"God damn it — I actually crossed that damn desert again."
Ye Luo stood atop the waterfall and stared toward Hailu Harbor until tears sprang to his eyes.
Do you know how he'd spent the last month?
When he'd come from Fontaine to Sumeru originally, it hadn't felt nearly this brutal. Back then, at worst he was carrying Faruzan on his back — and that soft-bodied beauty wasn't that hard to bear.
But coming back to Fontaine with Lumine was a whole different story.
The hardships on this route were not for casual ears.
Can you believe it? Lumine really is a ruin destroyer. Every ruin she stepped into was either already collapsing or on the verge of collapsing. And she kept triggering that Traveler… knack of hers.
Ye Luo couldn't help but suspect this was the Traveler's fate: wherever she went, weird quests latched onto her heels.
Worse, she and Paimon had the habit of marching up to strangers and cheerfully asking, "Are you in trouble?" — with faces that telegraphed, please ask us so we can dump yet another quest on ourselves. Then off they'd go under a blazing sun across the sands to finish it.
The caravan of errands never stopped.
One weird commission after another — the kind that normal folk would never even see — all lined up for her to stumble into.
At some point Ye Luo had had enough and started actively helping Lumine clear quests. Their strategy was pure speed-running: get in, finish fast, get out. The desert was no place to linger — the sand stung everything, and the wind beat at him until even his face ached. He had to use elemental energy to shield himself; without it he wouldn't have made it.
He still couldn't believe that, in his previous life, he'd somehow crossed a desert as a mere mortal. He must've been insane back then, he decided. Only an idiot would do that without being a Vision bearer.
Finally, after grinding through every commission, they reached the waterfall.
"Ugh… I'm beat," Lumine muttered, pulling off her tall boots and dumping the sand out again. She collapsed beside him, curling her ten pale, jade-like toes — honestly, an adorable sight. Her lashes still had a few grains clinging to them.
"Who told you to cross the desert in those shoes?" Ye Luo groaned. He'd suggested she change into something more practical, but she'd refused. Maybe some grand will was at work. Whatever the reason, he'd had no choice but to follow along.
And yes — he and Lumine's elemental energies weren't infinite. The desert had monsters, too, meaning they needed reserves as well. Their consumption outpaced recovery. Still, on the road he kept an eye on the forums, just to feel the pulse of players. It was helpful for his… public relations (heaven help him).
The forum was full of fans losing their minds over him now — begging the devs to put him into the banner since the PVs were already out. Ye Luo was no longer shy about the fandom chatter; he'd grown immune. He wanted to be mentally strong.
He also noticed the 4.0 PV had been released. So the Traveler's actions in the game were tied to real-world updates? If she decided to go to Fontaine, would reality update too? Which drove which — reality or game? That was a deep question.
He wondered if his appearance as "Secretary" would cause other ripples — maybe a butterfly effect, like the PV showing something new.
Curious, he opened the official Genshin account and found the Fontaine prologue PV titled "A Revel to the Final Curtain." He clicked it.
At first it looked the same as the previews — same opening, same midsection. Ye Luo felt a little let down; no butterfly effect apparent. And then… he appeared.
But the way they'd shown him? Ye Luo couldn't help the frown.
Okay, fine, he could accept appearing in the PV. More exposure, less chance the players would forget him. But could they please not make him look like some cinematic villain?
At the PV's end Furina burned a photograph in a petulant fit. The camera then did not focus on Neuvillette as you might expect. Instead, it cut to a close-up of Ye Luo standing behind Furina's throne, shadowed; the classic one-third face-in-shadow shot. Only his crimson eyes glinted in the dark, cold and unreadable — the silhouette of a puppeteer pulling strings behind the Water Archon.
Furina acted bored and oblivious. From camera angles, Neuvillette also seemed to be staring solemnly at Ye Luo, as if addressing him directly. The live chat exploded.
"Whaaat? Ye Luo's a villain?"
"Sugar-daddy! Daddy's so cool!"
"Father, give the order and we'll crown you the new Water God!"
Ye Luo felt like the ground shook under his eyes. Bro, what? In Sumeru I was doing comedic bits and now the PV casts me as a shadow emperor? Okay, it did look kinda villainous. To an uninformed viewer, yeah — first impressions might paint him a baddie.
He chuckled nervously. Classic MiHoYo misdirection — stage the drama, bait the fans. He'd understood the tactic. Fine, try to fool the players. Which me is real? I don't know anymore!
He watched the 4.0 preview broadcast in the game as well — the familiar host voice, new map, new mechanics, bosses, events; the usual rehearsed lines. He'd heard all of it before. The novelty wore off; he'd rather watch a PV.
So he checked another Fontaine trailer — "A Gentle Rain That Falls Without Cause." Normal beginning, normal middle, then again, not normal at the end. He was speechless. In the midnight glow beside the waterfall, the PV had him standing like a villain in front of Furina's party, arms crossed and expression cold, facing the freshly awakened Traveler and an anxious Paimon.
The worst part: he had no lines. The PV cut to Navia saying, "Damn it, they hired so many guard automatons," and then the sequence moved to Navia and Traveler fighting machines — Ye Luo had basically been cut out of the action. Great. The villain silhouette stuck, but he'd become a background prop. Nice. Nothing could wash this off now.
Then a terrifying thought crept in: what if all of this was part of the host's plan? What if the streamers and PVs were orchestrated, the characters in the clips played by real people across time, then spliced into trailers? Ye Luo was not sure if he'd gone mad, but he had a sudden urge to be petty — to make the Traveler skip her meal and see how the PV coped with that.
"Sometimes I envy Paimon for not having to walk on the ground," Lumine sighed, staring at the sand at her feet. Sure, her constitution exceeded normal humans', but none of them wanted to suffer in the desert. Being able to float like Paimon would be nice.
"I fly all day and I still get tired!" Paimon muttered, wiping sweat. Don't think flying is effortless, okay?
"So… how do we go down?" Ye Luo asked after a pause, looking at Hailu Harbor. If you slid over that waterfall you'd die. He wasn't a nobleman who could do dramatic dives — but maybe he could make an ice skateboard with Cryo under his feet, glide down, then cling like a chakra clamp. Hm. Not a bad plan.
"Use the wind glider," Lumine said, eyeing the height. She clearly didn't see what the fuss was. Ye Luo blinked — then remembered a Fontaine law: wind-gliding within Fontaine was banned unless you registered with the training squad. Why? Because he'd once used a glider inside Fontaine so frequently that Furina, fed up with him stealing pastries and escaping out of windows by wind glide, had made the rule. He'd snatched pastries, jumped out a window, glided away — and Furina had had no recourse beyond issuing a municipal law.
So the law was basically targeted at Ye Luo. Normal people don't casually glide around city interiors, after all.
"We'll be fine heading to Hailu," he said, and hoisted the wind glider; Lumine followed. Together they rode the air toward the harbor.
Reality.
Players who'd already updated the patch sat at their screens, eager to dive into Fontaine. Ye Luo's involvement had racheted hype up for the new story. Speculation threads on forums multiplied like mushrooms.
On one streaming site, Rabbit Girl (Touji) rubbed her hands with glee — today was the day. She'd already watched the new PVs; Ye Luo looked like a major villain in one of them — maybe — she couldn't be sure. That was Genshin's charm: when you thought they weren't lying, you knew they were lying. Meta deception.
"Honestly, I just want the story," she said in her chat.
Chat exploded with its usual chaos:
"Genshin: the punctual youth alarm clock."
"Did Ye Luo come to Fontaine for waterfall surfing?"
"Maybe the Winter Nation's toy business expanded to Fontaine."
"I hope the servant model isn't like the Doctor's."
"If the modeler does a weird job, I'll mail them snacks," someone joked.
"Thanks, streamer, it's cooler in here now," another wrote, and the chat devolved into inside jokes and meme-mashery. Touji laughed until she could barely breathe.
"Chill. Fontaine's open — let's just enjoy the new story," she said. "Genshin, launch!"
Though scattered across different places, everyone shouted the same thing together.
Advance Chapters available on Patreon
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