A week passed before Zhongli next saw the Traveler. It was a slow day at Wangsheng Funeral Parlor. Which was typical; most days were slow days, which was for the best, really. Busy days… well, they were sometimes a fact of life, but Zhongli could honestly say he preferred the slow days. At any rate, it was a good opportunity to catch up on some paperwork, or would have been if Lumine and Paimon hadn't intruded.

"Hey, it's my favorite customers!" Hu Tao exclaimed, brightening up visibly, and standing up from her desk to meet the two at the door.

"For the last time, we're not your customers!" Paimon said, annoyed.

Hu Tau waved her hand dismissively. "Nonsense, everyone's my customer, eventually! And you know that you're doing yourself a disservice by not being prepared for the inevitable! Adventurers especially need to be ready for the worst! It's a dangerous world out there! You know, we've got a new cuihua wood model coffin in stock – sturdy, has a fruity fragrance, and is guaranteed to last! Buy now, and I'll throw in a half-sized model, half-off – perfect for Paimon!"

"Eugh, no!" Paimon recoiled. "We're just here to see Zhongli!"

Hu Tao sighed, "Oh, well. I had to try. I mean it, though – it never hurts to plan ahead. Anyway, the stuffy old guy's over there. He's on the clock, but eh, it's a slow day, I'll allow it. Just don't take too long, okay?"

"Traveler," Zhongli greeted with a nod as the duo approached. He noted that, once again, Lumine was avoiding looking directly at him.

"…here." Lumine said, suddenly, thrusting an object at him.

It was the Memory of Dust.

"Remarkable," Zhongli said after a moment. He reverently accepted the artifact.

"That's all you can say?" Paimon scolded, incredulously. "It's AMAZING! Paimon didn't know Paimon could do it, but Lumine made the thingy, and it went WHOOSH, and Paimon advanced the clock, only it didn't happen 'cause the thingy sucked it all up, and the dust went back together, and WHAM, there it was!"

"It's not whole," Lumine muttered, then. "Guizhong's gift is still in me, not the puzzle. It's stable, though. This, here," Lumine reached out and touched a small, unobtrusive bump on the device. Zhongli had not noticed it, but realized immediately it was a new addition. "Careful not to remove this, or it will return to dust again."

Zhongli nodded in acknowledgement. "I see. So it remains incomplete. Then… why have you brought it to me?" It was not his intention to express any kind of criticism, but genuine curiosity.

"I want you to solve it," Lumine answered, gazing at the floor. She seemed oddly tense, and her hands were curled into fists at her side.

It was a curious request, but she seemed very serious about it. "I've been trying to solve it for quite some time-" he started.

"Try harder," Lumine insisted. "Devote yourself to it."

Zhongli stared at her in confusion. Why was this so important? "You've opened it once yourself, perhaps you could-"

"No!" Lumine exclaimed. Then, she calmed herself. "No, it has to be you. You have to be the one to solve it. I've already given you a hint, and that's more than I should have."

"I see," he responded. "Guizhong's wish."

"Mostly that," Lumine nodded. "But also, I want to be sure that when the complete artifact next opens, her gift will go where it belongs."

"That is… understandable," Zhongli admitted. "I'm sorry to have caused you such trouble."

"Just solve it, okay?" Lumine begged.

"I will give it my best effort," Zhongli promised.

"Lumine," Paimon interrupted. "We really should be going. We're supposed to meet with Albedo for another of his boring lectures."

"They're not boring!" Lumine responded, affronted. "He has some very clever ideas! I think he's our best chance at figuring this out. This one's important, too: 'The Ethics and Application of Personality Manipulation through Alchemy.'"

Paimon nodded slowly, "Yeah, Paimon's gotta admit, that does sound like something we should listen to. But can Paimon please have some popcorn or something to pass the time?"

The two of them exited the parlor, leaving Zhongli a full thirty seconds to return to his paperwork before an unwelcome presence loomed over him. He looked up and was alarmed to see an expression of unrestrained glee on his boss's face. Her fists were balled up at her chest, and she was practically hopping from toe to toe with excitement.

"Zhongli, you sly dog!"

"Sly what?" he asked, perplexed.

"You!" she exclaimed. "The Traveler! Obviously! Spill!"

"Spill?" he asked, helplessly. Hu Tao had reached new plateaus of incomprehensibility, not that she was ever the most reasonable to deal with.

Upon seeing he was seriously confused, Hu Tao visibly deflated. "Of course you'd be oblivious to it," she muttered, rolling her eyes. "Lumine! She's smitten with you!"

Ah, of course. "You misunderstand…" he said.

"Don't give me that," Hu Tao snapped. "I AM a sweet, young maiden myself, you know, with a tender heart filled with romance!" Zhongli tried to picture that, and found his imagination to be lacking. Deliberately ignoring his doubtful expression, she continued, "I've had my share of crushes, and seen them in others. And even if I couldn't hear what you all were talking about, that girl, she's got it bad!"

It suddenly occurred to Zhongli that he couldn't simply come clean about the Traveler's condition. Hu Tao, like most, was unaware of his previous identity, and he preferred to keep it that way. He could not reveal that Lumine was possessed by the spirit of a long-dead goddess who'd been his friend thousands of years ago. Or even hint at it – for all her eccentricities, Hu Tao was razor sharp, and would quickly find threads to tug on any tapestry of lies he attempted to weave.

After a moment trying to decide how to respond, he truthfully answered, "It would be… inappropriate for me to associate with her in such a manner."

"Pff, nonsense," Hu Tao snorted. "You may be older than she is, but Lumine's her own woman. Let her make her own decisions about the kind of man she wants in her life! Life is too short and far too precious to get hung up on a decade or two here and there. You'll both be spending a lot more time in the hereafter than you will be here, after all. Enjoy life while you can!"

Zhongli remained silent.

Hu Tao sighed. "Look, Zhongli. I've read your personnel file. You have no family, have never been married. All I ever see you do is work, walk around Liyue taking in the sights like you're a tourist, and go home." Then, as though realizing she may have said too much, "Not that I make a habit of following my employees around like some kind of crazy stalker, or anything. Usually. Eheh."

Zhongli glanced at her sharply, and opened his mouth to speak. Before he could address that particular impropriety, however, Hu Tao bulled on, "Anyway, you're what, in your thirties? That's still far too young to have one foot in the grave! Life is for the living, so live a little! Maybe settle down and have a family."

"Director," he tried to interject.

"I'm not saying it has to be Lumine – if she's not your type, that's perfectly fine! But you need to make friends, network, maybe find a little romance! Otherwise, you're going to wind up a lonely old man, with nothing to do but live out your days until it's time to pass on."

Zhongli was ready to attempt once more to respectfully ask his young employer to mind her own damn business, please and thank you, when her last sentence finally struck a chord within him.

"Lonely old man."

He was, wasn't he? Guizhong's death… it had left a hole inside of him that he'd never quite managed to fill. One that ached even now. He had made a few close friends over the years, but none among the mortals still lived. Even the Archons he'd once considered close had passed away or become distant in the centuries since that dreadful business with Khaenri'ah.

He WAS lonely. He had to admit, Hu Tao was correct on that point, at least. He had left his former life behind, but he had not made any kind of plan on how to spend his new one. He was doing little but living from day to day, reminiscing about the past. Doing so eased the ache not a whit. And yet, he had no ambitions beyond that; just marking time until life finally left him.

His introspection did not go unnoticed, and Hu Tao was clearly pleased. "You know I'm right!" she nodded vigorously. "Okay, then, I've decided!"

Zhongli gave her a worried look. She was speaking with the same tone she used whenever she came up with a bizarre or questionable marketing ploy. "Decided what?"

"You. One month's paid vacation. Starting now."

"Impossible," Zhongli said immediately. "I'm needed here – there's too much work for you and the others to handle!" Wangsheng Funeral Parlor did not have a large staff, and there was never any shortage of tasks to handle.

"We'll manage," Hu Tao waved it off. "Let it not be said that Wangsheng Funeral Parlor does not care deeply about its employees! I want to see you get social, mingle with folks, LIVE a little. If I catch you lazing around muttering about Osmanthus wine, I'll kick your ass. If you return to work without at least ONE friend to introduce me to, I'll kick your ass. Understood?"

Zhongli nodded, numbly. He vaguely wondered whether any friendship he managed to cultivate would actually survive an introduction to Hu Tao.

"And if you should happen to have a wild and passionate fling with a certain gorgeous, blonde traveler we both know – well, I certainly wouldn't hold it against you." She graced Zhongli with a mischievous wink. "Now, get out of here, you stuffy old man, and try to shed some of that stuffy old manness, 'kay?"

Hu Tao turned on a heel and flounced back to her own desk, humming to herself in a manner that indicated she felt quite pleased with herself. As Zhongli organized his papers in preparation for his departure, he mused about what kind of friend he could make. Of all those currently dwelling in Liyue Harbor, he'd known Ganyu the longest – even Madame Ping, in spite of the elderly shape she'd currently chosen to adopt, was actually her junior. However, Ganyu had not known him as Zhongli. She had known him as Rex Lapis for thousands of years, and the odds of her deducing that his current mortal self was the same person were too high to risk associating with her too closely. He'd been acquainted with the Qixing, as well, but from a position of an aloof ruler, not one of friendship. He'd meet with them only once per year, and only to convey his commands for the coming year. Although… he HAD met a few of them as Zhongli, in the process of preparing the final rites for Rex Lapis… perhaps that was a connection he could capitalize on?

Whatever the case, he knew that Hu Tao's final suggestion was completely out of the question. With the Traveler's mental state compromised as it was, there was absolutely no way that he was going to start dating Lumine.


Author's Notes:

I'll confess: Hu Tao disappointed me, in-game. I expected her to be much more of a mischievous gremlin than she actually turned out to be. I'm talking Yae Miko levels of trollery. Instead, she turned out to be really tame, more of an eccentric version of Amber, in terms of personality. Still, I enjoyed writing her, here, and I hope she came across all right!

In regards to that "dreadful business with Khaenri'ah", as of this writing we don't know exactly what role the Archons played at Khaenri'ah. We know that at least some of them were there – Raiden Makoto in particular – and we know that Dainsleif distrusts gods in general, but as far as we know now, Zhongli's sin could have been as innocuous as "stayed out of the conflict when he could have helped save Khaenri'ah" or as grievous as "willingly sided with Celestia and personally murdered Dainslief's family". For future-proofing, I've decided to keep Zhongli's participation vague.

With any luck, when finished this story will comfortably rest in the canon storyline between the defeat of Osial and the Traveler's journey to Inazuma, and hopefully few of the plot points I touch on will be directly contradicted by stuff we learn in-game over the lifespan of the game!