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

The years passed by in Inazuma faster than Fanes had imagined. He was fifteen years old, had grown taller, and most of the baby fat on his face had disappeared. His features were much more defined than a few years ago, and he could now reach the edge of the counter without tiptoeing when checking the ledgers at the granary entrance.

Over the years, the affordable rice he brought has spread more and more widely in the Inazuma market. Local grain merchants have withdrawn one after another, and farmland has been converted to other crops or left to fall into disuse. By the time the statistics came out this autumn, the food self-sufficiency rate of the entire Inazuma Islands had fallen to 27 percent.

Yae no Miko sat at the tea table in the side hall of Narukami Taisha, opposite Sango no Kokoro, who had recently ascended to the throne. The seventeen-year-old current leader of Umi no Mikoro was half a head shorter than Yae no Mikoro, with light-colored long hair draped over her shoulders and a coral-colored hair ornament on her head. Her face was delicate and serene.

Yae no Miko held a stack of statistical reports that had just been delivered from Umi no Shiro. Her fingertips paused on the last page, then she looked up at Yae no Miko: "Lord Mikoto, have you looked at this data?"

Yae no Miko took the stack of reports and glanced at the last number, her gaze lingering on the figure of "27%". Her hand holding the teacup did not move, but her fingertips pressed against the rim of the teacup.

"This ratio is too low."

Shinkai picked up his teacup and took a sip. "If anything unexpected happens this winter—a typhoon, a cold wave, or a supply chain disruption—at least half of Inazuma's population will starve. If someone takes this opportunity to manipulate food prices…"

Xin Hai didn't finish his sentence, but the second half of it was already clearly conveyed between the two of them.

Yae no Miko put down her teacup, raised her gaze from the paper, and fell on the branches and leaves of the old maple tree outside the window of the side hall.

After a moment of silence, images from last night flooded her mind—Yae no Miko lying on her bed in her room, Fanes sitting on the edge of the bed flipping through a newly published manga sent from Liyue. She reached out to touch his collar, intending to tease him as usual, but he slapped her hand away halfway through her sentence:

"Stop messing around, I'm right at the crucial part."

Then Yae no Miko fell asleep and didn't say another word all night. And now the self-sufficiency report was spread out on the table, the cold data clearly stating one fact—Inazuma's livelihood was in the hands of a Fool's Enforcer, and she was trying to drag him into bed last night.

Yae no Miko stood up: "I'll go find him."

Xin Hai remained seated without interfering, simply rearranging the stack of reports and placing them on the corner of the table: "Lord Gongsi, if we can't reach an agreement, there are still some reserve grains on Haiqi Island that can be used in an emergency, but the quantity is limited and won't last long."

Yae no Miko turned and glanced at her: "I know."

As Yae no Miko walked up the stone steps of Narukami Taisha to the side courtyard, Fanes was squatting by the well in the courtyard, teasing the ice slime that had grown to the size of a washbasin with a willow twig.

Years had passed, and Fanes had grown considerably taller, but the way he squatted there still carried a touch of youthful casualness. He looked up at the sound of footsteps, then lowered his head again to continue fiddling with the edge of the ice slime: "Why did you rush over so quickly? What's up?"

Yae no Miko squatted down in front of him, reached out and pressed down on his wrist, which was still poking the ice slime with a willow branch, her tone less languid than usual.

"Inazuma's food self-sufficiency rate has dropped to 27 percent. Do you know what that number means?"

Fanes put down the willow branch, looked up at her, and had a perfectly balanced innocence that Yae no Miko couldn't tell if it was feigned or genuine.

"I know. It means people aren't farming much anymore. Rice prices have been cheap these past few years, so farming isn't profitable, and people have switched to other things. It's a pretty normal market phenomenon."

Yae no Miko's tail taut behind her for a moment, but she knew she couldn't show a stern face at this moment. She loosened her grip on his wrist and softened her tone.

"You've been selling grain at fair prices for so many years, and everyone is very grateful to you. But now you control a large portion of Inazuma's grain supply. What if one day you decide you don't want to sell anymore... Inazuma is completely unprepared."

Phanes sat on the edge of the well, his hands on his knees, looking up at her, his tone still calm but with a hint of serious clarification.

"When did I say I wasn't going to sell? We're still supplying it normally, and the price hasn't gone up. The way you're saying it, it's like I deliberately set a trap for you guys."

Yae no Miko looked at him, and there was indeed no trace of guilt on her face. She reached up and brushed a strand of hair that was falling to the side of her face, her voice softer than before.

"I was just teasing you... You're not angry, are you? I was just too anxious. It's so late, why don't you wash up and go to bed?" She reached out to put her hand on his shoulder.

Fanes stepped aside to avoid her hand: "No, it's the middle of summer, are you trying to kill me with heat? There's only one Ice Slime, it's just right for me to sleep with, if you come over and squeeze it, it'll melt."

After saying that, Fanes bent down, picked up the ice slime the size of a washbasin from the ground, hugged it to his chest, turned around and walked towards his room. His pace was neither fast nor slow. When he reached the door, he stepped over the threshold and closed the paper door. His movements were crisp and neat.

Yae no Miko stood in the courtyard, staring at the closed paper door for a few seconds, then turned and walked towards the direction leading to the castle tower. Her pace was much faster than when she came, her tail tucked straight behind her, the swirling wind sweeping away a few fallen leaves in the courtyard and swirling them into the gaps in the doorway.

In the study of the castle tower, Lei Yingdian sat at a low table, a scroll of documents, still under review, spread out in front of her. She looked up and saw Yae no Miko enter, her gaze lingering on her face for a moment: "You don't look well."

Yae no Miko walked to the opposite side of the table and sat down, pulling the folded report from her sleeve and pushing it across the table: "Do you know who controls most of Inazuma's current food supply channels?"

Lei Ying glanced down at the number on the report, but didn't look up. She simply flipped through the report page by page until she finished, then looked up at Yae no Miko.

"Does he know you found out?"

Yae no Miko sat opposite him, her hands folded on her knees: "He probably knew I would find out. I went to see him just now, and he was very mild-mannered. He didn't turn hostile or deny anything; he just said he wouldn't stop providing the money. But he didn't promise any written terms either."

Lei Yingdian picked up the teacup on the edge of the table and took a sip. The tea had gone cold. After finishing, she put the teacup back down. "If he really cuts off the supply, what do you plan to do?"

Yae no Miko looked at the fine water stains around the rim of the cooled teacup, and instead of answering immediately, she asked a question.

"You are the god of Inazuma. If any problems arise, I can just marry you."

"Is that okay? Then can I marry into that family too?"