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With Baizhu on an expedition for the day, Xiangling was left to babysit Qiqi, who now sat eerily still on the counter, watching her in almost morbid fascination as she diced onions and tossed them into the frying pan.
Her small figure sat pensively, almost as if deep in thought. Though, Xiangling wasn’t too sure what there was for Qiqi to think about, given her severe short term memory. (Good thing too, if the rumours she heard were correct.)
Still, it'd be good to prompt Qiqi now, lest she gets frustrated at her memory later. Breaking the comfortable silence, she slides a bowl of Jueyen chili chicken over and asks, “Whatcha thinking about?”
Qiqi slowly raised a hand and poked at the chicken, before grabbing the whole chunk and shoving what she could into her mouth. She paused to look up at Xiangling blearily, “Is olive oil fruit juice?”
-
Xingqiu found himself in a staring contest with the strange child Xiangling had passed on to him. She was eerily unmoving, though her eyes seemed…troubled? Pensive?
Please take care of her for me, Xiangling had said earlier. I. Have to recover. From a mini stroke. I'll owe you one. With that, she had stumbled away weakly, looking like she had witnessed the depths of hell.
Qiqi’s eyes dropped to Xingqiu’s lap. “What’s that?” She raised a limp arm to point at the book hooked to his waist.
He raised it to her eye level to inspect. She grabbed it weakly. “This is a little…guide for me to reference whenever the basics of economics slip my mind.” As in, when all that fills his head is that stupid cliffhanger his favourite series left at recently, and he couldn't think straight about trades and contracts.
Qiqi lazily flipped through a few pages, before landing on one about the Jade Chamber. They admired the artwork together.
Truly, he had to say, it was an architectural feat. Why, for it to float in the sky, the craftsmanship must have been so-
“Where does the poop on the Jade Chamber go?”
Xingqiu choked, struggling not to stare horrifically at the child in front of him, who looked at him with innocent eyes as she pointed at the page.
“W-well, I suppose, it…gets…transported down? Once in a while?”
Qiqi hummed. “Qiqi thinks you're right. The toilets up there must be….complicated.”
She looked up at him again. “And when you sit on a toilet bowl, are you…connecting…what a big word…your butt to a network…so big…of other butts?”
-
And so, Qiqi was currently piggybacking on Chongyun as they headed out in search of the legendary Cocogoat.
Xingqiu had just plopped her at his doorstep, rambled about having to go for a meeting despite Xiangling leaving the poor child with him, and hurried off in a frenzy.
“Her vocabulary is also strangely specific! Good luck, and don't go mad!” He yelled before running off. Qiqi had then tugged at him and pointed towards Jueyun Karst, strangely insistent for a serving of cocomilk.
How odd.
But, Chongyun had time to kill, and a child to entertain. And thus, they set off.
They were mostly silent the whole trip; Chongyun knew that Qiqi didn’t like talking, as if it sapped too much of the energy she already didn’t have. She seemed content with playing with his hair, tugging at the ends.
However, once they had arrived at Taishan mansion, Qiqi’s eyes clouded over, and her body went limp.
“Oh no, is it too hot for you?”
Qiqi shook her head.
“But is it the fire?”
She paused, before nodding. “Qiqi…is thinking about fire.”
Chongyun knelt down patiently, patting her head, prodding her to continue. She blinked, before looking blankly at him. “There’s a time in the...cremation...process...where bodies are perfectly cooked.”
-
Hu Tao stared puzzledly at the child thrown into her arms, then at the clearly physically and mentally exhausted Chongyun. He pointed at Qiqi, looked straight into her eyes and asked, “Did you…do something to this kid?”
She glances hastily down at Qiqi, who tries to squirm out of her hold while sipping a bottle of white liquid. “I mean…unless you’re talking about the whole burial shtick…no?”
“No, not that! Tao, how many people do you know that know how to pronounce the word "cremation" while still referring to themselves in the third person? Did you impart some cursed knowledge onto this kid or something?”
She could only wiggle her arms a little in response. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Chongyun paused, before finally taking a deep breath and running his arm through his hair. “Well, could you please drop her off at Baizhu’s for me? If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll have to address an existential crisis.” With that, he left, muttering to himself like a madman.
Hu Tao could only grin nervously at Qiqi, who was glaring at her with narrow eyes. “Wanna go home?”
Qiqi bit her hand.
-
After Baizhu had treated Hu Tao’s hand, she had skipped merrily away, leaving him to sigh in defeat at the child in front of him, having witnessed the shattered mental state of three of Liyue’s brightest on the way home.
“What am I to do with you, Qiqi?”