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ArabicGenshin Impact: A Guide to the Unofficial History of Teyvat — Chapter 36
Chapter 36: Unpleasant (Part 2)
On the other side of the city, Lovia sprinted almost the entire way back to her safe little shack. She slammed the heavy wooden door shut behind her, leaned her full weight against the frame, and let out a long, ragged exhale.
She yanked off her hooded cloak, tossing it haphazardly onto a nearby chair. Even her Melusine antennae were drooping pitifully against her hair, entirely devoid of their usual bouncy energy.
Sliding down the creaking wood of the door, Lovia collapsed onto the floorboards. The oil-paper bag of fresh crabs slipped from her grasp, landing beside her with a dull thud. She ignored them completely.
“Unpleasant… the Conqueror of Demons is feeling unpleasant…” she muttered to the empty room. Beside her, the captive crabs seemed to sense the heavy tension in the air, clicking their claws and rustling against the paper in a frantic frenzy.
I’m doomed. I’ve completely overplayed my hand.
She had always known, deep down, that the subjects of her wildly exaggerated fanfictions might eventually catch wind of the rumors. But hearing the Adeptus’s direct feedback relayed through Yaoyao—who had heard it straight from Granny Ping—hit entirely differently. This wasn’t just some disgruntled Millelith guard.
He was a literal Guardian Yaksha. A mythical being with combat power so far off the charts it defied mortal comprehension!
Once he activated that Lemniscatic Wind Cycling, wouldn’t he just come tearing through the air to hunt her down?
That guy can teleport!
Her overactive otaku imagination immediately began projecting a series of terrifying, high-definition scenarios. She pictured a pitch-black, wind-swept night. The silver reeds of Dihua Marsh flattening under a sudden, violent gale. Then, a dark green figure materializing silently outside her flimsy shack like a vengeful ghost, radiating a freezing, murderous aura. Those glowing golden pupils would pierce right through the thin wooden planks, locking onto her trembling form.
And then—
Too scary!
“Will he really come straight to my door?” Lovia whispered, hugging her knees to her chest. “And then… jump up and poke my kneecaps with the Primordial Jade Winged-Spear?”
The mental image of the famously short Adeptus having to leap into the air just to stab her in the leg was so vivid that she subconsciously rubbed her own knees.
But a second later, she froze.
A far more cruel, devastatingly realistic problem crashed into her mind.
“Wait, no!”
Lovia looked down at her own limbs—which were undeniably, tragically stubby—and recalled the handsome, imposing figure of the young Adeptus from her past life’s game screen.
Yes, the Conqueror of Demons was infamous across the fandom for his “unremarkable height.” But…
“Right now, I think I’m… even shorter than him!”
Lovia let out a desperate, muffled wail, burying her burning face into her arms.
She, Lovia, had transmigrated into a Melusine. Her physical height was permanently locked at a tragic 1.3 meters.
And that Guardian Yaksha was absolutely, unequivocally taller than her!
What did this mean for her impending doom?
It meant that if the Adeptus really couldn’t let go of his grudge and decided to deliver some physical “unpleasantness,” he wouldn’t need to jump at all! He would only need to stroll over, calmly extend a gloved hand, and accurately flick her right in the forehead. Or dangle her in the air by her hood. Or worse… he could simply look down at her, his golden eyes burning with millennia of accumulated slaughter.
“Ugh…”
Lovia shuddered at the thought. He wouldn’t even need to summon the Primordial Jade Winged-Spear. That sheer, condescending pressure alone would be enough to suffocate her on the spot.
Being poked in the knee was just physical pain. But the sheer humiliation of that downward gaze, trapped by an impossible height difference with zero room for resistance? That was pure psychological torture!
To make matters infinitely worse, she was shorter than him, yet she had actually written a viral article mocking his height!
The crabs on the floor seemed to sense the turbulent, spiraling despair of the Melusine beside them. They struggled even harder, one sharp claw finally piercing through the thick oil-paper and waving angrily in the air.
Lovia sighed. Resigned to her fate, she untied the string and dumped the lively little snacks into a shallow water basin. Watching them scuttle around the tin bottom, she completely lost her appetite for crab stew.
“Celebrating, huh? Celebrating that I’m about to become a bug crushed under an Adeptus’s boot…”
She dragged herself up and collapsed face-first onto her creaking small bed, burying her head beneath a lumpy pillow.
The shack fell dead silent, save for the faint sound of crabs blowing bubbles and the muffled, distant bustle of the Liyue Harbor market outside her window.
Fear fermented in her chest, slowly mixing with a lingering guilt that turned increasingly sour the longer she lay there.
Had she gone too far?
For the sake of Mora and the addictive cheers of her readers, she had written outrageous things about an Adeptus who genuinely protected Liyue, a warrior who bore the agonizing pain of Karmic Debt in absolute silence. The Conqueror of Demons might generally be too aloof to bother with the trivial gossip of mortals, but that didn’t mean he was immune to feeling insulted.
“Will he think… I’m mocking him?” Lovia thought gloomily, staring at the wall. “Mocking him for not being able to protect what he treasures… mocking his height?”
The thought made her stomach twist into knots.
She had never intended to be malicious. She just thought the contrast was funny, a clever trope that her readers would eat up. But looking back on it now, that “entertainment” was built entirely at the expense of someone else’s dignity.
The shadows stretching across the shack suddenly seemed to come alive, twisting in the corners of her vision as if they were about to condense into the cold form of a Yaksha.
Lovia bounced off the mattress like a coiled spring. She neurotically checked the door latch, rattled the window locks, and yanked the curtains tightly shut to ensure not a single sliver of moonlight could peek through.
Having fortified her tiny bunker, she retreated to the edge of the bed, hugging her knees and watching the oblivious crabs splashing in their basin.
It’s over. I really crossed the line this time.
She could almost hear a cold, indifferent voice drifting through the night wind, carrying a heavy undertone of suppressed wrath.
After letting her paranoia run wild for another ten minutes, Lovia had successfully scared herself half to death. Her heart hammered against her ribs, convinced the door was about to explode inward into splinters.
But then, logic slowly began to trickle back in.
Xiao was, after all, a divine being who had protected Liyue for thousands of years. He cared for all living things. He might have a freezing temperament, but there was zero historical record of him ever attacking an innocent mortal. Instead, he spent his nights slaughtering demons and saving foolish travelers who wandered too far into the dark.
Breathing a shaky sigh of relief, her tense shoulders finally dropped a fraction of an inch.
Yet, as the blinding terror receded, the guilt only sharpened.
She had lined her pockets with Mora by dragging his ancient name through the mud, soaking up the praise of the Bookstore Owner and the oblivious public. He was a hero. Even if he wouldn’t stoop to petty revenge, she had no right to treat his legacy like a cheap punchline.
“Sigh… I really was the one who started it,” she muttered, poking the wooden tabletop with her fingertip. “Even Granny Ping said he was upset…”
Ironically, realizing that the Adeptus wouldn’t actually murder her made her feel infinitely worse about hurting his feelings. When she drafted those chapters, she only saw a character on a page, a tool to farm engagement and cash. She had completely forgotten to consider the actual, living Yaksha stationed at Wangshu Inn—silent, suffering, and ever-watchful.
“How about… an apology? Or some kind of peace offering?”
The thought bloomed suddenly in the quiet room.
Go directly to Dihua Marsh and apologize to his face?
Lovia immediately violently rejected the idea, shaking her head so hard her antennae whipped back and forth. “No, no, no! That’s just walking straight into the tiger’s den! If he’s already in a foul mood, why would I hand-deliver myself to be the target of his ‘unpleasantness’?”
She hadn’t forgotten the cruel reality of her 1.3-meter stature. Standing face-to-face with him, she would be completely crushed by his sheer presence before she could even squeak out an apology.
But doing nothing felt like a crime. The back of her neck prickled, as if an invisible, piercing gaze from the distant wetlands was permanently fixed on her.
After agonizing over the dilemma until her brain hurt, Lovia’s sapphire-blue eyes suddenly widened. She slapped her thigh with a sharp smack.
“I’ve got it!”
Didn’t Xiao have an absolute weakness for Almond Tofu?
“Since my writing ruined his mood, I can just use my earnings to show some sincerity, right?” The more she turned the idea over, the more brilliant it seemed. “I’ll order a few premium servings of Almond Tofu and have the staff deliver them directly to the top floor balcony of Wangshu Inn.”
“Consider it… an anonymous apology gift.”
She had no guarantee the Adeptus would actually accept the sweets, or even materialize to look at them. But taking action was infinitely better than cowering in her room. At the very least, it was a tangible apology, a humble prayer that he would be magnanimous enough to let a foolish Melusine off the hook.
With a concrete plan in place, the crushing weight on Lovia’s chest finally lifted.
Perking up, she grabbed her coin purse and dumped it onto the bed, carefully counting out her Mora to calculate the travel expenses and the exorbitant cost of Wangshu Inn’s signature dish.
Her little treasury was currently overflowing thanks to her viral success, but parting with her hard-earned cash still sent a phantom ache through her heart.
Whatever. Think of it as paying protection money to avert a disaster.
“Conqueror of Demons, Great Immortal Xiao, I really didn’t do it on purpose. Please be the bigger person and spare my life!” she chanted to herself, already mapping out her itinerary for the next few days. “I have to pick a time when the inn is dead quiet. Just in case I accidentally bump into him… actually, let’s make sure I absolutely do not bump into him.”
She could only pray that a bowl of sweet, cold Almond Tofu would be enough to wash away the bitter taste of her rumors.
As for the height jokes… Lovia raised her right hand, solemnly swearing to the ceiling that if she ever dared to write about him again, she would give the Conqueror of Demons a towering, eight-foot-tall aura of pure, terrifying dominance!
Yes. That was exactly what she would do.