Threefold Betrayal

When Dottore appeared on the Sky Screen, Balladeer wasn't the only one who hated him. The people of the Akademiya despised him just as much.

Collei, in particular, felt more fear than anything else.

She couldn't help thinking of her past. She had once been one of Dottore's test subjects, and had escaped his clutches only through a twist of fate.

Just then, Tighnari placed a hand on Collei's shoulder.

"Collei, there's no need to be afraid. It's all in the past. We're here, and no one will ever hurt you again."

"Mm, Master, I understand. I won't be afraid anymore. I won't!"

Collei stared straight at Dottore on the Sky Screen. If she got the chance, she would avenge herself and her mother.

Though the Sky Screen had cleared Niwa's name, revealing that he hadn't fled out of guilt but had been killed by Dottore and made a scapegoat,

that part of history had already been buried, and Niwa still bore the blame.

After the furnace-core incident at Tatarasuna, the scene on the Sky Screen continued.

Balladeer left Tatarasuna and came upon a child by the sea.

The child was waiting for his parents to return, but they, too, had perished because of the pollution at Tatarasuna.

Balladeer took care of the child and promised him they would live together forever.

He brought the child back to Shakkei Pavilion, then went out to look for food and other things, hoping to tidy the place up and make it their home.

But when Balladeer returned to Shakkei Pavilion, all that awaited him was the child's cold body.

Like his parents, the child had already fallen gravely ill from the pollution at Tatarasuna. He hadn't been able to keep his promise to Balladeer and had left this world alone.

Balladeer knelt beside the child's body. He didn't cry. Instead, he burst into loud laughter.

"Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!"

This puppet, who had a heart, shed tears all the same.

Watching the scene again, Balladeer lightly brushed the spot where his Gnosis rested. He could still feel a faint ache there—the pain of a broken heart.

As they watched the Sky Screen, countless tenderhearted people across the Douluo Continent felt sympathy for Balladeer.

Qian Renxue was one of them. She looked at Balladeer with pity, which irritated him.

"Put away that pitying look. I don't need your sympathy."

On the screen, Balladeer set a fire, put on his hat, and gradually disappeared into the flames.

As the scene faded to black, Balladeer's voice rang out.

[I was betrayed three times, and so I learned that all things in this world are but veils of deceit.]

[First by a god, my creator, my mother. She was swayed by the pursuit of power and cast aside a useless creation like me.]

[Second by humans, my family, my friends. Shackled by fear, they saw me as something loathsome.]

[Third by one of my own kind, my hope, a fledgling bird whose wings had yet to grow. Bound by the limits of his life, he broke his promise to me.]

[Humans can never be trusted, and I hate the gods as well. I cast everything aside, denied and laughed at all of humankind, and discarded humanity's base emotions. The emptiness within me will be filled by a heart of a god, a vessel of supreme divinity, like a blank scroll at the moment of its birth.]

Hearing his own words about being betrayed three times, Balladeer gave a self-mocking smile.

"Back then, I thought I'd seen through everything. In the end, I was nothing but a complete joke.

"All along, Dottore had been playing me in the palm of his hand. My resistance, my revenge—they were all so laughable.

"Perhaps this was fate's punishment for trusting that bastard Dottore.

"But I'll find my chance to slap 'fate' hard across the face."

At Moonlight Pavilion in Heaven Dou City, Tang Hao didn't care about Balladeer's past. The only thing he cared about was his identity: a puppet created by a god.

If a god could create a puppet indistinguishable from a human, then bringing someone back to life ought to be easy, too.

With a hopeful excitement, he asked Nefer, "Miss Nefer, may I ask you something?"

"Heh. The Secret Archive never gives information away for free. You'll either have to trade information or pay. I'll charge you according to the value of what you want to know. The price will be fair."

Nefer's answer left Tang Hao speechless. He barely had any money in his pocket.

Tang Yuehua saw how uncomfortable Tang Hao looked and spoke up. "That's fine. I can afford a few Gold Soul Coins."

"Thank you, Yuehua!"

"Second brother, it's the least I can do. What did you want to ask?"

Tang Hao turned to Nefer again and asked earnestly, "Can the god of the Akademiya bring the dead back to life?"

Tang Hao's question caught Nefer off guard. Her expression soon grew serious.

She thought of someone—a man who was madly determined to resurrect the woman he loved.

Moon Hunter Raelir!

"Don't tell me you want to bring your own lover back, too?"

Tang Hao nodded solemnly.

"Yes. Surely a god could do it!"

"I advise you to give up on that idea. Resurrection is forbidden. Those who meddle with forbidden things never meet a good end."

"That doesn't matter! As long as she can come back, I don't care what happens to me."

"Second brother..."

"Yuehua, don't try to talk me out of it. I've made up my mind."

"I'm sorry, but I don't know whether Lesser Lord Kusanali can bring your beloved back to life. Even if she could, I doubt she'd break the taboo against resurrection for your sake.

"I won't charge you for this. I'm telling you to let go of this foolish notion and leave the dead in peace."

"No! Ah Yin isn't completely dead. She left behind a seed, and it sprouted. I can feel that she's still here."

Tang Hao refused to give up this last hope and tried to explain himself to Nefer.

But Nefer heard something strange in his words.

"A seed? It sprouted? Could your beloved be a Plant-type Soul Beast?"

Nefer looked at Tang Hao with even greater suspicion.

Such a union wouldn't be unusual in Teyvat. Liyue had plenty of half-adepti.

But under the Spirit Master cultivation system of the Douluo Continent, Spirit Masters and Soul Beasts were mortal enemies.

Marrying a Soul Beast under those circumstances—how could that possibly end well?

Then again, if she really was a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beast that had left behind a seed, Lesser Lord Kusanali should have no trouble saving her.

The only issue was...

Nefer glanced at Tang Hao again.

Aside from his decent strength, Tang Hao didn't seem to have anything valuable to offer.

No one had ever gotten Nefer to make a bad deal, except Rauma.

Just then, the Sky Screen updated again. Balladeer had changed into another outfit: the uniform he wore as the Fatui's Sixth Seat, the Harbinger called Scaramouche.

He was hunting down a group of people when a man who looked just like Niwa fell in front of him.