Meanwhile, at the Northland Bank.
Childe, the Eleventh Fatui Harbinger, stared grimly at the bank manager. "What is going on?"
He had only been away from Liyue Harbor for a single day, and the world had turned upside down.
His subordinates had intercepted him on his way back, briefing him on Ningguang's "paper snow" and the establishment of the Liyue Bank.
When he grasped the full situation and saw the endless queue of depositors outside the newly opened Liyue Bank nearby, his expression darkened.
How did this happen? Why so suddenly?
Out of nowhere, Ningguang had launched a bank that offered free safekeeping for Mora. No deposit fees. No withdrawal fees.
On top of that, she was paying interest to depositors and giving away free rice, oil, and eggs.
This was selling at a loss.
How could the Liyue Bank possibly make money?
The purpose of a bank was profit.
Yet Ningguang's new branches were hemorrhaging money to give handouts to the masses.
Even with her immense personal wealth, the Tianquan couldn't sustain this level of spending forever.
Ningguang was famous for loving Mora, not burning it.
While she worked for the benefit of Liyue, she had never engaged in such large-scale philanthropy.
To Childe, it was incomprehensible.
If she kept this up for the entire population of Liyue, the deficit would be astronomical. Even the richest woman in Teyvat would go bankrupt.
What was her goal?
Was she just scattering money for the sake of it? Did she truly have nowhere else to spend it?
No matter how rich she was, this was madness.
Especially since the Liyue Bank and its branches were directly undercutting the Northland Bank.
"I don't know."
Manager Andrei smiled bitterly. "The only certainty is that this is a targeted attack against us. Otherwise, she wouldn't have opened the Liyue Bank so abruptly. Upgrading every local money house into a branch overnight? The speed and scale... it's a direct strike."
"Yesterday, her 'paper snow' caused a sensation. You were away, Lord Harbinger, but last night, many of our clients withdrew their funds. They're moving everything to the Liyue Bank."
"Today, the withdrawals have intensified. If this continues, our liquidity will dry up. We'll have to request emergency funds from Snezhnaya."
"But even that is a stopgap measure."
"The Liyue Bank has only just opened. As long as it operates on these terms, we will bleed money every single day."
"We were already unpopular in Liyue. With this new competitor, we're practically pariahs."
Andrei's face was full of despair.
Even he, a seasoned Fatui agent, was baffled by Ningguang's move.
She was stealing their customer base by burning her own money.
He hadn't feared a normal competitor. A normal bank would charge fees to cover operational costs—guards, clerks, vaults. You couldn't run a bank for free.
But Ningguang wasn't just running it for free; she was paying people to use it.
It broke every rule of business.
What was she plotting?
Childe didn't understand either.
In his eyes, the Tianquan was a calculator, not a gambler. Every move she made had deep significance.
He just couldn't see it.
He knew the legend of the "paper snow." Every time it fell, the market shifted.
But this time, the target wasn't the merchants—it was the common people.
Giving welfare to the masses was something he couldn't wrap his head around.
Ningguang cared for Liyue, yes, but this was financial suicide. There had to be a deeper strategy.
But what?
All he could see was money burning.
"Bring me all the intelligence reports from the last few days."
Childe closed his eyes for a moment, then took a deep breath. "I want to know everything that happened in Liyue while I was gone. There's no smoke without fire. Ningguang wouldn't do this without a reason."
He was certain that her sudden madness was connected to something—or someone—new in Liyue.