Genshin Impact: A Guide to the Unofficial History of Teyvat — Chapter 56

Chapter 56: Yelan’s Doubts

While Lovia remained blissfully sequestered in her cramped shack, furiously drafting the manuscript for Guoba, the God of Cookery, she had absolutely no idea that her iconic, oversized hood and perpetually paranoid scurrying had already caught the attention of Liyue’s most dangerous predator.

The owner of those sharp, calculating eyes was a woman who commanded the very shadows of the harbor.

As the master of intelligence and secret affairs for Liyue, Yelan’s primary duty was to monitor the dark undercurrents beneath the city’s prosperous surface. To the ordinary citizen, a peculiar, skittish little creature like Lovia might warrant nothing more than a passing glance. To Yelan, however, the sudden appearance of an undocumented anomaly was enough to trigger a silent alarm.

Shortly after Lovia rented that dilapidated shack near the dockyard, Yelan locked onto her.

She observed a “child” who kept her face carefully hidden beneath a heavy cloak, operating with total independence. This stranger purchased massive quantities of paper and food, yet lived in absolute seclusion. She never played with the local children, avoided eye contact with her neighbors, and possessed a borderline neurotic aversion to open spaces. More, a thorough sweep of Liyue Harbor’s household registry yielded zero results. It was as if the girl had simply materialized out of thin air.

That alone was enough to warrant a shadow operation.

Operating on instinct, Yelan initiated a covert surveillance routine. She watched from the rooftops as the tiny figure carefully handled the bustling market, hoarding supplies. She was there, blending perfectly into the background, during that amusing encounter at the stationery store with Xingqiu and Chongyun. Yelan had witnessed the entire exchange, finding the young masters’ bewildered reactions—and the brief, panicked reveal of the little creature’s true face—highly entertaining.

Within days, Yelan had mapped out Lovia’s general territory and active hours.

However, what truly caused the spymaster a rare flash of frustration was the sheer impossibility of closing the net. Whenever Yelan attempted to push the surveillance a step further—such as pinpointing the exact location of the girl’s nest beyond a vague dockyard perimeter—she would inexplicably lose the trail at the very last second.

Whenever Yelan moved to close the distance, the universe itself seemed to intervene.

Sometimes, a patrolling squad of Millelith would suddenly round a corner, forcing Yelan to hold her position. Other times, a burly dockworker pushing a towering handcart of heavy cargo would perfectly eclipse the alleyway. Once, a trio of stray cats knocked over a stack of empty crates, the sudden clatter causing the little blue creature to instantly shrink back into the shadows and bolt like a startled rabbit, completely shattering Yelan’s line of sight.

The most ridiculous instance occurred under the cover of a moonless night. Yelan had finally narrowed down the specific alley leading to the girl’s shack. She melted into the darkness, her footsteps entirely silent, preparing to breach the perimeter.

Just as she leaned past a stack of wooden crates, a heavily intoxicated sailor stumbled out of a nearby tavern, violently retching his guts out directly onto the cobblestones inches from Yelan’s hiding spot. The overwhelming stench of cheap alcohol and the ensuing commotion forced the spymaster to abandon the approach and retreat into the night.

Once or twice could be written off as mere coincidence. But after a dozen identical failures, a deep, burning curiosity began to swirl within Yelan’s usually lazy, sharp eyes.

“Interesting…” Yelan murmured, leaning against a damp brick wall in the shadows. She idly rolled a pair of hydro dice across her knuckles, watching from afar as the little blue anomaly miraculously slipped out of her line of sight yet again. “Is it just an absurd amount of dumb luck? Or… some kind of innate survival instinct?”

This unmatched streak of evasions didn’t deter Yelan; it completely hooked her.

She began to suspect that this mysterious entity was far more complex than a simple undocumented refugee. It wasn’t just her hidden identity; the creature herself seemed to possess a reality-bending aura.

A Melusine?

The concept wasn’t entirely absent from Yelan’s vast mental database. They were an intelligent, non-human species unique to Fontaine—generally known to be kind, docile, and deeply integrated into Fontainian society.

Regardless of her species, this “Lovia” had officially earned a spot on Yelan’s list of high-priority targets.

Instead of forcing a direct confrontation, Yelan adapted. She shifted to a patient, wide-net observation strategy. Like a veteran hunter, she cast an invisible web of informants across the docks, perfectly content to wait and see where this peculiar little fish would eventually swim, and what dark secrets she might drag up from the depths.

Because of this wider net, Yelan didn’t need to be physically present to know about Lovia’s accidental encounter with Xingqiu by the bay. Her informants reported the entire incident. Yelan carefully noted Xingqiu’s lack of follow-up action in the subsequent days, as well as Lovia’s drastic behavioral shift—barricading herself inside her shack like a terrified bird.

‘The second young master of the Feiyun Commerce Guild…’Yelan mused, tapping her chin.’It seems that brief meeting spooked our little friend quite badly. That kid Xingqiu has a dangerous amount of curiosity, but he knows when to hold his cards. He clearly noticed something off about her, yet chose to stay his hand. How fascinating.’

Initially, Yelan suspected Lovia might be a legitimate writer, given the sheer volume of paper and ink she hoarded. Yet, she never saw the girl submit a single manuscript to any publishing house. Was she merely keeping an obsessive diary? Practicing calligraphy to pass the time?

As the days bled into weeks, the surveillance logs painted a surprisingly mundane picture.

Aside from her ghostly movements and her infuriatingly perfect luck, the Melusine’s routine was painfully simple. She only left her shack to buy basic necessities or to grab a cheap meal from an elderly woman’s street stall. Yelan had thoroughly vetted the old vendor—she was clean. The rest of the time, Lovia was either huddled in her room or swimming in the ocean to catch fresh fish.

There were no dead drops. No secret meetings with foreign operatives. Not even a single instance of petty theft. Her greatest crime was simply being a non-human with a severe anxiety disorder.

As for her source of income, Yelan drew a logical conclusion: Melusines often held clerical or civil service positions in Fontaine. The Mora she spent was likely just her personal life savings brought over from her homeland.

Combining this with the known psychological profile of Melusines—gentle, non-confrontational, and eager to please—Yelan officially ruled out Lovia as a threat to national security.

“It seems she really is just a timid little creature who washed up on our shores by mistake,” Yelan whispered to the empty room, snapping the dossier shut. She stamped the file with a ‘Low Risk’ seal and tossed it into the archives.

Expending Liyue’s elite intelligence resources on a terrified foreigner who just wanted to eat grilled fish in peace was a terrible return on investment.

Right on cue, a flurry of urgent reports landed on her desk. Several high-stakes commercial espionage cases involving Snezhnayan operatives, coupled with abnormal, violent tremors echoing from the depths of The Chasm, demanded her immediate attention.

Naturally, the shadow detail on the little blue Melusine was dissolved. Yelan recalled her elite watchers, leaving only the standard street-level informants in place. Lovia faded into the background noise of the city.

However, not long after Yelan’s gaze shifted toward The Chasm, a bizarre new literary trend began to sweep through the teahouses and back alleys of Liyue Harbor.

It started as a whisper, but quickly escalated into a roar that breached even Yelan’s fortified office.

The author operated under the pen name “Li Xin.”

The works were entirely unmatched. They featured outrageously bold themes and a chaotic, almost hallucinogenic writing style. Yet, their greatest draw was how they took the most revered, untouchable figures of Liyue Harbor and thrust them into wildly imaginative, yet inexplicably grounded, mundane scenarios.

At first, Yelan’s subordinates flagged the circulating pamphlets as mere “folk anecdotes” or trashy unofficial histories. Yelan ignored them. Liyue’s publishing industry churned out hundreds of cheap fantasy novels a week; she didn’t have the time to play literary critic.

That was, until a specific, brightly colored booklet found its way onto her desk, accidentally mixed into a stack of classified intelligence regarding Fatui merchant vessels.

The title read: Record of Shi Po’s Wanderings · Part One: Lord Jueyun Chili Didn’t Bring Mora Today.

Exhausted from tracking Snezhnayan spies, Yelan picked up the booklet, intending to use the trashy novel to rest her eyes for a few minutes.

She read the first page. Then the second.

The lazy, exhausted droop of her eyelids vanished entirely. Her posture straightened. The temperature in the room seemed to drop as her sharp eyes locked onto the ink.

Lord Jueyun Chili? A majestic, ancient figure wandering the mortal realm, buying expensive trinkets, dining at the finest pavilions, and then casually sending the astronomical bills directly to Yuehai Pavilion? Specifically instructing the merchants to have “a girl named Ningguang” settle his tabs?

The prose was playful, almost mocking, depicting the absurd reality of a god attempting to live as a mortal.

But it was the details that made Yelan’s blood run cold. The subtle descriptions of “Lord Jueyun Chili’s” posture, the specific cadence of his archaic speech, the terrifying, suffocating aura of absolute authority hidden beneath a calm, polite demeanor—these were not things a cheap street novelist could simply invent.

Worse still was the author’s terrifyingly accurate grasp of Liyue’s highest political echelons. The casual, matter-of-fact way the narrative treated the Tianquan as nothing more than a glorified accountant for this wandering deity was staggering.

Yelan’s mind raced, connecting invisible dots. She remembered the recent, hushed rumors bleeding through the streets—whispers of a “Lord Jueyun Chili” that she had previously dismissed as peasant gossip.

She stared at the booklet, her knuckles turning white.

If the mannerisms in this book were accurate… If the sheer, unbothered arrogance of sending bills to the Tianquan was based on reality…

Lord Jueyun Chili… was Rex Lapis?!