English
Indonesia
Chinese (Simp)
Japanese
Korean
Spanish
Portuguese
French
German
ArabicGenshin Impact: A Guide to the Unofficial History of Teyvat — Chapter 29
Chapter 29: We Missed the Crucial Prequel!
The afternoon sun bathed Liyue Harbor in a perfect, golden warmth.
Xingqiu and Chongyun had agreed to take a leisurely stroll through the bustling market district. As they handled the lively crowds, their conversation naturally drifted back to the latest literary sensation they had finished reading the night before: part two of ‘Record of Shi Po’s Wanderings’.
“The segment where Lord Rex Lapis distributes the perfume is truly exquisite, especially the reaction of the Conqueror of Demons…” Xingqiu fanned himself with a silk folding fan, a bright, appreciative smile gracing his features. “Though the author refrains from describing his expression directly, the phrases ‘hand trembled slightly’and’silent for a long time’ are overflowing with imagery. One simply cannot help but chuckle at the mental picture.”
Chongyun, however, was still thoroughly hung up on the melancholic ending. “I still think that wordless tombstone at the very end is a bit… strange. Why was Lord Rex Lapis so singularly devoted to that specific monument? And those cryptic words he whispered—just who exactly is buried beneath that stone?”
“Perhaps it is a departed friend, or an Adeptus who fought alongside him during the Archon War?” Xingqiu speculated, his eyes narrowing in thoughtful appreciation. “The author’s brushwork turned incredibly gentle and subtle in those final lines, leaving vast room for the imagination. That is the true brilliance of the piece—it invites endless contemplation.”
As the two youths chatted and laughed, their path took them right past Sanyu Bookstore. They immediately noticed the storefront was far more congested than usual. A massive throng of readers had gathered, excitedly debating something with voices loud enough to drift clearly over the ambient noise of the harbor.
“If you ask me, the one buried under that wordless tombstone is definitely ‘Mora’ without a doubt!” a burly merchant shouted, waving his arms.
“Isn’t that the truth! ‘Record of Shi Po’s Wanderings’only used that falling leaf looking like Mora as a subtle hint, but the’Synthesized God’ book wrote it out plain as day! That gentle goddess in charge of creating Mora sacrificed her very being for Kex and merged into his body. That is exactly how we got the current Lord Rex Lapis Morax!”
“Exactly!” a young woman chimed in, clutching a paper bag to her chest. “And that other book, ‘Twin Deities and the Life-Death Contract’, completely verified it! Twin Gods, one named Mora and one named Kex, dependent on each other in life and death, eventually merging into a single entity! That wordless tombstone, combined with that final lingering hint, must be a private memorial Lord Rex Lapis erected for his departed lover, Mora!”
A passing sailor stopped in his tracks, looking utterly bewildered. “Wait, brother, what books are you all talking about? And where in Teyvat did this news of Lord Rex Lapis having a late wife come from? Although the end of the second part of the wanderings mentioned a wordless tombstone, it never explicitly stated who it was for. And besides… Lord Rex Lapis has a wife?!”
“Hah! Haven’t you read the two earlier devastating works by Mr. Li Xin?” The merchant crossed his arms, looking incredibly smug. “‘Regarding the Matter of the Geo Archon Being a Synthesized God Who Caused His Wife’s Death’and’The Name Morax Actually Hides Twin Deities and a Life-Death Contract!’It is all written out clearly in black and white! So, the one resting under that wordless tombstone is none other than Lord Rex Lapis’s tragic lover, who sacrificed herself to the heavenly principles under the name’Mora’!”
“What?! A Synthesized God? Caused his own wife’s death? Such things actually happened in our history?!”
“It is absolutely true! Mr. Li Xin’s historical research is extremely detailed; rumor has it he cited many lost ancient texts recovered from ruins! All of Liyue Harbor is going crazy over it! Everyone is saying the real reason Lord Rex Lapis never carries Mora normally is that seeing the currency is like looking at the face of his late wife, making his heart far too heavy to bear. also, the divine ability to create true Mora died forever with the goddess ‘Mora’s’ passing!”
“It… it is actually like that?!” The sailor gasped, clutching his head. “No wonder Lord Rex Lapis always sends his massive bills directly to the Qixing…”
“Quick! Shop Assistant, give me one copy of each! What do you mean both books are almost out of stock?!”
“Sigh, to think the grand old gentleman had such a heartbreaking and tragic past. No wonder he went to that lonely peak to stand in silence, and even offered the newly released silk flower perfume to the stone… It is truly a story that brings tears to the eyes of all who hear it!”
“Yeah, thinking about it from that perspective, absolutely everything in ‘Record of Shi Po’s Wanderings’—Lord Rex Lapis not carrying money, not understanding mortal price promotions, and even casually giving away those hundred boxes of expensive perfume, especially the tender gesture left for ‘that person’ at the end—it all makes perfect sense! It was all a grand gesture to mourn his late wife!”
Xingqiu and Chongyun’s footsteps came to a sudden, grinding halt.
The two friends slowly turned to look at each other, both seeing massive shock and utter bewilderment mirrored in the other’s eyes.
Two even earlier devastating works?
Synthesized God? Caused his wife’s death?
A late wife named Mora?
The power to create Mora is lost forever?
Lord Rex Lapis does not carry Mora because he is in deep mourning?
One explosive fragment of information after another popped out from the passionate discussions of the passersby. Xingqiu, the well-read and worldly Second Young Master of the Feiyun Commerce Guild, was left completely stunned. Beside him, Chongyun stared agape at the crowd, his jaw unhinged, nearly dropping his half-eaten popsicle directly onto the cobblestones.
“What… what are they saying?” Chongyun looked at Xingqiu blankly, feeling a cold sweat break out on his forehead. He felt as if he had somehow missed out on the excitement of an entire alternate reality. “Wasn’t the main point of yesterday’s chapter just the ‘ten boxes at half price’ gag?”
The composed, elegant smile on Xingqiu’s face had long since vanished, entirely replaced by extreme astonishment and a burning, deep-seated curiosity. He snapped his folding fan shut with a sharp crack and pointed his empty hand toward the bookstore, his voice trembling with incredible excitement. “It seems we have missed a crucial prequel! Quick!”
Without waiting for a response, Xingqiu grabbed the sleeve of the still-petrified exorcist and pulled him briskly toward Sanyu Bookstore.
“Hurry, Chongyun!” Xingqiu’s tone carried an unmatched urgency. “No wonder the ending of the wanderings felt so deep and heavy; it turns out there was such a massive emotional setup before it… No, there are even more explosive lore settings hidden within!”
Chongyun stumbled along the pavement as he was dragged, his brain still entirely wrapped in a thick fog of panic. “L-Late wife? Lord Rex Lapis… c-caused his own wife’s death? Synthesized God? W-what on earth is all this nonsense?! Can this kind of thing even be legally written? Shouldn’t the author be arrested by the Millelith for high treason?!”
“That is exactly why I say this Mr. Li Xin is incredibly bold!” A spark of intense, ravenous curiosity flashed in Xingqiu’s golden eyes. “The previous book only wrote about the mighty Archon haggling while window shopping, but this one directly subverts the entire divine image! Twin deities, a life-death contract, and the late wife is Mora herself… No wonder he doesn’t carry money, and no wonder he can create Mora yet doesn’t have a single coin on his person—so that is how it truly is!”
The more the young master thought about it, the more he felt that while this setting was absurd to the absolute extreme, it was strangely, perfectly logically self-consistent. It neatly tied up every single “suspicious point” left dangling in the previous stories.
The two youths immediately squeezed their way into the suffocating heat of Sanyu Bookstore.
They saw the main counter completely surrounded by frantic people, all waving pouches of Mora in the air and demanding to buy ‘Regarding the Matter of the Geo Archon Being a Synthesized God Who Caused His Wife’s Death’and’The Name Morax Actually Hides Twin Deities and a Life-Death Contract’ by the infamous Li Xin.
The Bookshop Shop Assistant was sweating profusely, desperately collecting money while shouting to calm the surging crowd. “Please be patient, valued customers! We still have a few copies of ‘Synthesized God’and’Twin Deities’ in the back!”
Shopkeeper Sun was equally swamped. He stood right next to his assistant, his voice turning raspy and desperate from shouting over the din. “We have them, we have them! There are still a few copies left! The ‘Record of Shi Po’s Wanderings’ series is also almost completely sold out! Buy them while you still can!”
Relying on his agile martial arts footwork, Xingqiu pulled Chongyun through the narrow gaps in the crowd. Without a single moment of hesitation, he slammed his own Mora onto the counter and bought one copy each of the two books, their titles more explosive than a barrel of Pyro slimes.
The moment he secured the books, Xingqiu felt as if the very paper in his hands was burning hot to the touch.
Xingqiu and Chongyun quickly retreated from the chaotic, crowded bookstore with their surviving publications. They hurried down the street and found a quiet, secluded corner in a nearby teahouse to sit down and process their haul.
As soon as they took their seats, Xingqiu couldn’t wait. He immediately flipped open the title page of ‘Regarding the Matter of the Geo Archon Being a Synthesized God Who Caused His Wife’s Death’. Chongyun, sweating nervously, leaned his head in close to look over his friend’s shoulder.
After reading just a few lines of the dramatic synopsis and the very first chapter title, both of their breaths hitched simultaneously in the quiet room.
The names alone gave them a heavy sense of impropriety hitting them squarely in the face; the tone of this work was completely different from the lighthearted wanderings series!
‘The Contract of Twins’, ‘The Counterfeit Coin of Rock’, ‘My Name is Morax’… The chapter titles alone exuded a dark, tragic, and bizarre atmosphere. But… it didn’t seem to explicitly write about “causing the wife’s death” just yet in the opening pages.
As they read deeper into the text, the expression on Xingqiu’s face shifted rapidly. It went from eager curiosity, to wide-eyed shock, and finally settled into a complex look that was an equal mix of ‘this is far too ridiculous’and’but why does it sound so incredibly plausible?’
Chongyun’s face turned a sickly pale, then flushed a bright, feverish red, and then drained to pale once again. He clutched his teacup with trembling fingers and muttered, “This… this… the Geo Archon was actually synthesized from himself and his wife?! And it wasn’t causing her death, but an eternal, binding symbiosis?”
He swallowed hard, his eyes darting around as if expecting the Millelith to kick the teahouse doors down. “Huh? The Archon actually used ordinary rocks to forge counterfeit Mora to circulate in the mortal world? Is… is this allowed to be written?! It is over, it is all over. If the Liyue Qixing see this manuscript…”
By the end of the first chapter, the exorcist’s hands were shaking violently. “This… this is far too much wild speculation about the Lord of Geo! This is simply…”
He couldn’t find the right words for a moment to adequately describe such a bold, reckless, and suicidal act of literature.
Xingqiu’s eyes, however, grew brighter and more manic the more he read. His breathing became slightly hurried as he traced the lines of text. “Chongyun, look closely! Though these settings are shocking and borderline heretical, they are perfectly logically self-consistent! It perfectly explains the thousand-year mystery of why the mighty Archon can create Mora yet ‘carries no Mora,’and it even gives a brilliant new interpretation to the ancient name’Morax’! This is no longer a simple, trashy street rumor; this author is entirely reconstructing the background of the Archon’s legend from the ground up!”
He suddenly looked up from the pages, his face flushed with extreme, scholarly excitement. “This Mr. Li Xin—he is no mere wealthy playboy or bored old scholar. He is clearly a visionary genius who dares to subvert everything we know, possessing a power of imagination that can only be described as terrifying! No, he is a freakish, once-in-a-generation talent!”
The young master now completely understood why the melancholic description of the wordless tombstone at the end of the wanderings would lead the common people to such wild, romantic associations.
If these two prequel texts were the established background lore, the existence of that wordless tombstone and the Archon’s gentle whisper were instantly given a completely different, extremely explosive, and deeply tragic meaning.
Could it be that the Geo Archon truly had a hidden wife all along?
“No wonder the bookstore was so incredibly lively yesterday…” Xingqiu murmured, gently stroking the cover of the book. “Compared to this heavy masterpiece, the wanderings series could almost be called ‘mild’ and fluffy!”
He eagerly grabbed the second book. “Quick, Chongyun, let’s look at the next one!”
While the two youths were having their worldviews shattered in the teahouse, not far from the Sanyu Bookstore they had just fled, a petite figure wrapped tightly in a dark hood was carefully slipping away along the alley wall. She was clutching a heavy pouch of manuscript fees to her chest—a sum so generous it made the hidden tip of her tail quiver with sheer delight.
Lovia pressed herself against the cool brickwork, listening to the heated, echoing discussions behind her in the bookstore. She heard the endless chatter about the Archon’s late wife, the ten boxes of perfume at half price, and the occasional, reverent praise floating through the air like “Mr. Li Xin is a great talent” and “truly moving yet shocking.”
She felt massive waves of impending guilt washing over her, yet she couldn’t suppress a tiny, bubbling bit of proud joy in her chest.
‘It seems… everyone’s acceptance of the lore is quite high?’she whispered to herself in the shadows, before immediately shaking her head vigorously to clear the dangerous thoughts.’No, no, Lovia, stay calm. Do not let the fame get to your head. You are currently walking on the razor’s edge of a lifelong prison sentence in the Chasm. Hurry up and run!’
She patted the warm, heavy pouch of Mora in her arms, feeling the comforting clink of the coins. She decided to go immediately restock her “premium afternoon tea” supplies to celebrate her survival.
For instance, she could finally afford those particularly fresh and sweet live crabs from that grumpy street vendor, and perhaps some of those high-quality, glowing ores just transported fresh from The Chasm.
As for Young Master Xingqiu and Taoist Practitioner Chongyun?
The disguised author had absolutely no idea that those two enthusiastic, impressionable youths had just acquired her most dangerous “heavyweight bombs.”