The next morning.
Ryen and Yae Miko stepped out the door looking thoroughly refreshed.
Ganyu and the others, by contrast, were wearing expressions of distinct grievance.
Yae Miko appeared to be settling a score with Ganyu and the others for all the times their noise had kept her awake in the past.
She had not put up any barrier last night, and the wooden structure of the Grand Narukami Shrine had done absolutely nothing to muffle the sound.
Not the cheering. Not anything else.
Ganyu and the others were currently in the height of their honeymoon period with Ryen, with all the frustration that implied. Being subjected to that particular kind of torment had been genuinely unkind.
Not a single one of them had slept.
The saving grace was that there were no strangers present. Everyone here was Ryen's.
Hu Tao came charging over the moment they stepped outside, glaring at Yae Miko.
"You did that on purpose!"
Yae Miko blinked with a beautifully crafted expression of wounded innocence.
"How can you accuse someone without any basis? What exactly did I do?"
Hu Tao clawed at her hair in frustration.
"You couldn't have put up a barrier? Don't tell me you don't know how. You're an archon's vessel!"
Yae Miko curled her lip.
"When you and Ryen were having fun in the past, did you put up a barrier? And last night you could have put one up yourself. It's not as though you haven't learned barrier arts from Guizhong."
"Well..."
Hu Tao's mouth opened and then closed.
Her gaze drifted sideways for a moment.
How was she supposed to explain this?
Was she supposed to admit that hearing Ryen's breathing and Yae Miko's enthusiasm had made her feel a certain way? That she had ended up having to quietly take care of herself while imagining Ryen?
After a long silence, Hu Tao gave an indignant sound, grabbed Ryen's arm, and said with maximum pathos:
"Ryen, you're staying with me tonight. I really missed you last night. Stop paying attention to this silly fox. I'm very fun too!"
Ryen flicked her cheek without particular gentleness.
"It's a good thing there are no outsiders here, or that sentence would be mortifying."
Ningguang and the others covered their smiles.
"The Director is nothing if not candid," Ningguang remarked.
Yae Miko waved for someone to bring breakfast. The whole family group sat down together, eating and chatting about small, pleasant things.
There were rather a lot of them, and yet there was nothing awkward about it.
It genuinely felt like home.
After breakfast, Yae Miko had someone fetch Hanachirusato.
Almost at the same moment, Makoto and Ei arrived at the Grand Narukami Shrine.
Makoto was her usual energetic self. Ei, however, looked somewhat dazed, the way a person looks after an all-nighter.
Evidently last night's management training had delivered its own kind of profound Inazuma shock.
"Ready to go?"
Ryen didn't ask for details. He summoned his dragon and spoke simply.
Makoto gave a small nod and smiled.
"More or less. Inazuma is in good shape. The plans Ayato put together are thorough, and as long as things continue along that path, there shouldn't be any issues."
"The military deployment has been arranged. Ayato's group set out ahead of us, and should reach Liyue in another two or three days."
"We'll need to coordinate with Liyue in advance."
Ryen nodded, then said with a trace of curiosity:
"Ayato went himself?"
Makoto gave a wry smile.
"You can't really blame him. He was essentially the first person in Inazuma, outside of Ayaka and the others, to know your world existed. He has been wanting to see it for a long time."
"And Ayaka has been there for a while now. He wants to see his sister."
"There was nothing keeping him in Inazuma before, but there was always something to attend to. Now that things are settled, letting him go is only fair."
Ryen laughed.
"It is funny, isn't it. Ayaka and Ayato have a warm sibling relationship, and yet Lumine and Aether, also siblings, act like sworn enemies."
"Wishing the other one would just disappear every single day."
Everyone found that difficult not to laugh at. Lisa smiled and said:
"Perhaps Lumine and Aether have simply spent too much time together."
"Though their personalities are also somewhat..."
She didn't finish the sentence, but everyone understood.
Those two, each in their own right, were a handful. Together, they were a disaster.
No one said anything further. When Hanachirusato had finished getting ready and arrived, the group mounted their dragons and set off for Liyue without delay.
Hanachirusato had not particularly wanted to leave. Her entire purpose was to resolve Inazuma's Dark Mud problem.
But Yae Miko had reasoned with her at considerable length: if the Kitsune Saiguu could be revived, the Dark Mud would resolve itself, and Hanachirusato herself could continue to exist.
Turned over, it made sense. Hanachirusato agreed.
Purpose might be higher than life, but if there was a way to achieve both, who would voluntarily choose to die?
Three days in Inazuma, and it was over.
This trip had found the Kitsune Saiguu, resolved the lingering problem of the Shogun, and produced an unexpected encounter with Istaroth along with a great deal of extraordinary information.
For Ryen, the most important thing by far was that he had finally accomplished his primary objective with Yae Miko.
Getting a little fox cub from her mattered more to him than everything else combined.
The dragons flew faster now. Perhaps from extended exposure to Teyvat's natural laws, the dragons kept in Teyvat were not only growing steadily stronger but steadily larger.
The most powerful among them had already reached the level of a high-tier archon vessel in overall capability.
There were not many at that level yet.
In Ryen's estimation, that was probably the ceiling for now.
Even so, dragons remained the Five-Nation Alliance's single most imposing force.
Before long, the group was back in Liyue Harbor.
Compared to when they had left three days ago, the harbor was noticeably more alive. Lanterns and festive decorations lined every street. People walked with ease, talking and laughing.
Every bit of it had the feeling of the evening before a grand celebration.
From above, the harbor's main gate was already thick with a long queue of arrivals: Liyue people returning from elsewhere, and visitors from other nations coming to join the festivities.
The Lantern Rite was not only a memorial to Liyue's heroes. It was also a day for reunion.
Much the same as the New Year in Ryen's own world.
The majority of visitors were citizens from within the Five-Nation Alliance.
The Alliance had been established long enough now that its member nations knew each other well. They did business together as a matter of course, and Alliance membership had come to mean something like brotherhood. Anyone from within the Alliance was someone you could count on.
The warmth between the five nations had become genuinely evident.
Which left the people of Fontaine and Natlan feeling a bit left out.
More than a few had thought about raising the idea with their own archons: what about joining the Alliance?
But both nations had complications.
Fontaine was still dealing with the conflict between its first and second Archon eras, and its internal politics were somewhat divided.
Natlan, the domain of the war-loving Pyro Archon, was not the kind of place that simply settled down. And there was still the Chasm situation to consider.
So quite naturally, both nations would need Lumine to get involved before things could move forward.
Teyvat would fall apart without her.
These thoughts drifted through Ryen's mind as the dragons disappeared into Mt. Tianheng.
The people of Liyue, even now, greeted the sight of dragons with enthusiasm. In other nations, particularly Fontaine and Natlan, the response had mellowed into something approaching familiarity.
The Lantern Rite had not even started yet and people had already seen things worth talking about for years.
Ryen had noticed specifically that the usual Mingxiao Fireworks display that accompanied the Lantern Rite was absent this year.
He understood. Mingxiao was alive and well. Having her exploded in celebration during a festival was, when you thought about it, rather inauspicious.
He put the dragons away in his inventory, and the group made their way back to the courtyard with easy conversation.
Unexpectedly, no one was in the MC World. Everyone was gathered in the courtyard.
What caught Ryen's attention more was the atmosphere between Lumine and Aether: unmistakably the atmosphere of two people who had done something wrong, both standing in the middle of the group with their heads lowered.
It looked remarkably like...
A large-scale sentencing hearing.
"What happened here?"
Ryen looked at Zhongli with suspicion. Zhongli exhaled with the air of a man whose energy had long since departed.
"Ask them."
Ryen felt an immediate premonition of disaster. He turned to Lumine.
She came forward with an expression of maximum suffering, took hold of his arm very lightly, and said:
"Ryen, I'm sorry. I blew up the living room of your villa."
"..."
Ryen's expression darkened.
He had known. He had known that the moment Lumine and Aether were in the same place unsupervised, disaster was a matter of time, not possibility.
"Is anyone hurt?"
"No one's hurt. I was trying to scare Aether and the grenade slipped out of my hand. There's a crater in the living room. And... your fish tank is gone."
"As long as no one's hurt. Rebuild it. You rebuild it yourself."
Ryen gave her nose a light flick and moved past it.
There was nothing irreplaceable in the living room. Everything that mattered was in the underground storage. A blown-up living room was a blown-up living room. And rebuilding a villa with this many people around was half a day's work at most.
Lumine blinked, then hugged him tightly.
"You're so good to me, Ryen."
"Be more careful next time. Do it again and I'll smack your backside."
Ryen gave her head a light tap, firm but not harsh.
Lumine stuck her tongue out and shot a very satisfied look at Aether.
Aether, watching Lumine's interaction with Ryen, ran some calculations and decided to follow her approach.
"Ryen, I apologize. I blew up the bridge in front of your villa."
He had thought it through: Ryen had clearly responded well to someone who proactively admitted fault. And a bridge, compared to a living room and a fish tank, was a relatively minor thing. He had not destroyed Ryen's living room. He had not eliminated the fish.
Ryen would probably not make too much of it.
The moment Aether braced for Ryen to offer him an easy way out, he felt a distinct chill.
Ryen's eyes narrowed. Something dangerous moved in them.
"Impressive. Should I give you a reward for that?"
"Well..."
Before Aether could say anything, Ryen said in an even voice:
"No, it's fine. That bridge was outdated anyway. It needed to come down eventually. Blow it up, build it again."
Aether felt a surge of relief and was about to agree gratefully, when Ryen added, very quietly:
"Build me a five-hundred-by-five-hundred bridge. With Redstone technology. Ideally, it should be able to retract and hide automatically. So it doesn't get blown up again next time."
Aether swayed. The world went dark in front of him. He felt certain he was going to die here.
Building a bridge in the MC World was not difficult. But...
Five hundred by five hundred? What bridge needed to be five hundred by five hundred?
The original bridge had been a few dozen meters wide at most.
And it required Redstone technology?
What bridge in the world needed Redstone technology?
This was pure targeted punishment.
Why did Lumine get off with barely a word, and he had to suffer like this?
Aether looked at Ryen with a deeply complicated expression and was just opening his mouth to negotiate when Ryen said mildly:
"Any problem?"
Aether, acutely sensing that further words would lead somewhere worse, swallowed everything he had been about to say and gave a stiff nod.
"No problem."
"Good. Three days. Get it done before the Lantern Rite. No rush."
Ryen waved a hand. Aether felt the darkness return and descended into complete despair.
Three days. He would barely be able to figure out the right Redstone configuration in three days.
He was going to spend those three days dying in the MC World.
Lumine peeked out from behind Ryen's back and stuck her tongue out at Aether.
She pressed herself against Ryen with deep satisfaction.
Please.
She might not have Ganyu and the others' physique, but she was still a young woman in the full bloom of her youth.
For Ryen, beautiful young women always had their privileges.
And besides...
To avoid Ryen's punishment, she had already paid a very considerable price.