Genshin Impact: Watch me turn the tables and kill my servants at the start!

After slurping up his first mouthful of instant noodles, Fanes stopped, chewed a couple of times, and frowned slightly.

He placed his chopsticks on the rim of his bowl and glanced at Yae no Miko, who was squatting across the table, burying her head in the same pot of noodles. In her fox form, her entire face was buried in the bowl, with a little soup on the tips of her ears and her tail swaying comfortably behind her.

Fanes put down his chopsticks: "This needs some improvement. The noodles are too soft, and the broth is too bland. It's quite different from proper ramen."

Yae no Miko lifted her head from the bowl and licked the soup from the corner of her mouth, her purple pupils gleaming with a satisfied light under the warm lamp.

"I think it's pretty good. It's similar to the ramen I usually eat, except it doesn't have fried tofu."

After saying that, Yae no Miko jumped off the table, trotted into the cabinet in the corner of the kitchen, pried open a cabinet door with her front paws, and took out a sealed glass jar. Inside the jar were several pieces of dark brown fried tofu, soaking in amber-colored broth.

He placed the jar on the table in front of Fanes and patted the lid with his paw, as if to say, "This is my treasured possession; I can't bear to eat it normally." Fanes looked down at the jar, then looked up at Yae no Miko, who was squatting on the edge of the table, grooming her beard with her front paws.

"...So you really can't forget him, huh?"

Yae no Miko took a piece of fried tofu from the jar, soaked it in her bowl, and then looked up at him with a scrutinizing look in her purple eyes that seemed to say, "You don't understand food: you primitive man who only knows how to eat meat and doesn't know how to appreciate the taste of food."

Fanes reached into the jar and picked up a piece of fried tofu, putting it into his own bowl. The tofu melted on his tongue after being soaked in the broth, and was salty, fragrant, and mellow. It was indeed more flavorful than any side dish he had eaten at Qiusha Qiantang before.

After finishing his chew, Fanes put down his chopsticks and looked at the fox across from him, who was still slowly eating: "Come on, you're the real caveman. If it weren't for the new system, you would have become a relic of the past long ago."

Yae no Miko paused in her chewing, her ear slightly turned towards him: "What do you mean?"

Fanes picked up another piece of instant noodles and put it in his mouth, mumbling, "It doesn't mean anything, I was just complimenting you."

After swallowing, just as he was about to drink the soup, he suddenly froze. Fanes looked down at the chopsticks in his hand, then up at the pink fox across from him licking the bottom of its bowl, and slowly uttered, "Wait... why can I suddenly understand you?"

Yae no Miko lifted her face from the rim of the bowl, a hint of surprise flashing in her purple pupils. She tilted her head slightly, as if confirming the truth of what she had just said, then opened her mouth and uttered a short, clear syllable from her throat.

"Who knows?"

The voice was still the same soft one squeezed from the vocal cords of the fox form, but the words were indeed spoken by Yae no Miko.

Fanes paused for three seconds, holding his bowl of noodles, then looked down at his hands and touched his ears, as if to make sure there was nothing wrong with them.

"...Perhaps the power within me has evolved again. What could only be triggered passively before now seems to have become some of my active talents. I can understand your calls now."

Yae no Miko squatted on the edge of the table, a complex emotion flashing in her purple pupils—she certainly didn't mind if someone could understand her, but the person in front of her who could understand her happened to be the brat who had treated her like a pet during the day, which gave her a subtle sense of imbalance that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

She didn't respond to the topic further, but simply lowered her head and continued eating the last piece of fried tofu in her bowl. Fanes watched her retreating figure without asking any further questions.

The next day at noon, Fañes received a message from Sandone, brief and direct: "Come to the island's pier. Columbia and I have arrived."

When he rode the Wind Slime to the island's port, he saw the familiar figure on the dock from afar—a giant black dragon lying on the open ground by the dock, its huge wings folded at its sides, and its tail drooping down from the edge of the dock, the end of which swept across the water.

Its head, larger than a carriage, rested on its front paws, its amber vertical pupils idly scanning the passing ships and pedestrians.

Meanwhile, the two people on Xiao Hei's back jumped to the ground one after the other. When Sandone landed, she was still clutching a rolled-up blueprint in her hand; she had probably stayed behind with Zhi Dong to continue optimizing the mass production equipment.

Columbia followed closely behind, a few strands of her light-colored long hair blowing in the sea breeze, her face beneath the mesh veil maintaining that languid and carefree expression.

Fanes parked the Wind Slime on the edge of the dock, jumped down, and was about to run towards Little Black when Little Black saw him first. The large head jerked up, and a distinct gleam of excitement shone in its amber vertical pupils.

Little Black stood up, shook its scales, let out a low, cheerful growl, and strode quickly toward Fanes. Then it stopped.

The amber vertical pupils locked onto the top of Fanes' head—the pink blob was comfortably curled above his crown, its tail drooping down the back of his head to his shoulder, in a posture of entitlement and long-term occupation.

Xiao Hei's low growl changed from cheerful to confused, then from confused to dissatisfied. Its tail suddenly straightened behind it, emitting a low, aggrieved, and questioning whimper. Its posture roughly translated as, "What's with that pink ball of fur on your head?"

Before Fañes could explain, Sandone was already standing in front of him. He bent down to look at the pink fox dozing with its eyes half-closed above his head, and spoke in a flat tone.

"Where did you find this?"

Columbia leaned closer and, even through the mesh veil, clearly "saw" the fox's entire form. She tilted her head and smiled, "So cute, just as cute as Sandoni."

Sandoni glanced at her sideways, his tone still reserved: "Columbia."

Columbia reached out and patted her shoulder, her voice carrying that perpetually sleepy, languid tone: "Alright, alright, Sandone, don't be angry. Sandone is much cuter."

Sandone's lips twitched slightly, but he didn't continue to refute, instead shifting his gaze back to Fañes and the fox above his head.

Before Fanes could speak, the Eightfold Divine Child above his head opened one eye, looked down at the giant dragon squatting not far away, slapping the ground with its tail, and then looked at the two winter visitors who had just jumped off the dragon's back. Then she let out a light, smug whimper: "Now your place is mine."

Little Black understood. It slapped its tail on the ground, the force causing the stone slabs of the dock to tremble slightly for a moment.

The amber vertical pupils shifted from the pink blob to Fanes' face, then back to Fanes' face, a series of low, drawn-out whimpers escaping its throat. It gestured with its front paws toward the top of Fanes' head, as if to say, "I flew halfway across Teyvat to find you, and this is what you show me."

Fanes reached out and patted Xiao Hei's nose: "She's not a pet, she's my project partner and occasional bedmate—it's a long story, so don't look at me like that."

Little Black's whimpers grew longer, its tail slapped the ground again, then it rested its head on the dock pillar, no longer looking at him. Its amber vertical pupils remained open, but it was clear it didn't want to look at that pink blob anymore.