Teyvat, Liyue.
"Oh? Isn't this Miss Xueyi?" Hu Tao immediately perked up. The eerie atmosphere felt pretty spot-on, though this misty mountain-and-river setting with heavy yin energy didn't seem like the Xianzhou at all—it felt more like Teyvat.
"Judging from Miss Huohuo's reaction, this should be the scene from her first day on the job, right?" Zhongli remarked from the side.
"…So this is the Ten-Lords Commission?" Hu Tao's eyes widened. "No way! I imagined the Ten-Lords Commission would be super creepy, but building it in a place like this is way too scary!"
"Hehe… Hall Master, that's where you're mistaken."
Zhongli sat on the pearwood chair, leisurely holding his teacup as he spoke: "When Miss Huohuo was using the compass to locate earlier, I took a quick look. The Ten-Lords Commission sits in the Kan position facing the abyss, with the Gen palace missing a corner. The mountain form it relies on resembles a dragon spine split by a blade. In feng shui, there's the concept of 'Dragon-Slaying Momentum.' The Ten-Lords Commission chose this site specifically to counter yin spirits and resentment."
"Wow, Guest, you even know feng shui so well… Is there anything in the world you don't know?"
Hu Tao looked at Zhongli in admiration. Honestly, she couldn't figure out why. Her Guest didn't look particularly old, spent his days either walking birds or listening to operas, and she never saw him buried in books—yet when he spoke, it was always in perfect, encyclopedic detail, as if he knew everything about astronomy and geography.
"Hall Master flatters me. Feng shui is vast and profound; I merely know a little."
——
["Are you okay?"]
["Let me help you up…"]
[A hand suddenly reached toward Huohuo. She dazedly lifted her head, only to meet Hanya's paper-pale face. Instantly terrified out of her wits, she jolted in place—]
["Aaaaaah—!!"]
[Huohuo launched straight upward and fled desperately. She rushed past the mountain gate without noticing the stairs underfoot and tumbled head over heels down the mountain with a series of rolls.]
[Huohuo rubbed her head and climbed up from the ground. Before her stood an ancient, weathered gate. The paper on the door had long since decayed, swaying feebly in the wind with soft "pat-pat" sounds, as if something were gently slapping it.]
["Thump thump—!"]
[Something really was pounding from behind the door. The fragile wooden door could no longer withstand the impacts. With increasingly forceful "thump thump" sounds, Huohuo's pupils shrank into tiny black dots from sheer terror.]
[Until… the gate suddenly burst open. A blue ghostly soul shot out straight toward Huohuo!]
["I'm gonna eat you—!!"]
[Huohuo fainted backward in fright, falling straight off the sofa. Amid Tail's "hahahaha" laughter, her soul floated up with hands clasped in prayer.]
[Looking at the now colorless, collapsed Huohuo, Tail laughed until tears came: "You yourself said you wanted me to tell a horror story to train your courage—this is literally your first day on the job! Do you have to get this scared? Sigh…"]
[Seeing Huohuo's soul hovering in midair, Tail rammed into it with his body, shoving it back into hers.]
["That's enough courage training for today!"]
[Regaining consciousness, Huohuo gripped the remote, about to shut off the screen—only for Tail to snatch it away: "We're just getting started! Keep it going for this great one!"]
——
Demon Slayer.
"Aaaaaah—!!"
"So cuuuuuute!"
Zenitsu suddenly sprang up from the sickbed, curling into a boiled-shrimp shape and letting out an indescribable squeal, as if pink bubbles were popping above his head.
"If I could, I'd protect her for the rest of my life!!"
The entire Butterfly Mansion shook. Kiyo, who was hanging bedsheets to dry, trembled and dropped the freshly washed sheet onto the ground.
"Hah? I've got calluses in my ears from hearing that line." Inosuke's face was full of disgust. "You? What if you two ran into a demon? If both of you faint, this great one isn't carrying you back."
"Th-That was just an accident…!" Mentioning his habit of fainting from fear made Zenitsu's face turn liver-red instantly. "And why are you so sure I'd faint!? I'm not that cowardly, okay!? And after I faint, when I wake up the demon's already dead! And I'm covered in wounds! I don't even know what happened!!"
"Zenitsu…" Tanjiro gave an awkward laugh. Though he himself had no clue, as a companion Tanjiro knew Zenitsu's combat habits well—compared to conscious Zenitsu, the fainted version was actually more reliable.
——
[After playing around on the Xianzhou for a few days, Stelle suddenly received a message from Pom-Pom: the Express was heading to Planet Wash, so once she'd had enough fun outside, she should return early for spring cleaning.]
[After returning to the Express, Pom-Pom noticed a slight deviation in their course—a near-impossible occurrence for Pom-Pom, who always controlled navigation with pinpoint precision.]
[As Pom-Pom headed to the control room to check, the Express suddenly jolted violently. The carriage lights flickered out for a moment. When Stelle got up from the floor, she suddenly saw a massive black shadow flash past the window.]
[By the time March 7th pressed her face to the window to look, the shadow had vanished—replaced by a reddish cosmic vista outside.]
["Why did the view outside the Express window turn… like this? All red… What happened?" March 7th scratched her head in confusion.]
["Fell into the third dimension?"]
["Third dimension?" March 7th looked even more baffled. "What are you even saying… You don't expect me to understand that, do you?"]
[Dan Heng hurried over, explaining that the Express's path was currently blocked. The earlier disturbance had caused a chain reaction—a spaceship had rear-ended the Express. After the collision, two individuals had come aboard.]
[As he spoke, Dan Heng pointed to a red-haired man nearby who was murmuring to a potted plant.]
[The man wore silver armor in a medieval knight's style, with another figure who seemed like his attendant. This combination… for a moment, March 7th couldn't tell if they were here to cause trouble or what.]
[As Stelle and March approached, the Express lights suddenly dimmed. A spotlight beam shone down on the red-haired knight's head.]
["The glittering cosmos, anomalies on the other side blooming like paint—"] The knight bowed slightly, his voice low and gentle. He slowly raised his right hand; steel-armored fingers paused before the potted plant as if it weren't a plant, but a noble lady.]
["You… are truly beautiful."]