Another chapter, slightly later than I usually post, but anyways, thanks for keeping patient, here's another one with Hu Tao.

I opened the door to find… no one.

Hu Tao was not in her room, and if her bed wasn't messy, I wouldn't have been able to tell that this had anyone living in it. It looked empty, with just a note on the desk.

I walked over to the desk, seeing the note.

"Hey, Traveler, or should I call you Aether now?" I heard her say in a smug voice with that smug face of hers. It made me smile just thinking about it.

"Though, this is serious, so listen." I read from the note, she was being serious, and my smile fell.

"I'm preparing the funeral arrangements for Liyue. If you wouldn't mind helping me, that would help a lot." I saw a small tear at the end of the note. I touched my own eyes, which were surprisingly dry.

"I… am going to scatter the ashes of all those that have died across the ocean. Without knowing their requests…" I read aloud, and it clicked.

'Right… she treats death seriously. And she doesn't know what many of these people wanted with their deaths… probably their families hardly know.' I swallowed as I looked down at the barely touched-desk.

I ran out of the Jade chamber, looking for Hu Tao. I ran, eventually, to the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor.

"Hey, what's happening-" my voice caught in my through as the vision caught up with me. Bodies. Just all around, being burned. Some faces were unrecognizable, some pulverized by the missiles, some burnt to a crisp. I saw all of them, a burning mass happening right in front of my eyes. They were all being turned to ashes.

'A mass cremation…' It disgusted me, and the other families around the burning mass.

"I'm sorry… I'm sorry… I'm so sorry." I heard from Hu Tao, looking at the burning mass, being cremated body part by body part.

She… was crying, it was the first I had seen of her, and… I wasn't sure how to feel.

"Hu Tao!" I yelled as I ran to her, the distance quickly being closed by me.

She looked up at me, and I looked at her, with… anger? Frustration? Tiredness? I wasn't sure.

"What… are you doing?"

"I… had to do it. There's… so many people, I can't possibly grant their requests, even if they were alive to tell me. I… can't do anything else…"

My anger and feelings evaporated, as she broke down into tears, again, and fell to her knees.

I crouched down to her, comforting her, as the fire in front of her continued to burn, the scent of bodies permeating the air, filling me with a sense of disgust.

'... damn it.' I came close to crying, but I just held Hu Tao closer to my chest, instead.

"I couldn't… do a thing." Hu Tao said, quietly, against my chest.

I rubbed her head, as she and I both shed many tears, seeing the bodies in front of us burn and burn. I felt… like I was lost.

I felt a sick feeling in my stomach, as the fires of the bodies burnt to a crisp, reducing the bodies to ashes.

"Um… we're sorry, family members of those who were lost…" She squeaked out, as she spoke, to a crying audience. They all looked at her with utter anger, and hatred, in their eyes, but no one did anything, presumably because I was at her side.

"Hey, let her go, for one moment."

"No… I need to continue. They've been able to handle it without stopping. I need to do it too…" Her voice was shaky but unbelievably clear. More women and men and children were brought into the pyre.

"Wait," I said to the people carrying the bodies, and they stopped.

"Lay them out to rest. Collect the ashes first, for those whose family members were burnt."

"We have no time for that." Hu Tao spoke darkly, under her breath. She looked tired, angry, frustrated, and heartbroken. "The spirits are getting angry at me already… they already detest what I'm doing."

She stood up, hazily, as if she was a zombie herself, possessed.

"I know they're confused… but I can't stand it… There's no other way." I saw her gritting her teeth, and she looked like she was looking for something to hurt.

"I can't even give them the time to give them the bodies… We've got so many who we've lost. Thousands…" I heard her gasp, inward, as she hated what she was doing.

"Wait, stop! Let them collect the ashes! That's the minimum you should be doing!" I looked at her angrily. "What happened to your code of conduct as a Wangsheng Parlor director?! To authorize what their requests were?!"

"I don't have time for that." She said, in a haze, yet also somehow firm.

She collapsed, against the wall, and I grabbed her before she could fall onto the floor.

"Hu Tao!" I yelled, she passed out, and the scent of bodies still strong on her.

'This… wasn't the first set of bodies she had burnt, has it?'

"How many times did she cremate people?!"

"I've lost count… she's been doing it since you stopped the ruin guards." One of the men spoke.

"That… was 4 hours ago."

"She used her pyro to burn the bodies faster… to make them into ashes so much quicker… my child, they burned without any care… No requests made, no love, no care… this is what the Wangsheng Parlor is doing?"

I didn't know how to respond to a crying mother, nor did I know how to respond to the men and children who also cried, then and there. I swallowed, as I looked at the woman in question in my arms.

She was beaten up, I could see scars on her body.

"Did you hurt her?!" I yelled to the people behind me, with anger.

The man cheered, in anger.

"YES! So what if we did?! She was disrespecting-"

I ran up, and looked up at the man, with the angriest face I could stomach, not even close to the anger I felt toward him.

"Her acts are wrong… but don't you imagine the kind of pain she's going through?" I grit my teeth at the man in front of me. "She wants, deep down, more than anything, to listen to your requests, to fulfill that desire that your loved ones wanted to die by."

I looked down, angry at myself.

"But she can't. Thousands have died… if I didn't come, thousands more would have. It would take years, of rotting flesh, for just one body a day, since she isn't used to handling all of these people dying…"

Tears sprung out of my own eyes.

"I know how much anger you feel. But don't direct that anger towards the woman who's just trying to do her job, a job that was thrust onto her, at the age of 13. She had to bury her grandfather at the age of 13. She's been putting the lives and deaths of everyone ahead of herself throughout. And this is how you treat her?"

They backed away, many even felt guilty.

"I… didn't know about her burying her grandfather."

"I did. Because I talked to her. She waited… every day, at Wuwang Hill, for her to meet her grandfather's spirit. She never met him after death." I breathed out, having held that information close to my heart ever since she had told me.

"She wants to be at a point where she can die, with that same peace, with no regrets. But she gave that up… because she also has a job to do here." I swallowed, as I finished my speech.

They were still angry, but they weren't so much at her. More so, themselves, as well as the Ruin Guards who attacked, as they looked down with their anger.

I looked back, Hu Tao still resting there, on the floor of the Wangsheng parlor.

"I need to take care of Hu Tao. Please… make peace with what Hu Tao will do. I'm sorry…"

I carried her inside the parlor, and to her room, which looked fully decorated with all sorts of stuff, including a basic staff at the side of the room, and a nice bed at the edge.

"I see… she never really moved out of her room here…"

"Aether?" Hu Tao saw me, carrying her in a bridal position, but she seemed distraught, even with the blush on her face.

"What am I feeling? There are so many people out there who've lost their lives… I'm not allowed to be happy."

I felt her swallow, as her eyes looked like she was clouded with tears.

"Why… am I happy when no one else is here?" She cried, with a smile on her face.

I hugged her, against my shoulder, as her body limply hung against my shoulder, and her body felt slack. It's like she felt paralysis, and could only ask me to give her comfort.

"I'm sorry. You deserve better than this."

She chuckled, against my shoulder. "I deserve much worse. I'm probably going to be haunted by these deaths forever…" I felt her body break down, again, against my shoulder, as a sad laugh escaped her lips, and cries screamed out of her.

"I wanted to meet my grandpa, to meet him again! To be at peace, just like he was!" She hugged me, tightly, her strength coming back to her, as she cried with laughter. It felt chilling, but also heartbreaking hearing her laugh like that.

I couldn't say anything, as I stroked her hair, and comforted her.

"I love you… and feel so happy, with you, but I hate that… I'm going to not see peace…"

I brought her off my shoulder, as I looked at her in her eyes.

"You'll be at peace. Just… you'll have to carry those you have burned with you. Their ashes… will stay with you, but you can be at peace. It'll take a while, but you will be." I wasn't sure what I was saying, and she looked relatively unconvinced.

"No… that's a lie. I… am still haunted by what I did, a while back." I looked down. "To save someone from giving birth to a monster… I had to impregnate them and make them pregnant with my child. I raped… her." I breathed that through my teeth.

"I'm… a rapist. A piece of shit. I couldn't have saved any of those guys who you burned. It's my fault too…"

I felt like breaking down, but I stood for Hu Tao, who looked at me with a sense of sorrow.

"To help another person… you had no other choice." She looked darkly, as she looked down at my chest.

"Yeah…" I swallowed.

"Can I kiss you?" She bluntly said. She looked like she wanted it. She hated that she wanted it. A guilty desire.

"Yeah." I touched her cheeks and cradled her face as I brought myself into a kiss. I felt… a moment's peace.

"I heard you have mated with Yanfei…" She said, in between her kissing me. "Can I mate with you too?" She looked into my eyes, vulnerably.

"Yeah." I took off her shorts and then her panties. Her hat was next, which lay on the side of the bed.

"Don't take off anything else. Just… mate with me." She blushed but with sadness in her eyes.

"Okay." I took my pants and underwear off and sat on her bed.

"Aether, know this." She said in a monotone voice as she lined her pussy up with my dick. "I love you, genuinely. You understand me more than others… I've told you more about myself than I've told to pretty much anyone. You're… not just relief for me. I do love you."

She dropped herself on my dick, and I felt her body immediately cling to me, as she screamed in pain and pleasure.

"Please… make me pregnant. I'll do the bouncing, just… fill me up." She spoke, quietly, into my ear, as she bobbed her body up and down on my dick.

"I will." I looked at her, as she used her legs to push herself up and down my dick, and she grits her teeth in pain less and less the more she did it.

"Ah… I feel so happy. Being with you, Aether." She looked dazed again, and I could tell she had come already.

"I love you too, Hu Tao." I kissed her, with the scent of death around us, and us being lost in the scent, disgusted by it, but wanting to break past it.

"I'm… sorry we did this here… I would have loved to be made into a mother under better times…"

"Yeah…" I still kissed her, as my release got closer. I felt sad, but I still loved Hu Tao.

"But you'll become a mother, and I'll make sure you'll be safe!" I pumped myself up, as she pushed herself down on my penis, and I finally climaxed inside her womb. Her pyro tattoo lit up, with the fertilization also done.

And yet, she looked like she was empty, even if she now had a child inside her.

"I love you… and I want to have this again, under better times." She, still leaking from her pussy, put her panties on, and her shorts.

"Bye, Aether." She walked out of her room, and as I saw, continued to burn the bodies of those who had died till the sun rose.

Wow, that got darker, didn't it? Well, to be honest, this is what would happen, and it isn't just dark for the sake of being dark. Anyways, thanks for reading.