A Single Glance Frightens Off Spirit Hall. Who Is This Peerless Beauty?
On a tree-shaded stretch of the main road, less than three li from Suotuo City's south gate.
Two figures who looked as though they had stepped out of a painting treaded on dew-covered blades of grass in the morning, walking at an unhurried pace toward Suotuo City's magnificent walls, which stood over ten meters high.
The youth in front was only twelve or thirteen years old. He wore a spotless, well-tailored white robe patterned with gold, and his ink-black hair was tied behind his head with a simple jade hairpin. His face was exceptionally handsome, and his deep, starry black eyes were calm and untroubled. Every movement he made carried a nobility and composure that put others to shame.
Half a step behind the youth, a purple-haired girl followed closely at his side. Her beauty could topple cities, and her bearing was aloof, elegant, and noble.
They were Chu Yuan and Keqing.
Keqing had changed out of the badly damaged purple-and-black dress she had worn the night before. She now wore a close-fitting purple dress with rainbow-hued skirts, rewoven by Chu Yuan within the grotto-heaven using the essence of Irminsul and elemental moonlight. The new dress retained the original elegance and practical splendor of Liyue's Yuheng, while a faint band of golden Heavenly Principles patterns had been added to the hem and cuffs.
Her long, straight, shapely legs were once more wrapped in dark-purple stockings, thin as cicada wings and faintly lustrous. They traced the flawless lines of her legs and the full, perky curve of her buttocks.
After their intimate, lingering union in the hot spring the night before, when they had mingled as water and milk, not only had Keqing's meridians and Vision been completely restored to perfection, but much of the sharpness and lofty aloofness she had borne as a superior had quietly melted away. In its place was a bewitching beauty and radiance, as though she had been nourished by rain and dew.
As she walked, a faint blush appeared on her fair cheeks from time to time, and every few breaths, her dewy purple eyes would steal a glance at Chu Yuan beside her.
Noticing the beautiful woman's gaze, as though she wanted to speak but held back, Chu Yuan slowed his steps slightly. He reached out with his right hand as naturally as could be, wrapped it around Keqing's slender willow waist, narrow enough to encircle with one hand and soft as though boneless, and drew her a little closer.
"Mm..."
Keqing's delicate body trembled slightly. Though she was still a little shy about having her waist held like this on the main road in broad daylight, her body had long since faithfully remembered the man's warmth. Far from struggling, she obediently pressed her soft body a little closer against Chu Yuan and let his warm, large hand caress her side through the thin purple silk.
"Suotuo City is just ahead. Judging by the activity at the gate, the Douluo Continent's native Soul Masters were fairly quick to react," Keqing said softly, her voice a touch softer and sweeter than when they had first met the previous night, though the difference was hard to detect.
"After all, the disturbance when the heavenly chasm split the world was enormous. In the eyes of these native Soul Masters, the crystals and relics that fell along with Teyvat's landmass are all supreme opportunities dropped from the heavens."
The corners of Chu Yuan's lips lifted slightly, and a barely perceptible glimmer of glassy green light flashed across his left palm and vanished.
As they drew closer to Suotuo City, Irminsul's perception of the surrounding Ley Lines and things from Teyvat became increasingly clear.
Within his field of perception, four or five faint traces of Teyvat relics were scattered throughout and around Suotuo City. Two pieces of Liyue rock containing Noctilucous Jade and Magical Crystal Chunks had fallen near the auction house in the west of the city, while a broken Mondstadt pillar carrying the scent of Windwheel Asters had landed in the north. There was even a faint fluctuation from a fragment of an Archon statue near a small mountain village southeast of the city.
But apart from those inanimate objects, what concerned Chu Yuan most was the point of living light toward the southern end of Suotuo City's bustling district.
It was an extremely pure fluctuation of "water element and astral fate," though it bore traces of weakness and disorder.
"That astrologer should be somewhere near that district in the south of the city right now."
Chu Yuan tapped his fingers lightly against Keqing's smooth waist and said with a gentle smile, "And judging by the fluctuations of the elemental power in her body, although she didn't fall straight into a pack of Soul Beasts and trigger an elemental rampage like you did last night, she's clearly being rejected by this world's laws too. I'm afraid things aren't going very well for her."
Hearing Chu Yuan mention another woman from Teyvat, Keqing felt a small, curious ripple in her heart, but she quickly regained the calm and broad perspective of the Yuheng.
She knew better than anyone that, in a foreign world without Celestia or the Statues of the Seven, their companions from Teyvat would sooner or later be worn to death by the laws of the Douluo Plane unless they received the reshaping and protection of Chu Yuan's Crown of Heavenly Principles.
"An astrologer... I recall there seems to be an astrologer named Mona in the City of Mondstadt who once exchanged letters with Ganyu or some scholars at the bookshop," Keqing said earnestly. "Since she's in the city, let's go find her as soon as we can, before she runs afoul of these ill-intentioned native Soul Masters."
"There's no hurry. We can find somewhere to stay on the way, then take our time and happen to run into that proud astrologer."
With his arm around Keqing's slender waist, Chu Yuan walked beneath Suotuo City's towering gate.
A long line of people waited to enter the city. More than a dozen leather-armored soldiers of the Balak Kingdom's city defense force held spears as they sternly questioned everyone passing in or out. Beside them, two white-robed deacons wearing Spirit Hall sword emblems on their chests watched coldly. They were clearly searching for anyone secretly carrying the otherworldly treasures that had fallen the night before.
Yet when Chu Yuan approached the gate at a leisurely pace with his arm around Keqing, the noisy, crowded Soul Masters and civilians around them fell silent without meaning to.
Countless gazes, filled with amazement, shock, and even infatuation, turned toward Keqing in unison.
Her long twin ponytails shone like amethysts, and her exquisite beauty seemed to have been meticulously carved by a god. Together with her luxurious purple dress, which outlined her ample bosom and long, beautiful legs clad in dark stockings, she was a peerless beauty rarely seen even in a major city filled with beauties!
Two city defense corporals guarding the gate stared with their eyes wide, instinctively tightening their grips on their spears as they prepared to step forward and question them. But the instant they took a step, Chu Yuan's deep, calm eyes swept over them.
With nothing more than that ordinary glance, a vast pressure from a superior being, originating from the Crown of Heavenly Principles, descended upon them without a sound.
The two city defense corporals and the white-robed Spirit Hall deacons beside them were struck as if by lightning. Their breath caught instantly, and their minds went blank. The one walking toward them did not seem to be a mere young boy at all, but a supreme deity enthroned above the nine heavens!
By the time they came to their senses from that suffocating awe, their bodies drenched in cold sweat, Chu Yuan had long since entered Suotuo City's broad main avenue with his arm around Keqing's graceful waist, passing through at an unhurried pace as though the checkpoint guards around him did not exist.