of incoherent rambling, at least one name stuck out as familiar. It may be as baseless as the rest of his nonsensical blather, but it’s the only lead he has that could point him towards any form of viable help for the boy.
“Qiqi, could you send for Mr. Zhongli?”
“Ok.”
The small zombie nods from the doorframe, scurrying off without needing further convincing.
Normally Baizhu would be wholly opposed to disturbing anybody at such ungodly hours, but this counts as an emergency of the highest degree, certainly, so he’ll make room for an expectation just this once.
He's just so… utterly out of his depth that just having someone around who at least knows the boy would help create a little foundation for him to stand on and ground himself. It’s no good, as the medical professional, as the only adult present, to let himself be so frazzled and overwhelmed.
Having a clear mind is the first step to providing proper care to a patient, but that’s a criteria he can’t fulfill as things are right now.
The boy cries endless apologies into his collar bone, and Baizhu shushes him and rubs soothing circles into his back, but his attempts at consolation don’t seem to reach him through whatever thick haze of hysteria he’s trapped in.
He can do no more to undo his young patient’s sobs than he can his now useless stump of a leg. In all his years spent diagnosing unidentifiable diseases, after so much time spent training to actually make a difference, Baizhu has never felt a life so completely out of his hands.
One of the few things mortals and gods have in common is the ability to dream.
Zhongli is a God no more, and he rests all the better for it. Sleep comes easy when there’s no imminent danger to be expunged, no war raging undeterred beyond the borders of his consciousness, a war that could invade and the safe haven of his dreams in a single moment of mistimed relaxation.
Millenia of peace has dulled that fear, once permanent and egging at the back of his head like a constant headache. Now it is nothing more than a broken relic of an age long past, unusable and easily discarded. Rex Lapis is past his days as a glorious War God, old and retired in every sense.
So when a slow, continuous knocking intrudes on his serene dreamscape, it rouses him awake gently. The anomaly of such a strange situation strikes him way before any kind of alarm, a sentiment only exacerbated when he opens his eyes to a world yet untouched by light. He’d be effectively blind, were it not for his intimate connection with the earth.
Who would visit him in the darkest hours of the night?
A child. A small, flighty thing, shyly fidgeting with the frills of her dress as tired eyes look up at him with apprehension. It’s an odd sight, outshined perhaps only by this particular child being the individual visiting him in the darkest hours of the night.
Lethargy still clouds his memory, so Zhongli searches longer than usual for her name.
“Qiqi… was it?”
“Dr. Baizhu wanted me to get you. Come on, hurry, hurry.”
She uses that same impassive tone Zhongli recalls for their previous encounter. A voice so joyless is a terrible misfit for a face that screams youth and innocence and incessant excitability. Even more so now, where anxiety and a very real fear infests her tone.
At his immediate failed compliance, Qiqi takes his hand in both of her tiny ones, dragging him forward with all the strength of a panicked child.
Zhongli lets himself be led away, still dressed in his night robes. It’s an inconsequential matter, with the streets mostly vacant of potential spectators.
Liyue Harbor is alive, even when its inhabitants slumber. It’s one big, breathing organism, part of a body too big to comprehend, a cog in an intricate network too valuable to ever fully stop moving, to ever know true quiet. There’s a few curfew breakers out drinking their responsibilities away, workers retiring from night shifts; people to break up the lifelessness of the buildings. A dog barks somewhere too far off to be of any concern to them.
Lanterns glow and bathe familiar walkways in warmth and light. Liyue Harbor lives and breathes at all hours of the day; for it would die if it ceased to do so, but the nightlife lacks the irrepressible liveliness of the daily hours, it’s a calmer, less complicated way of being, free from the deceptive smiles of greedy merchants and haggling suppliers.
Zhongli doesn’t mind calm, not when he’s lived through an era of its radical opposite. But the lack of a given reason behind this unexpected nightly excursion is a pending issue, erecting more confusion than he can keep confined within himself.
“Did Dr. Baizhu… say what for he requires my assistance? Surely, in the event of a medical emergency, there would be other people more qualified that he could contact.”
That apparently stumps the girl. Her determined stride fades gradually to a contemplative standstill. She never drops his hand, though, only squeezes it tighter, like she’s scared he’ll leave now that he’s questioned her motives.
“Qiqi…”
Thoughts seem to tumble around in her head, eyes a disarray of incomplete conclusions.
“Qiqi forgot.”
“Ah.”
Zhongli should have expected as much. Zombies are, perhaps, not the ideal partners for an in-depth, sophisticated conversation.
“It was… important… or maybe not… can’t remember…” She tries to, evidently, face scrunching taut with concentration, but it's a hopeless endeavor speedily abandoned in favor of looking up to him for answers.
Zhongli doesn’t have what she asks of him, so he stands unmoving and uncommunicative, caught in an inner debacle where facts are analyzed and reanalysed until they take on the shape of some sort of graspable meaning. He presents only the objective conclusion, none of the groundless emotions he has no way of approving or disapproving with such a sparse selection of information.
“I don’t gauge Dr. Baizhu the type to inconvenience anybody, unless this is a matter too dire to wait even until sunrise. Chances are also that it’s just a misunderstanding, however; a very real chance at that. But now that we’re already out and headed towards Bubu Pharmacy, I’d like to know for sure.”
“Ok.” A resolute nod from the girl. The tapping of two sets of feet is the only sound that follows.
They walk with their hands still entangled, this time side-by side. From the outset, Zhongli would look like a good samaritan escorting a young girl safely back to her home in these dark, dangerous hours. It is quite the peculiarity, how reality can flip conventions upside down, but Zhongli does not wallow in the irony of his circumstances.
The lack of hustle or distractions around them only serves to enhance the silence surrounding him and the child. It’s the kind only experienced between strangers, people who have no shared interest to spark a conversation. A silence that’s awkward but still best left in place, lest they wanna form a field of even better soil for an even greater amount of awkwardness to sprout from. Neither Zhongli nor his little companion take incentive to start meaningless chit-chat, and it creates an empty vacuum in his head for his thoughts to begin filling.
Something akin to unease has started to grow roots in his stomach, an uncommon yet recognizable emotion Zhongli hasn’t tousled with in years.
Gods and mortals may seem like two diametrically opposed extremities on differends ends of life, but another similarity both share is the ability to fear. Most might think the divine incapable of it, like any amount of raw strength and towering might could grant invincibility against the pain of emotions.
He’d thought so too for a time; before he’d learned the meaning of love, before he’d learned the meaning of loss.
It takes extraordinary circumstances to truly make a God fear, but they fear all the same, when afflicted with enough pressure to rock a nation. Mortals are more fragile, and their survival instincts have been calibrated accordingly; flaring up at the slightest hint of danger, which in turn makes most fears unwarranted or steeped in unreasonable misconceptions.
In all his time living a mortal life, Zhongli has never feared as he did as a God. But that long-since buried, not-yet deceased part of him that’s still Rex Lapis is frightened by this, whatever it is. It’s not knowing that scares him, because ignorance has incited too much conflict and killed too many in his lifetime.
That may be the reason why his steps grow wider, why Qiqi ends up having to jog to keep up with him.
When they arrive, Baizhu is waiting for them at the entrance, back propped against the reception desk while his eyes focus unblinkingly on a point on the floor. His head jerks up to alertness at the sound of their footsteps.
He is much paler than Zhongli recalls, appearing to have aged 20 years in the 2 weeks time they have been apart. His clothes are spattered with blood, a fact that springs out as immediately alarming to him but apparently not to his child escort, because she runs up to hug his legs without delay.
“Did I do good?”
“Yes Qiqi, you did.” Baizhu rubs her head; fond, familial strokes straightening frizzy strands of purple hair. The smile he presents isn’t wholly natural, however, as if meant to conceal some underlying, unidentifiable emotion rather than express genuine happiness.
“How about you go rest now? It’s been a long night, for the both of us.”
“Ok. Qiqi will rest.”
The girl scutters upstairs, light feet tapping softly against the wood. It’s a faint scampering-about, completely overpowering in the delicate quiet, and only when it abates to a lasting nothingness does Zhongli extend his full, undivided attention to Baizhu. Under the strain of his questioning look, the typically blithe doctor wilts like a fragile flower, leaving only the exhausted shell of a defeated man in his place.
“I’m terribly sorry for calling you over without notice like this, I… was short on options.”
“Yes, your, ah… little envoy failed to provide a reason behind our unexpected little late-night stroll. But I was hard-pressed to believe you would needlessly send for me.”
Zhongli leaves a deliberate gap in the conversation for Baizhu to fill, face expectant but not impatient. Instead of speaking, Baizhu’s skin turns a shade lighter. Thousands of thoughts travel through his eyes, yet it takes a long time for him to voice any of them.
“I…” A hand in his hair further dishevels his unkempt hairstyle. “Honestly I’d waste less time by simply showing you.”
That is more worrisome than any lengthy explanation Zhongli had steeled himself for. It’s with reluctant steps that he’s guided to a back door, breathing forcibly kept low and stable. Seconds seem to purposefully stretch to their absolute limit. His heartbeat, steadfast and even in spite of his hurried stride to the pharmacy, stills completely as the door is slid aside.
No , says his brain, traitorous and deceitful, telling stories only from the biased view of his optimism.
Yes, says his eyes, his impartial gateway between matter and mind, always showing the irrefutable truth no matter how ugly or unwanted it is.
There’s no way to refute that it’s Xiao. His appearance has remained unchanged for all of the thousands of years Zhongli has known him, same turquoise sunset of silky hair, same thin frame and youthful features, same golden irises and avian pupils.
Except now, those defining traits seem only like a disguise inhabited by a completely stranger. The figure situated on Dr. Baizhu’s bed is a tiny ball of a being, rocking back and forth in an erratic attempt at comfort, mumbling intelligible nonsense. Cradling his left leg. What remains of it.
It takes time getting past the shock of even seeing the young adeptus here, in the care of a doctor, a human one much less, but once the layers of disbelief start peeling back Zhongli’s eyes rummage his body for injuries, landing on the vacant space under his left knee where the other half of his leg should be.
It’s been expertly cared for, not a drop of red visible through the crisp, white bandages. Still, his stomach compresses in revulsion, firing a shot of cold blood through him.
Morax has seen carnage, more than any mortal could hope to within their finite life span. Missing limbs are no foreign, frightful concept. He has even dished out plenty himself. Soldiers are injured in battle. It is just yet another point on the long list of inevitabilities that comes packaged with war. Xiao is a soldier, and he isn’t so foolishly naïve to think that anybody he has an emotional investment in will immediately be safe from harm’s way.
But it is never anything he will willingly consider a possibility. It is not denial, rather a deferring of his concerns until reality deems them of actual relevance.
Zhongli doesn’t even register himself crossing the room. Xiao does not react to his presence, not evidently, at least. His hand hovers indecisively over the bandage-wrapped skin, uncertain where he could touch him that wouldn’t only make his pain worse, before tentatively settling on his shoulder.
No, ‘react’ isn’t right here.
Alarmingly, rather than not react , Xiao seems more to not notice his touch at all. In hindsight, his wariness hadn’t spiked upon them entering the room either. Highly uncharacteristic of the elusive, unsociable adeptus.
From this close a distance, his erratic mumblings become discernible.
“Morax… Morax… Morax…”
Zhongli encases his left cheek, turning his face to greet his.
“I’m right here Xiao.”
Emotion finally enters those lifeless, glassy beads that sit where his eyes should, recognition flashing briefly before guilt and regret warps his face into a sorrowful grimace. His hand reaches out to latch around his wrist, squeezing with a force that’s painful. Zhongli makes no effort to free himself.
“Morax… I… I’m sorry, I failed… I…”
“You are in no way accountable for the injuries you sustain,” Zhongli interrupts, before that line of thought can turn into an attestable argument for guilt.
Xiao lowers his head as he shakes it, as if ashamed.
“N-no, I k-killed… so many… it is not allowed, but still I, s-still I… I’m sorry, I’m sorry, this most detestable one has sinned yet again, it was against the rules, it was not allowed, and I still, s-still…”
His shoulders tremor too much to be ignored, so Zhongli pulls him taut against his chest. He shushes Xiao’s every protest as he curls his fingers into his shirt, but Xiao’s aversion seems less geared towards the actual touch itself and more the notion that he is deserving of it. He still doesn’t struggle against it, just seems to embrace his position with a forlorn kind of acceptance.
Perhaps he should correct his earlier stance. It would be wrong to call this frightened wisp of an adeptus an outright stranger, because Zhongli has seen this Xiao before, the frightened child scared of upsetting the powers of the world, filling his head with thoughts of subservience while leaving no room for self-preservation.
He’s gotten good at concealing that side of himself behind that cold facade of a battle-hardened warrior, but he’s not so gullible to think it was ever fully eradicated. Xiao has been this way for even longer than he’s been under his command; an unbreakable body hosting a long-since broken spirit, too fragmented, too far gone for him to even consider attempting to assemble himself back into a whole person again.
The road to healing is long, but in the case of Xiao, has it even truly begun yet?
The thought is a dismaying one, all the easier to accept with Xiao cradled in his arms like this, vulnerable and frail and hurt, like he’s freshly rescued from the enslavement.
“Breathe Xiao,” Zhongli instructs, with a firmness that’s spawned less from authoritativeness and more out of desperation. His current wheezy heaving could not be classified as breathing, and it takes coaxing, a near endless stream of reassurance and gingerly caressing the back of his head, but finally his distress quiets down, at least enough that Xiao can compose a full, unbroken sentence.
“I killed the humans. It is not allowed. It is not allowed and I killed them.”
He almost whispers, as if scared the world would crumble by saying it too loud.
The admission stops his hand-mid stroke. Zhongli sucks in air sharply, holding the breath in his chest for a moment before carefully releasing it.
“It is alright,” he says, letting none of his confusion spill out into his voice. “Discussion can wait until you’re able and well. You’re alive, that’s all I care about for now.”
There is no answer, and the tremors have stilled too suddenly.
“Xiao?” Zhongli asks in worry. He lifts his face, finding his eyelids firmly closed. His breathing is too level for him to be anything other than asleep, however. As immediately unnerving as it is to see Xiao so readily give himself up to sleep, part of him is also appeased, listening to the insomnolent Yaksha snore softly like a carefree child. For all that he is adamant he doesn’t need rest, his body seems more than capable of making that decision for him when it needs to.
Zhongli is wary when prying his fingers from his shirt, laying the young adeptus down gently, oh so gently, on the bed, covering him back up with the blanket that laid discarded by his feet. His hand stays in his hair, combing with soothing, methodical motions in response to Xiao’s deranged mumblings.
Dr Baizhu doesn’t actually step into the room before then.
“I’m sorry. He’s been overwrought with grief ever since waking up. I gave him a sedative while you were on your way to help him calm down, but it wasn’t enough to put him under. For somebody of his… body mass, I was hesitant to administer more.”
“Ah, yes that is… sadly predictable,” Zhongli jests with no real humor to speak of. “Mortal medicine tends to be ineffective on adepti.”
Baizhu’s entire face lifts in surprise.
“So you mean to say that that boy is…? Well, I guess that would explain a few things.”
The silence hangs open, inviting. A fragile silence Baizhu shatters with a polite, strained cough.
“Is it true then? Are you really…?”
“I trust that this little secret won’t spread beyond these walls,”
“Of course not, but I… how? If you were alive and well all this time, why leave the citizens unaware? Your death was one of the greatest upsets in Liyue’s history. People worried for you, greatly.”
A valid question. One with an explanation too lengthy to divulge fully at this moment.
“Adepti have been pulling back their influence over Liyuen society for years at this point. We’re past the time where the divine must rule in a class separate from the mortals, where it is necessary for the divine to rule at all. Humans are capable and their resilience knows no bounds. I myself see no reason to govern a people who grow stronger when they get to use their own legs to carry themselves forward, toward a future they autonomously get to dictate.”
There’s a short pause, to allow the full extent of his words to unfold. It’s far from a substantial explanation, Zhongli is aware. But it is adequate enough that Baizhu doesn’t prod the matter further.
“Then… my Lord-”
“Please, just Zhongli will do. A mere Funeral Consultant wouldn’t warrant such an extravagant honorific, would he?”
“Right… Mr. Zhongli… if… you don’t mind me asking, how is it an adeptus could end up in such a sorry state? As far as I have been informed, adepti are mythical beings with powers far succeeding that of mortals. What kind of foe could possibly be so formidable as to overpower one of the guardians of Liyue?”
Another valid question, one Zhongli has been grappling with himself. By all accounts, no modern-day Liyue threat should hold that kind of power. But one doesn’t need a tangible danger to kill a yaksha. In fact, tangible dangers have historically been horribly ineffective weapons for Yaksha-extermination. It’s that precise fact that paves the path for another, much more grim possibility than Xiao simply being overwhelmed by a physical opponent.
“His earlier words trouble me. Though there is no way to know for certain before he regains enough awareness to hold a proper conversation, if it turns out he did indeed harm a human, then…”
Then what?
Xiao isn’t exactly in a state where he could reprimand him. But he can’t punish him for a crime he did not commit either, and the only explicit evidence that he did was spoken not by a clear mind, but a tormented one shrouded in a mist of incoherence.
“Dr Baizhu, could you tell me how you stumbled across him? It would, perhaps, paint a bigger picture of the circumstances than I can currently see.”
Baizhu relaxes and smiles at the notion that he can actually be of help, recounting the tale of how he and his little zombie assistant had gone out on an emergency herb-gathering spree; That storm. Zhongli had felt an abnormal amalgamation of ill will amass in the earth, but Liyue’s buildings were strong enough to hold out against it, so he’d found no reason to intervene.
“And you’re certain hilichurls were the only casualties to speak of?”
“There were no other bodies resembling humans as far as I could see, no.”
The subsequent relief is enough to make his muscles ease up slightly, enough to make the remainder of his harrowing tale that little bit easier to hear.
After Baizhu finishes his explanation, the focal point of the conversation shifts to himself, as Baizhu ardently awaits his verdict. Zhongli lets his eyes slide shut, giving the fresh batch of information ample time and peace to properly cement itself.
“Adeptus Xiao. Conqueror of Demons. The Vigilant Yaksha. Hero of Dihua Marsh. General Alatus. He goes by many names, some lost to time, but all derive from his resilience and devotion to his ideals. He leads a life of endless strife and constant battles, so injuries are a regrettably unavoidable consequence. Though, he usually handles himself well, and injuries are usually limited to minor cuts and bruises at worst. I never imagined anything of this caliber could ever…”
He reaches out to touch his cheek again, to feel the unnatural radiation of heat. Fever ever isn’t the only thing ravaging his body. Karma thrashes uncontrollably beneath his skin, writhing and screaming to break free and unleash itself onto the mortal world the moment Xiao’s spirit fades enough that it can escape. It’s surely only a matter of time before it bleeds itself visible into his aura and starts to infest the surroundings.
“Dr. Baizhu, if you don’t mind my imprudence, I think it’d be wisest for you to step out for some time. Xiao carries a great deal of karma, and it can be detrimental to a mortal's mind in too big dosages.”
“Karma?”
“The price that he must pay for fulfilling his duty. The toll of killing.”
“...Something akin to a chronic disease, I surmise?”
Zhongli sighs. “If that’s the analogy we’re using… I’m afraid ‘terminal’ would be a more apt description. Given enough time.”
Silence rushes into the room too suddenly. It’s comparable to abruptly having one’s supply of air cut off, or inhaling a big gulp of air before unexpectedly plunging into a deep body of water cold enough to freeze the body numb. Baizhu’s breathing is stinted and shallow, and his voice is even less intrusive.
“Is there anything to be done?”
“No. No permanent solutions, anyway. I do, however, have some Remedium Tertiorum at home, used to temporarily ease the burden.”
“I’ll go retrieve it,” Baizhu says, before Zhongli can propose any alternative solutions. “And I’ll make sure to lock up your apartment and grab a few changes of clothes while I’m there as well… seeing as I can probably expect another houseguest over for the time being?”
Zhongli answers with an absent-minded, horridly impolite nod. He cannot get himself to care.
“Thank you,” he breathes.
And he doesn’t say it for the sake of courteous manners. It is nothing less than unrefined gratitude, overflowing from the cracks of distress Xiao’s condition has dealt him.
“It’s really no matter,” Baizhu assures. “Your home is not long ways away, and I could use some exercise after being so stressed and pent up for so long, especially if I’ll be pulling an all-nighter. I’ll be back before-”
“You saved him,” Zhongli interjects, with a transparency he didn’t know he was capable of. “He was in mortal danger, and I was completely unaware. Had it not been for haphazard happenstance, he could be dead, and I would be none the wiser until somebody dragged his body back to the harbor for an autopsy. You saved him when I was incapable of doing so. You stepped in when I should have been readily available.”
His hand reaches up to tug at a clump of hair. And that just makes Baizhu look heartbroken.
“Please don’t talk like that. I didn’t save him out of contractual obligations or anything of the like. It was an act of goodwill, to alleviate the suffering of another, nothing more, nothing less. Aiding the adepti and the God who have sacrificed so much to give us what we have today would be the greatest honor for any citizen of Liyue. Something like this won’t even pay but a fraction of what we owe you back.”
“You never intended for this to happen. You never wanted this, nobody did. It was an accident, unfortunate and unjust and unforeseeable. If you couldn’t predict it, how could you have prevented it? You care about him, clearly. That’s enough.”
Zhongli doesn’t know the correct response to such an assertion, part irrefutable truth, part irrefutable inaccuracy. Baizhu moves to leave before he can think of conjuring any counter-arguments, however, divulging the location of more blankets and pillows should they become needed. He’s granted access to the kitchen and stovetop and teapot and, really “Anything, you need to feel more at ease” Baizhu reiterates, before heading off at last.
And, suddenly, it’s just Zhongli. Alone with Xiao’s sleeping form. Alone in a house unbelonging to him. Alone with unprecedented circumstances to contend with.
Zhongli breathes deep, a breath meant to diffuse anxiety and restore his composure, but the relief it provides is as temporary as the action itself. Straightening himself, his hand returns to Xiao’s hair, careful around the coagulated clumps of blood. It is admittedly aberrant, seeing this kind of frailty in the unbreakable Stone God.
“Why did this happen to you?”
He asks the empty air, insentient and unable to respond. That suits his purposes just fine. He doesn’t need an answer outwardly handed to him. Gods may have advisors and loyal generals to help appoint reason and direction when uncertainty arises, but the final verdict must always come from within.
In all earnest, the why is the simple part of this equation to solve.
Where was he while such a travesty befell his last remaining yaksha? At Third-Round Knockout, leisurely sipping a cup of tea? Listening to the humans’ imaginary retelling of the adepti’s adversity? Bemusing himself with their ingenuity while fully aware of the truth, of the very real battles being fought in the darkness of Liyue’s untrodden paths, where the bright lights of Liyue Harbor don’t reach?
All the danger was there, in the forefront of his awareness, and he did nothing but allow it to continue. It may not have been enough to upend Liyue’s hard-earned peace, but it was still enough to upend the life of one person.
One of the only persons he still has left to care for.
Responsibilities do not dissipate into thin air when there is no one to fulfill them. He knew as much, which is why he tested the humans, he held his arms out conservatively in the event that their first attempt at running on their own legs would result in disaster.
But the humans ran like a wild animal finally free from its confines, and have since only validated his trust in them, steering Liyue into a prosperous era independent from the adepti; an era that will abate their burdens and allow them to finally settle down and relish the peace they have fought so hard for.
It was all supposed to reach one big, conclusive ending, the picture-perfect resolution he had envisioned ever since taking the first step in the race for Archonhood all those years ago.
But he forsook the ties still loose and unsettled. He had every intention of leaving them behind to resolve by themselves; knots so tangled it was easier to simply let them be than expend himself trying to untie them all. All those failures and shortcomings he’d rather not see to actually rectifying were conveniently swept under the rug, where he could reminisce on their importance and inevitability without having to do a thing about them.
He prioritized his own, personal comfort over the wellbeing of his most loyal followers. It is the worst possible transgression of a God.
Zhongli exhales a shuddery breath, enclosing Xiao’s hand in both of his and pressing it against his forehead.
His fingers are cold. Cold and limp, too similar to the many corpses he has held just like this, a hand that’s too small in his, too damaged to hold the spear that’s the instigator for all his torment in the first place, too weak to fight a war for Liyue all alone, a war he’ll never win, a sacrifice he’ll never be acknowledged or even thanked for.
Xiao is the most selfless soul in Teyvat, and he rewarded that selflessness with selfishness and abandonment.
“I’m sorry,” he tells him, tone too tremulous for someone who commands the unshakable earth. He isn’t given a response, nor does he expect or desire one. Were Xiao awake he’d disregard his apology with a valiant vehemence, disregard the notion that he can do him wrong, insist the mistakes are all on his end and none fall to him.
“I’m sorry,” he says again, another crack in his voice. He’s well aware his apology can’t reach him in the depths of his restful slumber, nor does he desire to disturb his momentary period of respite.
Even if he could hear him, it wouldn’t undo any of his suffering. Suffering he inadvertently inflicted by doing nothing to prevent it. He still apologizes, a phrase stuck running in circles until it starts spiraling downwards, down, down, down, until he can’t recognize the voice or the person saying it.
He doesn’t beg for forgiveness, he doesn’t wish Xiao to see him as any more than the incompetent protector he has been. It’s rather a concession of his guilt, spoken openly, clearly, in the hope that somebody will hear, some other deity more benevolent than he that will strike him down for his transgressions, for violating the laws of contracts that he so boastfully preaches.
Morax’s contract promised him protection, promised him freedom and salvation. Instead he handed him a life of eternal servitude, replaced his metal shackles with invisible ones. He knows Xiao would never dare raise himself enough to stand on equal grounds with him and see things from his perspective, at least not as he is now; isolated, stuck in the past, stuck cleaning up mistakes that are not his to correct. He reasoned that Xiao would stop on his own, were he to ever come to the point of finding the terms of their agreement meaningless or unreasonable, that his burden would alleviate naturally over time as peace shifted his perspective and steered him towards finding a home away from the battlefield.
But does he not have four other graves to visit as proof of a Yaksha’s dedication? Times have changed, but Xiao has not. He refuses to let himself. It’s a stubbornness that’s almost immature in its irrationality and endurance, a stubbornness that’s gonna be the facilitator of an untimely and wholly preventable undoing.
Zhongli has more flaws than the uneven terrain of Liyue he has molded, but never has he failed anybody as egregiously as he has failed Xiao. It was true before, and now his shortcomings have cost Xiao a price that can never be repaid.
Something constricts in his throat, choking him from the inside, an emotion only he’s experienced at exactly one other point in his life yet doesn’t need his perfect memory to recount.
Another thing mortals and Gods have in common. The only thing should never coincide between leaders and their subjects, bereft of the power to protect themselves from forces greater than them. Celestia excluded, there is no force greater than a God, so it should by all understanding be inconceivable, yet it’s there, just as painful and unforgiving as he recalls from that fateful day standing in a field of Glaze Lilies, holding a life in his hands and still being unable to let it slip away.
Helplessness. It stabs into the center of his chest, right in the pit of his power where all the latent fighting prowess of a former God is stored, unrivaled strength that won’t make the slightest difference now.
Zhongli has never felt so utterly and irrevocably human.
P.S.A: Written by someone who doesn't play Genshin themselves.
(P.S.S.A depending on this or that, this work may continue in the future.)