Ren
'Alright, Ren, you can do this. Time to get yourself some employees!' Ren thought, hyping himself up.
He had picked a spot near the docks. It was a quieter stretch of the harbor where the fish market crowd thinned out, and there wasn't much noise.
Public enough that none of them would feel cornered, far enough from crowds.
He arrived early and spent the time remembering all the names he had gotten from Katheryne. When he saw their faces on the files, he recognized one of them was the shovel wielder and the others were the ones holding crossbows.
What surprised him was that one of the crossbow wielders was a girl. He did not notice it at the time, but it was quite embarrassing that it took him so long to realize.
Not long after, they arrived together, which was something he hadn't expected. Apparently, they already knew each other, which made sense given they'd been in the same crew.
The big one was the most noticeable, clearing a path through the sea of people due to his massive frame. The woman walked beside him with her arms crossed and a very cranky expression. The younger one was slightly slower than both of them, looking around at the harbor with curiosity.
'Alright, here it goes.'
"Hey there!" Ren raised a hand in greeting.
The big one stopped in front of him and stared down at him with a flat, unreadable expression that a normal person might have considered a threat.
Though the man didn't seem angry, so Ren was pretty sure he wasn't threatening him. Not that he was worried, he could handle him if he tried anything.
"You're the courier."
"Yup, that's me," Ren confirmed. "Ren. The Shadow Courier."
He paused and said in a quieter tone. "Also, the person who knocked you out at Guyun Stone Forest… Sorry about that."
The big one was silent for a moment. "It was a fair fight," he said flatly. His tone showed basically no emotion, so Ren had no idea if he was being sarcastic or not.
"It really wasn't." The woman commented.
"I'm Daquan," the big one said, ignoring her.
"Meifen." The woman looked Ren up and down with narrowed eyes. An expression Ren would like to think of as wariness if it weren't for her mouth being in a big frown.
"And before you start. Yes, I know who you are, yes, I know what you did to us, and yes, I'm curious enough about why you wrote to us that I'm standing here instead of doing something else with my afternoon. So talk."
'Wow… She's going to be a handful.' Ren immediately thought. But he didn't say anything in response and just nodded.
The younger one, who had been looking at a fishing boat for the entire conversation, snapped his attention back to the group.
"Oh! I'm Xiaosi! Sorry, I was looking at that— there's a really interesting knot on that rigging, I—" He stopped talking when he saw the confused look on Ren's face.
"Right, sorry. Ehem. I'm Xiaosi, nice to meet you, Mister Ren." He paused. "You have shadow dogs, right? Are they here? Can I see them?"
"..."
"..."
"S-sorry! I just say whatever's on my mind sometimes without thinking, haha…" His voice grew smaller and smaller as he finished his sentence, and Ren could see sweat forming on the guy's forehead.
Ren had to hold back from actually chuckling at the guy. "They're not here right now. But you can meet them when we get things sorted out."
"Are they friendly?"
"As long as you don't try to fight them," Ren said, and quickly added. "Or me."
"Great." Xiaosi seemed satisfied with this. "Sorry, what were we doing?"
"He was about to explain why he wrote to us," Meifen said flatly. "Maybe you should listen instead of spacing out all the time."
"Hey—!"
The two then started to bicker while Daquan just stared at them silently.
Ren couldn't help but sweatdrop at the very unique combination of individuals. 'So I have a brick wall, a sassy cat, and a guy with 22nd-century attention span…'
A part of him was slightly discouraged, but he steeled himself. He couldn't be picky with employees, and there weren't many people fit enough to do the work he needed.
'Alright, I can work with this.'
Ren cleared his throat and gave the three a short explanation. His Shadow Courier business was growing, and he needed employees who could handle standard ground deliveries across Liyue.
He watched their faces as he talked. Daquan listened without expression, which was the same as his resting face, making it impossible to gauge his reaction.
Meifen listened with visible skepticism that sharpened noticeably when he got to the part about finding them through the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
"You went through official channels to hire people who tried to rob you?" she said.
"You were ambushing me on behalf of someone else. It wasn't personal."
"We were still pointing crossbows at you."
"And now I'm offering you a job. Liyue moves fast and I need to adapt." He tried to be as professional as possible, but then he realized that former Treasure Hoarders don't really care about that. They care about honesty.
If he was going to win them over and make this work, he couldn't hide anything from them.
He sighed. "Look, the Ministry flagged you three as people with no serious criminal history beyond this incident. That tells me you weren't career criminals, you were people who needed money and took a bad option. I need employees I can trust not to make off with client deliveries. That profile works for me."
Meifen was quiet for a moment, still watching him. "That's either very smart or very stupid," she said straight to his face.
"I've been told that before," Ren said, not taking the insult to heart. "Though it has been going pretty well so far."
She seemed to be slightly put off that he brushed off her insult. But she stayed silent, which Ren took as provisional acceptance.
Then he decided to ask them about their physical condition. How far they could travel in a day, how much weight they could carry consistently, and whether any of them had experience navigating the harbor specifically.
Daquan answered in short sentences, which was helpful but slightly off-putting. Meifen answered with slightly more detail and slightly more… commentary than was strictly necessary. Xiaosi answered enthusiastically and at length, including several pieces of information Ren hadn't asked for. The guy seemed to like talking a lot.
After all was said, Ren revised all the info he had gotten. These three were definitely fit. They had a strong physique, though Teyvat humans were built differently from Earth humans, and even people without Vision had a much higher physical ceiling compared to his people.
With their current level, working around the harbor should be manageable. But anything beyond the city proper was where the gap between them and what his clients expected would start to show.
For now, he would have to work with this. He could decide on how to expand beyond the harbor later. It shouldn't be that hard to figure out… Hopefully.
"Do you actually want this job?" he asked, putting it plainly. "I'm not going to pretend there aren't better-established courier companies in Liyue. I'm a one-man operation that's expanding for the first time, and there will probably be growing pains. So I just want to know why you're actually considering me."
The three were silent for a while. They turned to look at each other, seemingly saying something without words, before facing him again.
Daquan spoke first. "Pay is good?"
Ren nodded, "Fair and consistent. Contract details to follow next week."
That seemed to satisfy him, and he nodded in approval.
Meifen exhaled slowly. "I had three options when I got out," she said without looking at him directly. "Go back to what I was doing, find something worse, or take the one legitimate offer that came through. So… The answer should be obvious."
Her answer might have come across as rude to some, but Ren respected her honesty. She had every right to be sceptical but she still showed up anyway. That put her in his good books for now.
Xiaosi had been quiet for quite a while, which turned out to be because he'd been thinking and not because he was distracted by something.
"I joined up with Huang because my friend did," he said. "I didn't really—I mean, I knew it wasn't great, but I needed the money, and then—"
He stopped himself and took a deep breath. "I'd like to make money without being a criminal."
Ren smiled at his answer.
"Alright," he said, clapping his hands once. "I like what I'm seeing, and I'd like to see you all at the Adventurers Guild next week to finalize the details. Ask for Katheryne at the intake desk if you need to reach me before then, she knows how to find me."
"One more thing," He quickly added, "The work I do requires discretion. What you see, what you carry, who you carry it for, none of that leaves the team. That'll be in the contract formally, but I want to say it now so there's no surprise later."
Daquan nodded. Meifen's expression said she'd expected something like this. Xiaosi opened his mouth, visibly thought of a question, and then appeared to decide it could wait.
Ren shook hands with each of them in turn and watched them walk away together, Xiaosi already talking about something, Meifen already looking annoyed, and Daquan walking in silence between them like a large, impassive buffer.
'That ended better than I expected,' Ren thought with genuine surprise. Even with the odd combination he was given, they seemed possible to work with.
With that out of the way, he needed to flesh out the annoying parts. A person appeared in his mind as he began to head toward the Law Building. He had an appointment with his legal advisor.
/ — /
He found the building easily enough. A well-maintained office block housing several legal practices, distinguished from its neighbors by a small but tasteful sign outside listing Yanfei as one of its occupants.
He pushed through the door into a reception area and immediately spotted a set of very distinguishable antlers.
Yanfei was across the room talking to a clerk while holding some folders. She looked up the moment he walked in, and the smile that crossed her face was the specific kind that meant she had been expecting this visit at some point.
She said something to the clerk, handed off the folders, and crossed the room toward him.
"Ren! I was wondering when you'd show up."
"You were expecting me?"
"Let's just say that once you're in the profession long enough, you get a sense for these things. Also got wind of you scouting out potential employees." She gestured for him to follow her. "Come on, let's go to my office."
He didn't ask how she knew about the employees. Yanfei knew too much about commercial activity in Liyue Harbor. It was like she had eyes everywhere.
So much so that he made sure not to slip up about anything that could indirectly land him in prison or result in a fine.
Her office was organized in a way that looked messy to outsiders, but Yanfei clearly had a system in play that only she knew how to operate.
She settled into her chair, set a fresh piece of paper on the desk, and looked at him with interest.
"Tell me everything," she said.
So he did.
He gave her a detailed explanation of the three former treasure hoarders he wanted to employ, and the rough shape of the system he was thinking of. With him handling premium deliveries, and them handling standard ground work.
When he finished, she nodded and was already writing notes.
"Getting employees is the right call," she said. "The Shadow Courier as a single-person operation has a ceiling. Expanding is how you raise it."
She paused and clicked her tongue. "The contracts are straightforward. Payment terms, non-disclosure clauses, liability framework for deliveries that go wrong, incident protocols."
"I can have all of that drafted within the week. We should also look at leasing a small storage space. Your shadow storage works for your personal deliveries, but your employees need somewhere to stage cargo and organize routes."
"Right," Ren said. Completely forgetting that normal people don't have a portable storage space like he does.
'Thank you Yanfei. I don't know what I'd do without you.'
"There is one glaring issue." She looked at him expectantly. "How are you planning to integrate your employees into your business model in a way that maintains your reputation? Your clients hire the Shadow Courier because of your speed and efficiency. You can move cargo across Liyue in an afternoon because of how you operate. Your employees are three people without Visions who, however physically capable, cannot replicate that."
She hummed and tapped her pen on her forehead, "Which means if you put them to work on standard deliveries and your clients notice the drop in service speed, you risk damaging what you've built. So. What's your plan?"
"..."
"..."
Yanfei gave him a blank stare that was entirely professional and therefore somehow worse than if it had been judgmental.
"You haven't thought that part through yet…" she said.
"I was going to."
"Really?"
"I had a very busy morning!"
She sighed. It was a short sigh of someone who had seen and been in many situations like this. This sigh meant she was not surprised and would help him anyway.
"I could train them," Ren said, thinking out loud. "With proper conditioning, they could probably get considerably faster than an average courier. That would partially close the gap."
"How long would that take to produce meaningful results?"
He ran the numbers in his head. "Months, minimum. For the kind of speed differential that would keep my clients satisfied."
He frowned when he got what she was trying to tell him. "Too long. And even then it might not be enough."
"Exactly."
He drummed his fingers on the desk.
There had to be another approach. The problem was speed and endurance. Getting his employees closer to what his clients expected was hard without extraordinary physical abilities.
His employees were strong, but not nearly enough. They didn't have Visions, nor did they have anything like Cursed Energy. How would he—
'Wait a second.'
"Yanfei. Are there any laws in Liyue prohibiting businesses from using elemental artifacts in their operations? Or items that have… magical effects?"
Yanfei froze. She narrowed her eyes at him, trying to consider his question very carefully.
She held her stare long enough that Ren started sweating.
"Define what you mean by elemental artifacts." She said slowly.
"Items that provide benefits to the user. Let's say something like enhanced physical capability, that kind of thing."
She took a moment to think it through, "Some businesses do employ Vision wielders, and they operate without issue. Vision-based abilities in a commercial context aren't restricted."
"The laws that do exist around elemental and magical items in Liyue specifically target use that could inflict harm on individuals. Items or abilities used offensively against people. There's no blanket prohibition on items that provide benefits to their users in a commercial context, provided those benefits don't come at someone else's expense."
Ren's smile was getting wider.
"That expression concerns me," she said blankly.
"So as long as the artifact doesn't harm the person using it and doesn't harm anyone else. A business using those items in its operations would be legally clear?" He asked hopefully.
Yanfei held up one hand in a so-so gesture. "Clear is a strong word. You'd need to formally document the artifacts. Register what they are, what they do, and how they function. The Ministry would need a record."
She pointed at him accusingly. "You cannot just hand your employees mysterious items and tell them to work faster. There is paperwork."
Ren slumped his shoulders. "Of course there is."
"There is always paperwork."
"I know." He sighed. "Alright. I can work with that." He pushed back from the desk and stood up. "I need to sort out the artifact side of things first. Can you hold the employment details ready for when I return?"
"I'll have drafts prepared," Yanfei said with a smile, already making notes. "What kind of artifact are you planning to use? I'll need a preliminary description for the registration filing."
Ren froze at the door.
He turned back. "I'm going to make them myself, actually. They're called Cursed Tools."
Yanfei frowned immediately.
"T-The name sounds worse than it is. They're not dangerous, really! It's a technical term from where I'm from. The function is straightforward. Enhanced speed and endurance for the user, no harm to anyone."
Yanfei looked like she knew whatever he had planned was going to give her plenty of headaches.
"...I'll put that in the preliminary notes," she said, deciding to reserve judgment for now. "I'm expecting bigger pay for all this, you hear me?"
Ren nodded his thanks and headed for the door, his mind already running ahead to materials and methods and the considerably larger amount of Mora this was all going to generate once it was operational.
The math was genuinely exciting. With three employees handling standard volume and him handling premium work, the output increase alone—
"Ren."
He stopped at the doorway and looked back.
"Try not to look like that when you're in front of clients," she said. "It's slightly alarming."
He quickly smoothed his expression. "I don't know what you mean."
"You were doing your Mora face."
He left before she could elaborate.
Behind him, Yanfei uncapped her pen and added a note for herself.
[Read all documents twice before signing. Possibly three times.]
[PERSONALLY check his "Cursed Tools"]