Kiyono Fugin was dead.
On this day, when Windwheel Asters and Cecilias bloomed at their loveliest, upon a golden beach where the waves cut sunlight into fragments, the wind slowly dispersed.
He had died in the place closest to spring.
Only a letter remained upon the beach, written in crooked handwriting.
[Farewell, Wind!]
[Thank you for finding me.]
[Thank you for the gift you gave me.]
[Thank you for letting me see Mondstadt three thousand years later. It's really beautiful.]
—[I was trapped in a place without wind until I met you.]
The wind carried the letter away.
Venti tried to catch it, but no one could catch the wind. Air and sand slipped through her fingers and vanished into the desolate dusk.
The wind was dead, though they had only met again today.
Venti loved wine. She had brought so very many fine bottles to share with her old friend.
She had many stories to tell the wind as well: stories of the blue sky and high walls, birds and feathers, dandelions and poetry. She wanted to tell him what she had seen throughout three thousand years—the people she had met, the things she had experienced, and the landscapes she had crossed.
It seemed she was always late.
Three thousand years ago, when the girl died within the city of high walls, Venti had been late.
Five hundred years ago, when the knight died at the bottom of the valley, she had been late again.
And today, when the wind died before the sea, she had still failed to arrive.
Only this time... there was no undoing it.
As the Human Principles System had said, her Covenant with Kiyono Fugin had ended five hundred years ago. She could no longer retrieve his soul as she once had.
He could not be saved.
They could not meet again.
And yet...
Venti lowered her eyes. Amber sunlight gathered upon her delicate profile. She bit her lip and murmured:
"This isn't fair. I only wanted to reunite with my friend. I only wanted to see her once more. I wasn't asking for much—just one more drink with an old friend. I'm a carefree drunkard; it doesn't take much to satisfy me... Why did we have to part after meeting only once? Why am I nothing more than the wind that carries the letters in their song? Why?"
—Those were the last words she spoke to La Signora.
She had not asked for much...
only one more drink with her friend.
Dusk deepened. Hazy clouds of fire spread across the sea, each cresting wave another fold in the sunset.
La Signora had already left to search for the final letter Rostam had left her, but Venti remained.
She gazed blankly at the setting sun until evening gathered itself into the mountains.
"There's going to be a gathering."
"Would you like to come?"
Venti froze.
The valley wind stirred once more, and waves layered their voices upon the shore.
She turned instinctively.
Spring would begin when this night ended. Cecilias bloomed brilliantly in the place closest to spring, while sunset transformed the world into a dream.
Pure-white hair lifted in the wind like dancing snow. Clear pale-blue eyes slowly opened amid the dusk, clouded by weariness as though their owner had just awakened from a long dream.
He offered Venti an invitation.
The feeling was strange and familiar at once.
It was like the day three thousand years ago when the girl atop the high wall extended her hand to the wind. Mountain gales had roared across a dark and oppressive iron sky, yet light shone within the girl's lucid green eyes.
"Wind, would you like to go outside with me?"
Venti's shoulders trembled.
"Next autumn... Mm, the last day of autumn."
Kiyo Seigan still looked tired and drowsy. He struggled to keep his eyes open, like a cat that had not fully awakened.
"On Mt. Yougou, Narukami Island, in Inazuma. Beneath the largest cherry tree."
He smiled at Venti, warmth resting upon his lips.
"Will you bring the wine, my friend?"
If the wind should die, wait for its return.
—
Midsummer.
Bubu Pharmacy, Liyue.
The osmanthus had ripened to a deep crimson. Its color spread completely through the grove and settled into shade like the afterglow of sunset. A mountain breeze stirred, lifting red leaves into the clear amber sunlight.
Mr. Zhongli reclined in a wicker chair outside the pharmacy. He set down the bamboo slip in his hand, raised his eyes, and watched the little zombie in the courtyard.
"The Era... Is Summoning... Routine One."
Qiqi's expression was grave. With the solemnity of one performing some supreme and sacred martial art, she turned her pale hands upward and extended them while chanting beneath her breath:
"Stretching! Exercises!"
Her voice rang across the courtyard.
Mr. Zhongli pressed his lips together.
Kiyo had left Mondstadt almost a year ago. Since his departure, Qiqi had practiced the supposed adeptal art known as The Era Is Summoning every day and every night, training diligently without regard for wind or rain. The little zombie's stubborn figure could always be found in the courtyard.
But was The Era Is Summoning truly an adeptal art?
To Zhongli's professional adeptal eye—and according to ordinary reason—it was simple calisthenics.
"Seigan... told me to practice," Qiqi explained. She raised her large eyes to Zhongli. "He said, The Era Is Summoning... is a great summoning art!"
Qiqi spread both little hands as far apart as she could to demonstrate just how great it was.
"It can summon... this era's... strongest."
Zhongli silently wondered how Kiyo could bring himself to deceive even a child.
He pressed his lips together and was about to speak when he stopped.
"Seigan... made a Covenant with Qiqi."
(See Chapter 115.)
Qiqi nodded. Her eyes were as clear as amber, reflecting Zhongli's face.
"Qiqi stays... in Liyue... and practices... The Era Is Summoning. Seigan goes... to become... the strongest."
"We made a Covenant. We hooked pinkies."
"Then... Qiqi can... summon Seigan..."
"Qiqi can... see Seigan again."
She paused and lowered her eyes. A faint grievance entered her voice, and pale-purple hair fell across her cheeks.
"But it has been... so many days. Qiqi summoned... so many times... and Seigan still... did not appear."
"Qiqi... misses him."
"Mr. Zhongli... is Qiqi... very stupid?"
She looked at him with the innocent eyes of a fawn in the forest.
"Qiqi is not stupid. Qiqi is very clever." Zhongli stroked her head gently, ruffling the untidy purple hair. "I am the foolish one."
He leaned back in the wicker chair and looked toward the dusk about to settle over the horizon, and toward the distant osmanthus grove.
"The osmanthus has ripened."
Rose-colored light gradually spread along the horizon.
The osmanthus had ripened.
So had the wine.
At the end of the previous spring, Zhongli and Kiyo had gathered osmanthus blossoms, brewed a new wine, and buried it beneath the bamboo cottage. By any careful reckoning, it had matured by now.
But ripe wine without an old friend could not be tasted.
It could only remain below, buried deep within the soil. The longer time passed, the deeper the wine would sink, until at last it entered the ley lines and no one could find it again.
Kiyo had gone to Inazuma to use the Sacred Sakura to cleanse the corruption left by karmic debt.
Even now, Zhongli could feel what lay beneath his own feet, beneath Qiqi's, beneath the feet of every person in Liyue...
Bosacius's body was buried there.
That mountain range had merged into Liyue's ley lines.
"Mr. Zhongli...?"
Qiqi tilted her head, then realized something.
"Mr. Zhongli... wants to see Seigan too?"
Zhongli withdrew his gaze from the horizon and looked at Qiqi.
After a long while, he smiled helplessly.
"Yes. I would like to share a drink with him."
"Then... Qiqi will do... The Era Is Summoning... one more time!"
Qiqi nodded with great seriousness.
"This time... Qiqi will succeed!"
Zhongli smiled at the child's innocent words.
The little zombie acted as soon as she spoke. She took a talisman from her pocket, the words The Era Is Summoning written across it, and slapped it onto her forehead.
"The Era Is Summoning! Routine One!"
"Stretching! Exercises!"
She stepped forward, raised both small pale hands with all her strength, and rose onto the tips of her toes. Then she moved her left foot forward.
Perhaps the steps had been written incorrectly upon the talisman. Qiqi's left foot tangled with her right. She lost her balance and began to fall on perfectly level ground.
She swayed, her doll-like face about to strike the earth—
and instinctively closed her eyes.
But she never touched the ground.
Instead, she fell into a warm and gentle embrace. Her face pressed against someone's chest, and she breathed in a mild, clean scent, warm as sunlight upon her cheeks.
"Careful."
The man pinched Qiqi's soft cheek.
"You really are a handful."
Qiqi's shoulders trembled. She raised her eyes, and the man's face appeared within their pale-purple depths.
Long white hair interwove with scattered sunlight. He looked down at her, loose strands falling against the side of her face and tickling her skin.
He held Qiqi gently.
Qiqi wanted to be held.
She was a zombie and remained cold every day. Even when sunlight covered her body, she could feel no warmth.
An embrace was different.
When he held her, Qiqi could feel warmth.
Truly... so warm.
"Qiqi..." She paused, then wrapped her arms around Kiyo. Her fingers clutched his sleeve as though afraid he might escape. "Qiqi succeeded."
"Qiqi... summoned... the strongest."
"Yes. Qiqi is amazing." Kiyo soothed her and answered with complete seriousness. "Qiqi successfully summoned me."
"And I kept our Covenant." Sunlight filled his eyes as he added proudly, "This time, I kept it too."
He raised his gaze to Zhongli.
Zhongli was watching him.
Their eyes met.
After a long while, Kiyo declared proudly, "I became the strongest."
"My friend."
Zhongli sensed the change within him. He considered it for a moment, as though he had understood something, and a smile touched his lips.
"You did it. You truly became the strongest."
Morax was the Warrior God of the mortal world.
To be acknowledged as the strongest by the Warrior God was to be the strongest in truth.
Zhongli could sense the ordeal through which Kiyo had passed.
"I came to share that wine with you." Kiyo smiled at Morax in the evening light. "This autumn, beneath the largest Sacred Sakura on Narukami Island—will you come?"
If stone should crumble, wait for the mountain's return.
—
[I could not cover the mountain in flowers. I planted only one tree...]
[When the Sacred Sakura rolls across the sky like clouds, that will be me coming to see you.]
[Good morning, good afternoon, and good night.]
Miss Lumine had finished reading the final letter.
Only the outline of dusk remained, scattered at the edge of the stars.
Daylight had withdrawn completely.
Inazuma had a saying: dusk was the hour when one met the supernatural. It lay at the boundary between day and night, and at that hour, even the divisions of time became indistinct.
It was only a folk belief.
Yet at this moment, it symbolized the truth.
This was not the boundary between daylight and darkness.
It was the boundary between falsehood and reality.
Kiyo had altered and deceived history, then sustained that lie for a thousand years—for one complete cycle.
After dusk, day gave way to night.
Falsehood would give way to reality.
This was the instant when the two converged.
Once dusk passed, the lie would become true.
"Have you finished?" Sasayuri asked softly.
He had waited patiently throughout.
"I have."
Lumine carefully arranged the letters, returned them one by one to the box, closed it, and locked it.
"Kiyo Seigan... lived here for more than a thousand years?" she asked.
She looked around the cave.
It was ancient. Fine moss filled the gaps between brown stones. The air was dark and damp. Hazy yellow light entered through the mouth of the cave and cast everything inside in aged colors.
There was little furniture: a handmade desk, one chair, a quill rusted almost entirely away, and the large box filled with letters.
Kiyo had lived in this narrow place for a thousand years.
Every day, he woke here.
Every day, he slept here.
Spring departed and autumn came. The cycle repeated for a thousand years, until a thousand years had passed.
Lumine could imagine it.
No—
she could feel it clearly...
the solitude.
And the feeling within it.
She tightened her fingers around the fragment of heart. The words engraved upon it shimmered with light.
As dusk continued to fall, that light grew brighter. The inscription had never been clearer:
Covenant Eight: Return home and have dinner with Lumine before sunset.
That was everything.
She watched the dusk.
She watched the mountains swallow its final color.
Falsehood and reality converged and covered one another.
What came after dusk was not darkness.
It was a brilliant sky of stars.
And beneath those stars, she saw him.