Genshin Impact: A Guide to the Unofficial History of Teyvat — Chapter 91

Chapter 91: Today’s Outcome, The Cellar’s Defeat

The morning after she submitted her latest manuscript.

Lovia stood dead center in her little shed, clutching a small iron shovel. She tapped the ground beneath her feet with the toe of her boot, feeling utterly helpless.

She had purchased this specific shovel for one grand purpose, even taking care to select a size that wouldn’t overwhelm her. Yet, gripping the cold metal shaft now, it still felt awkwardly heavy in her delicate hands.

The soil beneath her boots carried that distinct, briny dampness unique to the seaside, and it wasn’t exactly hard-packed earth.

During a previous survey of her living conditions, she had discovered that the foundation of this tiny hut was laid with alarming casualness. It was less “built” and more simply “placed” atop the soft, yielding coastal terrain.

Her grand vision had been to dig downward in a quiet corner, hollowing out a modest cellar to store long-lasting food supplies and perhaps serve as a cozy little refuge.

But just moments ago, she had tentatively poked the tip of the shovel into the dirt as a trial run. At less than half an arm’s depth, she could already feel the terrifying looseness and moisture of the earth below.

Digging any deeper?

She feared that before her dream cellar could even take shape, this fragile little dwelling she relied on for her livelihood would perform a spectacular, house-collapsing subsidence.

Or worse, the floor might just give way entirely, dropping her down and offering her a very up-close, personal view of the sea.

“Sigh…” Lovia let out a long, weary breath.

Ideals were wonderfully plump, but reality… reality’s geological conditions simply refused to cooperate.

Lovia squatted down, poked the slightly moist earth with her fingertip, and muttered softly, “But… but in the storybooks, everyone can dig amazing cellars under their seaside houses.”

She tilted her head, glaring seriously at the iron shovel in her hands.

“Could it be that it’s not the soil’s fault, but that my digging posture is just wrong?” Lovia stood back up, gripping the shovel handle tightly with both hands and widening her stance into what she assumed was a highly professional digging pose. As a result, the heavy iron spade threw off her center of gravity, making her wobble violently until she nearly lost her footing.

“A-alright, let’s just put this aside for now.” She decided to spare the precarious ground for the moment, and also to save her own poor, aching hands.

After leaning the treacherous shovel against the wall, Lovia’s gaze drifted back to the small gap she had poked in the floor.

The damp, dark soil sat exposed, surrounded by relatively clean wooden floorboards, looking like a glaring eyesore.

“As expected… it’s much safer to just use wooden crates.” She nodded to herself, as if trying desperately to convince her own brain. “As for the cellar… let’s just pretend it never existed! Right, I never even entertained the thought of digging a cellar, and it is absolutely not because I lack the physical capability to dig one!”

But right now, she had to clean up the evidence first.

Lovia crouched down again, using her bare hands to scoop the scattered, crumbly soil back into the small hole, handful by handful. As she patted the dirt into place, she whispered a quiet prayer, “…I’m filling you back in now. Please don’t collapse anymore. I really don’t have the Mora to build a new house…”

The soil obediently settled back into the cavity, but after she pressed it down flat with her palms, the center remained slightly concave, its color a shade darker than the surrounding earth.

Next came the thick wooden floorboard she had so carefully pried up earlier to help her excavation. However, the edges of the old wood had splintered slightly during the removal process, making it incredibly stubborn when she tried to slot it back in smoothly. She wrestled with it several times, but either the left side would bulge up, or the right side would sink down.

‘Damn it! What a piece of junk board!’

She was getting anxious. Tiny, glistening beads of sweat formed on the tip of her nose, and her cheeks flushed a soft pink from the physical exertion. In the end, she had to half-kneel on the floor, using her entire body weight to gradually force the warped edges flat and align them with sheer stubbornness.

When the stubborn board finally snapped back into its rightful place with a loud clack, forming a roughly level surface with the rest of the floor, Lovia let out a massive, exhausted sigh of relief.

She had finally managed to fix it!

“Alright!” she announced to the empty, quiet hut and to herself. “The cellar plan is officially canceled! From now on, I will exclusively rely on wooden crates for all my storage needs.”

Though a tiny pang of regret lingered in her heart, seeing the floor restored to its original state brought her a deep sense of security.

At least her house was saved, and the floorboard wasn’t a gaping hazard; otherwise, it would have been a total disaster.

She dusted off her dirt-stained hands. The comforting relief only lasted for a brief moment. As her eyes swept over the useless iron shovel sulking in the corner, and then back to the floor she had just repaired, a fresh wave of frustration quietly bubbled up again.

“Sigh, if only the ground were just a little sturdier…” she grumbled under her breath, wandering aimlessly toward a dim corner of the room.

Sitting there were several empty clay jars she had sorted out days ago, dusty relics left behind by the hut’s previous owner. She used to fill them with seawater to increase the ambient humidity in the room, but quickly discovered that doing so turned her cozy little nest into a damp swamp, even threatening to grow mold on her precious manuscript papers. She had been forced to stop, leaving the heavy clay jars empty and abandoned, occasionally serving as makeshift bins for random trinkets that had nowhere else to go.

Lovia absentmindedly tapped the side of one jar with the toe of her boot. The curved ceramic body felt cool to the touch and incredibly solid.

At that exact moment, a vivid image crashed into her mind without a single warning.

Beside a collapsed coastal hut, desperate villagers were frantically shoveling wet sand into identical clay jars, stacking the heavy, earth-filled vessels atop one another to form a desperate, unyielding wall against the raging ocean waves.

“Using… jars?” Lovia blinked, her eyelashes fluttering as she stood startled by her own sudden idea.

She looked down at the ground beneath her boots—soft, damp, and entirely incapable of bearing heavy loads. Then, she slowly raised her eyes to the sturdy clay jar. When empty, it seemed like an ordinary, fragile container. But if it were packed tight with heavy sand, its weight and structural stability would multiply. She visualized burying these solid, curved jars one by one deep into the yielding coastal soil, packing them together like an interlocking grid of foundation stones.

With the jars filled with compacted earth, countless vessels supporting one another, their curved ceramic walls could perfectly disperse the crushing pressure from above, while simultaneously dissipating the violent impact of the incoming tides… From jar foundations to jar dikes, and eventually evolving into the very tiles that inspired the sweeping roofs of Liyue… the historical logic clicked into place with a resounding snap!

Lovia’s eyes grew brighter and brighter.

“Yes! That’s exactly it!” She practically jumped into the air, excitedly announcing her revelation to the empty room. “It wasn’t because Rex Lapis simply descended from the heavens and used Adeptal arts to conjure sturdy houses out of thin air! It was because the Ancients used the most common, everyday items at their disposal to lay the very first foundations for themselves! This is the true, historical meaning of establishing a foundation!”

She let out a highly contented sigh, looking at the damp ground, then at the clay jars in the corner, a radiant smile of absolute relief washing over her face.

Her real-life cellar plan might have ended in a catastrophic failure, but it had birthed a priceless spark of creative inspiration for her stories.

Therefore, today’s final outcome: the cellar’s defeat, Lovia’s victory!!

She spun on her heel, carefully tiptoeing around the floorboard she had just wrestled into submission, and marched toward her writing desk with a delightfully light heart, ready to write down this sudden flash of genius in careful detail.

Perhaps, she mused, she could quietly slip a tiny line into the author’s notes at the very end of the chapter: ‘Inspiration for this historical breakthrough derived from a failed cellar digging project.’

How amusing would that be!

Of course, it was merely a passing, joking thought; she was a professional author, and there was absolutely no way she would ever publish something so incredibly embarrassing.