"Fang Qiu, Klee, breakfast's here! Huh? Tone-Deaf Bard, what are you doing here?"
Fang Qiu was still wondering why the girl in front of her had suddenly locked eyes with Xingqiu when Paimon's voice rang out.
The Traveler and Paimon had arrived.
Murata had woken them up along with her. Fang Qiu had been too nervous to sleep the night before, so the Traveler and Paimon had stayed up chatting with her until late.
It was thanks to them that she'd finally managed to fall asleep. And then she'd overslept…
The four of them had set out for the venue together, but halfway there, the Traveler and Paimon decided that Fang Qiu and Klee should go on ahead while they went to buy breakfast.
"Tone-Deaf Bard? You two know each other?"
Fang Qiu was puzzled. The Traveler and Paimon knew this girl in the green beret?
"Isn't that the Traveler and Paimon? Good morning! As you can see, I'm buying books."
Someone behind her was urging her along. Venti waved hello, then turned to Fang Qiu and blinked. "Miss Fang Qiu, ten copies of the limited signed collector's edition of The Legend of Sword and Fairy 3, please."
"Um… there's a rule… it's one copy per person…" Fang Qiu said after a moment's silence, looking into Venti's bright, emerald eyes.
"Huh? There's a rule like that?" Venti looked utterly shocked.
"Tone-Deaf Bard… you're first in line, and you didn't know about the rule?" Paimon's eyes went wide. "It's written right there on the standing sign!"
"Um… couldn't you make an exception…?" Venti scratched her head, smiling sweetly.
"Miss, please don't make this difficult for us."
Murata, standing nearby, couldn't watch any longer. "Otherwise, we'll have to call in the Tenryou Commission."
"No, no, no! One copy is fine, one copy!" Venti said hurriedly.
With that, she took out some Mora and paid.
Fang Qiu picked up the stamp and pressed her name onto the title page of the new book.
Fang Qiu.
The script was graceful and neat. Beside the name, the stamp also left a crimson cherry blossom.
Mm, nice. Really nice.
Looking at the signature on the title page, Fang Qiu was very satisfied. A stamp really was convenient.
Otherwise, with this many books, her handwriting would surely have gone to pieces by the end. It wasn't that writing a name two hundred times was hard—it was only two characters per book—but picking up and handing over book after book wore her hand out, and tired hands wrote sloppily.
She handed the book to the girl in the green beret, and the next female fan stepped up.
The girl in the green beret left with her book, looking a little dejected.
Fang Qiu stamped the next fan's book the same way.
It was fine at first, but after signing more than thirty copies, Fang Qiu was so hungry she felt faint.
But she couldn't spare a hand during the signing session.
So the Traveler took a Sunsettia daifuku from the paper box and held it up to her mouth.
"Um… thanks."
After thanking her, Fang Qiu raised her head to hand a stamped book to a fan, and at the same time parted her lips and took the Sunsettia daifuku the Traveler was offering.
But she was so focused on handing over the book that she accidentally took the Traveler's finger into her mouth as well.
She only realized when she saw the stunned expressions of the two girls across the table.
Fang Qiu quickly opened her mouth a little, letting the Traveler slip her finger out.
Looking at the Traveler's fair finger, glistening with clear saliva, Fang Qiu's pretty white face flushed a deep red in an instant.
"S-sorry, I didn't mean to!"
She hurriedly swallowed the Sunsettia daifuku, then fumbled out a handkerchief and held it out to the Traveler.
"It's fine."
The Traveler's face was a little red too. She took the handkerchief and wiped the saliva from her hand.
Then she used it to wipe the leftover saliva from the corner of Fang Qiu's mouth as well.
The two girls on the other side of the table had gone red-faced too. Fang Qiu even heard one of them lean toward the other and whisper, "When the Traveler pulled her finger out of Teacher Fang Qiu's mouth just now, Teacher Fang Qiu looked so lewd…"
Fang Qiu glanced around guiltily. Luckily, most of the onlookers' lines of sight were blocked by the two girls in front of her, and no one else was looking this way. She breathed a sigh of relief.
"Please keep what just happened a secret."
She handed the books to the two girls, pursing her lips as she pleaded.
"Mm, don't worry, Teacher Fang Qiu. We won't go telling everyone you had the Traveler's finger in your mouth."
One of the girls nodded with a look that said you can count on me, took her book, and left.
Fang Qiu couldn't help getting a headache.
The girl had made a promise, sure, but it didn't sound like a full guarantee.
Still, she had no time to dwell on it before the next fan stepped up.
Fang Qiu quickly picked up the stamp and pressed her signature into the next fan's book.
And that scene had landed squarely in the eyes of Yae Miko, watching from a distance.
"How interesting."
Yae Miko licked her rosy lips, a flash of mischief crossing her fox eyes.
The signing session went on in full swing, and the soldiers of the Tenryou Commission kept order at the venue under Kujou Sara's command, everything running smoothly.
After Paimon had shown Klee around the venue, she came back to help too.
With their help, and despite a steady stream of minor incidents, Fang Qiu's signing session went off fairly well overall.
Maybe it was the heavy guard from the Tenryou Commission, or maybe it was the Traveler standing beside her, but not one person at the signing session treated her badly.
Everyone met her with smiles.
It reminded Fang Qiu of her time in Liyue, when the letters Sister Bai handed her were almost all along the lines of "Fang Qiu, I'm fucking your ancestors!" and "Fuck your mom, give me my money back!"
The difference in treatment was like heaven and earth.
She wondered whether Sister Bai had done it on purpose.
But as time crept by, weariness inevitably began to show on Fang Qiu's pretty face.
High in the sky hung the cold sun. It was noon.
At last, all two hundred copies of The Legend of Sword and Fairy 3 had been signed.
Quite a few of the authors hadn't used stamps and had signed by hand instead. Fang Qiu could see their hands trembling, and she wondered whether they'd even be able to hold chopsticks at lunch.
After the signing session came the regular sales event. That part had nothing to do with the authors and was handled by the staff of Yae Publishing House.
From here on, the authors were free to do as they pleased.
Today was the opening of the Irodori Festival, and Five Kasen Square would be offering plenty of entertainment. For example, the Dream Kingdom that Fang Qiu had been longing to see.
But before their free time began, they still had to attend a celebration banquet hosted by Yae Publishing House.
Yae Miko had arranged it to celebrate the signing session's success.
Banquet was a grand word for it. It really just meant dragging the whole crowd of editors, the authors from the signing, and the editors' and authors' families and friends to a restaurant for a meal.
Everyone would get to chat together.
The moment Paimon heard the word banquet, she got very excited.
She declared on the spot that she was going to eat her fill as a reward for herself.
And so the whole group set off for the restaurant, led by Yae Miko.
Their destination was a high-end yakiniku restaurant.
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