Ren
Xinyue Kiosk was not a place for people like Ren.
He realized this the moment he stepped across the threshold. The air didn't smell like cooking oil and spices. It smelled of polished mahogany, expensive incense, and quiet, accumulated wealth.
The floorboards didn't creak. The ambient noise of the harbor, usually a constant roar, was muffled into a polite, distant hum by the thick paper screens.
"Lady Ganyu," the hostess gasped, dropping into a bow so low her forehead nearly grazed the floor. "We did not expect to see you again so soon! Please, right this way. The private booth overlooking the harbor is available."
She led them through the restaurant. As they walked, the other patrons—wealthy merchants in silk robes and Snezhnian diplomats—stopped eating to stare.
Ren kept his head high, clutching the strap of his bag, but internally, he was sweating. He was wearing a simple cotton tunic and trousers slightly stained with grass from yesterday's landscaping duty.
It's not that dirty anyway, so he didn't think to wash it yet. He doesn't care if people stare at all… Definitely.
Next to Ganyu, whose bodysuit and horns radiated an ethereal, otherworldly elegance, he looked like someone who had wandered into the wrong tax bracket.
The waitstaff seemed to agree. They looked at Ganyu with reverence, but when their eyes slid to Ren, the expression shifted to confused curiosity. Is he a foreign dignitary? A spy?
Unbeknownst to the two of them, a more… spicy rumour had sprouted from this one sight. A woman with dark blue eyes couldn't help but be intrigued.
They reached the private booth. It was beautiful, with a view of the harbor that probably added two zeroes to the bill.
"Please," the hostess said, placing two silk-bound menus on the table. "Take your time."
She backed out of the room, sliding the door shut. The silence that followed was heavy.
Ganyu sat down, her posture perfect. She reached for the menu, her fingers trembling slightly.
"I... I was actually here just a few days ago with the Yuheng," she admitted, her voice tight.
"But... well, Lady Keqing usually dictates the menu for the sake of efficiency. Having so many choices is... surprisingly paralyzing."
Ren opened the menu. He looked at the price of the first appetizer.
'Steamed Shrimp Dumplings: 4,000 Mora.'
Ren felt his soul leave his body. That was three normal deliveries. For shrimp. He glanced up at Ganyu.
She wasn't looking at the prices at all. She was staring at the names of the dishes with a look of sheer panic.
'Right,' Ren recalled. 'She's a strict vegetarian. And I bet she counts calories like she counts tax receipts.'
Ganyu's eyes darted back and forth, muttering under her breath. "Vegetarian Abalone... too much sauce. Stir-Fried Matsutake... soaked in butter. Bamboo Shoot Soup... surely they use beef stock for the base? Oh no..."
She looked miserable. She was trying so hard to be a good host, to treat her "friend" to a nice meal, but the sheer anxiety of navigating a human menu—filled with hidden meats and heavy oils—was crushing her.
Ren sighed, closing his menu with a soft thap.
"Excuse me!" Ren called out.
The door slid open instantly. A waiter appeared, ready to take their orders.
"Yes, sir?"
"I'll have the Stir-Fried Filet," Ren said confidently, ignoring the fact that it cost more than his weekly grocery budget. "And for the Lady..."
Ganyu froze, looking at him with wide, fearful eyes, clearly worried about what he would order for her, and that she wouldn't have the heart to refuse.
"A plate of Prosperous Peace," Ren said smoothly. "And a pot of your best tea… With some sugar cubes on the side."
He likes his tea with sugar, ok? He just never gets to buy sugar.
The waiter bowed. "An excellent choice, sir."
He vanished.
Ganyu stared at Ren. Her mouth hung open slightly.
"How..." she started, then cleared her throat. "How did you know that was my favorite dish?"
Ren blinked. 'It is?'
He had picked it because "Peace" sounded like something Ganyu would eat, and he remembered reading somewhere that it was mostly rice and lotus head.
"I'm a courier," Ren lied smoothly, leaning back in his chair and trying to look mysterious rather than lucky. "I hear things. People talk about the General Secretary's preferences all the time."
"They do?" Ganyu looked mortified. "Oh no. Is it widely known? Do people think I am a picky eater?"
"They think you have refined taste," Ren corrected quickly.
Ganyu let out a long breath, her shoulders dropping as the tension left her frame. "Thank you, Ren. I... I admit, ordering food is always stressful for me. I worry about... indulging too much. And in the city, they often cook vegetables in animal fats."
"Ganyu, you work harder than anyone in this city," Ren said with genuine exasperation. "If anyone deserves a good meal without hidden pork fat, it's you."
Silence settled over the table again. It was... awkward.
Ren picked at a loose thread on the tablecloth. He knew he needed to address the elephant in the room.
"Look, Ganyu," Ren started, looking down at his hands. "I wanted to apologize."
Ganyu tilted her head. "Apologize? For what?"
"For being... weird. For the last few months," Ren admitted. "I know I've been stiff. And paranoid. And every time you walked into a room, I looked like I was ready to jump out a window."
Ganyu's expression fell. She looked down at her lap, her fingers twisting together.
"I noticed… At first, I thought you were just someone with a few odd quirks," she said softly, "But then I thought you started to dislike me."
Ren's head snapped up. "What? No!"
"I thought perhaps I was too boring," Ganyu continued, a sad smile touching her lips. "I assumed you simply didn't want to be friends with someone like me."
"That's not it at all," Ren said, waving his hands frantically. "Ganyu, you're the General Secretary. A very responsible and respectable person."
He lowered his voice. "Honestly? I was scared of you."
Ganyu blinked. "Scared?"
"Terrified," Ren corrected. "Well, since I can sense other people's energy. The moment I saw you, it was like stepping into a volcano. I thought if I said the wrong thing, you might smite me."
Ganyu stared at him for a second. Then, a small giggle escaped her lips.
"Smite you?" she laughed, covering her mouth. "Ren, I am a secretary. The most dangerous thing I do is audit tax returns."
'An Adeptus Secretary!' But he didn't say that out loud.
"Hey, tax audits are terrifying," Ren grinned. "But seriously. I didn't see you. I just saw the power. And I'm sorry. I've been acting like an asshole."
Ganyu's laughter faded into a warm smile. "It is alright, Ren," she said gently. "I am used to people being... wary of my lineage. But I am glad to know it was just fear of smiting, and not my personality."
"Your personality is fine," Ren assured her. "A little work-obsessed, maybe. But fine."
"I am not work-obsessed," Ganyu protested weakly.
"You brought a notepad to lunch."
Ganyu looked down. Her hand was indeed hovering over a small notebook she had placed on the table. She blushed, quickly shoving it into her nonexistent pocket.
"Force of habit," she mumbled.
They both laughed, the sound breaking the last of the tension in the room. For the first time since they had met,
Ren didn't feel like he was sitting across from a demigod. He was just sitting with a friend who was just as socially awkward as he was.
The door slid open. The waiter arrived with a steaming platter of stir-fried meat for Ren and a beautifully arranged bowl of rice and berries for Ganyu.
"Food's here," Ren said, picking up his chopsticks. "Let's eat a little before we get talkin."
/ — /
The steam rising from the Prosperous Peace carried a delicate scent of lotus and sweet berries. Ganyu ate with a grace that made Ren feel like a barbarian for shoveling stir-fried meat into his mouth.
But the food was good, and it was only the two of them here, so it was alright.
For a few minutes, the only sound was the clinking of porcelain and the distant hum of the harbor.
But as the meal went on, the silence shifted from comfortable to expectant. Ren set down his chopsticks, wiping his mouth with a napkin.
"So," he started, keeping his voice steady. "I have some questions about the guy who tried to turn me into a shish kebab."
Ganyu paused mid-bite. She slowly lowered her spoon, her expression turning somber. "Xiao."
"Yeah. Xiao," Ren said. "You saved me from Xiao because he thought I was a demon, right?"
Ganyu sighed, looking out the window at the ocean. "To understand Xiao, you must understand what he fights. Ren, do you know what happened during the Archon War?"
"Gods fought to become Archons, and Rex Lapis won?" Ren answered. Intentionally making it an oversimplification to get Ganyu to explain more.
"It was not that simple," Ganyu said quietly. "Gods are not mortals. When a god falls, their consciousness fades, but their power... their hatred, their regret, their unwillingness to pass on... it remains."
'So the book was true.' While the Yaksha's Vigil did give him more information, having it confirmed was something else entirely, opening many doors.
She looked back at him, her eyes old and sad. "That residue festers. It sinks into the earth and becomes 'filth.' It drives mortals to madness, poisons the soil, and spawns monsters. We call it Karma or Kamir Debt."
Ren's eyes narrowed. "I see..."
"Xiao is a Yaksha," Ganyu explained. "His duty is to slaughter the demons born from that filth. He has been doing it for… a long time. He breathes in that hatred every day. He is in constant, agonizing pain."
"When he saw you in the marsh," Ganyu continued, her voice gentle, "he did not see a human. He smelled the Cursed Energy leaking from you. To a Yaksha, you smell exactly like the manifestation of the filth he has spent millennia destroying."
Ren sat back, his appetite gone. "So, to the protector of Liyue, I smell like the enemy."
"You smell like the war," Ganyu corrected.
Ren stared at his teacup, his reflection rippling in the dark liquid. Ganyu's explanation made sense, but it triggered a cascade of realizations in his brain.
"Do you… Also, get triggered by my cursed energy?"
"W-well…" Ganyu stuttered and turned her gaze away from him. "When I first found you, I'll admit that I was extremely wary. But after taking one look, I realized you weren't a threat."
Ren deadpanned at her. "So you WOULD have smited me."
"I was being cautious!" She whisper shouted, obviously embarrassed at admitting it.
Her reaction got a laugh out of him, "It's alright, you did end up helping me anyway, didn't you?"
With that said and done, his mind went back to thinking mode.
If "Karma" was just the hatred of dead gods... and it was functionally identical to Cursed Energy... then what did that say about the gods themselves?
'Wait,' Ren thought, his mind racing. 'In my world, Cursed Energy comes from human negative emotions. Here, it comes from dead gods. But the result is the same. Filth. Monsters.'
He looked at Ganyu, then out at the city of Liyue—a city built by a god who could drop mountains.
'If the remnants of a god's power behave like Cursed Energy... then are the Archons just Special Grade Sorcerers?'
The thought was terrifying.
'It's not a bad assumption,' Ren's internal monologue ran wild. 'Stories of gods creating their own pocket dimensions. That's literally a Domain Expansion. Rex Lapis's contracts? Those are basically Binding Vows.' He shivered slightly at the thought of contracts.
It recontextualized everything. This wasn't just a world of magic. He was in a world where the top dogs were using their equivalent of Cursed Techniques on an entirely different scale.
And then another thing popped up in his mind. Something he only realized now was just as important.
The concept of "Fate."
Fate is a topic that is mentioned many times in many books. Even scholars discuss its authenticity, and records of Rex Lapis and the other Archons discussing fate were also abundant.
Ren's mind flashed back to a story his parents had told him. A piece of Jujutsu history they shouldn't have known, but somehow did.
They had told him about Master Tengen, the immortal sorcerer who maintained the barriers of Japan. They told him about the Six Eyes of the Gojo clan and the Star Plasma Vessel.
"They were intertwined by fate," his father had said, his voice hushed. "A cycle that repeated for centuries. Until a man with no Cursed Energy broke it."
A man who broke away from Cursed Energy entirely. He was the anomaly who shattered the chains of fate because he existed outside the system with his Heavenly Restriction.
Heavenly restrictions were also another thing entirely. The specifics of how it worked were a mystery.
'Am I part of Teyvat's fate?' Ren wondered as he looked at his hand. 'Or am I an anomaly? Am I bound to the rules or am I beyond them?'
"Ren?" Ganyu's voice cut through his spiral.
Ren blinked, snapping back to reality. Ganyu was looking at him with concern.
"You went pale," she said. "Did I... frighten you?"
"No," Ren lied, slightly shaking his head. "Just... thinking. About how much that sucks for Xiao."
He took a sip of tea, but his mind was still reeling.
If Teyvat ran on the same logic as Jujutsu Sorcery—if Fate was real, and Binding Vows were absolute—then his presence here wasn't an accident.
And if he wanted to get home, there is a high chance a system would be set to stop him.
Even after months of researching this world, his understanding remained only on the surface. If Cursed Energy was similar to Karmic Debt, then he needed to know more about it.
And there was only one person who knew it best.
'Looks like I really am paying him a visit…'
He looked at Ganyu, his resolve hardening into something sharp and dangerous.
"Ganyu," Ren said, his voice low. "I need to see Xiao."
Ganyu blinked. "Really?"
Ren nodded, "If my energy is like the filth he fights... then he knows how it works. He might have some insight about my powers that I never knew about."
'I need to know just how far Cursed Energy can get me.'
Ren was nervous as Ganyu just stared at him, lost in thought. With a sigh, her expression troubled, she finally relented.
He watched as she suddenly summoned a brush pen out of nowhere. She didn't ask the waiter for some ink, nor did she bring any. She had simply touched the tip of a brush pen to her tongue, and now black ink flowed onto the paper with supernatural ease.
'Magic ink!'
Her expression was focused, her eyes narrowing slightly as she painted vertical columns of elegant Liyue script.
"You must think I'm crazy," Ren said, breaking the quiet. He was leaning back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest. His plate of stir-fried filet sat half-eaten and cold near his elbow.
"I think you are desperate," Ganyu corrected without looking up. She finished a character with a sharp flick of her wrist. "And I think you are frightened of what Baizhu told you."
"Can you blame me?" Ren asked.
"He said I'm adapting to having so much negative energy. And my Cursed Energy pool already doubled and is still increasing. Karma is the only thing that's similar to my energy. I need to know the rules of how it works, or something bad might happen."
Ganyu paused. The playfulness from before was gone, replaced by the ancient, weary weight of someone who had survived a war of gods.
"Xiao is not a teacher, Ren," she said softly. "He distances himself from mortals because his mere presence is harmful to them. If you go to him, you are walking into a storm."
"I know… But I have an umbrella ready," Ren joked weakly, though his hands were clenched tight. "I just need to make it strong enough so he doesn't put a hole through me."
Ganyu sighed. She picked up the paper she had been writing on.
"This," she said, "is your umbrella."
She placed her hand over the bottom of the page. The air in the booth dropped ten degrees in an instant.
A pulse of Cryo energy flared, blue and bright, leaving a shimmering, frosty seal in the shape of a Qilin stamped onto the paper.
She slid it across the table.
"A personal Letter of Introduction," Ganyu explained. "It identifies you as a guest under my protection. Xiao respects the contracts of the Adepti. If he sees this, he will know you are not a threat to be purged. It should prevent... a repeat of the marsh incident."
Ren picked up the letter. The paper was cold to the touch, humming with a faint elemental power. It felt less like a note and more like a shield.
"Thanks, Ganyu," Ren said, tucking it carefully into his chest pocket. "So I just walk up to Wangshu Inn, wave this around, and he hops down for a chat?"
"Absolutely not."
Ganyu took a sip of her tea. "The letter ensures safety, not compliance. Xiao is elusive. He prefers to stay away from crowds. You could stand there shouting his name for days, and he would simply ignore you.
Ren frowned. "So, how do I get him to come down?"
"You do not summon an Adeptus," Ganyu said, tapping her chin thoughtfully. It seemed like she was speaking from personal experience. "You invite them."
She gestured to the empty dishes on their table.
"He is accustomed to monsters seeking him out for battle. He is not accustomed to hospitality. If you want an audience, prove you are not there to fight. Bring an offering."
Ren raised an eyebrow. "An offering? Like... incense?"
"Like food," Ganyu corrected. "Place a dish on the balcony. Something... considerate. It shows you are willing to wait, and more importantly, that your hands are full of goodwill."
Ren blinked, processing this. "So... let me get this straight. To get an audience with the Yaksha, the legendary Conqueror of Demons, I need to leave a bowl of food on the balcony and wait in the bushes?"
"Essentially, yes."
A snort of laughter escaped Ren's nose before he could stop it. "So, he's basically a stray cat?"
Ganyu choked on her tea. "Excuse me?"
"You know," Ren grinned, the image too funny to ignore. "You put out a bowl of food, you back away slowly, and you wait for the feral cat to come out and eat. If you move too fast, he bolts. If you touch him, he scratches you."
"Ren!" Ganyu gasped, looking scandalized. Her cheeks flushed pink. "He is the Guardian of Liyue! You cannot compare him to a feline!"
"I mean, does he hiss?"
"He does not hiss!" Ganyu protested, though she buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter. "Oh, Rex Lapis... now I shall never be able to unsee it."
The tension that had suffocated the table finally broke. They laughed, the heavy topics of Karma and Filth momentarily forgotten in favor of the absurdity of treating a demigod like a neighborhood tabby.
Eventually, the laughter faded into a comfortable silence. They spent the rest of their time talking about lighter topics.
Ren's business success and troubles. Ganyu was especially interested in all the odd places he had to deliver to.
She wanted to tell him about the sights she sees atop the highest mountains in Liyue, only for him to surprise her with the knowledge that he had already been there before.
His only response was that people lived in odd places. A fact that Ganyu strongly agreed with.
Eventually, they had run out of things to talk about and called the waiter. The waiter returned, sliding a black lacquer tray with the bill onto the table.
Ren moved instantly. His hand shot out, grabbing the bill before it even hit the wood.
"I got it," Ren stated firmly. "I invited you. It's on me."
A hand clamped down over his wrist with surprising strength.
Ren froze. He looked up.
Ganyu was smiling as usual. It was a polite, gentle smile—the kind you saw on a painting of a benevolent goddess. But her eyes... her eyes held the absolute, freezing authority of an Adepti.
"Ren," she said sweetly. "I believe I said it was my treat."
"But—" Ren tried to pull his hand back. It didn't budge. "We're friends. I can pay for a meal."
"No offence, but you are a courier saving for rent," Ganyu noted, her voice dropping to a temperature that could freeze water. "I have accrued over a thousand years of compound interest. Do not fight me on this."
Ren looked at the bill. He looked at the glowing Vision at her hip. He looked at the terrifyingly pleasant smile.
He slowly released the bill.
"You make a compelling argument," Ren squeaked.
"I thought so," Ganyu beamed, the pressure vanishing instantly as she placed a heavy bag of Mora on the tray. "Shall we?"
They stepped out of Xinyue Kiosk into the cooling midday air.
"Thank you for today, Ren," Ganyu said, smoothing her clothes. "It was... refreshing. To not talk about work for an hour. To talk with a friend."
"Yeah," Ren agreed, patting the pocket where the letter sat. "We should do it again… Preferably at a cheaper place."
"I would like that," Ganyu nodded. She turned toward the stairs leading to Yujing Terrace, then paused. "Be careful at the Inn, Ren. And... good luck."
Ren watched her walk away until she disappeared into the crowd. He stood there for a moment, the sounds of the harbor washing over him.
He turned his gaze north. In the direction he knew Wangshu Inn was located.
He had the letter—the introduction to the few beings in this Liyue who might give him more insight into his powers.
Insight into how to get home.
But he knew that talking wouldn't be enough. If the "cat" decided to scratch, Ren needed to be able to take the hit.
"Food and a letter," Ren muttered to himself, turning toward his apartment. "That's a start. But if I'm going to walk into the Yaksha's den..."
'It's time to tame more shikigami.'