Genshin Impact: A Guide to the Unofficial History of Teyvat — Chapter 95

Chapter 95: An Amusing Revision of History

Permanent defensive structures could never be built upon the shifting, tempestuous sea. Faced with the combined invasion of ancient sea gods, the only method to suppress and seal those leviathans was through absolute, overwhelming power. That ancient war was not a simple confrontation between a fragile fishing village and the ocean waves, but a world-shaking collision between divine entities.

Under his command stood the Adepti and the Yakshas, but the true core of that apocalyptic battle was him alone, facing the raging, abyssal tides from the deep sea.

Ultimately, colossal stone spears fell from the heavens like a meteor shower. Every spear hurled into the depths contained enough Geo energy to suppress all creation. They did not merely crush the allied forces of the rogue gods; they firmly pinned several terrifying beings at the vanguard—along with their boundless ambitions and dark power—deep into the ocean floor. Those very weapons formed the towering geological anomaly known today as the Guyun Stone Forest.

Only then were the maritime disasters quelled. The surging tides were completely suppressed, granting Liyue Harbor the stability it needed to develop and take its true shape.

Zhongli withdrew his gaze from the distant horizon and let it fall once more upon the bound pages in his hand.

This manuscript interpreted the catastrophic Archon War as a mere struggle between mortal men and natural disasters. Even more amusingly, it replaced the world-shaking impact of his divine stone spears with the clever, mundane ingenuity of pickle jars.

Zhongli took a slow sip of his tea. The fragrance was crisp, clear, and grounding.

Those fictional pickle jars buried deep beneath the earthen foundations might not have truly resisted the wrath of a god, but the sheer will they symbolized shared the exact same origin as the real ancestors of Liyue. Under the protection of Rex Lapis, those early mortals had carved out a home on this unforgiving land with their own bleeding hands.

After all, what guarded this bustling port was never solely Rex Lapis’s stone spears, nor was it just those fictional jars. It was the mortals themselves, the ones who created, endured, and passed their legacy down through the generations amidst the warm glow of ten thousand homes.

Li Xin’s pen blended reality with fiction, using a simple ceramic jar as the thread to weave a historical scroll that belonged entirely to mortals, brimming with human warmth.

Outside the tea room window, the setting sun plated the countless roof tiles of Liyue Harbor in a layer of rich, golden brilliance. That warm color flowed over the glazed ceramics, and for a fleeting moment, they bore a striking resemblance to those humble pickle jars in the book, quietly carrying the heavy weight of everyday life.

The harsh truth of history remained buried deep beneath rock and time, while the vibrant, living stories of the people would continue to be written upon this land he had protected for over a millennium.

Zhongli remained seated in the quiet tea room for a long time.

The fragrant steam curled upward into the air as his gloved finger brushed against the rough edges of the paper.

This was already his second careful reading. After the initial novelty of the first pass, a second taste allowed him to better appreciate the deep meaning hidden beneath the playful lines. This author, Li Xin, seemed to write with an absurd, almost comedic touch, yet woven beneath the humor was rigorous logic and deep, genuine emotion.

“Old Pickler…” Zhongli murmured to the empty room.

The story of Old Pickler and the Jar Embankment did not stir even a single ripple of reality within the vast, ancient river of his memories.

Yet, the image of this entirely fictional character inexplicably overlapped with many blurred, nameless faces from his past. He remembered the countless ancestors who, caught in the brutal crossfire of the Archon War, still survived tenaciously amidst unimaginable hardships. They used their bare hands to forge a life and protect their families. They might not have left behind grand names carved in stone, but their wisdom, resilience, and unity were the true foundation upon which Liyue was built. It was a force far more deep than any divine weapon.

He flipped the pages back to the first chapter, his golden eyes lingering on the passage where Old Pickler rallied the terrified villagers to construct the Jar Embankment.

“Bring out all the jars, fill them with silt and sand, and pile them up! The higher the better!”

That sudden flash of inspiration in a desperate situation was not a divine revelation granted from the heavens. It originated entirely from Old Pickler’s lifelong, mundane experience dealing with ceramics. The old man knew these jars were heavy and sturdy, their curved structures naturally resistant to crushing pressure, and their centers of gravity perfectly stable once packed with wet sand.

This was the brilliant burst of mortal wisdom at the very precipice of life and death.

The narrative detailed exactly how the Jar Embankment neutralized the kinetic impact of the crashing waves. Although the author used it to explain a defense against divine wrath, the underlying principle perfectly aligned with the concepts of dispersing impact force and energy dissipation found in modern Liyue engineering.

This was no longer just a whimsical fantasy; it was a highly practical engineering philosophy born from careful observation of the world.

Zhongli’s finger traced the text in the second chapter, reading the description of the foundation-setting process and the accidental birth of glazed tiles.

“Filling the jars with sand symbolizes carrying things with great virtue; their circular shape signifies reunion and perfection; the tightly sealed mouth further implies the deep meaning of stability and thoroughness.”

Once a simple action was endowed with cultural meaning, it transcended the physical material itself. The desperate act of burying jars evolved from practical flood control into a beautiful custom of praying for peace. This was a perfect microcosm of how mortal civilization evolved, elevating basic survival technology into lasting spiritual sustenance.

The book also attributed the creation of tube tiles and glazed tiles directly to the inspiration of those pickle jars. This was, naturally, a massive leap of literary imagination. The actual historical birth of glazed tiles was a hard-won miracle, the result of countless kiln fires, crushed minerals, and the bitter experience of craftsmen enduring thousands of failures. The real process was infinitely more complex and agonizing than simply knocking over a pot of colored pigment.

But did this romantic association not prove something valuable in its own right?

To link the stunning glazed tiles that covered the grandest pavilions of Liyue with the simple, crude pickle jars sitting under the eaves of every common household was a beautiful form of imagination.

The common folk might have long forgotten exactly how the real glazed tiles were developed or the names of the craftsmen who invented them. Yet, they instinctively remembered and praised this spark of creativity that bloomed from the dirt of mundane daily life.

This was not a malicious distortion of history, but rather a different form of remembrance. What the people chose to remember was not a specific, verifiable date or event, but the enduring spirit of their ancestors—the refusal to surrender hope in desperate straits, the cleverness to use ordinary objects, and the strength to unite as one.

The overturned pigments, the crushed sea minerals, the intense tempering of the kiln fire… everything in the novel read like a string of lucky coincidences, but it perfectly mirrored the real, continuous attempts of Liyue’s ancient craftsmen.

Zhongli’s gaze finally settled on the third chapter. He read about the forgotten records buried in time, the ancient jars dug up from the earth but recognized by no one, and the house-settling ceremony that now existed only as an empty form.

“They remained silent, as if they had much to say but hesitated.”

That single sentence carried a heavy trace of historical melancholy.

True feats of greatness were often forgotten by the masses, leaving behind only blurred traces and altered traditions. But Zhongli saw something far more precious within those lines: the stubborn vitality of inheritance.

Even if the original meaning had become entirely blurred by the passage of centuries, the physical form of the tradition had been preserved. It was like a sleeping spark buried in the ash, simply waiting for the possibility of being reignited and understood by a new generation.

Throughout the entire manuscript, there was not a single mention of the rule of man, yet every single paragraph was a love letter to the power of humanity.

Facing disaster, they relied on mortal quick-wittedness and unity. Building their homes, they relied on mortal skill and inheritance. Continuing their culture, they relied on mortals endowing ordinary objects with spirit, constantly adapting through the relentless march of time.

This philosophy produced a deep harmony with his own ultimate goal: ending his divine contract and returning Liyue entirely to humanity itself.

The specific house-settling ceremony described in the pages did not actually exist in Liyue’s historical records; it was purely a product of the author’s imagination. But the people of Liyue would read it and feel a deep cultural identity with the practice. That reaction alone proved that the spirit of the story already constituted a core part of Liyue’s foundation.

Outside the window, the evening twilight deepened into a rich purple.

The cold truth of history was forged by stone spears, binding contracts, and bloody sacrifice.

But the warm stories of the mortal world were nourished by hope, wisdom, and endless inheritance.

The two concepts were not mutually exclusive. Together, they constituted the Liyue Harbor of today.

Although this novel depicted events that were entirely fictional, it managed to touch upon a much deeper truth. In this new era, where gods and demons were slowly exiting the grand stage and the rule of man was rapidly rising, such warm stories might be far better at telling the people of Liyue where they came from. A fictional tale of pickle jars could convey the indomitable soul of their ancestors far better than a cold, weathering stone inscription.

As for this mysterious author, Li Xin…

A faint, nearly imperceptible smile touched the corners of Zhongli’s mouth.

A being capable of writing such a story, whoever they might truly be, possessed an understanding of Liyue and of humanity that had already transcended the rigid boundaries between the mundane and the divine.

Let her continue writing. In this vibrant land he had finally handed over to the people, having a few more of these absurd histories was perhaps not a bad thing at all.

Although Li Xin’s other published works depicted the majestic Geo Archon as a lazy, idle deity and wrote about entirely fabricated events with absolute conviction, he did not feel the slightest bit offended when he read them. Instead, he found the entire situation deeply amusing.

In her stories, the untouchable deity no longer sat high upon a cold divine throne, but walked freely through the noisy, bustling marketplaces.

His thoughts drifted to the massive public uproar that Li Xin’s previous book, Secret Tales of Feiyun, had sparked across Liyue Harbor.

By normal logic, such scandalous arrangements and rumors would likely lead to a swift and brutal lawsuit. But the powerful Feiyun Commerce Guild only offered a helpless, collective smile and chose not to pursue the matter. Instead, because of the massive wave of unexpected public attention, their business flourished even more than before.

When the common folk gossiped about these absurd anecdotes over tea or after a heavy meal, the light flickering in their eyes was mostly well-intentioned teasing and a genuine love for a good story.

This was, perhaps, where Liyue Harbor’s unique and enduring vitality truly lay: in its vast, total tolerance.

As long as an act was harmless, did not violate the sacred spirit of the contract, and all parties involved were in agreement, the people were more than happy to see a bit more vibrant color added to their daily lives.

As a deity, he was once the living legend itself. He was the absolute maker of rules and the silent witness of history. Now, having laid down that crushing burden to become a simple consultant wandering the mortal world, he was more like a quiet observer. He watched with quiet pride as his people, having broken free from the shadow of gods, used their own unique ways to record, interpret, and even create the world in their eyes.

As long as it did not cross the bottom line or cause dangerous public panic, these seemingly absurd narratives were a beautiful manifestation of civilizational vitality. They were the very blossoms of freedom blooming under the new rule of man.

Zhongli picked up his teacup. The liquid had already grown slightly cold, but he drank it in one smooth gulp.

He stood up from the table, carefully tucked the fictional history book into his coat, and walked out of the quiet tea room with a composed, unhurried pace, smoothly merging into the bustling, brightly lit night of Liyue Harbor.