Vision Failure! The Black-Stockinged Girl Stranded on the Streets
On the third floor of the Rose Hotel was the Rose Suite, on the top floor.
As they pushed open the carved wooden door, a rich, delicate fragrance of roses greeted them. The suite was spacious and luxurious, with a thick, dark red carpet covering the floor. In the very center stood a heart-shaped bed large enough for several people to roll around on, surrounded by hanging, translucent scarlet curtains.
Keqing followed Chu Yuan into the room. When her gaze fell on the heart-shaped bed, the height of romantic extravagance, and the frosted glass partition by the bathroom, a faint blush instantly spread over her fair, slender neck.
Finding herself in a human hotel suite designed specifically for couples to enjoy themselves made the usually stern and dignified Yuheng of Liyue's heart beat a little faster.
"What's this? Does Lady Yuheng like the way this room is decorated?"
Chu Yuan casually tossed the red room card onto the bedside table and turned to look at the purple-haired girl standing at the edge of the carpet, a hint of a smile on his lips.
Keqing instinctively pressed her long legs together beneath her dark purple stockings. Her ears grew warm, but she gave a little huff and feigned composure:
"What nonsense... I just think this otherworldly hotel's decor is a bit too extravagant and indecent."
Chu Yuan couldn't help laughing. He stepped forward, naturally wrapped both arms around her slender, supple waist, and drew her soft, fragrant body into his embrace.
"Whether it's extravagant or not, won't we know once we come back and try it tonight? There are too many small fry outside during the day. Once we bring that astrologist back, I'll spend some time helping you review your cultivation beyond swordsmanship."
"Mm... You're becoming more and more improper..."
After settling in briefly, Chu Yuan and Keqing had lunch in a private room on the hotel's second floor, then rested for more than an hour.
As dusk fell and the first lights came on, the southern night market district, the most famous in Suotuo City, truly came alive.
Chu Yuan activated the [Irminsul] in his left palm again. After confirming the location of the point of light representing "the water element and the fate of the stars," he left the Rose Hotel with Keqing and followed the dazzling, colorful streets deeper into the southern part of the city.
Suotuo City was even more bustling at night than it was during the day.
Soul Guidance Lanterns hung along both sides of the streets, filling them with light. The air was thick with the savory aroma of meat sizzling on griddles, the rich scent of ale, and the sweetness of candied fruit and desserts.
Because of the strange phenomenon that had appeared in the sky the previous night, many more temporary stalls had sprung up in the market. Quite a few Soul Hunting mercenaries were hawking stones of all sorts of bizarre shapes, drawing passing Soul Masters to stop and look.
But in the shadows of a street corner at the southernmost end of the market, right beside a tavern and a grilled meat stall, an out-of-place little stall stood deserted.
A dark blue astrological velvet cloth, slightly worn around the edges, lay on the ground. In its center sat a brass astrological water basin of peculiar design, though the water in it looked dull and murky.
A girl dressed in an extremely eye-catching outfit sat on a little wooden stool behind the basin.
She wore a broad, pointed witch's hat in purple and black. Two long, dark purple-black ponytails fell from beneath its brim, their ends adorned with delicate golden stars.
The girl had an exquisite oval face that bore a scholar's pride and stubbornness. Her mint-green eyes were clear as water, but now they had a slightly vacant look from excessive hunger as they stared fixedly at a leg of lamb sizzling and dripping fat at the stall diagonally across from her.
Most eye-catching of all, however, was her striking astrologist's outfit.
It was a skintight bodysuit of deep purple and dark blue, patterned with golden stars. Its bold, close-fitting cut wrapped snugly around her willow-slim waist and the perfectly proportioned curves of her chest.
Below the bodysuit's high-cut hem, black gradient pantyhose patterned like a starry sky clung to every inch of her long, straight, beautifully proportioned legs.
But after she had fallen through the rift in the heavens the previous night and scraped against the trees, several tears had appeared in the black stockings along the outside of her right leg and above her left knee, exposing delicate skin whiter than snow and as smooth as cream.
"Grrr." A remarkably loud rumble suddenly came from Mona's flat, taut belly.
Mona hurriedly pressed a hand to her stomach and glanced around guiltily before muttering under her breath:
"Ugh... Damn it, how did I end up in a godforsaken place where they don't even use Mora? I haven't had so much as a sip of cold water since last night. At this rate, the great astrologist Mona is going to become the first scholar in history to starve to death..."
Remembering what had happened the previous night, Mona felt like crying, but had no tears to shed.
She had been studying the stars in the void at her home in the City of Mondstadt when the starry sky overhead had suddenly shattered, and an irresistible spatial current had swept her and her astrological instruments away.
By the time she had crawled, dazed and battered, out of the grass outside the city, not only had she lost every last one of the few dozen Mora she had left during the fall, but, more frighteningly, the air of this unfamiliar world had been filled with a strange, overbearing and hostile energy.
The Hydro Vision hanging at the small of her back seemed to have its throat gripped tight by invisible shackles, and the water elemental power that had once flowed freely had become unbearably sluggish.
Whenever she tried to summon elemental power to form a Hydromancy divination basin, her Vision sent a backlash of piercing pain through her, draining what little strength she had left.
With nowhere else to turn, Mona had slipped into this human city under cover of darkness and set up a stall in a corner of the night market, hoping to use the astrology she was so proud of to tell fortunes in exchange for dinner.
"Hey, you there, girl in the weird outfit. That sign says 'astrology and divination, glimpses of fate, ten Copper Soul Coins a reading.' Is that real, or are you scamming people?"
Just as Mona was so hungry she felt dizzy and saw stars, three tall, burly figures swaggered up to her stall, blocking the Soul Guidance Lamp light shining from diagonally across the street.
Their leader was a bald, brawny man with a meaty face and a thick gold chain around his neck. He carried a half-empty bottle of ale and gave off the fierce presence of a rank twenty-six Soul Grandmaster.
Two shifty-looking young Soul Masters followed him. The moment the three men's gazes fell on Mona's tight bodysuit and the long, beautiful legs wrapped in torn black stockings, their eyes lit up green.
Hearing someone ask about her price, Mona perked right up. She hurriedly straightened her slender back, folded her arms, and put on the air of an inscrutable scholar:
"Hmph, please do not insult the great art of Hydromancy with such a vulgar term as 'fortune-telling'! I, Astrologist Mona Megistus, have never used false words to swindle anyone. For just ten of this world's copper coins, I can reveal to you the path of fate guided by the stars!"
"Well, well? That's quite a long name, and you've got a sharp little tongue too!"
The bald man sneered, planted a foot on the edge of Mona's astrological velvet cloth, and leered down at her:
"I've been around Suotuo City for years, and I've only ever heard of special divination-type Martial Souls. I've never seen anyone tell fortunes with a basin of dirty water! Girl, I don't sense the slightest trace of Soul Power from you. You're just an ordinary person who came to the night market to scam people, aren't you?"
"Y-you're talking nonsense! Get your dirty foot off my astrological cloth!"
Seeing him dirty her beloved astrological velvet cloth, Mona's brows shot up in anger. But the moment she stood, a wave of dizziness struck her, and she nearly fell flat on her face.
"Hahaha, boss, look! This little swindler can't even stand up straight!"
The young Soul Masters beside him burst out laughing. A vicious, greedy gleam appeared in the bald man's eyes, and he bent over and reached a large, rough, greasy hand toward Mona's fair, delicate face:
"You set up a fake stall in Suotuo City's night market and tried to scam me. Today, you either pay me a hundred Gold Soul Coins for the emotional distress you've caused me, or come quietly with me to the alley next door and use that enticing body of yours to give us a proper 'fortune reading'!"
"Shameless scoundrel! Get away!"
Mona's face turned deathly pale. Burning with shame and anger, she gritted her teeth and forced the Hydro Vision at her lower back to activate, intending to release an Illusory Bubble to knock the villains away.
Yet the instant a faint blue light appeared on her Hydro Vision, the laws of Douluo Soul Power drifting through the world around her surged toward it like sharks smelling blood and squeezed her Vision fiercely!
"Ah...!"
Mona let out a muffled groan as a tearing pain shot through her lower back and abdomen. The glimmer of water she had just gathered instantly scattered.
Her legs gave way, and she lost all her strength.