A distinct sense of unease weighed heavy in the pit of Xiao's stomach, and an ache twisted in his lower back. As the trio arrived in the Chasm, his hands sweat beneath his gloves' thick fabric, and they turned cold as his companions let go. It felt too soon to be back here again, especially with Venti gone.

Already ahead of him, Albedo ventured forward too soon. While he didn't seem reckless, he moved quicker than Xiao preferred. He approached the Chasm's main entrance focused more on his mind than his body's position, which did little to put Xiao at ease.

Although he would do it in a heartbeat, saving people was a task he avoided whenever possible. Especially during times of crisis, the best way to conserve energy was to prevent the need for its use.

Albedo is a Knight of Favonius. He reminded himself. I may not know their training, but I'm sure he understands the dangers of cliffsides. Immediately, the Alchemist leaped off the side of the cliff. Xiao lurched forward, and Zhongli threw his arm out to stop him.

Albedo landed on a floating rock beyond Xiao's view, which Zhongli could see thanks to his height. The lingering energy from the Chasm kept several platforms aloft, so the risk had been negligible.

"I suppose I should have realized sooner," Albedo said, oblivious to Xiao's receding terror. Zhongli continued the conversation regularly as if nothing had happened. He removed his arm and patted Xiao on the shoulder.

"What's this you should have realized?" He watched with reserved interest as Albedo removed a device from an inner coat pocket.

"I should have recognized you two right away. There aren't many adepti who struggle with karmic conditions, and there are even fewer who request medication for it."

"How do you know about that?" Xiao demanded. He didn't like what the alchemist was insinuating, that he couldn't tolerate pain.

Albedo didn't respond. He turned away from them and instead crouched on all fours. He dangled his head over the side of the rock, focusing on the underside of it as his hair hung over his eyes.

"I've been researching the ingredients used in your medication," he called. "I suggested that Dr. Baizhu alter the formula." He withdrew to his knees, adjusted a glove, and looked back at them. "Ordinarily, doctor-patient confidentiality might prevent me from learning a patient's name. But your case is unique enough; to know your condition is to know you."

He glanced between his device and a neighboring platform. "Besides, as your overseer, Zhongli had already permitted me such knowledge."

"And Dr. Baizhu recommended that I consult him," Zhongli stated plainly, "I thought nothing of it. I see no sense in suffering a pain that may be reduced; you cannot receive aid which you do not request."

"Precisely."

Albedo scooted to the edge of his rock and reached for the neighboring platform. The gap was too far to traverse, yet he attempted it again. Before Xiao could offer help, his vision flashed, splitting the neighboring rock in twain. A geometric flower bloomed in the resulting crevice, closing the distance from the other side, and Albedo mounted his device.

"There's a certain merit in individual accomplishment," he stood and dusted off his palms, "but we aren't built for it in the long term. That's why I do my work; I close the gap between alchemy and what it does for others." Behind him, the device unfurled from the wall like violet grass. A tripod base unfolded before the main shaft extended, an antenna that grew into the Chasm like a stalactite.

"I suppose I should have recognized you, too. Uh, Mister Kreideprinz." Xiao nervously folded his arms, sure that he pronounced that wrong.

"Then we're even. And please, call me Albedo," he sighed. My work is where my merit lies, not my name."

"Speaking of which, I had been meaning to ask," Zhongli interjected, "What do you know about yang energy?"


The others called it yang energy; he called it hell. It felt like hunger pangs in his head, a headache in his stomach, and pulled muscles everywhere else. He felt stretched thin, his ghostly energy dwindling like a candle nearing the end of its wick.

"Hang on just another minute. I'm going as fast as I can." Chongyun hastily drew on a thin piece of ice using an ink brush. Ordinarily, he'd ask how the ice didn't melt, or what the symbols meant, or how the ink was even sticking to the not-quite paper. Instead, he was caught in the intensity of his symptoms. His peripheral sight faded behind a curtain of gray clouds. He heard voices, some familiar, others not.

I finally got to see one of the Seven Archons. It was interesting to see what kind of god he was. Normally, he hides his true divinity behind the facade of a bard.

Venti? So that's the name he goes by. His tunes are…forget it.

Can you hear the Anemo Archon's voice on the breeze? It calms me down whenever I get flustered.

"What does freedom really mean, when demanded of you by a god?" That was the question that he asked Dvalin.

"Hold still." Chongyun lifted his bangs and pasted the odd paper to his forehead. He expected an icy chill, like sleet, but felt a warm compress instead. Immediately, the pain spiked. He hissed as a frozen jolt shot up his spine, and it receded. The clouds dispersed, and his body felt lighter like he had just downed a beer stein.

Except he wasn't dizzy, his mind focused. "Did it work?" He blinked. The three of them stared intensely. "I don't usually draw preservation runes, so I didn't summon one right away. I hope I drew it correctly…"

"Whatever you did, it works," he sighed, savoring how the soreness faded. Chongyun smiled, though his expression quickly melted.

"About that," he contemplated aloud, "I don't understand why this rune works like my attempted exorcism. How can two completely different rituals have the same effect?"

"It must have something to do with your yang energy," Xingqiu reasoned.


"Yang energy?" Albedo repeated, "I'd hardly consider myself knowledgeable. Everything I know was introduced to me by a friend of mine."

"An exorcist?"

"His friend, actually, but that's beside the point. Why do you ask?"

"I hypothesize that yang energy has improved Xiao's constitution due to cancelation." Zhongli continued, "As the environmental levels of yang have increased due to recent Fatui activity and our own unique circumstances, his karma, in turn, has decreased. I don't know why his symptoms would otherwise improve so drastically."

They both wrinkled their eyebrows and rested their chins on their hands. Distracted, neither one noticed how they mirrored the other. As they discussed the facts, they perfectly portrayed the concept of geo resonance using only their faces; Chongyun's very presence alleviated his pain and reduced his anxiety, yet his karma unpredictably returned in his absence.

The role of yang was implied but unclear, like that of the Fatui, who were scheming to an unknown end.

"Before you arrived, the Knights had invited us to the interrogation of an abyss lector. Xiao's karma spiked, then transferred to the lector. At least, it must have because no one else was hurt."

Albedo's eyes widened, his voice pitched with sudden excitement, "When I walked into the tavern, you had been talking about 'some positive change.' Was this in reference to his karma?"

"I'm not so sure it's positive," Xiao cautioned, "this could all be a fluke."

"You called it a positive change," he smiled, repeating himself, "a positive change; though you had meant it in the colloquial sense, it's just given me an idea."

Zhongli and Xiao exchanged a confused glance as Albedo jumped from his platform and joined them, pointing at nothing in particular.

"A fundamental principle of alchemy could very well describe this. That energy cannot be created nor destroyed; it changes form. When we describe this principle, we often refer to energy as positive or negative.

Someone with an abundance of positive energy, yang energy, is someone with congenital positivity. So someone with an abundance of negative energy, karma, must be someone with congenital negativity."

"But-"

"But this doesn't explain why your condition returns. If everything cancels perfectly, energy is destroyed, and your congenital negativity can't return. Chongyun's congenital positivity can't return. So, there must be some intermediary at play. A neutral variable, one that's neither positive nor negative."


"A ritual that should destroy reinforces instead. A ritual that reinforces still reinforces. There must be something we're missing," Xingqiu continued.


"A variable that provides balance. Let's call that yin." Albedo scratched words and symbols into the dirt, a chemical reaction.

Karma (-) Yin (0) Yang (+)

"Zhongli's logic would dictate that karma and yang together make yin."

Karma (-) + Yang (+) = Yin (0)

"This is alchemically plausible, but again, it doesn't account for the reappearance, the conservation of karma. Zhongli's reaction proceeds in only one direction. It's perfectly balanced, and life so rarely is."

Xiao nodded, pursing his lips in approval. Scientific principles aside, he had a point.

"So I propose the following instead:"

Yin (0) ⇌ Karma (-)+Yang (+)

"Karma and yang create a buffer, yin. When someone like Chongyun has an excess of yang, he cannot make yin without karma. Xiao has an excess of karma; without yang, he cannot make yin.

Likewise, someone with an excess of yin would make karma and yang. Have you ever felt like that, Xiao? Like you've been around too much yang? What would happen if your body suddenly received an excess of yin? Would it break back down into karma and yang?

I believe it already has. What killed the lector was not karma's release but an explosion of yang."