40 After 2000 years, they meet again

The moment of truth was quickly approaching.

I don't know how Morax is going to react, and that in itself scares me. He always warned me about the fact that some things are not to be touched, and I'm sure I looked at one of those.

And the worst part is that I didn't even know that it was dangerous. I was only looking for a way to craft a body, I knew from the Shogun's body that it was not a big deal, if only very complicated.

But when I saw the Art of Khemia, I instantly knew that it was bad news. Where were the souls coming from?

No matter how small they were, they were still souls, and they couldn't be appearing from the air.

When I saw those 'streams' Albedo was using to condense the souls, I knew that this was one of the secrets Morax told me not to look into.

I could say that I was making sure that the process was safe so Guizhong had no problems, or that I wasn't expecting it to be that dangerous.

I simply lost against my curiosity. It was completely unnecessary for me to 'peek' at that thing, the process of forming a body didn't change, and I already knew it was safe. I could have stopped and Guizhong would still be by my side now.

But again, I lost against my curiosity, and I paid the price.

This was one of the reasons I wasn't angry with anybody. It was only my responsibility. I messed up, and only me.

Not Albedo, not Barbatos, and obviously not Guizhong.

So now all I can do is to face the consequences of my actions.

There is a lot I don't know about, so my curiosity-fuelled actions could have endangered the whole Teyvat.

Even now I only have a suspicion about that thing.

I'm not scared of being scolded by Morax, I'm afraid of disappointing him. I consider him a friend, and my actions were the opposite of what he asked me to do.

And I knew it before 'peeking', I just decided to put my own curiosity first.

"Are you okay?" asked softly Guizhong. I lament not being able to see her face, but I will have to imagine her as the image I saw when I cleared her Remains, now 7 years ago.

"I don't know" I replied honestly. At this point, she was the person I trusted the most, even more than myself. She had been living with me for seven years, more than half of my life, sharing every experience with me.

"Don't be anxious. We did what we wanted to, it's only normal we stay together to the end" she reassured me with a slight push on my shoulder.

"I can see Xiao" with my new range, I could see his soul, now a vibrant green, free from his bindings.

He seemed to see us too from his position atop the Wangshu Inn because he instantly appeared in front of us.

"Kenshin, how are y-. What happened?" he asked quietly, but I saw his worry.

"I messed up" I simply said. "Now I need help to reach the toilet-. Oi, Guizhong" I suddenly realized something very worrisome.

"What?" she softly asked.

"What did you do every time I had to take a shower?"

"What are you thinking about? I looked away, of course, I have zero interest in your body" she disdainfully scoffed.

"What is happening?" asked Xiao.

"Well, you see...." I realized that I needed to recruit him for my dialectic battle with the Boss. "Do you remember our little sealing trip?"

"Of course" he replied. Of course, he would remember something that big.

"Well, I was quite young at the time, and I took a decision in the spur of the moment" I started to present my situation.

He didn't say anything, but I could sense his nervousness, seeing how careful I was being.

"I saw someone familiar, and in the spur of the moment, I sealed that God" I chuckled a bit in nervousness.

Xiao again didn't answer, but his hand was going to start trembling soon.

"And of course, as this God wasn't a hostile one, I didn't give it to you guys" I confessed.

"You took a sealed god with you" Xiao said in a disbelieving voice.

"Well, yes. I couldn't give it to you or the Boss because I didn't know how you would react, so one thing led to another, and I kept this God with me for these 7 years" I confessed.

"...." Xiao was too stunned to speak.

"And were friends after a while, so I decided to help her. She had friends in the world, so I decided to make her able to see them again" I revealed the truth little by little.

Xiao was stunned, probably looking at Guizhong. I guess seeing someone who was supposed to be dead 2000 ago being able to walk again like nothing happened was something miraculous, even for him.

Guizhong didn't say anything, just stood beside me with her hand on my shoulder.

"And we left Inazuma again, searching for a way to recover her body" I told him.

"Wait, so last month when you arrived, you had this sealed God with you?" he asked.

"Yes, and I deliberately hid it from you, that's why I left that early. The more I stayed here, the more chances there were for me to be discovered" I admitted. And yet, the big problem didn't arrive, the problem was the Art of Khemia and her identity.

"Then you went to Mondstadt to find a way?" he asked with a neutral voice, he was a smart guy, he probably sensed that something happened.

"Yes" I admitted. "I remembered Barbatos' invitation, and decided to give it a try. If I couldn't find anything, I would go to Sumeru".

"Were you that interested in helping her?" Xiao asked. I could sense a spark of recognition in his soul, but he wasn't able to identify her.

"Yes, of course. We have been friends for seven years already, I was going to help her one way or another" I nodded energetically.

"I see that you did it" he commented. "How did you do it?".

"Ehem...well" I stumbled a bit with my words, but I realized that I needed to say it sooner or later. "I found an alchemist who was able to 'craft bodies'".

"Craft bodies...I don't think it's that easy" Xiao sounded concerned.

"Oh, it was extremely easy" I dismissed his worry. "And completely risk-free too. He would craft the body and I would put the soul inside, and voila, a resurrected God ready to pop more".

"Then how did you lose your sight?" he said with a frown.

"Well, crafting the body was part of a certain process, and the other part was not that safe..." I muttered.

"How was it called?" he asked with anxiousness in his soul. He probably knows where this is going.

"Art of Khemia" I whispered.

"Are you crazy?!" he was very angry. "Do you know how dangerous that thing is?!. Last time it provoked a war, and I even lost a friend to it!"

"I know" I tiredly replied. "How could I not?".

"...." he fell silent, realizing that my loss of sight was related to that. "What are you going to do?".

"Of course, confess. There is no meaning if Guizhong has to hide herself" I replied.

"Why would she need to hide?" asked Xiao, a bit conflicted. It was a good thing that I helped my friend do something so difficult, but he lost friends in the war I now know the Art of Khemia caused.

"Because I know a lot of you" it was Guizhong who replied. "I even saw you when I was alive, but may probably not remember me. You were still a boy eating snow happily after all".

I wasn't in the mood to laugh at that, and Xiao was too stunned to be embarrassed.

"Who are you again?" Xiao asked, and everyone realized his true question.

"Guizhong" she replied, but seeing Xiao's insistence she continued. "Also known as Haagentus, the Goddess of Dust".

Xiao's sau ltrembled in shock hearing it. From what I heard, Guizhong was an incredibly important presence to all of the remaining Adeptus, and of course Morax. She had been their ally during the Archon War and invented a lot of things that helped them a lot, like the Guizhong Ballista.

"You...do you know what you have done?" Xiao, the chuuni and edgy boy GULPED. "I don't know what is going to happen.

"Neither do I" I confessed. "Anyway, you are now on our side, what should we do?".

"No no no, I'm most definitely not on your side" he quickly denied.

"Then are you not happy Guizhong is back?" I asked with with a frown.

"Of course I am, but-"

"No buts, if you are happy you are with us" I affirmed without a shadow of a doubt.

"....." he whimpered a bit but looked resigned.

For a 2000-year-old snow-eater boy, he sure is gullible.

"I propose to-"

"Kenshin, I didn't know you were back".

"Fuck"

"Hmm, that is some rude vocabulary. Is that how young people greet each other in these times?" the big Boss was here, and we were with our pants down.

"Good luck" Xiao abandoned me.

Traitor.

"Hmm, who's that woman with you?" he looked curiously at Guizhong's petite frame.

I don't know how she looks right now, but she told me her body is exactly the same as it was when she was alive. Even if the Boss's brain is clogged, it's going to be telling him that he should be furious very soon.

So I decided to do what I do better, run. I tried running, away, not caring about any obstacle that I may collide with, but with a 'shiing' sound, I hit a wall. I recognized this sound it was from one of the Boss' pillars.

"I think I should feel angry now, so while I try to discern why, don't run" he warned me.

I meekly nodded, knowing that whatever was going to happen, I had no choice but to bear with it.

"Who are you?" I heard the Boss ask Guizhong. "I think I should know you, but that's impossible".

"It's been a while after all, Morax" I heard Guizhong's teary voice.

Rex Lapis didn't speak, but something was dawning on him.

"Teach with wisdom, be bound by virtue, fortify the bones, unite in ambition" Guizhong recited, and I knew that this was going to be about them.

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"Teach with wisdom, be bound by virtue, fortify the bones, unite in ambition" is what Morax heard this woman say, making a fleeting memory surface.

Memories of a woman he found amidst a sea of the now-extinct Glaze Lilies.

"To unite in ambition is to be steadfast and immovable for all time" said Morax, a face appearing in his memories.

"Wisdom is like water, it nourishes all those who receive it, and in it is a reflection of the truth" continued Guizhong with tears threatening to spill from her eyes.

"Fortify the bones, that movement be supple when the time comes" continued Morax, disbelief showing in his normally unchanging face.

"Virtue grows tall like a tree, though there be shade it will flourish forever" Guizhong said the last one.

Those were the 4 commandments the Guili Assembly obeyed. An assembly co-ruled by 3 Gods.

Morax the God of the Stone, Marchosius the God of the Stove, and Guizhong the Goddess of Dust.

Those commandments were not unknown, almost everybody in Liyue knew them. They were a part of their history, they made stories, books, plays, and even paintings about them.

And yet, Morax couldn't help but realize that this woman in front of him KNEW them, not only knew about them. And he didn't know what that meant. But there was something he always held with him, something his brain was telling him had something to do with the face in front of him.

"Do you recognize this?" said Morax, taking out from only he knew where a stone dumbbell, what people would call nowadays the Memory of Dust, called that way in honor of the Goddess who created it.

Morax still remembered how she found said Goddess in a sea of Glaze Lilies, and how she proudly showed the Memory of Dust to him, challenging him to open it.

'All my knowledge is hidden inside this dumbbell, open it and it's yours' she said. No matter how many times he tried, he was never able to open it, even after millions of tries, even after 2000 years.

So whatever that Goddess hid inside it, it would remain a mystery forever.

"Of course" Guizhong replied while silently crying. "A certain Goddess hid there her reasons to fight in the war. Her reasons were to defend those fragile lives that still fought with every part of their being to survive facing the dangers of extremely powerful beings. Her reasons to stand together with her friends who walked the same path. She hid there all her knowledge. She hid all her being"

Guizhong slowly walked forward and took the dumbbell from Morax's trembling hand. It was the first time the Memories of Dust had left his hands. In over 2000 years.

Guizhong didn't speak, just manipulated the Memory of Dust, turning and twisting with a familiarity only a person deeply involved with an artifact that nobody had seen in millennia.

With a final click, it finally opened, revealing its contents.

Morax looked inside, only to find that nothing was there. He had been trying to open the Memories for 2000 years, millions of times, and yet he couldn't do it. And now this woman that sparked a sense of familiarity within him had opened it in less than 5 minutes, only for him to find that there was nothing inside. He looked uncomprehending at the woman.

"This contained everything the Goddess hid" Guizhong said, tears streaming down her face. "Of course it's empty. Why would you think she had hidden something?"

Morax's eyes trembled fiercely. Why did he think that?.

Obviously, because that Goddess told him so, but wasn't she the same Goddess who often taught him to look for the purpose beyond the words?

This kind of lesson was indeed something she would do.

"That Goddess didn't hide her reasons to fight, she always said why she did it. She wanted to see a world where everyone could properly use their intellect rather than their weapons".

"That Goddess didn't hide her reasons to defend the fragile human, she always admired their naivety and curiosity, which allowed them to improve using their brains"

"That Goddess didn't hide her reasons to stay with her friends. She always enjoyed their friendly banter, cooking dishes in the Tiangheng mountain with the God of Stone and Cloud Retainer, having competitions with using their gadgets, and sharing an evening in the plains full of Glaze Lilies".

"She didn't hide her knowledge, after all, there was nothing to hide"

"She gave you this dumbbell as a mark of your pledge and as her challenge to you".

Guizhong said with blurry eyes from tears.

"She didn't hide anything inside the dumbbell".

"Everything she had, everything she was" Guizhong looked at the trembling dragon in front of her with a bright smile.

"I gave it to you the moment I gave you this dumbbell".