Ren
After a fight that nearly led to his death, Ren didn't expect to be sitting at the same table as his almost-killer.
A part of him was still very afraid. With all the adrenaline having worn off, it took some effort not to shiver at Shenhe's bloodlust.
But sitting at Xianyun's table with a bowl of warm soup in front of him that smelled extraordinary, helped convince him that staying might be worth it.
The food was genuinely, unreasonably good, and somewhere between the first and second bowl, he could almost tune out Shenhe's killing intent entirely.
Keyword being almost.
Shenhe sat across the table and had not touched her food for the past several minutes because she was too occupied staring at Ren, her expression conveying, without any ambiguity, that she had not changed her assessment of him since their last meeting.
"Shenhe, your food is going to get cold," Ganyu said from the side. Trying to give her a gentle nudge and relax.
Shenhe said nothing.
Ren kept his eyes on his bowl and took another careful spoonful, because making eye contact felt inadvisable and looking away entirely felt like showing weakness, and the bowl was a reasonable compromise between both positions.
'I thought the red ropes were supposed to suppress her bloodlust? Why does she still want to tear me to pieces?' He thought as he ate another spoonful of soup.
"Shenhe."
This time it was Xianyun's voice. Shenhe's gaze finally moved away from Ren and toward her master, and her posture unconsciously went straighter at her tone.
"One would appreciate," Xianyun said, without looking up from her own bowl, "if you did not glare at One's guest during meals. It is poor manners."
"..."
"...Very well. Apologies, master."
She picked up her utensils and ate. The glare became a pointed non-look, which was technically not a stare and therefore technically compliance.
Ren suspected Shenhe had extensive practice finding the precise edge of her master's instructions.
Xianyun set down her bowl and turned to Ren. "One believes it is time to address the matter at hand. You have had an opportunity to observe Shenhe… What is your assessment of her curse?"
Ren set down his spoon and switched his focus, reaching outward with his senses the way his dad had taught him.
Extending his senses towards Shenhe, he was able to immediately feel something odd. It was an enormous well of energy, yet something stopped him from looking deeper.
What he could sense was definitely a mix of Adeptal energy and another kind of energy. A dense mass of negative energy was restrained, but pressing outward against whatever held it back.
'So this is what a curse looks like in Teyvat…'
It wasn't CE. He was certain of that. CE was internal, born of the self, showed slight differences depending on the person wielding it, and had a cold feeling.
This, however, came from an external origin and was warm. Something that had attached itself to her rather than something she herself had generated.
"I can sense her curse," he said carefully. "But I can't get a clear read on it. I think the ropes are limiting what I can perceive."
He looked at Xianyun. "I'd need to see her without them to give you an accurate assessment."
Xianyun nodded once and turned to Shenhe. "Shenhe, would you be comfortable removing them?" She asked gently.
Shenhe was quiet for a moment. Her eyes moved to Ren briefly, then back to Xianyun.
"Rest assured, Master. I have better control now than before. The… incident during the battle was a reaction to his energy. Under normal circumstances, I can manage." She said, somehow able to give Xianyun a soft, reassuring gaze while still indirectly insulting him.
"The ropes come off," Shenhe said, and reached for the first knot.
She removed them quickly, each loop falling in sequence, the red cords falling free one by one and coiling on the table beside her bowl.
Ren watched the process and kept his senses extended, waiting for the moment the last restraint came loose.
As the last rope hit the table, Ren's senses quite literally recoiled.
Xianyun and Ganyu seemed completely unaffected, but he suddenly had trouble breathing. Whatever her curse was, it completely overwhelmed his senses from the sheer wave of malice.
Yet even so, Ren was able to keep a neutral face. Being scared and showing weakness were two completely different things. Right now, he needed to focus.
He took a deep breath and extended his senses again. Now he could finally sense the curse in its true, unrestrained form.
It pressed against Shenhe's Adeptal/Elemental energy from the inside, not attacking it but coexisting with it in a state of constant tension, like two opposing forces that had learned to inhabit the same space without resolution.
He analyzed her carefully, feeling for damage, for deterioration, for any sign that the curse was actively harming her.
And he strangely found none.
'How odd.'
The curse was creating hostility, volatility, and constant pressure toward violence, but it wasn't actually hurting her.
It was simply present, and she was managing it by holding it at arm's length. Constant force against a constant counter-force. Neither winning, yet both exhausting.
'That's the problem,' he realized.
It wasn't that the curse was too strong to manage. It was because her management method was fundamentally unsustainable.
She was "controlling" it through sheer will alone. While certainly impressive, it meant that the moment something disrupted her concentration—his own CE, for instance—the whole system broke down.
But there was something else. Underneath the tension, he could sense the actual scale of what she was containing. If she wasn't trying to suppress it, if she was working with it instead—
'She'd be stronger. Much more than she already is,' he thought, with a mixture of respect and personal fear.
He sat back and looked at Xianyun, who was watching him with an expression that he was increasingly convinced meant she already knew whatever conclusion he was about to reach.
"One believes," Xianyun said before he could speak, "that you should explain your findings to Shenhe and Ganyu directly."
She stood up and started walking away. "One has other matters to attend to."
"You're leaving?" He said, but internally, he was screaming, 'You're leaving me here with her?!'
"One mentioned needing to locate a replacement weapon for you." She turned toward her domain. "Come back in a month."
"A month?!"
"One does not rush quality." She paused at the threshold, just long enough to glance back with a small, almost mocking smile. "One trusts you are capable of managing a simple explanation."
Then she was gone.
Ren took a moment to close his eyes and steel himself for his fate.
Then he turned back to the table, where Ganyu was watching him with a careful expression, and Shenhe was watching him with no expression at all, and her curse was radiating outward in waves.
'Fuck it. Now, where do I start?'
/ — /
Ren looked between the two of them and decided to start with a question rather than an explanation, because walking into a conversation about curses with someone who had just removed their suppression for violence felt like it required some groundwork first.
"Before I explain what I found, I want to make sure I'm working from the right framework." He looked at Ganyu. "What does a curse mean in Liyue? How do people understand them?"
Ganyu considered the question carefully. "Curses, as most stories tell it, are misfortune placed upon an individual. Either by the world itself or by another person. Usually a god, in the older accounts."
Ren nodded slowly. It sounded consistent with the many depictions of curses he had read in various books in Liyue, except for a few outliers.
"Where I come from, everyone produces energy born from negative emotions. It's called Cursed Energy." He glanced at Ganyu. "You already know this part."
"I do," Ganyu confirmed.
"Everyone generates it passively from their negative emotions. Grief, anger, fear, all of it produces Cursed Energy, whether the person is aware of it or not. When that energy concentrates enough and lingers long enough, it eventually manifests as a cursed spirit. Something that needs to be exorcised before it harms people."
Shenhe's expression immediately turned sour at the mention of cursed spirits. He understood the reaction. It wasn't a flattering system at all. An endless battle against monsters born from humanity itself wasn't an endearing concept.
"But curses can take a different form, and honestly, I don't fully understand them myself."
He took a moment to gather the words he wanted to say. "Back home, a curse can also mean something that happens at the moment of death. When someone is at that threshold, whatever they're feeling is at its most concentrated. Regret. Duty. Love. All of it compressed into a single point."
Shenhe and Ganyu listened attentively, their interest growing at the magic system unknown to them.
"If they direct words at someone in that moment, those words don't just convey a message. They carry all of that concentrated emotion with them, and they embed themselves in whoever receives them. It creates a compulsion that shapes the path of that person going forward, whether they want it to or not."
"That's also called a curse where I'm from," he said.
"That sounds… sad," Ganyu said quietly. "For someone's last words to become a curse for another…"
He was about to continue when his mind latched onto an old memory.
His father's words. The day before he boarded the flight, that look on his face when he was trying not to show he was worried. The weight of what he'd said, the specific shape it had pressed into every decision Ren had made since waking up in Teyvat. The way he couldn't seem to set those words down, even when it would have been easier to.
'Was that a— No, that's not possible.'
His father had been alive when he said them. It was just a father giving some fatherly wisdom to their son, it wasn't—
"Ren?"
Ganyu's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. He blinked and found her watching him with a worried expression.
"Sorry, I got distracted." He straightened in his chair. "Anyway."
"What I found when I looked at your curse," he said, directing this at Shenhe, "is that it's not damaging you physically. It's not hurting your body or your energy. It's just there and increases your tendency toward hostility and violence."
He tried to phrase the next part in a way that wouldn't indirectly insult her. "You're managing it right now by suppressing it through sheer will, and it is working. But, it's not sustainable."
Shenhe's eyes finally lost their sharp edge, and her blank face finally showed a hint of curiosity.
"The way you're controlling it right now is by having a force—your will—against another force—the curse. And you have no problem when nothing interferes with your focus."
He steadily met her gaze. "But the moment something disrupts your concentration—"
"—Such as your filthy energy," she said flatly, and Ren wasn't sure if she was purposely insulting him or not.
"Yes… My energy… Your system breaks down because it depends entirely on your will staying uninterrupted. And there will always be something that interrupts it."
"And you believe you can offer something better," she said, not entirely believing him.
"I think I can help you stop suppressing it and start actually controlling it. I may be able to help you control it just as a sorcerer from my land learns to control their Cursed Energy."
He channeled cursed energy into his fist as it lit up into a fiery purple glow. Shenhe stared at it with hostility again, but now she seemed to also be analyzing it.
"If you manage it that way by trying to merge and control your curse, you'd be significantly stronger. Much more than you already are."
That seemed to get her attention, as she seemed to actually contemplate his offer.
Ren didn't let the moment go to waste. "I know you don't like me, and I know my energy is an eyesore to you. But I'm not here to cause harm to anyone, and I'm asking for nothing in return."
His eyes turned to Ganyu for a second before turning back. "I just want to help a friend of a friend. That's all."
Shenhe looked at him for a long moment. Then her eyes moved to Ganyu.
Her sister-in-arms didn't say anything. But her eyes showed an expectant and hopeful gaze that seemed to melt Shenhe's sharp exterior.
"There is one thing," Shenhe suddenly said.
"What?"
Her eyes moved to where Xianyun had disappeared, and her eyes sharpened at him. "If you say you are doing this for nothing in return. Then what is the reason Master is giving you a weapon?"
Cryo started to manifest around her, slightly freezing the table. "Are you attempting to deceive me?"
"T-That is a completely separate matter and unrelated to this entirely!" Ren said quickly.
"Is it?"
"Yes!" He slowed down and took a deep breath. "It's a… compensation arrangement for something that happened. Nothing to do with you or your curse."
Shenhe still held her suspicious look and turned to Ganyu.
"He's telling the truth."
She turned her gaze back to Ren and let out a long exhale, "Very well. I will allow you to attempt to help me."
The word attempt showed that she was still suspicious, yet willing to let him try. 'At least she's not threatening me—'
"But understand this clearly. I will be watching. If you bring harm to anyone in Liyue, I will be the one who removes you."
'I spoke too soon…'
Ren held her gaze. His instincts wanted him to run away, as Shenhe was releasing an immense amount of energy to intimidate him. But he couldn't afford to show weakness right now.
"It's a deal then," he said, and he held out his hand.
Shenhe looked at it for a moment before finally accepting it.
'OW, WHY?!'
Her grip was unreasonably strong. He had to reinforce his hand with Cursed Energy or else the sheer power would break it.
He forced himself not to make a sound. He controlled his breathing and maintained his expression. Trying as hard as he could not to do any of the things his hand was urgently requesting.
When he finally got his hand back, he placed it carefully in his lap where it trembled in both pain and fear.
Internally, he shed a tear from the pain.
"Looking forward to working together," he said, which was only a half lie.
Something just slightly less hostile moved through Shenhe's expression. Ren counted it as a win.
He shifted in his chair, letting out a relieved, slightly manic chuckle, and turned to Ganyu. "At least one good thing that came from this is that I'm stronger now. Chongyun's definitely going to pester me for more spars now, isn't that right, Ganyu—"
"What?"
The temperature around the table dropped again.
Ren nervously turned his head towards Shenhe, who looked like she wanted to stab him again.
Suddenly, her spear appeared in her hands.
"Oh come on—!"
"Shenhe no—!" Ganyu shouted as she grabbed her spear and tried to calm her down.
In the chaos, they did not realize that Ren was no longer at the table. As he had already run a few hundred meters away.
/ — /
Ren finally exhaled in relief as he and Ganyu walked the path back to Liyue.
Things might have gotten much more hectic than he expected, but compared to all the benefits he's getting, this day counted as a good one.
'At least my ribs aren't shattered anymore…' He winced, 'Most of them, at least…'
He made a mental note to ask Cloud Retainer more about healing techniques. Probably in a month, when she's finished preparing his weapon.
"Thanks, Ganyu," he said.
Ganyu glanced at him. "For what?"
"For saving my butt. I'm pretty sure she would have turned me into a kebab or strangled me to death."
Ganyu tried her best not to laugh, but ended up letting out a small chuckle. "She wouldn't have strangled you."
"Ganyu," He stared at her blankly, "She almost lunged at me when you took her spear."
"...She wouldn't have strangled you at the table?" Ganyu said nervously.
"Very reassuring." He said with a tired sigh, "What are the odds that she's Chongyun's aunt. Like, of all the people in Liyue."
"Liyue is smaller than it looks," Ganyu said.
"Apparently." He shook his head. "I need to warn him before she finds out I know him. Or maybe not tell him at all. I doubt he'd react badly, but after everything that happened, I can't help but be a little nervous."
Ganyu smiled quietly at that.
They walked for a while without talking, the path winding downward through sparse trees and rock outcroppings.
The harbor was growing slowly larger below them, the evening lights beginning to come on across the district as the sun dropped toward the water.
"Ren."
"Hmm?"
Ganyu was watching the path ahead, her expression looking heavy. "I owe you an apology."
"During the fight… I wanted to come down. From the moment she attacked you, I wanted to intervene, and I—" She stopped, taking a shaky breath before talking again. "I should have found a way. I should have pushed back harder against Master's decision. You were getting hurt, and I just stood there and—"
"Ganyu." He sighed.
She stopped, keeping her gaze on the ground, unwilling to look at him.
"I already said it's fine," he said.
She slowly turned her head towards him.
"I know you would have come down if you could. I know that the second she let you go, you were already running." He shrugged slightly. "You don't need to apologize for something Cloud Retainer decided. That's not on you."
Ganyu was quiet for a moment. "It felt like it was."
"Yeah, well." He looked back at the path. "You're too hard on yourself. You always have been."
He let out a small grin, "Besides, if you'd come down and stopped the fight, I wouldn't have had the leverage to get three demands out of Cloud Retainer. So technically, you being held back worked out for me greatly."
Ganyu stared at him blankly with judgment. "That's a terrible way to look at it,"
"I'm reframing it."
"You almost died."
"And I got a new weapon and a bunch of other things! So it was worth it, all things considered."
She pressed her lips together, trying her best not to smile because that would only encourage his way of thinking.
She failed.
They reached the lower slope where the mountain path gave way to the broader road toward the harbor, and the cold air began to warm slightly as the altitude dropped.
The sounds of the city drifted up to meet them. Distant carts, voices, and the smell of cooking from delicious Liyue street food.
Home, more or less.
At the fork where the road split toward the Qixing offices in one direction and the harbor district in the other, they both slowed.
"Well, I need to head back now," Ganyu said, glancing at her documents that magically appeared in her hands. "I'm already behind from today."
"Ganyu, you always say that you're behind, but you work the most every day. I find it hard to believe." He paused, humming in suspicion. "You aren't doing other people's work, are you?"
"..."
"..."
"Of course not…" She said, turning her head to look at a very interesting building.
"Right…" Ren chuckled, "Get some rest at some point. You look tired."
Ganyu gave him a look that showed she received this advice regularly, and found it no more useful each time. "I will try… Are you heading home?"
"Nah, heading to the Adventurers Guild first. I want to check if there are any new commissions."
He had been off work for longer than he wanted to think about. Even with his better financial situation, he'd lose it all if he didn't keep working.
Ganyu nodded. She shifted her documents to her other arm and gave him a small wave. "See you soon."
"See you," he said.
/ — /
The Adventurers Guild was quiet at this hour. Katheryne's desk was empty as the afternoon rush had cleared out and the evening commissions hadn't come in yet.
Katheryne looked up as Ren approached and greeted him with the same composed smile she gave everyone who walked in, which Ren always thought looked creepily mechanical.
"Ren, how unexpected it is to see you at this hour. How may I assist you?"
"Hey Katheryne," he said, giving a small wave. "Anything new come in? Commissions, clients, anything in my usual range?"
Katheryne shook her head. "Nothing pending at the moment. You've been completing your deliveries quickly enough that new assignments need time catching up."
She hummed, "You may want to consider taking on a higher volume or expanding your service range."
"I see." He grumbled slightly. It was true that being the only employee made it harder to make money. But expanding his operations was something he's completely out of his depth for. He would need to ask Yanfei for help when the time came. "Thanks, Katheryne."
"Oh! There is one other thing. You have a letter from the Ministry of Civil Affairs." She reached beneath the counter and produced an envelope, setting it on the desk between them. "It came just yesterday, so it hasn't been too long."
'A letter from the ministry?!' Ren shouted in his mind as he started sweating bullets, already thinking of the worst-case scenarios.
Ren picked it up. The Ministry seal on the front was official, and the paper was heavier than standard correspondence. After a deep breath, he broke the seal and unfolded it.
Reading through it, he couldn't help but lift his brow.
"Huh. This soon already?"
He read it again to double-check. Sure enough, he read it right the first time.
Ren couldn't help but chuckle tiredly as the universe somehow always seemed to make things happen at the most inconvenient times.
'I guess it's time to expand operations…'