Disclaimer: I don't own Genshin Impact. I do, however, own the main character of this story named Selena.

Chapter Three

"Though the food is already cold, come eat! Come eat!"

Hu Tao bustled back and forth as she started putting food on top of her desk. Then she pulled out a chair that she placed in front of her desk and gestured at the seat, indicating that I should sit on it. Mindful of the fact that I was still just wearing a dress shirt and no pants (thankfully I did have shorts on to preserve what little dignity I still had), I took a seat and grabbed a plate and some utensils that Hu Tao had set aside.

Just as my host had said, the food had long grown cold. But as I eyed all the choices in front of me, I found it hard to decide on which dish to try first. Eventually, I settled on what looked like lemon chicken- it was one of my favourite dishes in the past. I also got some of those long flat noodles that were deep fried in soy sauce as well as a shrimp dish.

Though I had no idea what it was, I also decided to try a colourful rice dish with carrot… and other ingredients I could not identify. But the aesthetic was nice.

It was an unconventional dinner for sure- though I did not know much about Liyue culture, I'm pretty sure laying out what looked like a five course meal on top of your work desk was not the norm. But considering Hu Tao was giving me a free meal and I was starving, it was not my place to comment on it.

"It's delicious!" I had taken several bites and before I knew it, I was scooping more food onto my plate and tackling it like a starving lion.

The food would have been better if it was hot, but it was my fault for not waking up earlier.

"Isn't it?" Hu Tao was also digging into her own plate quite ravenously. "I ordered this from Wanmin Restaurant! My friend Xiangling's father owns it and they make some of the best food of Liyue! And for a good price too!"

Xiangling? Wasn't she a playable character who happened to be a chef?

I felt slightly guilty when I realized that Hu Tao must have been waiting for me to wake up so that she could eat as well. While I appreciated the company, she didn't have to. Getting me food was more than enough.

Once I had gotten over the shock of finding myself in someone else's clothes, I had asked who Hu Tao was and how I had gotten… here.

And who had changed my clothes while I was unconscious. While the grey dress shirt was warm, comfortable, and made of high quality by the way it felt against my skin, I felt absolutely naked wearing anything outside of the Glorybringer Dress (with the exception of the Chrysaor armour).

But rather than answering my question immediately, Hu Tao declared that I must have been hungry and that she would be happy to answer all my questions once we had gotten some food into our systems.

I would have preferred that she answer my questions first, but my stomach had chosen that exact moment to growl. Seeing the mischievous smirk on her face, I realized that it was a lost cause and that I would be eating dinner before I got my answers.

"I was the one who dressed you, by the way."

I immediately looked up from my food, chopsticks in my mouth as I had been in the middle of eating.

"Wew?" I said, mouth full. I took out the chopsticks and swallowed my food before trying again. "I mean, you?"

"Yup!" She nodded. "Mr. Zhongli may usually act like a rambling old man with his head in the clouds half the time, but he at least had the decency to ask me and the ferrylady for help when it came to removing your clothes."

I let out a sigh of relief that I hadn't realized I had been holding in until now.

"Don't worry! He left the room as soon as he saw that you were in good hands! He actually went to get an extra shirt and some towels for you while I provided the shorts!"

"Oh, I thought this looked familiar. So this shirt is Mr. Zhongli's?" I looked down at the dress shirt I was wearing. Now that I was looking at it in closer detail and not flipping out about the fact that someone had undressed while I was unconscious, it did look like the exact dress shirt that the funeral parlor consultant wore everyday underneath his brown coat.

"Uh-huh!" Hu Tao grabbed some more food from the containers in front of her. "My clothes wouldn't have fit you and the ferrylady didn't have extras, so the old man said you could use his extra shirt. Thankfully my shorts did fit you."

By the blessings of Bahamut that they did. I already felt uncomfortable dressed as I was. I didn't know how I would be able to handle being literally half naked.

"Well thank you for providing me with clothes and food." I said gratefully. "You didn't have to."

"We also redressed your wounds too." The playfulness dropped from her face as a serious expression took over. Her red eyes met mine. "It… we had to administer some ointment to ensure that it wouldn't be infected, but…"

Silence filled the room as we both waited for the other shoe to drop. In the end it was Hu Tao who decided to break the silence.

"That's not a normal wound, is it?" She finally finished.

And now for the first time since we've interacted, I caught a glimpse of sharpness in her eyes.

While I didn't know much of the girl in front of me as a person, I did know she was a prodigy who could already read at the age of three. At the age of thirteen she inherited the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor from her grandfather and had been running it ever since. Considering that the funeral parlor was doing well, she certainly knew what she was doing. Even with her quirks.

I had never been a good liar nor was I one for deception when it wasn't required. So I decided that it wouldn't hurt to be honest to a degree. I also had the feeling for all the eccentricities that Hu Tao was said to display, she was not the kind of person who was easily fooled. That was something that she and her employee Zhongli seemed to share; their gazes always seemed to pierce right through you and dissect your being piece by piece. They would not figure you out right away, but there was no doubt that they would get their answers eventually one way or another.

"No, it's not. I got it…" From my son when we fought. "When I was fighting off a member of the Order of the Abyss. I defeated them, but unfortunately they were able to get one last attack in before they fled."

Which was true. I just left out a lot of the more… personal details.

"I didn't realize that there was anything off about it until the pharmacist pointed out that I was barely healing at all." And that didn't go into the… occasional pain I experienced. The kind that had me doubling over at times and trying to remind myself to breathe. "But how could you tell?"

Hu Tao leaned back in her seat, arms folded behind her head as she examined me. I stared back at her, folding my own hands across my lap.

"Mmm. I could sense the taint coming off from it and my co-worker seemed uncomfortable when she saw the wound as well." Hu Tao finally said. "But if it was related to the Order of the Abyss..."

Hu Tao looked like she was deep in thought about what was going to say next.

From the little I glimpsed of the game before I died, the Order of the Abyss managed to corrupt one of the Four Winds of Mondstadt. The corrupted being was Dvalin, a massive dragon creature designated by the Anemo Archon to protect the people under his charge. Corruption of such a powerful being was not an easy feat and it highlighted just how dangerous the organization was if it could turn one of it's powerful protectors into a being who wanted to destroy it.

I was aware that I was sitting on some invaluable information regarding the Order of the Abyss, but at the same time I knew very little about them. Or at least, I had no idea what the people of Teyvat knew about them. Everything I knew about this sinister shadowy organization was based on my memories of my previous life.

As well as what Aether had told me during our confrontation.

Which was the destruction of Teyvat as a whole for the fall of an ancient advanced civilization.

"Monsters of the Abyss have been around for a long time." Hu Tao said as she leaned forward, placing her elbows on her desk and intertwining her fingers. "But it wasn't until recently that they started being… more organized. Smarter. There is very little anyone knows about this organization such as how many monsters make up their membership, their leadership, the degree of power."

The girl stared at me with calculating eyes and once again I felt like she was looking right through me.

But I wasn't going to give her any answers. At least the ones relating directly to Aether. Though I did wonder how the head of a funeral parlor got that kind of info.

The first reason for not telling Hu Tao anything was because what went on was because the info I had could make the girl in front of me a target for an organization that insisted on hiding in the shadows. And the second reason is that what went down between me and the Order of the Abyss was personal.

I had no idea what Order of the Abyss had done to my son, but I could barely recognize him at the time even with the resemblance between him, my brother, and my father. Admittedly it had been a long time since I had seen him, seen any of my children.

But when I saw Aether… I instantly knew that there was something wrong with him..

His eyes were ice cold with not a trace of warmth in them. They were apathetic, uncaring and they looked upon others as one would stare at those who they believed were beneath them. I had seen those kinds of eyes on other people; people who were driven by personal goals and who would achieve them no matter what, uncaring of the collateral damage that they caused around them. Or perhaps the whole point was the collateral damage in the first place.

The powers he wielded against me when we fought screamed 'darkness'. Darkness that reminded me of the darkness that came from the Crimson Horizon; that corrupted and tainted everything it touched.

I had no idea what happened. I had no idea whether Aether was willingly working for this insidious organization of the shadows or if he was brainwashed into being their leader. If it was the former, I was going to drag Aether kicking and screaming out of the shadows and kick his ass. If it was the latter, I was still going to knock some sense into my son and first born, but most of my anger would be directed at the organization that brainwashed him and I would stop at nothing to destroy them come hell and brimfire.

How dare they corrupt my son? How dare they fucking turn him into someone who sought the destruction of innocent people?

I was going to destroy them.

Suddenly the food that Hu Tao had graciously provided me had become unappetizing.

I think it was beginning to hit me.

Aether was the Prince of the Abyss.

Aether was the fucking Prince of the Abyss.

I knew that my children would be heavily involved in the events of Teyvat even before they were born. And despite the fact that it was supposed to happen, I planned on fighting their fates. Perhaps it was the mother in me that fought against what I knew was in store for them.

But then the beautiful world of skies that we all called home was at war. What had once been a mostly peaceful world erupted into flames and the skies that were once blue could no longer be seen as they were covered in smoke and crimson. Attacks rained from the sky and every day islands would either be destroyed or knocked down into the Crimson Horizon.

The Sky Realm had become a war zone and at that time I had to make a painful decision that I knew my young children would resent me for in the future.

I sent them away from the Sky Realm with my siblings. Had they stayed behind, they would have been forced to witness the atrocities of war, the destruction of everything they knew. I could have easily fled with them, but the Sky Realm was my home. The home of my friends, even if they had all died a long time ago.

I had to stay behind to defend it.

Sending them off-world was a temporary solution at best. If they traveled to other worlds, they would likely be witness to other wars. Other tragedies. But the triplets at the time were too young to fight in the war. They were still children, they were still learning how to fight themselves. Maybe if they were older, I wouldn't have sent away with my siblings to our original homeworld.

But they were still so very young and as their mother I couldn't bear to subject them to the destruction and loss of everything they knew.

So while they cried in the arms of my siblings, calling out for me, I had turned my back on them as I prepared myself for war.

And now they are grown up. No longer children but young adults. I did not doubt that they had to make decisions in my absence; decisions that children should not have to make despite their immortality.

I had watched them grow up as children, but I had in all likelihood not been there at times they needed me the most.

I put my plate back down on the desk, no longer hungry.

I found myself in a vibrant field. The scent was sweet, the water that flowed at a nearby river was clear, and the colours were all but blinding.

And as aesthetic as the scenery is, I was not thrilled to be here.

Why did I keep finding myself in places that I had no memory of even going to in the first place?

Last I remembered was helping Hu Tao repack the leftovers we hadn't eaten and then settling myself comfortably on the couch in her office while Hu Tao slept in the lounge. So unless I just got up and slept walked here…

Was this a dream?

I looked around to get a better view of my surroundings when I saw him.

I didn't know if I had been distracted by my surroundings or he had slipped into my blindspot, but standing before me was a male figure who was hovering over the ground barefoot. He wore a sleeveless, form fitting white cloak that had a hood pulled up and covering the top half of his face and simple black pants. Though his clothes were basic in colour and designs, I couldn't help but notice that his cloak had a gold outline just like my dress did. His arms, though humanoid, were a dark brown and had gold lines weaved in an intricate pattern printed on them.

It wasn't his somewhat strange appearance or the fact that he was levitating that had frozen me to the ground though. It was his presence. One that was ancient, as old as the earth itself. It demanded respect and authority, threatening to drown me in its overwhelming might.

Though I had never felt this particular presence, I had felt similar ones enough times in the past to be able to put a name to it.

The main in front of me had the presence of a god.

And there was only one god in Liyue that the natives worshiped and revered.

Rex Lapis.

The God of Contracts. The God of Commerce. The Lord of Geo. The Prime of the Adepti. The Warrior God.

Morax.

The Oldest of the Seven.

The Geo Archon.

And Zhongli's true form and identity.

No matter how much the god in mortal form had tried to hide it, I already knew who he was from the start. Not just because of my… previous knowledge, but because he just wasn't good at acting human. While he certainly looked the part of a well-versed gentleman, he talked and sounded much older than he appeared to be. He was very knowledgeable in history, but spoke of events as if he had been there to witness them himself.

Events that took place centuries ago, mind you.

But the most damning thing about him was his eyes. Even if he managed to nail down being human perfectly, he could not hide his eyes. Whoever had said that eyes were the windows to the soul, they had been very accurate. Zhongli may have looked like a man in his mid-twenties to his early thirties, but his eyes betrayed his true age.

He had the eyes of an immortal. Ancient, weary eyes that had seen so much. That had suffered loss after loss after loss. That were used to and resigned to losing the people around them.

And I was sure he could see the same in mine. Immortals were pretty good at seeing through other immortals.

Even when he hadn't been interacting with me in his Zhongli guise, I had constantly felt the god's presence everywhere I went, his gaze always watching me no matter what I did. But this was the first time that he had ever visited me in person as Morax/Rex Lapis.

I could barely breathe, but I refused to buckle in his presence. I refused to submit to anyone, even if the one in question was a god.

"Rex Lapis," I choked out. Though his presence was unexpected and unwelcome, showing a modicum of respect never hurt anyone. And besides, he was the one who shaped Liyue Harbor into the powerhouse it was today. Even if I didn't think highly of him invading my dreams, he still deserved the respect the people of his lands showed him. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

He chuckled as he floated closer.

"So you know who I am, Outlander?" His voice was deep and sounded vaguely familiar. If I hadn't already known he went around incognito as Zhongli, I wouldn't have picked up on it.

"Kinda hard not to." I rolled my eyes. "Your symbol is literally printed on your shirt."

I pointed at said symbol.

"The presence you exude screams god." I continued. "And lastly, I've been around enough gods in the past to be able to pick up when a god is crashing my dreams. "

The tone of my last words had a lot of bite in them, but I really did not like it when anyone decided to pay me a visit within my consciousness. The only time a person got a pass was when it was an emergency.

Though I could not see his face, I got the impression that he had raised an eyebrow.

"This is not the first time you've been visited by a god?" He asked curiously.

I could already feel a headache coming on from remembering all my previous encounters with past gods.

"Not at all." I groaned. "And oftentimes they visited me for one thing."

Though I highly doubted that Rex Lapis had entered my dreams for that purpose, I just had to ask anyway. If just to annoy him for invading my privacy in the first place.

"You're not here to proposition me for sex? Or to be your concubine? Or your wife? Because that's how my interactions with gods in the past have gone." How I managed to get away from those horny bastards, I will never know. "By the way, my answer is 'no' on all accounts."

I could feel him staring.

I stared right back.

The silence stretched for a long time until the god in front of me broke it. By laughing.

It started as a chuckle before it turned into laughter that had him bending over and holding his middle. This continued on for several minutes before he was finally able to reign in his amusement again to chuckles.

"Got it out of your system?" I could feel my face burning. Geez, it wasn't that funny. Not to mention being laughed at by a God, especially if you were the butt of that joke, wasn't a good feeling.

Rex Lapis straightened himself quick and coughed, probably to try and salvage whatever dignity he had left. But I could still hear the amusement in his voice when he spoke again. "Well, I will be honest. You are one of the most beautiful women to have ever stepped foot in Liyue in the years since it was founded."

My face burned even more. He had to be exaggerating.

He smirked. "But that was not the reason I came to talk to you. However, I would not be adverse to taking you as a wife or a partner-"

"No thanks." I quickly interrupted. "I'm pretty sure my answer was and still is 'no'."

Rex Lapis chuckled. "Well, the offer still stands should you wish to revisit it."

"No." He was so infuriating. I can't believe I had a crush on him in my first life. "Anyways, can we get back to the reason why you decided to pay me a visit in my dreams? I would like to get some semblance of sleep after this conversation."

Because someone visiting your dreams was tiring.

I supposed the God of Contracts agreed, because he cleared his throat and all traces of his earlier amusement had vanished. "Straight to business, I see. Very well then," Rex Lapis folded his arms across his chest. "Why are you here, Outlander?"

"I'm looking for something." My children. "And it just so happened to end up in Teyvat."

"That told me absolutely nothing. " The god said flatly.

"It's the truth. Even if it's the bare minimum." I shrugged. "Forgive me for not going into detail, but that's more personal."

Silence reigned between us again.

"I suppose we are all entitled to our secrets." Rex Lapis gave a slight nod to indicate that he would not pursue the issue. "However, I wish to ask… what are your plans for Teyvat?"

And for Liyue, went unsaid.

It made sense. Rex Lapis had protected Liyue for thousands of years. He had nurtured the people from humble beginnings into the powerful trade centre that it was today. He watched over these people, and had watched over their ancestors before them. He was invested in their well-being, in the well-being of the land he had a hand in helping grow. Had defended with the help of a friend that had passed away long ago.

It made sense he would be concerned about an immortal alien suddenly stepping foot on his lands. One who happened to be very powerful and whose motivations were unknown to him.

I had absolutely no intention of doing anything that could harm the natives of this world with the exception of self-defense, but how were the powers in charge to know that? I was also technically an invader, and invaders were never looked well upon.

"Well once I can walk around without bleeding out, my next plan would be to travel." I said.

I still needed to put in time for the owner of Bubu's pharmacy to pay off the treatment for my injuries, but as soon as I could I would leave.

Liyue Harbor was beautiful. It was rich in culture and had thousands of years of history to its name. There were so many things about the city to explore, to learn about.

But I could not stay forever.

Not when my children were out there and were about to be involved in upcoming events that would take Teyvat by a storm. One that would likely change the nation as people knew it.

Aether was the Prince of the Abyss and plotting out genocide with vengeful monsters.

One of my daughters had dropped me in Liyue and then disappeared without a trace. What she would do in this calm before the storm, I had no idea. But I know she had gotten into a fight with Aether if my last conscious moments of hearing sword fighting was accurate and then escaped with me afterwards.

And my last daughter, if events were still going by what I remembered, would become a renowned individual labeled as the Traveler who would go on to achieve great things in her future.

"In search of that something you are looking for, I assume?" Rex Lapis clarified.

"Yes." I said. "I highly doubt what I'm looking for will come to me in Liyue Harbor. That would be a little too easy."

A rich laugh left the oldest God's mouth. "Yes, it would. Very well, I will accept that explanation."

Thanks, I guess.

"Lastly." I could see a glint of amber peeking out from beneath the hood and I could tell that I was not going to like this question. "Why do you carry the taint of the Abyss within you?"

And done! Please leave a review and tell me what you think!

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