Chapter 168: The Frustrated Clockwork Princess (Patreon)

Furina seemed to snap out of her shock all at once. She reached out to stop Piers, but she was a step too slow. He'd already walked inside, and her outstretched hand froze in midair, fingertips curling.

But when Piers stepped in and saw what was sitting in the living room, he had no idea where to even begin with the sarcasm. There was a funeral wreath in the middle of the room.

"Let me explain! This… I bought this back when I heard you were dead!"

"It's fine. I've gotten used to it lately."

Piers waved a hand. His expression barely changed, though his gaze drifted back to the wreath.

"But laying a wreath at a funeral is a Liyue custom, isn't it? I don't think either Snezhnaya or Fontaine has wreaths like this."

He stared at the thing, and the longer he looked, the less he liked it. He was still alive, so this sort of ill omen needed to go. With a wave of his hand, he sent the wreath into his cavern realm.

"Snezhnaya doesn't sell anything for Fontaine funerals, and as for Snezhnaya's own funerals… I'm not very familiar with them. But you told me before that you were the disciple of a Liyue adept, and the Adventurers' Guild happens to sell funeral goods made by Liyue's Wangsheng Funeral Parlor."

"Next time, don't believe those street-stall papers. There's no basis to any of it. At best, you can treat them as a joke to pass the time after dinner."

Piers sat down on the sofa in front of the tea table. Furina came over from the doorway, but her eyes were brimming with tears as she looked at him.

"I didn't want to believe it either! But… but you didn't answer the letters I asked Katheryne to send you. Even when you were too busy to come by, you always wrote back before, and that whole time you didn't reply at all."

By the end, her voice had a sob in it that she couldn't hold back. She looked absolutely wronged, clutching the newspaper in both hands, tears welling in her eyes.

Piers did feel a bit guilty toward Furina. At first he'd had work as an excuse, but later he'd simply forgotten.

Even after five hundred years of living, Furina's heart wasn't much different from that of a girl in her teens. Piers couldn't imagine how much resolve it had taken for her to buy that wreath, or what kind of mood she'd been in as she carried it into the room.

Most likely, at some point she had truly believed Piers was dead, but she couldn't bear to give up. So she hadn't left. She'd just kept waiting.

"…Sorry, Furina… How about… I treat you to some snacks?"

Piers's line sounded a little too much like a robot. Even he paused after saying it, as if he'd realized it wasn't quite right.

The truth was, he didn't really know how to comfort Furina. This wasn't something he'd planned for. The worst he'd imagined was that she'd react like the two people he'd run into earlier and be startled into thinking she'd seen a ghost.

If it had been that, it would at most have been a bit of a hassle to explain. But the situation now seemed even more troublesome.

Furina had been on the verge of tears, but hearing Piers's robotic attempt at comfort, she suddenly puffed out her cheeks. She held her breath until her face turned bright red, looking like she was about to explode.

"Tsk tsk tsk, Little Piers, look at you. You've pushed her into becoming a bomb."

Guizhong's voice transmission rang out in Piers's mind. She was probably bored out of her skull inside the cavern realm. With her current strength, peeking at the outside world through it was easy, though Piers had no plans to deal with her for now.

"Um… you're not about to hit me, are you…?"

Piers asked tentatively, but then he thought about it. Even if Furina hit him, it probably wouldn't do any damage. He might as well let her land a couple of blows to vent.

Having reached that conclusion, Piers walked straight up to her and spread his arms.

At the same time, Furina, nearly starved of oxygen from holding her breath, finally moved. But she didn't throw a few punches the way Piers had expected. Instead, she took a deep breath, rose on tiptoe, and threw her arms around him, kissing him.

Maybe it was because she'd held her breath so long and was already light-headed, and the kiss sent her heart racing on top of that. She didn't last long before stepping back a few paces. Her head was lowered, her eyes fixed on her toes, and she panted heavily, the tips of her ears so red they were nearly translucent.

After a few deep breaths, she seemed to have recovered. She took a few steps forward, ready to kiss him again, but just then Furina felt someone grab her shoulder and keep pulling her backward.

Puzzled, she turned her head and was startled to find a strange, gray-haired Damselette. The Damselette had appeared at Piers's side, her hand resting on Furina's shoulder, an obvious look of displeasure between her brows.

Between the unfamiliar face and the shame of having someone else see what had just happened, Furina's face, which had been calming down with its flush slowly fading, went red again in an instant. It was even redder than when she'd been deliberately holding her breath.

"Wh-who are you? How did you get into my house?!"

Timidity was part of Furina's nature, so she ducked behind Piers almost instantly, showing only half her face, her eyes wary.

"Miss Furina, this is my master, an Archon born in Liyue, the God of Dust, Havria."

Piers had never planned to hide it from Furina. Back in Fontaine, he'd already told her he was the disciple of the God of Dust, Havria.

"Oh, oh, so she's your master."

But then Furina suddenly caught on. The wariness hadn't left her face, and now suspicion piled on top of it.

"Wait, that's not right. Didn't you tell me before that the God of Dust was already dead? Then who's standing here?!"

Furina went pale with alarm, and the fear on her face only deepened. Her grip on Piers's sleeve tightened and her body shrank backward.

"She's not a ghost. Not anymore, at least. I brought her back with a special method, and she's no different now from how she was in life."

Hearing that, Furina calmed down a little. She blinked, then sneaked another look at Guizhong.

But Guizhong picked that moment to start mimicking Furina from earlier. She puffed out her cheeks, held her breath until her face went a little red, planted both hands on her hips, and stood in front of Piers. Since she wasn't tall, the sight of her tilting her head back to scold him came off as rather amusing.

"How could you do that? You'd barely said two words and you were already kissing! Little Piers, I don't mean to nag, but you didn't even think to dodge! You're never this slow normally!"

"Everyone spaces out sometimes."

Piers waffled his way through an excuse, trying to brush it off. Just then, Furina popped out from behind him and planted herself in front of him. She moved fast, as if she'd suddenly made up her mind about something.

Even though she now knew Guizhong was Piers's master, the thought of Guizhong seeing the kiss still made her blush. Her fingers twisted together, but she did her best to raise her voice.

"Um, God of Dust… I like Piers. I liked him before, too. You came back to life after I met him, so you might not know that."

Furina assumed the God of Dust had died a thousand years ago, while Piers couldn't be older than twenty at the most, and probably wasn't even twenty.

And since Piers said he was the God of Dust's disciple, it was most likely like one of those Fontaine plays: the hero discovers some ruin left behind by someone else and inherits their will or something.

At Furina's words, Guizhong immediately flared up, throwing a full-blown tantrum like a little girl. Her eyes went wide, she pointed at Piers, then at Furina, and finally let out a heavy huff.

"I don't know?! I'm the one who met him first!"

Guizhong bared her teeth and claws, glaring accusations at Furina. Furina was thrown off. She probably hadn't expected the legendary God of Dust of Liyue to have this kind of personality. Judging by the outfit, she'd assumed the aloof adept type.

"Uh… I don't think that really matters, does it? You're Piers's master, and I like Piers. You should be happy for us."

For some reason, Furina's courage was growing. She even inched forward half a step.

"No! You… you two don't know each other well enough!"

Guizhong grew even more agitated. She stamped her foot, her gray hair swaying with the motion.

"We… should know each other pretty well by now, I think."

"Then… then… oh, right! Little Piers is going to marry his Senior Martial Sister! I've already worked it all out with her martial uncle!"

"It's fine. As long as Piers likes it… I don't mind!!"

What kind of reckless talk is this?

Furina's little speech left even Guizhong stunned. Piers stood by, dumbfounded. Guizhong's mouth hung open and she couldn't find a reply, while Piers slowly looked away.

"Um, tickets for the Korolevskiy Troupe go on sale this afternoon. Want me to buy one for you?"

To end the conversation, Piers had no choice but to change the subject. He asked it very naturally, though his hand was already reaching for his pocket, ready to head out at any moment.

"The Korolevskiy Troupe's show? When I went last time, the theater staff recognized me and gave me a lifetime premium-seat ticket. I can even bring someone along. All I have to do is let the theater know."

Furina forgot all about what had just happened and pulled a ticket with an unusual pattern from her pocket.

Unlike ordinary paper tickets, it felt like it was made of some kind of composite material, with neatly pressed edges, probably so it would be easy to keep.

She ignored Guizhong beside her and walked over to the pristine-ice communicator in the room. Her fingers dialed the line with practiced ease, and she contacted the theater directly. That way, she wouldn't have to make a special trip.

…

Meanwhile, at the Korolevskiy Troupe's ticket window, Sandrone pretended not to notice the people streaming past. She leaned against a pillar by herself, her eyes sliding toward the ticket window from time to time before she deliberately looked away.

She'd already worked out what to say. When she "happened" to run into Piers, she'd say she'd just come here to take care of something, which would let her buy tickets with him as a matter of course.

She'd even rehearsed the tone twice in her head and had planned which foot to step forward with first.

Sandrone thought her plan was flawless. She felt a little edgy about it, and if Piers hadn't dug up her childhood things and laughed at her before, she would have loved to say, "Deconstruct all the principles. As expected of me."

But while she was congratulating herself on having foreseen every move, she never imagined that Piers wouldn't show up at all.

Sandrone stubbornly waited from afternoon until night. The ticket window was about to close, the wind blew in from the street, and a thin layer of snow had settled on her.

Really, it was already as good as closed. Tickets for the Korolevskiy Troupe always sold well and were usually snapped up within two hours. The window stayed open only to tell latecomers that tickets had indeed been sold that day.

The staff behind the window had already begun clearing their desks.

Sandrone did have a communication device to contact Piers, and she'd connected to him during that time. But observing without leaving the cavern realm and without being noticed gave her an extremely limited view, just a small patch in front of her.

The image showed only a corner of a table, with the occasional glimpse of cups and plates passing by.

All she could tell was that Piers seemed to be inside some house. Together with what he'd said earlier about having something to do, Sandrone naturally assumed he was dealing with more boring paperwork.

"Damn it, what is that Piers doing? Honestly! He clearly said he'd promised Odette he'd come, and it's this late and he still hasn't shown up."

She was grumbling when she suddenly felt a little relieved. She'd never liked the idea of Piers going in the first place, so wasn't it perfect that he'd missed the ticket sales?

With that thought, Sandrone suddenly let it go and headed back, quite cheerful.

As for Piers…

At that moment he was sitting at the dining table, which was covered with food. Most of it was Snezhnayan specialties, with a few Fontaine-style dishes.

Naturally, Piers hadn't cooked any of it. He could cook to a certain extent, since that had been one of the Fatui's selection criteria back in the day and would probably come in handy on missions in the field, but that only meant he wouldn't starve. He couldn't produce anything this exquisite.

He had no illusions about his own skills.

Furina hadn't made it either, since she couldn't cook. Visiting someone's home and having them prepare a meal specially for you sounded far too much trouble to both of them. If you had that kind of energy, you might as well order takeout from a restaurant. It was satisfying and not too tiring. The tableware was neatly arranged, obviously delivered by the restaurant.

"Sister Guizhong, are you sure you don't want to have some? It's really good."

Piers speared a piece of dessert with his fork and waved it around. Guizhong sat on the sofa in front of the tea table with her arms crossed, looking ready to die before she gave in.

Her chin was slightly raised, but her gaze kept drifting toward the fork against her will.

"I won't eat it. I don't like it. Hmph, go ahead and eat. The next time I see Little Ganyu, I'll tell her everything!"

Where did this reverse tattletale come from? Kids tell on you to their parents. Why are you telling on a junior?

Piers grumbled to himself, but his hands didn't stop.

Guizhong stole a glance at Piers out of the corner of her eye, and when she saw the exquisite dessert on the fork, she swallowed instinctively. Still, she forced herself to stay calm and held firm.

Her fingers tightened in the crook of her arm, and she sat up even straighter.

"All right, all right. Miss Furina, Sister Guizhong won't eat, so there's no need to save any for her. I'll leave all the little cakes and desserts to you."

"?! We really don't need to save any? She's your master, after all…"