What Do You Mean, I Pulled the Little Sister from Teyvat?

Time flew. Two days passed in the blink of an eye.

Su Yun returned to Teyvat Academy. A huge statue stood outside the headmaster's office—his statue. It had been placed there when the academy was founded.

Su Yun gave Paimon's cheeks a few rubs, then jumped onto the statue.

Paimon understood at once. He was about to pull.

"Traveler, can you stop rubbing my face every time you pull? It hurts!"

Su Yun chuckled. How could he not? Let's see what I get from these twenty pulls.

First ten-pull: Diluc, Alhaitham, Kaveh, Dehya, Candace, Collei, Amber, Nefru, Nahida, and Varka.

The results made Su Yun's heart lurch. What on earth had he pulled? Alhaitham and Kaveh needed no explanation.

Dehya, Candace, and Nefru—those three were practically...

Then there were Collei and Amber.

Thank goodness the last pull had been Varka, not Kaeya.

Otherwise, Nahida would have cried her eyes out.

The second ten-pull was even wilder: Mitya, Ronava, Odette, Voyanissa, Eula, Klee, Razor, Lisa, Chongyun, Yun Jin, and Alice.

He had no idea why the second ten-pull had produced eleven people. Like old man Zhongli, Alice had probably come running over on her own.

After all, even the Heavenly Principles couldn't keep that lady in line.

There was also Ronava, who didn't want to work overtime but had been made to do it every day by Mitya.

Odette and Voyanissa were another version of the little dove and the bristling kitten.

The classic Hydro-pestering-Cryo routine.

The strangest part was that Mondstadt seemed to have been scooped up wholesale.

Venti already had his young companion, and now Varka, Noelle, Rosaria, Lisa, Klee, Alice, and Amber had all come over too.

The Knights of Favonius in Mondstadt were left with only Kaeya, the cavalry captain without a horse; Mika, the surveyor; and Barbara, the deaconess...

A few more pulls and they might have to ask Dvalin to guard against Hilichurls.

Everyone except Alice looked dazed. They glanced around, and only relaxed when they spotted familiar faces.

But the moment Venti saw Ronava, he nearly shot into the air. He hurriedly shielded the young man behind him.

Zhongli, too, quietly pulled Guizhong behind him.

After all, they were people who had once died. If the Shade of Death saw them and took their presence as a challenge to death, he would have no choice but to use another name.

Mr. Mo.

And if that failed, Geo Traveler: Heavenly Star would do.

The Shade of Death clearly saw through them. Ronava waved a hand, her eyes going flat and lifeless.

"Wonderful. I finally don't have to work. I'm out of that place at last."

Her voice was cold, but her meaning was clear: I won't touch the two behind you.

Venti and Zhongli both breathed a sigh of relief. Unless they had to, they truly did not want to fight the Shade of Death.

From the look of her, the Shade of Death had finally escaped her life of toil and was ready to lie flat.

"Ehe... I heard that being say you worked the hardest of the Four Shades. Sometimes she even envied your energy."

Ronava rolled her eyes at Venti. "Do you think I wanted to work? Not one of the other three was reliable!!!"

"The whole of the Seven Nations rested on my shoulders alone!"

The more Ronava spoke, the angrier she grew. Then she caught sight of Mitya deep in thought, and her old trauma came roaring back.

Her first instinct was to strike and pin everyone there to the ground.

Su Yun, who had been through this before, rushed forward and grabbed her arm.

"Ronava! Please, calm down! We're not on the continent of Teyvat. I know the Heavenly Principles scolded you until you turned into a salted fish that only cares about rules, but you're fine here. Trust me!"

Ronava paused. What was a salted fish?

"How do you know the Heavenly Principles scolded me?"

"You once made a private agreement with Xbalanque, the First Pyro Archon, and created a mechanism in Natlan's Nation of the Night God that let people die and return to life through the Ode of Resurrection. Your intention was to strengthen humanity.

"That way, they could resist Dragonkind and the Abyss. It was the better choice for the continent of Teyvat, but your actions crossed the rules, and Phanes, the Heavenly Principles, reprimanded you."

"That crushed your enthusiasm. From then on, you became a working salted fish who followed the rules above all else and went through the motions."

Ronava's mouth twitched. She didn't even have to think about it. The Night God must have told him.

She fought down the urge to kill everyone there.

"You summoned me here because you need me to do something?"

Ronava didn't believe Su Yun had chosen her out of the goodness of his heart. He must need her authority.

Su Yun hesitated, then asked, "Ronava, can you still wield the Authority of Death?"

As he understood it, Ronava was one of the Four Shades split off from the Heavenly Principles. Even away from the continent of Teyvat, she should still possess the Authority of Death, though her power might be greatly weakened.

A red glow bloomed around Ronava, as though she were communicating with something.

Two minutes passed before Ronava opened her eyes.

"I still have it, but my authority conflicts with someone else's. My standing is higher than his, but this world recognizes his authority more readily."

"I'll need some time to take that authority for myself."

Su Yun didn't have to think to know who else could hold the Authority of Death. It had to be a God King of the Divine Realm.

There were only a handful of God Kings in the Divine Realm. Destruction—the husband of Life—was one of them.

The thought of Destruction discovering that Ronava had swallowed his Authority of Death made Su Yun want to see the look on his face.

While Su Yun and Ronava talked, everyone else had sorted themselves into groups.

They had divided themselves by nation, leaving Ronava standing all alone.

After all, she was effectively Zhongli's, Venti's, and Nahida's superior. No one dared approach her for a chat.

Especially not the people from Snezhnaya. Their first goal right now was to bring Ronava down.

Mitya suddenly had an idea. "Shade of Death, now that you've left Teyvat, has your Curse of Death disappeared?"

Ronava glanced back at the man who gave her such a headache and shook her head.

"My departure doesn't mean the Curse of Death has vanished. I placed that curse to prevent Snezhnaya from making a technological breakthrough."

"But now that you've been summoned here, it makes no difference whether the curse is still there."

Mitya nodded in understanding. "So it still won't work. In other words, the Curse of Death on me is much like Khaenri'ah's curse. The difference is that Khaenri'ah's Curse of Immortality prevents souls from resting, while Snezhnaya's curse prevents technological breakthroughs."

Under Snezhnaya's Curse of Death, whenever a technological breakthrough occurred, all the researchers involved would die, have their crucial memories erased, and then be revived.

He had only wanted to test it. If the Curse of Death had vanished, he would have had someone study his notebook.

Since the curse remained, there was no point in studying it. He would see how the Sky Screen dealt with the problem first.

Before, he hadn't known why they kept failing. Now that he did, there was no reason to keep wasting the materials gathered for the Winter Plan.