Genshin Impact: I Am a Slime

The system of the Fatui is extremely strict, let alone in Liyue, a foreign country.

The correspondence between Nadia and Vlad continued for several months. Even when they occasionally met during shift changes, they would leave in a hurry after exchanging glances, and they didn't even know each other's appearance clearly.

After all, almost all members of the Fatui wear masks.

Gradually, Nadia found that she seemed to have become dependent on Vlad's letters. The letter exchanges that originally seemed to be a prank had become one of the few things she looked forward to in her work.

Until the yellow-haired traveler and FAMAS set fire to the Fatui's hall.

The flames burned the entrance to the second-floor corridor black and successfully burned down Nadia and Vlad's jobs.

Nadia was arranged to be Mr. Pantalone's temporary secretary, but because she had no talent in finance, most of the time she was just running errands, responsible for delivering information and tasks.

Vlad was transferred to the Chasm to perform a temporary mission.

As a result, the correspondence between the two was temporarily interrupted. Nadia was no longer as ignorant as she was when she first arrived in Liyue. She had heard a little about the Fatui's exploration plan in the Stonehenge, and countless of her vanguard colleagues had died there.

Nadia originally wanted to plead with the most talkative Lord Young Master among the executive officers, asking him to veto the order to transfer Vlad to the Layered Abyss, but Tartaglia was missing, and Pantalone's transfer order came too hastily.

The two didn't even see each other again before leaving.

All that was left for Nadia was Vlad's last letter full of flags:

"To Nadia:

"When you opened this letter, I should have been standing in the mine of the Stratigraphic Abyss. Please forgive me for not saying goodbye to you before I left. Master Pantalone's butler knocked on your door this morning. I thought you were resting at the time, so I asked the brothers of the supply transport team to bring this letter to you when they return."

"Yesterday when I passed Feiyunpo, I saw a vendor selling pickled pork with preserved vegetables. It suddenly occurred to me that you always complained that the bread in Zhidong was as hard as the parts of the Ruins Guard."

"I have already said hello to Miss Ekaterina. If I am not back by the time the allowance is issued next month, please collect it for me and then use the money to buy some soft bread and cakes at Chihuyan."

"The mining lamps in the layer rock always go out inexplicably in the middle of the night. My colleagues privately say that the memories of the dead in the deep earth veins are wandering. This morning, I met Andre from the Sixth Company in the temporary camp. He had a bloody bandage wrapped around his right eye, but he smiled and told me not to believe those ghost stories. But when I asked about the Seventh Company that was transferred to the mining area half a year ago, everyone suddenly lowered their heads and wiped their muskets in tacit understanding."

"Nadia, I still remember the first time you wrote to me. I was surprised and excited at the same time. I was born in the Hearth Family and have many brothers and sisters, but you are a well-known and complete Winter Person. When you called me brother, I was so surprised that I didn't know what to say."

"My pension was supposed to be sent to Hearth House, but I quietly changed the mailing address. If one day you receive an envelope with a red seal from the Quartermaster Department... No, I promised to teach you how to identify glass lilies and glass bags. After this exploration, shall we go to Lonely Cloud Pavilion to see the sea? The sound of the waves there always reminds me of the crackling fire in the cold winter."

"The supply team's alarm has sounded, and the flame in the oil lamp has started to glow strangely blue again. If possible, please say hello to the calico cat at the entrance of the covered bridge for me, if it still remembers the guard who secretly fed it dried fish every day."

"Vlad, written in the camp west of the Stratum Chasm, on a starless night."

The letter ended here. The edge of the paper was stained with the black crystal dust unique to the Layered Abyss, and the handwriting was a little sloppy due to haste.

Nadia remained silent and calm, but her fingers holding the letter became stronger and stronger. But she soon found something wrong. The lower left corner of the back of the letter felt uneven but regular. It was obvious that Vlad had used his fingernails or some other hard object to quietly engrave some information that could not be directly expressed.

Nadia immediately put away the letter nervously, and then took the opportunity of handing over the documents to run to Ekaterina to ask for a charcoal pencil. When no one was around, she went to the corridor bridge where she was supposed to be guarding, pressed the paper on the handrail and gently smeared on it.

Soon, a short poem written in Liyue language appeared on the back of the letter Vlad left behind:

"The sun and the moon gaze at each other, yet they never leave my heart. Seeing you walking or sitting, it feels like fire is burning on me."

All the Fatui non-combatants who were assigned to travel to Liyue had learned the Liyue language to some extent. Although Nadia's course was an emergency supplement, she was able to roughly understand the meaning of Liyue poetry.

However, this simple, straightforward and passionate love poem still made her stand there in a trance. The overwhelming joy and fear were like a torrent, filling up the lonely hole in her heart caused by being in a foreign country.

"The sun and the moon gaze at each other, and they never leave our hearts."

Nadia murmured to herself. The bluestone bricks of the covered bridge had long been mottled by the wear and tear of time, but at this moment, new cracks appeared on them because of the poem rolling over and over on her tongue.

The girl suddenly raised her head and stared at where she stood guard at Vlad's covered bridge, staring at the sunken footprints on the right side of the porch.

Those were the marks left by Vlad's military boots during his long days on duty. They were three steps away from the shallow pits she had stepped on during her night shifts, like the yin and yang fish on both sides of the terminator, always chasing each other but never intersecting.

The mark that seemed ordinary before now seemed so eye-catching. Nadia felt as if she really felt a stinging pain like being burned by fire.

However, this excitement and joy was soon interrupted by a call from the bank hall:

"Nadia, where are you? Come and deliver these documents to Master Pantalone's office!"

"Then go to Yujingtai to pick someone up!"

It was Ekaterina's voice.

Thinking of Vlad's future and Pantalone's not-so-positive reputation among the Fatui, Nadia suddenly fell silent.

She and Vlad were just two screws in the huge machine of the Fatui, ready to be screwed into a nut at any time, waiting to be replaced by new parts after time erosion and metal fatigue.

Perhaps there should be no place for romantic relationships in the lofty ideal of traveling to the White Star of Winter.

Nadia folded the letter solemnly, placed it against her heart, wiped her red eyes, and after making sure that there was nothing unusual on her face under the mask, she hurried back to the bank lobby to accept the task assigned to her by Ekaterina.

Go to Yujing Terrace to guide the traveler who caused her separation from Vlad. (End of this chapter)