Chapter 156: The Hypocritical Adeptal Fowl (Patreon)

It had really just been an angry outburst — back then she'd tried to get Piers and Ganyu married off, only for both of them to refuse.

"W-well, this Adeptus never told you to ambush him!"

She wanted to argue further — to at least make clear she hadn't directly told Shenhe to ambush Piers — but her voice trailed off, growing smaller without her noticing.

"If I don't ambush him... I can't beat Junior Brother Piers."

Shenhe said it with total sincerity, without the slightest hesitation.

For a moment, the person and the bird present were both left speechless.

Piers's eye twitched, while Cloud Retainer simply turned her face away.

"What this Adeptus means is, next time you see Piers, tell him this Adeptus wants to see him, then bring him over."

Cloud Retainer looked back at Shenhe, trying hard to make herself clear.

"But what if Junior Brother Piers won't come?"

Shenhe tilted her head, apparently giving the question serious thought.

Piers watched for a good while before he finally worked out Shenhe's logic: telling him to go find Cloud Retainer himself might get refused, and if he refused, the only way to carry out Cloud Retainer's order would be to tie him up and drag him over — so... why not just skip straight to tying him up?

He sighed and didn't interrupt.

"Adeptus."

Piers stood there with his arms crossed, staring at Cloud Retainer.

"All right, all right, it's this Adeptus's fault, this Adeptus didn't explain clearly. That's enough. Shenhe, go on back for now — from now on, if you see Piers, you don't need to do anything about it."

Cloud Retainer flapped her wings, clearly eager to sweep the whole matter under the rug.

"Understood."

Shenhe agreed with total solemnity, even nodding at Cloud Retainer.

Piers, though, doubted she'd really understood at all. Watching her walk away, he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd probably end up tied up again next time.

Once Shenhe had left, Cloud Retainer shifted into human form.

She smoothed her sleeves, settling back into her usual adept bearing, though her eyes still carried a trace of unease.

"You went back to Liyue and didn't even give this Adeptus a heads-up first? What, don't you consider this Adeptus your elder?"

She looked at Piers, her tone carrying a note of reproach.

As if he could tell her that. The second he said anything, she'd have a wedding dress ready within the next breath.

That's what Piers thought, though he kept it to himself.

"I had business this time going back to Liyue, so I didn't get the chance to..."

"When have you ever gone back to Liyue without business? Sigh — was it really so terrible that this Adeptus tried to make a match between you and Ganyu? Do you have to shun this Adeptus over it?"

Cloud Retainer suddenly seemed struck by an old woman's weariness, her voice dropping low, like that line, 'Everyone's busy, busy — busy is good, I suppose...'

She sighed, gazing toward the distant mountains.

"You needn't dwell on this so much, Adeptus. Since Senior Sister Ganyu and I are both adepts with such long lifespans, there's no need to rush."

Piers tried to soothe her, his tone gentler now.

"You're not the one who needs to rush. Poor Ganyu — that child is already over three thousand years old. How old are you, exactly?"

Cloud Retainer turned her head, a trace of resentment in her eyes.

Piers, cornered and helpless, could see this topic was going nowhere, so he changed the subject.

He cleared his throat lightly and straightened up.

"I really do have something important this time coming to Liyue, and it concerns you, Adeptus."

"Concerns this Adeptus? This Adeptus stopped overseeing Liyue Harbor long ago. What could possibly concern this Adeptus now?"

Cloud Retainer's attention was indeed diverted, her brow lifting slightly.

"It's not about Liyue Harbor. It's about an old friend of yours, Adeptus — one you haven't seen in a long while.

Piers raised the little bell on his wrist with a mysterious air. It swayed slightly but made no sound.

"Sister Guizhong, what's this? Aren't you going to come out and see your old friend?"

The moment he finished speaking, the air fell silent for an instant.

The very instant Piers finished speaking, Guizhong came running out of the cavern realm, smiling brightly at Cloud Retainer.

Her appearance was abrupt, her sleeves stirring a faint gust of dust, a bright smile on her face.

In that instant, Cloud Retainer's expression darkened at once.

"What demon dares show its face here! How dare you impersonate this Adeptus's old friend and bewitch her disciple."

Her voice turned suddenly cold, without a trace of warmth.

The next instant, a violent gale swept across the mountaintop. Everything caught in it — rock or plant alike — was ground to dust and sent floating into the air.

Wind pressure surged in from every direction. Piers's robes whipped wildly, and loose stones tumbled away beneath his feet.

Cloud Retainer stood unmoving at the eye of the storm, her eyes lit with an eerie green glow, and a jade-green fan materialized out of thin air in her hand.

The fan was translucent throughout, its edges gleaming with a cold light.

"Adeptus! Don't—"

Piers barely got the words out before the wind tore his voice into fragments.

"Quite the formidable demon. Could you be some Archon left over from the Archon War? This Adeptus can't see through you at all — your appearance and aura are flawless mimicry."

Cloud Retainer glared at Guizhong, the eerie light in her eyes growing brighter, the fan in her hand rising slowly.

The wind around her grew fiercer still. Step by step she advanced toward Piers, and every rise in the terrain around them was shaved flat. The clear sky over Mt. Aocang filled with dark clouds.

The sky above the peak darkened rapidly. Black clouds pressed down low, and the air filled with the smell of scorched earth.

Then the clouds above descended, enveloping Cloud Retainer entirely and lifting her into the air — treading clouds, riding the wind, every bit the image of an adept.

Those clouds should have been white, pure and unblemished — but now they crackled with lightning, bolts darting through the cloud layer with sharp, snapping cracks.

"Whoever you are, you dared to appear in the likeness of this Adeptus's old friend and deceive her disciple. The wind and clouds of this place will carry word to Rex Lapis and the adepts. You will not leave here today!"

Cloud Retainer's voice rang out from within the clouds, echoing across the mountaintop.

Almost the instant she finished speaking, she raised her hand and swept out a wind blade wrapped in black cloud. The blade moved with tremendous speed, plowing deep furrows into the ground wherever it passed.

Piers instinctively moved to block it, shifting his footing.

But the wind blade suddenly split in two, curving around Piers before converging again behind him — its trajectory so precise it seemed calculated in advance.

The next second, Cloud Retainer, who had been standing on the cloud, vanished — and the wind blade she'd unleashed abruptly took on her own shape.

Her figure coalesced behind Piers, moving too fast to track.

Wrapped in howling wind, her form emerged before Guizhong swathed in lightning-streaked black cloud. Her adeptal weapon, [Crane's Echoing Calling Call], swung down at a wicked slant toward Guizhong, aimed straight for a vital point.

But Guizhong twisted her body and slipped past the strike, light on her feet, with no wasted flourish.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Cloud Retainer, oh Cloud Retainer — we haven't seen each other in several thousand years, and your hand-to-hand skills have actually gotten worse. I've seen this move of yours more times than I can count, and you're still trying it on me?"

Guizhong said this with a smile even tugging at the corners of her mouth.

Even as she spoke, Cloud Retainer's next strike came right on its heels, with no intention of listening to a word Guizhong said.

This strike came faster than the last, the fan slicing through the air with a shrill shriek.

But Guizhong dodged this one easily too, sidestepping with a flick, a few strands of hair lifting in the wind.

Seeing how effortlessly she was dodging, Piers didn't rush to intervene. He stepped back a few paces, settling in to watch the show.

He found a slightly flatter spot to stand, crossed his arms over his chest, and let his eyes flick back and forth between the two of them.

Adeptus Cloud Retainer kept attacking while Guizhong kept retreating, nearly every strike and stance dodged by the barest of margins.

The danger wasn't that Guizhong struggled to dodge — it was that she always slipped away right at the instant of impact, each dodge cutting an unnervingly narrow angle, as though she were grazing past every blow.

The hem of her robe brushed against the wind blades more than once, yet she was never truly harmed.

To any onlooker it looked terrifying, but Guizhong's leisurely expression showed not a hint of panic — if anything, she looked almost bored with the dodging.

She even found a spare moment to stretch, the motion utterly casual.

"Hey, hey, Cloud Retainer, that's about enough. It's been thousands of years and you're still using the same old moves. Don't you have anything new?"

Guizhong's tone carried a note of exasperation, like she was coaxing a tantrum-throwing child.

By now Cloud Retainer seemed to have lost herself in the fight, not hearing a word Guizhong said. Every time Guizhong dodged, she only sped up her next attack.

Her strikes grew denser and denser, wind blades and lightning weaving together into a solid mass.

"And another thing — Little Piers, are you seriously just going to stand there watching?"

Guizhong suddenly turned to complain at Piers, her tone tinged with a playful pout.

"Sister Guizhong, you're dodging just fine — looks like you don't need me at all."

Piers stood off to the side, shrugging, his tone unhurried.

"I've only recovered this much of my power — I can't exactly pin Cloud Retainer down. What, are you really planning to make me keep dodging like this forever?"

Even as she spoke, Guizhong sidestepped again, barely slipping past a vertical strike.

Clang—!

Suddenly, the ring of metal striking metal rang out, sharp and clear.

Guizhong instinctively looked back, only to find Cloud Retainer's adeptal weapon nearly pressed against her own forehead.

The fan stopped less than an inch from the center of her brow, lightning already reflecting off her face.

Beside her, Piers had raised his hand, threads of adept power spun from his fingers reaching out to Guizhong and forming a barrier.

The barrier glowed with a faint golden light, blocking the fan's edge dead in its tracks, without so much as a tremor.

"Piers! Your cultivation is too shallow — you can't tell right from wrong. This thing masquerading as Haagentus is clearly someone who crossed blades with this Adeptus a thousand years ago, which is why my moves seem so familiar to her. This Adeptus deliberately used ordinary techniques to lower her guard, all leading up to this killing blow — why did you interfere!

Cloud Retainer roared in fury, her voice cutting clear through the raging wind.

The adeptal weapon in her hand kept bearing down harder, the fan's surface humming.

The next instant, Cloud Retainer's adept power surged even stronger. A wind blade she loosed sheared off a third of Mt. Aocang, and the dark clouds overhead spread all the way to Liyue Harbor.

The entire mountain shook, and the thunderous crack of splitting rock echoed from the distance.

She poured several times more adept power into the weapon in her hand. [Crane's Echoing Calling Call] slammed down onto the barrier formed by Piers's adept power, and cracks began to spread across it.

But at the same time, a fine crack appeared on [Crane's Echoing Calling Call] itself, slowly creeping across the fan's surface.

"This is bad. Cloud Retainer's gone half-mad. If this drags on any longer, she'll burn through a thousand years of cultivation and crush her own adeptal weapon in the process. Little Piers, get the Dust-Cleansing Bell out, now!"

For the first time, Guizhong's calm expression cracked, panic creeping in, her voice growing tight.

Without the slightest hesitation, Piers pulled the Dust-Cleansing Bell from the cavern realm and threw it to Guizhong. The bell arced through the air.

The Dust-Cleansing Bell slowed to a stop as it neared Guizhong, hovering before her, spinning gently.

At the same time, Guizhong's pupils turned an ashen gray. Dust-white adeptal mist coiled around her hand as she struck the bell with her palm.

The bell's body shuddered violently.

The moment the bell rang, everything around them seemed to freeze for an instant — even the wind in the sky stilled.

The sound wave rippled outward from Guizhong, and wherever it passed, the wind died and the clouds dispersed — even the air itself grew clear.

Slowly, the ringing faded, carrying away the black clouds and the raging wind, and Cloud Retainer — who had been on the verge of madness — gradually calmed.

Her body swayed, and the eerie light in her eyes slowly faded.

Just then, the weakness from overusing her adept power hit her all at once, and Cloud Retainer nearly lost her footing and collapsed.

She dropped to one knee, bracing a hand against the ground just barely enough to steady herself.

"Guizhong... it's really you..."

Cloud Retainer stared at the Dust-Cleansing Bell, then at Guizhong wreathed in dust-white adept power, her voice hoarse.

The next second, she really did lose her footing and topple over. Guizhong twisted her waist and dodged out of the way — and the mighty Cloud Retainer went sprawling, just like that.

She landed flat on the ground with a dull thud — talk about a great start.

"Guizhong, why did you dodge?! You couldn't even bother to help this Adeptus up!"

Cloud Retainer pushed herself up off the ground, her face flushed red with embarrassment and anger.

"Why would I help you up? What if you tried to pin the blame on me? Besides, if it weren't for Little Piers just now, I'd have died all over again.

Guizhong clapped her hands together, her tone still as flippant as ever, though a hint of tenderness had crept into her eyes.

"Cloud Retainer, what was that commotion just now? A chunk of Mt. Aocang's been sliced off — has some reclusive Archon emerged?"

Two voices carried in on waves of adept power, and before the sound had even faded, their presences had already arrived.

A few seconds later, a bird and a deer — the pair known as Mountain Shaper and Moon Carver — made their entrance.

They landed at a distance neither too close nor too far, adept light still lingering around them.

But the instant the two of them caught sight of Guizhong, they both froze.

"That face, that adept power, and the Dust-Cleansing Bell too... You're the God of Dust — Haagentus! No, wait, aren't you supposed to be dead? We saw with our own eyes your soul return to the ley lines. How can you possibly be here?"

Mountain Shaper turned to Moon Carver in bewilderment, his wings flaring open without meaning to.

"This isn't some afterimage leaking from the ley lines — she has a physical body. She truly is the God of Dust from a thousand years past."

Moon Carver replied in a low voice, his gaze never leaving Guizhong.