After a hearty meal, Zhong Baiye asked Zhongli what they should do first.
Zhongli thought for a moment before replying, "Let's look for some noctilucous jade first. It's one of the essential materials for the Rite of Parting."
What Zhong Baiye and the others hadn't expected was that Zhongli had absolutely no sense of direction and never remembered the streets. He had no idea where to buy noctilucous jade.
But on second thought, Zhong Baiye figured that Zhongli was Rex Lapis, after all. Perhaps Liyue Harbor was simply too small to him to bother remembering its streets.
After Zhong Baiye and Lumine asked around, they finally arrived at a street full of jade dealers.
Zhong Baiye had no idea which of these shops was any good, so he could only rely on his memories of the game to find the Jade Mystery from the original story.
He had to admit, the difference between reality and the game was enormous.
In the game, the Jade Mystery, supposedly a respectable jade dealer, was nothing more than an open-air stall. It was downright shabby.
The real Jade Mystery was completely different. A three-story building stood before them, with its name emblazoned in large letters on a golden sign overhead.
Before they even stepped inside, they heard a shop assistant enthusiastically pitching the jade.
"Come take a look! Uncut stones freshly mined from the Chasm! Every single one is of the finest quality!"
Zhong Baiye had no interest in the jade they were promoting. They were here for top-grade noctilucous jade. What could these uncut stones possibly have to offer?
But then the assistant said, "These uncut stones are your best chance to get rich overnight!"
Paimon immediately perked up and clamored to crack open a few stones to experience Liyue's rich cultural traditions.
Zhong Baiye saw straight through her terrible acting. Her eyes had practically turned into Mora symbols, after all. Anyone could tell that money was all she could see.
Zhong Baiye certainly didn't dare agree to Paimon's proposal. He had been somewhat interested in cracking open uncut stones himself, but the moment he saw their prices, that interest vanished into thin air.
A single fist-sized stone cost ten thousand Mora. For Zhong Baiye, whose entire fortune amounted to less than a hundred thousand Mora, that was a "huge sum."
Paimon couldn't care less about any of that. She deployed her ultimate move-acting cute-to "argue her case" with Zhong Baiye.
But Zhong Baiye wasn't about to fall for that. He immediately turned his head away and refused to look at her.
Seeing this, Paimon seized the moment while Zhong Baiye wasn't looking and lunged for the coin pouch at his waist.
Luckily, Lumine noticed Paimon's little maneuver and grabbed her in time. Otherwise, Paimon might have been zapped into sporting another explosive hairdo.
Zhong Baiye had been on guard against Paimon all along. Even though he had turned his head away, electricity was still crackling at his fingertips.
With Lumine holding her back, Paimon had no better option than to start wheedling and pestering Zhong Baiye.
Standing beside them, Lumine had no idea what to do with either of them.
Zhongli remained silent until he had carefully examined the quality of the Jade Mystery's uncut stones. Only then did he speak up to stop Paimon and Zhong Baiye's argument.
"Opening uncut stones is also one of Liyue's cultural traditions. The stones at this jade shop are quite good. I think you could give it a try."
Hearing even Zhongli praise the quality of the stones made Zhong Baiye waver.
Zhongli was Rex Lapis. His eye had to be exceptionally keen. If even he approved of these stones, they were bound to contain something good.
But another glance at the prices immediately doused the fire in Zhong Baiye's heart.
Zhong Baiye gave Zhongli a wry smile. "These stones are just too expensive. We can't afford to spend that much Mora opening them."
Zhongli hadn't expected Mora to be the reason for Zhong Baiye's hesitation.
"Mora? My apologies. I've never considered the possibility of running short of Mora."
Although Zhongli was apologizing, to Zhong Baiye and Paimon, he looked exactly like a filthy rich man who treated money as nothing.
He was Rex Lapis, after all. Every Mora in the world had been made by him. When Zhongli said he never worried about Mora, he meant it.
Zhongli immediately saw the envy in Zhong Baiye's eyes and the disbelief in Paimon's. He chuckled and said,
"Since you'll be helping me prepare the Rite of Parting, consider a few uncut stones a small token of my thanks. As for the Mora..."
Zhongli was currently penniless, and he couldn't expose his identity as Rex Lapis over a trivial matter of Mora.
Just then, he remembered Childe thumping his chest and promising to cover every expense for the Rite of Parting.
After a brief pause, Zhongli continued, "Childe can take care of the Mora."
Tartaglia, who was out on the street choosing toys for his younger siblings, suddenly felt a chill run through his entire body.
"I'm Tartaglia. Just who's plotting something against me?"
Childe could never have imagined that the person eyeing his money was none other than Rex Lapis, whom he had spent so long painstakingly searching for.
Zhong Baiye had initially felt that treating Childe like a wallet wasn't quite right, but a glance at Paimon beside him put his mind at ease.
Paimon was actually hypnotizing herself, muttering over and over, "This is a necessary expense for the Rite of Parting. This is a necessary expense for the Rite of Parting. This is..."
Hearing Paimon hypnotize herself like that, Zhong Baiye stopped hesitating and followed her example in earnest.
"This is a necessary expense for the Rite of Parting. This is a necessary expense for the Rite of Parting. This is..."
Watching the two of them, Lumine felt as though she had stumbled into a full-blown pyramid scheme meeting.
After a while of self-hypnosis, Paimon and Zhong Baiye wore confident expressions. Clearly, neither of them felt the slightest guilt about spending Childe's Mora anymore.
They even tried to persuade Lumine to join them, just like pyramid scheme members dragging their families into the mess.
Lumine was utterly helpless. Seeing their frenzied expressions, she could only agree for the time being. Despite agreeing, though, she only intended to buy the cheapest stone to placate them.
Next, Zhong Baiye and Paimon began "inspecting" the uncut stones inside, one by one.
But this was their first time dealing with uncut stones. They had no idea which ones were good and which ones were bad.
"This one's too ugly. Don't want it."
"This one's too cheap. Don't want it."
The two of them chose their stones entirely by their outward shape and price.
Zhongli also joined this stone-opening "game," but unlike the other two, he didn't use his powers. Instead, he ran his hands over the stones one after another.
He felt the history and mineral patterns within each stone, becoming utterly absorbed in the process.
Now Lumine had become the only normal person there. She chose a single stone worth one thousand Mora and left it at that.
Before you continue