Cold Blooded

The Feiyun Commerce Guild

They arrived at Liyue Harbor in a few days. Saya explained everything that had happened to Zyrenia and Andrei. The captain and his first mate turned their ship towards Liyue without a second thought and then they were on their way.

Chongyun mostly just ran about the ship and no one gave him any trouble. Zyrenia and Andrei were the only members of the crew that knew the truth, but the other members also helped look after the little boy on occasion. Ajax stayed below decks behind a stack of crates in order to avoid the stir of finding a harbinger on board.

He sat there and fiddled his thumbs and played with the string of his bow. There wasn't really much to do down there, so he was forced to actually think back over everything that had happened these past few days.

When the captain had discovered them below decks and Ajax had challenged the man to a fight, he hadn't felt the surge of excitement that usually came with it. As he sat below decks, he began to realize that the hunger for battle and chaos that had lived inside him was gone.

He had felt it drain out of him as he crossed over the bridge, but it had been so much of his life, driven so many of his actions, and now it was just... gone. He was tempted to attempt activating his foul legacy, but he knew that would tear the ship apart. Not to mention, he was nowhere near recovered enough for that.

Loud footsteps thudded over head and Ajax let out a long sigh. He climbed atop some crates and put his ear to the roof, hoping to catch a few words from above deck.

"Sir! Liyue harbor ahead! Ready to enter port?" Someone called out above.

"Ready!" the captain's gruff voice responded.

So they had finally made it to Liyue. Now what?

-<>-

Xingqiu looked out the window of his office and sighed. A few ships lazily pulled in and out of the port. It was a day like any other. As the second son in line for the Feiyun Commerce Guild, Xingqiu did all that he could to help out his older brother.

He was mainly in charge of keeping track of the ships that came in and out of the harbor and making sure that they all had the proper registrations to be docking. He had actually picked up the job about five years ago in order to...

"Nope," Xingqui picked up the document in front of him and tried to focus on the words before him. "You're not going back down that rabbit hole again. He's gone. He left a letter for you and Hu Tao confirmed it. He's gone." and it's all your fault.

Xingqui shook his head. He had to stop thinking back to that day. He had to stop it. He was just going to drive himself mad all over again.

Before he knew what he was doing, he had reached into the bottom drawer of his desk and popped open the secret compartment. Before he knew why he had done it, Xingqiu pulled out an old worn log and set it atop his desk.

He just needed to look over the proof again. He just needed to confirm that there was no way that Chongyyu- he could have been taken out of Liyue.

He opened up the log and flipped through the pages. After the day that Xingqiu had lost his best friend, he fell into a deep pit of denial. No one found the body, maybe he had just been smuggled out of Liyue. That's what he told himself over and over again. Xingqiu had gone to his father and searched through all the ships that had left Liyue harbor that day. When that yielded no results, he had extended his search for weeks. Hoping that somewhere in all that would be a clue, but he never found anything.

Xingqui shook his head as he flipped through the pages filled with scribbles, crossed out names, and circled names that had later been crossed out. His entire search had been fruitless and honestly a waste of effort and time. He had personally checked every ship that had departed that day when it redocked. Every. Single. Ship. and not a single clue.