Jiang Xiaofeng ran.
He ran in utter disgrace.
He had underestimated Ganyu's strength as a long-lived being, and he had underestimated Liyue's strength.
Having originally planned to make a grand scene in Liyue before leaving in style, he began to question his life.
"Was I getting a little too full of myself?"
Jiang Xiaofeng drifted farther and farther along the river below Liyue Harbor.
Jiang Xiaofeng had already died once.
Yes, from that arrow Ganyu had shot.
Tornadic Aura should have been able to block it completely.
But he had not expected Ganyu's arrow to contain such an abundance of elemental energy.
The moment Tornadic Aura blocked it, it exploded.
Just like a gigantic blue firework.
He had only managed to fling a handful of throwing knives down below before that "firework" exploded, and the arrow destroyed his body outright.
If Jiang Xiaofeng's head had not possessed some unlucky fellow as it fell, he might have been captured.
That unlucky fellow... Jiang Xiaofeng did not remember him. He seemed to have seen him beside Yanshang Teahouse, and he had a battered sword on him.
It really was a battered sword. Jiang Xiaofeng could not even be bothered to look at it before jumping into the river and letting the current carry him away.
Jiang Xiaofeng drifted in silence, going with the flow...
Meanwhile, back in Liyue Harbor.
Keqing was organizing the Millelith to clean up the aftermath.
Who knew how that fellow had been in the mood to throw those things before he disappeared?
That was what Keqing thought.
She had not even had time to defend herself before she was wounded.
And just what were these things? Why did they make wounds bleed without stopping?
She could not even hold on to them. Keqing had tried to put one away, but it vanished on its own after a while.
"Haah."
Keqing looked at the Millelith around her, feeling rather conflicted.
For something like this to happen in Liyue was a failure on her part as the Yuheng.
That Ningguang would definitely take this opportunity to mock her.
"What's wrong, Keqing?"
Keqing looked up and saw Xiangling, holding two containers of water.
Xiangling had the fewest wounds, because she generally attacked from a fair distance away, while most of Jiang Xiaofeng's attacks leaned toward close combat.
So apart from two bleeding wounds, Xiangling was mostly fine.
"I'm all right. Thank you, Xiangling."
Keqing took the cup of water Xiangling offered her and smiled.
"It's just... I feel like this operation was a complete failure..."
Keqing seemed rather downcast.
Xiangling was just about to comfort her when Keqing stood up on her own.
"But I won't give up!"
"I'll definitely catch that troublemaker!"
"I have a feeling he's still alive!"
So he's officially a troublemaker now?
Xiangling thought that, but said nothing more.
Xingqiu and Chongyun, on the other hand, had not been so lucky.
Those two had gone looking for trouble with Jiang Xiaofeng, so naturally, they had received extra attention from him.
Not only had each of them lost a weapon, but the greatest number of the throwing knives he flung out at the end had also been aimed at them.
Not to mention the subtle force the Hayabusa Gauntlets had kept leaving inside their bodies throughout the fight.
In short, life certainly would not be pleasant for those two boys for a while.
At the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor.
"Where are you off to, Director Hu?"
An elegant, handsome man held a cup of tea and blew on it as he watched the young girl at the door preparing to leave.
"Mr. Zhongli, do you think the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor will get more orders after this incident?"
The young girl with twin tails and a large hat turned to look at her leisurely consultant and asked with a smile.
"It is certainly best that you have confidence, Director."
"I wish you success on your outing."
The man did not answer the young girl's question directly. He deftly humored her a little, and she left in high spirits.
"Don't worry, Mr. Zhongli! Someone will definitely need the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor packages I'm promoting this time!"
The man called Zhongli smiled elegantly and took a sip of tea.
"The age of human rule... perhaps it is not yet time..."
Up in the Jade Chamber.
Ningguang, the renowned Tianquan of the Liyue Qixing, looked at the report Baiwen had given her on the disturbance, her lovely brows furrowing slightly.
"A strange person... like an evil spirit... and with strange powers, too...?"
No matter how one looked at him, he did not seem like a normal person.
That was Keqing's answer in the report Baiwen had gathered.
Ningguang rubbed her brow.
"It seems Liyue Harbor will need to be placed under martial law for the time being..."
"Let us hope nothing goes wrong at the Rite of Descension."
At Yuehai Pavilion.
Ganyu was still working nonstop through a mountain of documents.
She had not even immediately glanced at the report on the disturbance delivered by the Millelith.
"Work... work... I can't put it off any longer!"
In fact, the arrow Ganyu had just fired had taken a little time.
So Ganyu felt she was falling behind in efficiency.
She had simply infused all the energy of her elemental burst into that arrow. In theory, it should have resolved the problem outright.
So she paid no attention to the newly delivered report. After all, in her mind, the matter was already over, and she ought to devote her energy to the work before her.
As for the other three poor souls... their families had confined them at home and would keep them there until their wounds healed.
All right, back to our protagonist.
Jiang Xiaofeng drifted through Liyue Harbor's sewers and soon reached the docks north of Liyue Harbor.
Jiang Xiaofeng still did not move.
He wanted some peace and quiet.
He could not help it. He had thought that, as the Beheaded, he should theoretically never suffer a setback, except through death.
And in fact, that was precisely why he had suffered this setback.
But he just felt... he had been too conceited.
"Taking down one Ruin Hunter went straight to my head..."
"If I'd taken down Stormterror without running into something like this first, I'd probably have wanted to take on The Seven..."
Jiang Xiaofeng muttered to himself.
He paid no attention at all to the system notifications that kept chiming.
"Host defeated 'special human' ×4. Obtained 120 cells." "Required cells collected. System awakened." "Searching for host's requirements." "Distributing rewards." "Congratulations, host. Obtained: 'Assault Shield,' 'Acceptance,' 'Mutation: Barbed Tips,' 'Skill: Powerful Grenade.'" "System will soon enter dormancy. Host, please kill enough monsters to obtain cells and reactivate the system..."
Jiang Xiaofeng floated motionlessly on the river, completely unaware of what had happened with the system.
A duck fluttered onto him and pecked him a few times, but he still did not react.
Jiang Xiaofeng suddenly raised his middle finger at the sky.
"Fucking life."
Jiang Xiaofeng suddenly felt utterly exhausted.
All this time, he had been rushing from one thing to the next, yet in the end, he had no idea what he was even doing.
Jiang Xiaofeng felt he needed a long sleep to clear his head.
With that thought, Jiang Xiaofeng fell asleep as he floated on the river...
He did not even want to return to dry land.
He had even forgotten that leaving a human body soaking in water for a long time was hardly a wonderful thing, let alone that the body the Beheaded had seized was actually already a corpse!
Jiang Xiaofeng fell asleep just like that, also marking the anticlimactic end of his first proper battle since coming to Teyvat...
Day and night cycled as usual, and Jiang Xiaofeng slept for three days and three nights straight.
No trace of that disturbance remained visible in Liyue Harbor. The only difference was that Yanshang Teahouse was missing a bodyguard.
By the time Jiang Xiaofeng woke up, he had already reached the shore.
Jiang Xiaofeng awoke atop a skeleton.