Reading poems from Teyvat

She had not ventured into the Abyss until now. After all, a yellow-haired traveler had already done the corresponding research and had indeed solved some of the problems. As one of the seven top figures in Liyue's power structure, although Keqing did everything herself, she wanted to solve the problem in order to ensure the survival and livelihood of the vast majority of people, rather than really wanting to solve the problem from the source. Although in fact, as a bureaucrat, she was not so mature in the eyes of some people, this kind of thinking was actually shared by most bureaucrats. Therefore, when encountering a problem, the bureaucrats would always choose to save manpower before looking for the problem. Finally, after weighing the gains and losses, they would judge whether the cost of solving the problem was worth going deeper.

All in all, Keqing still has a lot of things to deal with here, and there is no need for her to go deep into it herself. Although she is confident that she can escape unscathed even if she encounters danger underground in the Abyss, she should play a role in more critical places instead of putting herself in a place that has not been fully explored. After all, if she can no longer be contacted like some people, as the top leader of Liyue, Liyue will definitely go to search and rescue her at all costs, so she can no longer continue to do this kind of thing according to her own personality.

Of course, to be honest, there is actually someone around her who is suitable for doing this kind of thing.

That person was Shen He, who had been acting as her bodyguard since someone went to Xumi recently.

Although someone wanted to leave Liyue and go to Xumi, she actually thought about following him.

But someone thought about it at that time and finally let her stay.

Keqing could probably figure out someone's thoughts. That person probably didn't want him to be her only coordinate in this world, right? After all, Shen He was a native of Liyue. Although her immortal master might not want her to stay in the mortal world, even if she stayed in the mortal world, she should adapt to the environment of Liyue instead of running to another country. Even if someone's dark thoughts were considered, he would say that Shen He's master was still a highly respected immortal in Liyue. If she really got into trouble, an immortal could come forward to ease the situation. But if she got into trouble in another country, her immortal master would probably make things worse.

This is probably what someone means by "the essence of man is the sum of social relations."

Even if one's social connections are as weak as Shen He, he will still fall into such a trap in the end.

Keqing glanced at the tall figure standing quietly beside her. Seeing her long, smooth silver hair, she couldn't help but think of someone again. Then she shook her head, thinking that she seemed to be more and more distracted recently. Someone had only been away for a few months, so why should she be so obsessed with him? Maybe he had found a new lover in the Jingshan Palace of Xumi and was enjoying the flowers and the moon with someone. And she had to share a room with this immortal disciple who was already entangled with him in such a place!

Keqing gritted her teeth and increased the force of her writing, even as if she was going to cut the paper with the pen in her hand.

"It seems... it's coming."

Shen He, who noticed the shadow that streaked across the sky like a meteor, suddenly spoke out.

"Who?" Keqing asked because she didn't hear clearly.

Chapter 17: If there is no hatred in your eyes (Part 1)

It wasn't long before the answer was revealed.

When Keqing saw Shen Zhigui appear near the Chasm, she thought that he had ended his so-called journey around the world and was on his way back to Liyue, so she couldn't help but feel a little happy. But then she realized that Shen Zhigui was not followed by the old noble of Mondstadt, nor by the yellow-haired traveler who was always popular and could get along with everyone - to be honest, Keqing actually wanted to thank her. She also didn't see the chief priest of the Narukami Shrine next door, Inazuma, and the person following him was actually Ganyu!

Keqing's expression suddenly became a little uncertain.

Even at this time, she couldn't help but think that those who went to Xumi with him before were actually some young and beautiful women!

Although in fact, Yae Shinko is not young anymore.

But at least she looks young.

Keqing's expression became even more uncertain, but Shen Zhigui heaved a sigh of relief when he saw that they did not go deep into the abyss.

He didn't know much about that plot in the first place, and even about the side plot of the Stratum Crusade, he only remembered that Ying seemed to have met Dainsleib, and then solved a purification device with him. As for the nail throwing by Tianli, he didn't think carefully about whether it was because of Warcraft or the abyss, although there seems to be no difference between the two in essence. So if he really wanted to get involved in this plot now, he would probably just roll up his sleeves and rush in. But things like the Taiwei Plate were of no use to him, and he naturally didn't think that participating in this plot would make him make any progress, so he was too lazy to get involved.

As for the news about the last missing guardian Yaksha immortal that Xiao is looking for—that is, Fushe, there is actually nothing wrong in spoiling the story to him in advance.

Even though it sounds unfounded, in the end he's probably still going to find out the truth.

So should we just tell Zhongli not to let him in?

"Forget it. Zhongli is like a male mother to him anyway. If he hasn't retired, he probably won't let Xiao go AWOL for the time being. If he can retire--"

Although it may sound a bit self-boasting, Shen Zhigui feels that he can still handle the trouble for a while. So Zhongli is probably still worried about his treasure Xiao, and chooses to pay attention to him silently from behind, and even rescues him in the end, and "leaves after the task is completed, hiding his identity and name". It is simply a deep father-son love. If Liyue did not have a traditional festival like Christmas where people give gifts to each other, Shen Zhigui would like to use them as prototypes to write "The Gift of the Magi". Oh, no, "The Gift of Xiao" doesn't seem right? "The Gift of the Emperor"? Actually, it's not quite appropriate...

Keqing was relieved when the young man saw her, and then turned to look down into the abyss, with a look of deep thought. She was silent at first, waiting for Shen Zhigui to speak first, but Shen Zhigui remained silent for a long time. The rest of the people also focused their attention on that person and remained silent. So Keqing finally spoke first: "What on earth do you want to do here?"

"I came to see you."

Shen Zhigui said as a matter of course.

At first, Keqing was inevitably disturbed by his straightforward words, and her face turned slightly red. Although she quickly glanced at Ganyu behind the boy and Shen He who was still standing there quietly, she felt that something was wrong no matter how she thought about it. She couldn't help but complain in her heart about his attitude when he came to see her about this matter?

But at this point, Keqing still couldn't find a good way to solve the mess between the two of them, or she really had no way to ask Shen Zhigui to sever his relationship with these people. She was a person with a very strong self-esteem. She was already in a high position, not to mention that she came from a famous family and became one of the Seven Stars of Liyue at a young age. Logically speaking, she must be the dominant party in the relationship between the two sexes, and her partner should act in accordance with her pace. But she knew very well that the young man in front of her could never be judged by common sense, not to mention that he could be said to be a disciple of an immortal, although he himself seemed to think that he was not qualified to claim that, but even without this identity, he had indeed completed the contract before and cleaned up the remains of the demon god in Liyue...

Of course, Keqing also hesitated.

Should she continue in this messy relationship or pull away?

Thinking back carefully, there really weren't that many unforgettable memories between her and this young man, right?

But till now, she really couldn't convince herself that after missing out on this boy who looked about the same age as her, she could find a better partner, someone who could do the same things as the man in front of her, who could help her govern Liyue better, and who could bring her such sweet memories. In comparison, his shortcoming was just his fickleness. As for this shortcoming of his, even Keqing herself sometimes couldn't help but defend him and find excuses for him:

Because she was a workaholic and couldn't spare much time to accompany him, so it was reasonable for him to be so unfaithful...

Although saying this is a bit too self-deceptive.

But in the end, Keqing still chose to maintain this relationship. Of course, she actually understood that one day, the relationship between her and Shen Zhigui as well as Shen Zhigui's true nature would eventually be exposed to the eyes of the world, and she would be subject to the scrutiny of those people, forcing her to have no way out. But that day has not really come, so she is hoping for the best. Of course, maybe Shen Zhigui can always solve the problem through his weird methods, but in this relationship, she does not want to take the initiative to do anything.

Because that's what she does as a matter of course.

So when she saw that the boy just continued to look absentmindedly at the bottom of the abyss after she finished speaking, she couldn't help but glance at the two people beside him and asked, "And then?"

"Then……"

Shen Zhigui collected his thoughts. Originally, he just wanted to warn the two people not to go any further into it, but he really had no way to sort out the clues. Although there was Ganyu, who had personally experienced the Demon God War and later served as the secretary of the seven stars of Liyue, maybe she could reveal the origin of the Taiwei Disk, but Shen Zhigui couldn't explain clearly where he got the information. Although it was not impossible to infer it to the World Tree, he didn't want to spend a lot of effort to patch up such nested lies, even though he was a person who told lies without hesitation.

But it didn't seem appropriate for him to continue lying to Keqing.

So he just said, "How much of your work is left in the Stonehenge?"

Chapter 18: If There Was No Hate in My Eyes (Part 2)

"There is still a personnel issue..."

After Keqing finished speaking, she narrowed her eyes and glanced suspiciously at Shen Zhigui and Ganyu standing beside him. After hesitating for a moment, she said, "You're not saying that you brought Ganyu here just to ask her to help me solve the problems here so that I can go back as soon as possible?"

"I don't think you're the kind of person who needs help to solve problems."

It would be better to say that if Shen Zhigui really thought so and really did so, with her personality, she might just let Shen Zhigui and Gan Yu go back to where they came from.

But Shen Zhigui still chose a tactful statement.

Although Keqing still had a look of doubt on her face:

"So what are you guys here for?"

Shen Zhigui thought about it and decided that it would be more practical to tell a lie: "I sensed that there is a very complex spatial structure at the bottom of the Layered Abyss. I think with your current strength, if you are caught in it, you may not be able to escape for a while. So when I heard Ganyu say that you ran here, I came to find you."

"Hearing what you said, I should thank you for caring about us so much?"

"It should."

Shen Zhigui also said it as a matter of course.

Keqing pondered for a moment, then asked, "Where is the location of that complex spatial structure you mentioned?"

"What is the lowest level that can be excavated so far?"

Shen Zhigui hesitated for a moment and just said.

When Keqing heard him speaking in this tone, she couldn't help but doubt whether he could really sense it. After all, no matter what, a person couldn't see through the surface and go straight into that kind of place, right?

When Shen Zhigui heard her say that, he immediately relaxed his focus, which had been deliberately suppressed, and glanced at the young girl Yu Hengxing, and said, "But I can clearly see now that your underwear is white, Aqing..."

Before Shen Zhigui finished his words, Keqing's face turned pale and blue. She then immediately formed a sword gesture and threw the condensed thunder wedge towards Shen Zhigui. Then, her body moved with the thunder wedge and she raised her sword to attack the boy's neck directly. However, Shen Zhigui simply drifted backwards in the breeze caused by the girl's movement. It looked extremely dangerous, but the girl's sword could always deviate from his body and could not hurt his fur.

Keqing was in a really bad mood at the moment. She should have been happy that Shen Zhigui came to see her, but he happened to bring Ganyu with him. If he had honestly told her his purpose or even just said that he came here purely to see her, she might not have been so angry. But he just kept talking nonsense and even told her the color of his underwear in such an occasion!

No matter what, she really wanted to die together with this bastard at this moment!

So, in an instant, the roar of thunder elements rang out all around Keqing, and those thunder elements became more and more manic as the girl became furious. At this time, although Lei Dianying and Lei Dianzhen were just watching the show, they were obviously on Keqing's side. Lei Dianying even took back the power to control the thunder elements from Meng Xiangyixin. Shen Zhigui could of course notice their little movements, but at this time he couldn't help but feel speechless:

It seems as if I still need some dream to suppress this level of thunder element.

No, even before that, he didn't actually need to rely on dreams to accomplish it, okay?

Although when facing Lei Dianying, the person he really relied on was actually Meng Xiang Yixin's original owner, Lei Dianzhen.

But at this time, there was really no need for Shen Zhigui to focus on doing things based on his dreams.

While Keqing was letting the lightning element run wild and roaring, causing tiny rumbles of thunder to ring out all around, Shen Zhigui simply released his true energy to form a field that the lightning element could not invade. Although at this time, he was actually a little surprised. After all, Keqing was not the kind of person who won by the amount of elemental power. She had always been a "skill-oriented" person. It would be more accurate to say that at her age, it was already amazing that she could develop the lightning wedge to the extreme. But at this time, her performance really made Shen Zhigui a little unpredictable. When did she choose to take this path?

No matter how impressive Keqing's performance was, Shen Zhigui didn't need to take it seriously.

After all, no matter what, there is no way he can fail with Keqing now.

But the speed and momentum of Keqing's outburst in rage did surprise Shen Zhigui, because before, Keqing had always been a little too concerned about the thunder wedge, so she had to use the thunder wedge to calibrate her position. Whether it was "Return of the Stars" or "Patrol of the Heavenly Streets", the key points were the arrangement and position of the thunder wedge and then transferring her body. But now that Keqing was dominated by her rage and no longer arranged the thunder wedge rationally or even used the thunder wedge, she directly mobilized the thunder element to make the thunder element in her body resonate with the thunder element in the outside world and then move. Her movement trajectory was indeed a bit unpredictable.

Although in fact he still couldn't escape Shen Zhigui's perception.

However, seeing that Keqing could make such progress in her rage, Shen Zhigui had no choice but to help her complete the step of crossing the threshold, so he kept using his words and pretentious manner to irritate her. Shen Zhigui's pretentious manner was indeed very irritating, especially after Keqing kept attacking him, he still took out the long sword with ease and tapped the sword lightly, making the jade long sword emit a pleasant sword chant, which was particularly infuriating, not to mention that he was secretly using "Flowers Fall and Water Flow" to deliberately let Keqing maintain that mentality, so Keqing inevitably let herself be further controlled by anger, and thus used the thunder element to attack more wantonly, even until the end, she seemed to have really attracted thunder, or let herself turn into a thunder and rush towards the young man, as if she really wanted to die with the young man at all costs!

At the last moment, she finally reacted:

What happened to her?

She was not usually so extreme.

Why would I really choose to die together with this person at this time?

Although at this time, she could feel that her control over the thunder element seemed to have reached a higher level. Before, if she needed to condense the thunder wedge in advance to complete the transfer of her body, now it seemed that she could save that step and move to the direction she wanted at will, without having to control the movement trajectory of her body as before.

Chapter 20: I Don’t Believe There Are White Hairs in the World (Part 1)

Although this was not Shen Zhigui's original intention.

His original intention was just to not let Keqing get involved in the trouble caused by that messy immortal magic weapon.

However, at this point, Keqing was not so stubborn as to try to be so arrogant, so she handed over her work. The staff stationed in the Abyss were suddenly surprised when they saw Keqing's condition and the appearance of Ganyu. Although the momentum caused by the battle between Shen Zhigui and Keqing did alarm many people, the speed of the two of them was too fast, so ordinary people and even the Thousand Rocks Army might not be able to detect the situation clearly. Although Keqing's current condition was abnormal no matter how you looked at it, it made those officials secretly speculate that Ganyu was actually working with some pretty boy to seize power?

Or was it simply that some pretty boy went too far with Keqing?

To be honest, if it is not from the lower three perspectives, there is actually nothing wrong with this speculation.

But Ganyu had been through a lot, and she was familiar with all the mundane affairs. She was as skilled as Keqing in handling these matters. It was better to say that she was not as hands-on as Keqing. So after Keqing handed over the corresponding work to her, she just quickly adjusted the corresponding work flow, handled the main affairs within a day, and then distributed the secondary and subsequent affairs to her subordinates, and gave the corresponding back-ups to supervise those people.

In fact, only someone like Ganyu, who has been in charge of the core of Liyue for thousands of years, could have the connections to complete such supervisory arrangements. Although she might not really know the people there and make them completely loyal to her and act as her eyes and ears, she basically knows all the high-level officials in Liyue. She can directly find the corresponding connections for some complicated people and relationships, and she is also quite adept at using those upper-level relationships to pressure and win over these middle and low-level people. Keqing was quite surprised to see that the official, who she had never been able to catch in the past and therefore had always behaved a little rebelliously and did not agree with her approach, was sweating profusely and trembling with fear after hearing just a few words from Ganyu.

Although Keqing actually knew that this was something that Ganyu could only do because of the experience she had accumulated over thousands of years.

However, she lacked experience in the job, so she could never do it as easily as Ganyu.

Apart from anything else, she didn't have the ability to see through the other party's tricks in the relevant matters at a glance.

So she could only continue to do things her own way.

Keqing just said it in her heart.

Shen Zhigui didn't care what Keqing was thinking. In fact, he didn't think that Ganyu's approach could be learned in a short time. Of course, if Shen Zhigui was willing to let go of his perspective and even use the "Tongyou Mingtong" to observe these people directly, he could almost figure it out. But in fact, he could only see the problem, but he couldn't make the other party obey her orders like Ganyu did after seeing the problem. After all, unity is the foundation of personnel struggle. Using a handle to hit the other party can certainly quickly establish authority, but a person who threatens others with a handle all day long will only make people want to crush him to death...

Although these actually have nothing to do with him.

Shen Zhigui has never been very patient with intrigues in such matters.

So although he could see a little trick, he was not naturally interested in this kind of thing. Maybe some people would find this kind of power game very interesting, and calculating gains and losses with others could also boost their spirits, but Shen Zhigui was not willing to invest any energy in it. It would be more refreshing for him to just pick up the sword and kill everyone cleanly than to let him distinguish between enemies and friends from these complicated interpersonal relationships...

Although this idea is a bit too anti-human.

Keqing could also see the true nature of this young man through his performance at work. Although he had previously shown that he was more interested in the metaphysical field than the physical field, it was better to say that this was more in line with his philosophy. He believed that it would be better to find a long-lived supervisor for Liyue than to let Liyue completely enter an era of human rule. Although he himself said that the supervisor might not always be selfless, the handling of political affairs by the Emperor and Ganyu over the past thousands of years did show their impartial stance.

Although now Keqing actually doubts whether Ganyu can continue to do what he said before.

After all, no matter how you look at it, this man who has served as the Secretary-General of all the Liyue Seven Stars seems to have developed some selfish motives now.

But Shen Zhigui...

When she thought of this, Keqing suddenly didn't know how to judge, because she herself had a close relationship with this young man. From her point of view, it was impossible for her to have no personal feelings and preferences other than the position of Yuheng Star. But if Ganyu also showed her own feelings -

But Shen Zhigui seemed too lazy to interfere in Liyue's political affairs.

Although this man claimed before that if he wanted to help her, he would actually use the same method as the Emperor to suppress all injustices with his own force, if Keqing had thought it was a bit far-fetched before, after all, although Shen Zhigui at that time could be said to be comparable to immortals to some extent, overall, he was indeed far behind the Emperor. But now Keqing was facing Shen Zhigui head-on again, and had already gone all out and even performed beyond her normal level, but in the end she was defeated by the young man so easily, and it couldn't even be said that he was defeated, but he was just soothing her emotions like a pet like a cat or a dog. Of course, Keqing also knew that she was actually far behind those immortals, but after this progress, she couldn't help but feel that she seemed to have improved to the point where she could vaguely touch the realm of those immortals...

If I am so weak in front of that young man, then my level is actually almost the same as those immortals, right?

Considering that he was just a powerless bard half a year ago, and even needed her help to escape from the pursuit of the hill people in the wilderness, with such astonishing progress, Keqing could hardly imagine whether he could really be compared with the Emperor in another five or ten years. Even just thinking about his progress in the past six months, Keqing became speechless. Any words and phrases seemed too pale in the face of such facts. Sometimes Keqing couldn't help but pick up the absurd guess again:

Is he actually some ancient demon god who was reincarnated into the human world?

Otherwise, where did his weird martial arts come from?

Chapter 21: I Don’t Believe There Are White Hairs in the World (Part 2)

But Keqing also knew that it was meaningless to continue pursuing the matter today. It was better to say that his current essence had lost its meaning. Keqing did believe that in his heart he had always been the boy who confessed his feelings to her under the moonlight, who had held her hand in the cave and told her that his life goal was to pursue a certain degree of fun. Although humans are not static creatures, some people will forget their original intentions after suddenly being in a high position or having power like him, and still want more. In other words, someone actually said a long time ago that he was ready to cross the boundaries of normal humans and not regard himself as a normal human being——

Although he himself did not behave like a normal human being since a very early time.

So if it was just this extent, Keqing felt that she might still be able to accept it.