The New Year was approaching, but the streets of Inazuma were not very lively.
The lanterns were hung up early, thin snow drooping on the candle lamps, the warm candlelight stirring into the thin snowy scene. Other than that, the long streets and small alleys were very quiet.
Aside from the candlelight and snow, there was only dim sunlight. The plaque of the Pillar General's mansion was also covered with a thin layer of frost.
Most of the guests at this mansion had also been sent home. This mansion had stood in Inazuma for over four hundred years. With the departure of one old person after another, it finally reached its end too.
Seino Sara exhaled a breath of hot air. She was directing one or two mansion guards to tidy up old things, mostly a mess of old antiques. The Pillar General had been gone for nearly a month, and they had also been searching for a month.
After a long, long period of sadness and grief, this warrior finally slowly recovered and began to face the fact she had to face - she needed to prepare for the Pillar General's funeral.
No tombstone, because the Pillar General couldn't be found. The Pillar General's mansion also didn't hold any grand funeral. They had served the Pillar General for a lifetime, deeply knowing this lord's habits: he probably disliked grand occasions.
The Pillar General chose to depart quietly alone. This already indicated his attitude - then Sara would comply with the Pillar General's last wishes.
A small empty grave, filled with some of the Pillar General's small items, ordinary clothes, bows and arrows, armor, chess boards, pipes and such, buried under the big tree in the Pillar General's mansion.
That was all.
"...Are these all being buried?"
Someone called her name.
A familiar yet unfamiliar voice, with a hint of lowness.
She turned around in surprise. Ei stood behind her, the deep purple kimono trailing on the snowy ground. The Electro Archon dressed very plainly today, no extra patterns on her kimono, white socks and wooden clogs, her tawny long braid hanging at her waist.
She slightly raised her head, her slender fingers pinching a pipe - a very old pipe, the mouthpiece already stained yellow by tobacco, the pure wooden pipe handle old and very heavy. Seino liked to smoke this pipe.
Ei's eyes held no extra emotions.
Since Seino left, this was the first time the Electro Archon had left Tenshukaku.
Sara no longer understood the Electro Archon's thoughts.
That terrifying storm had covered all of Inazuma, raging for a full month, still not stopping even now. Inazuma's maritime trade was basically all cut off. Travelers residing in Inazuma also couldn't return home. The chaos further spread. The Sakoku Decree, resisted for a long time, was now being implemented.
Sara had also tried to advise Ei, but got no response. She had completely shut herself in the Sacred Sakura. And the Raiden Shogun loyally executed Ei's orders. Thunder swept all the sea areas surrounding Inazuma.
"Are these all being buried?" Ei asked again.
"...Yes."
Sara quickly answered, "The Pillar General's..."
She swallowed the words "relics" back into her mouth, paused, and changed her words, "The things the Pillar General left behind, we will bury them all together. This courtyard won't be lived in anymore. We will preserve it..."
Ei listened to Sara speak calmly. No extra expressions could be seen in her eyes, as if just listening to some very ordinary things. Her thin lips pursed lightly. After Sara finished speaking, she nodded.
"I'll tidy up with you."
"But Your Excellency, these miscellaneous tasks should be done by us servants..."
"I'll tidy up with you."
Ei repeated.
When she said this, her tone was very calm, flat and level, also meaning she wouldn't allow anyone to question it.
The matter was thus decided.
Ei bent down, took off her wooden clogs, her white socks stepping on the tatami of the corridor. The Pillar General's mansion was a very old mansion. Most of it had been renovated. Originally built with a rosewood foundation, later half the wood rotted, so it was rebuilt again, the walls renovated with stone bricks.
A hundred years passed like this. The Boston ivy on the walls died and grew again, the withered remains also covering the walls, layer after layer, hard to clean thoroughly.
This building was as old as its owner, also reaching its end.
The Pillar General's room was at the end of the torii gate. This place had been sealed off, no one allowed to enter. Ei gently pushed open the door.
The room was large but had few things.
A bed, a plain folding screen, a kotatsu, a stack of cabinets, and a few tea sets. This old man's remaining years seemed very simple.
The stove also looked very old, the edges blackened by smoke, the unburnt wood still piled in the ashes. The last time he was at home, before he left, this was the wood he burned, right?
He didn't like warming himself by the fire before, Ei still remembered this.
The vigorous youth had once confidently said something like "the kotatsu is something only the weak need". But he was also warming himself by the kotatsu before he died.
He must have been very cold.
Ei had never experienced this feeling called "cold" in her life.
But she could imagine it now. It was snowing heavily outside the window. The old man wrapped in thick winter clothes, the lit stove still unable to make his complexion ruddy. He coughed again and again, the sound of howling wind outside the door.
He had been living this life for the past hundred years, right? Every winter for him was one torture after another. The old man curled up by the kotatsu, no one to accompany him. His old friends had almost all died. He could only cough, persisting, enduring a hundred winters in cough after cough.
Living like this for a hundred years until he died.
Let's bury the kotatsu too.
Ei picked up those few tea sets. The tea sets had some dust on them, not used for a long time. Ei still remembered what that boy named Seino Fugin had said,
"In the morning, it's practicing swordsmanship, or going hunting in the hills behind the Pillar General's mansion. Eating very little at noon, tofu, peanuts, any small dish, but must be paired with alcohol..."
He liked to drink, but the servants definitely wouldn't allow him to drink too much. So he mixed the alcohol into the teapot.
Seino sipped the alcohol while eating the grilled fish on the stove.
He drank alone.
Although she had never seen it, Ei came to this conclusion.
He really loved to drink.
Ei pushed open the cabinet. There weren't many things in the cabinet either. A well-used bow, and a few sets of everyday kimonos. There was also a small drawer inside the cabinet, locked with a special lock.
More like a barrier than a lock, it would self-destruct once opened.
It wasn't difficult for Ei to open this lock. This lock didn't seem to guard against her.
Inside were all documents and letters, mostly official business, a full one or two hundred. This old man was still worrying about Inazuma's affairs even after retiring. Ei opened and read them one by one.
Seino's handwriting was very neat and clean, very serious.
The matters he handled were very miscellaneous and messy. The Yashiro Commission and Kanjou Commission had conflicts, he wrote letters to mediate. The Inazuma soldiers' food supply was insufficient, he paid out of his own pocket to resolve it... From national policies to pensions for the families of fallen soldiers.
He truly loved this nation.
In the past hundred years, the Pillar General had never written Ei a letter. But all the words he wanted to say were written in these official documents.
Among them, the signature on one letter caught Ei's attention.
[Kunikuzushi]
Ei read this unfamiliar name.
This didn't seem to be an Inazuman. She had never heard of it before as far as she could remember.
The contents of the letter were nothing special, just miscellaneous matters.
Ei put down the letter. Let's bury these too.
She leaned by the window. The winter sun was short. Dusk began to fall. The silhouette of that cypress tree swayed in disarray. The servants of the Pillar General's mansion had already dug the grave, just waiting for Ei to come out and bury it.
Next to the Pillar General's room was the side room. The side room wasn't sealed off. The servants could enter and exit, so the items inside were pretty much all moved out. The afterglow of the setting sun covered the tatami. The winter sun slowly sank in the center of the window lattice. Looking out that window, one could see Tenshukaku at the end of the long steps.
'After dinner, he would go to the side room and sit quietly facing the window for half an hour.'
'He was thinking of you, Electro Archon.'
The white socks stepped on the tatami, making a muffled sound.
Ei opened that window. The winter afterglow shone on her kimono, warm and cozy.
She knelt on the ground, propped her chin in her hand, and looked at Tenshukaku.
The sun slowly sank on Ei's body. As time shifted, the shadow of the cypress tree also climbed along the ancient wall. Not knowing how long had passed, when the sunlight was gone and the tree shadow fell on Ei's face, it was completely dark.
"Ei, you are completely in the wrong. I will replace you and execute your original will for you." The Shogun said.
"Mm." Ei said softly.
Ei's body was indeed having issues. Or rather, for the first time, she had doubts about the eternity she pursued. And the Raiden Shogun was the restraint she set for herself.
Silence.
The moonlight slowly slanted west. The courtyard was quiet. Occasionally, one or two dog barks came from the end of the deep alleys, quickly vanishing into the silence of the night. The shadow of Tenshukaku was also about to fall into darkness. Ei remained kneeling by the window.
"What are you doing now?"
"I'm thinking of him." Ei said,
—"I'm thinking of Seino Raimei."
Ei was thinking of Seino Raimei.
Just as Seino had done for a hundred years, at the end of dusk, in the afternoon, every evening before nightfall, coming to this secluded little room, sitting by the window, quietly gazing at the tower on the mountain peak.
Until the afterglow completely dissipated, the sun's color faded.
"So?"
"I want to continue thinking of him."
"You don't need to think of the 0.3-second lightning. Eternity can't keep a fleeting life."
"So,"
Ei slowly stood up, a naginata hanging down from her deep purple kimono sleeves. She turned her head and stared at her own reflection in the glass, at her own face,
"I'm going to kill you." She told herself. "Kill eternity."
"But you can't kill me."
"Then let's keep fighting forever."
"Why?"
"This is the principle that fleeting lightning... told me with his life. What I should promise the people is not an eternal pure land, but the dreams of every fleeting moment. I don't want to let him down."
"When will it end?"
"Until the thunder returns."
—
The warm sunlight passed through the azure curtains. The breeze blew a few fluffy dandelion puffs. Those flower clusters floated in the air with the specks of light, finally slowly falling to the floor.
Seino slowly opened his eyes.
Having suffered heavy injuries, he had just fainted again.
"Wahhhh, Drowned Corpse, have you risen from the dead?"
The one saying this was the blonde girl by the bed.
Her fair left leg crossed over her right, pressing down on the fitted white dress. The dress hem was limpid and glowing with warm sunlight. The girl propped her chin in one hand.
Perhaps sleepy, she yawned lazily, like a golden cat stretching under the winter sun.
"So rude."
Seino said, "This is called waking up... You were watching over me the whole time?"
"When I came to find you, you were asleep, so I waited." Lumine stretched her arms, giving a big lazy stretch. "Who knew a certain someone was such a lazybones, sleeping for so long."
"What did you find me for?"
"Here, I caught a lot of fish." She held a string of grilled fish to Seino Fugin's face, but she sighed, "But they're already cold."
"Caught? You bought these, right?"
"...I bought them to hang on the fishing hook. That can count as catching them." Lumine put her hands on her hips, speaking in a proud tone.
"Sophistry... Why did you buy fish for me to eat?"
"Afraid you'd starve to death."
"I remember you didn't have much money."
"If I have no money, I can go earn it! I earned money and bought a lot of fish. I'm so full."
She bared her teeth and brandished her claws like a hedgehog, but as she said this, her stomach inopportunely growled.
"...You held back and didn't eat a single bite?"
"Ah..." Exposed, Lumine scratched her head.
"Why?"
"You're so naggy." Lumine said, imitating Seino's tone, mimicking Seino's attitude back then,
"'None of us are saints. And I won't starve. I'm giving you the fish simply because I want to.' I'm just giving you a taste of your own medicine. If I starve to death today, you'll have to feel guilty for the rest of your life."
The girl was in high spirits, speaking smugly. The sunlight cast the shadows of the trees everywhere. The Boston ivy grew wildly on the courtyard wall.
She put her hands on her hips, as proud as a victorious little hen.
Seino never had a way to deal with this. He gave a wry laugh,
"Go out and reheat the fish. Let's eat together. I don't want to 'feel guilty for the rest of my life'."
—
So Lumine went to grill the fish again. But Seino didn't plan to wait for her to grill the fish and come back so they could eat slowly together.
He had other things to do.
The time for the Fatui's envoy visit to Mondstadt City was dusk.
There was still some time.
'Under the big cypress tree in the Pillar General's mansion courtyard, I buried a barrel of malt liquor brewed for a hundred years. Remember to retrieve it.'
Seino Fugin lay on the bed, unfolding that note. It had these words written on it.
When he woke up from the sea, aside from a sword, this note was the only thing on his body.
He took out a candle and heated the back of the paper. Under the scorching of the flame, the writing slowly began to deform.
This was a double-layered note. Seino had discovered it from the start.
No matter how much he loved drinking and how improper he was in his previous life, he would never leave such an absurd message.
As the flame scorched, the inner layer of writing slowly appeared,
'By the shore of Starfell Lake in Mondstadt, there is a boy named [Kunikuzushi] waiting for me. Show him the Pillar General's Order. He will understand. Don't let anyone know about this.'
Kunikuzushi?
This name didn't sound auspicious at all.
Seino had never heard of this name. Was it an undercover agent he had arranged in the past?
A spy or something?
In any case, he was going to the appointment.
The Fatui's trip this time definitely had ill intentions. They most likely had other goals in mind. Moreover, Seino Raimei had made an enemy of that woman called La Signora.
After lying for a night, he hadn't seen any other benefits of the Heart of the God, but it did recover injuries quite quickly. The wounds caused by Dvalin had mostly healed. The broken bones had regrown.
Only his lungs felt a bit chilly when breathing. That chill still lingered in his body. Sometimes he coughed up blood.
[La Signora] had struck heavily. His heart had once stopped for half an hour in the freezing.
He was probably going to be left with some minor health issues.
But it didn't matter. He could get out of bed now.
Seino completely burned the note, destroying this information. He pushed open the door, lowered his footsteps, and walked out.