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

Fanes led Sandone and Columbia into the side courtyard of Narukami Shrine and pointed to the paper door at the end of the corridor that had not yet been covered in dust.

"This is the room. It's the only empty room in the shrine. No one lives here normally, but someone comes to clean and ventilate it every few days. The bedding is always clean."

Sandoni glanced inside from the doorway. The room wasn't large, but it was tidy. A few rays of afternoon light streamed through the paper windows, casting warm shadows on the floor. She nodded. "It's alright."

Columbia had already stepped inside and squatted down by the window, reaching out to touch the wood grain of the window frame: "The wood here is different from that over there in Winter; it feels warmer. Sandone, come and see."

Sandonne stood at the door without immediately going in. After scanning the layout of the room, he turned to Fanes and asked, "Why is there a fortune-telling area here? What's the purpose of that row of wooden plaques hanging at the end of the corridor?"

Yae no Miko jumped down from Fanes' arms and landed on the corridor floor. She looked up and followed Sandonne's gaze to the row of old wooden signs hanging at the end of the corridor, and then walked in that direction.

Yae no Miko's tail swayed slightly behind her, as if signaling them to follow.

Fanes led the way, followed by Sandone and Columbia.

Yae no Miko squatted down in front of the wooden plaques and used her front paws to nudge one of the old wooden plaques, whose edges had been worn smooth, so that it turned to face the direction of the person who had come.

The wooden sign had two lines of text engraved on it; the characters were blurry, but the general content was still legible.

Yae no Miko squatted in front of the wooden plaque, her purple pupils slowly scanning the two lines of text. Then she turned her head and read them aloud to the three people behind her in a slow, mysterious tone.

"A broken mirror is mended, and a happy marriage is finally formed. It's a pity that a third party interfered in the process."

Yae no Miko pronounced the word "mistress" very clearly, as if she deliberately rolled it around on the tip of her tongue before spitting it out.

A moment of silence fell over the corridor. Columbia was the first to speak. She turned her head toward Sandonne, her voice carrying the sincerity of "what she said makes so much sense": "Sandonne, what she said makes so much sense."

Sandonne stood beside her, his blue eyes darting between Columbia and Yae no Miko, before speaking in a voice a few decibels louder than usual: "What does 'a happy ending' mean?"

Fanes stood to the side, his mind clearly on a different wavelength from theirs. He stroked his chin and said in a tone that suggested, "This is explosive news!" "Holy crap, there's a third party? Is it really that explosive?"

Yae no Miko turned her ear in his direction, her tone carrying a sense of "Is your focus off-target?"

"Is this the main point? It's clearly a 'happy ending'!"

Yae no Miko tapped the two words she had already read on the wooden plaque with the tip of her tail, then turned to look in the direction of Sandone and Columbia, her purple pupils conveying a knowing look that said, "I've laid out the divination; you'll have to figure it out yourselves."

Sandonne stood in the corridor, his blue eyes lingering for a moment on the two faded characters on the wooden sign before looking away without saying a word.

Colombia stepped closer, bent down, and looked at the wooden sign again: "What kind of fate is 'A Perfect Match'? How long will it last? Can the 'third party' interference be resolved?"

Yae no Miko squatted in front of the wooden sign, looking up at Columbia, her tail slowly sweeping behind her: "The divination only speaks of the trend, not the details. How you interpret it is your own business."

Columbia nodded thoughtfully, then turned to Sandone and said, "Sandonee, can you explain to me what this sentence means?"

Sandonne's eyebrows twitched, her tone already carrying a subtle "I don't want to talk about this" implication: "Can't you think about it yourself?"

Colombia stood still, only tilting her head slightly, her voice softening a bit: "But you're smarter. Help me think of something."

Xiao Hei's big head finally found an angle to squeeze in, peeking in from the corner at the end of the corridor. Its amber vertical pupils eagerly scanned the few people standing around, the fox crouching in front of the wooden sign, and the row of old wooden signs, letting out a low, urgent, and curious whimper from its throat.

The sound roughly translated to "What are you looking at? I want to see too." Its head squeezed in a little further, but the width of the corridor was clearly not enough to accommodate its enormous skull. The edges of its scales scraped a few shallow white marks on the wooden wall, making a soft rubbing sound.

Fanes turned to look at the large head that was struggling to fit halfway into the corridor. Little Black was staring intently at the wooden sign with its amber, vertical pupils, but from its angle, it could only see the back of the sign and the spiderweb in the corner; it couldn't see the side with the inscription. Fanes looked for two seconds, then said something.

"Theoretically speaking, a high-level elemental life form like Xiao Hei should have a way to control its size, right?"

Sandonne turned her head slightly, her gaze lingering on Xiao Hei's head, which was stuck at the entrance of the corridor. "Just let her go. She's only three years old. What do you expect her to know?"

Upon hearing the description "three years old," Xiao Hei let out a disgruntled whimper, as if protesting the statement. However, it did not shrink its body; instead, it pulled its head out again and lay down on the floor outside the corridor. Its amber vertical pupils peered through the crack of the half-open paper door, still stubbornly trying to see the contents of the wooden sign.

Fanes looked down at its nose, which was peeking through the crack in the door, and patted its scales. "Alright, alright, I'll tell you later."

Columbia was still waiting for Sandone's explanation. She stood in front of Sandone, her face slightly turned beneath the mesh veil, as if she were truly waiting for an answer.

Sandonne was silent for two seconds under her gaze, then looked away: "These fortune slips are inherently ambiguous; anyone can interpret them. You don't need to take them seriously."

Columbia replied softly, "But I think she's quite right."

Sandoni paused for a moment, then continued walking towards the room: "...Think what you want."

A moment of silence fell over the corridor. Fanes stood in the middle of the corridor, glancing at Sandone's retreating figure, then at Columbia, who remained standing quietly in that direction. He then bent down, picked up Yae no Miko from the floor, and turned to walk towards the direction where Kuro was lying.

"Alright, alright, I'm going out to sleep with Xiao Hei. You two stay in this room tonight. Call me if you need anything, otherwise don't bother."

Yae no Miko didn't struggle or make a sound in his arms; she simply curled up quietly, her tail resting on his wrist.

When Little Black saw him come out from the floor outside the door, its ears perked up, and it nudged his shoulder with its nose. Fanes sat down on the wooden planks of the corridor, leaning against its warm scales, and looked up at the row of roof tiles above that were gradually darkening in the twilight.

Yae no Miko jumped down from his arms, squatted on the edge of the corridor, glanced back at the direction of the paper door, then turned back and squatted next to Fanes, her tail slowly sweeping at her side, as if to confirm that the position she had chosen could see the situation on both sides, and would not miss any movement in any direction.