Genshin Impact: The Beginning of the Wind

"It was indeed the right choice to ambush and kill Thunderbird back then."

Ying only glanced at it a few times and roughly figured out what the situation was like in He Guan. This alone shows that she is definitely a master in related methods.

It was precisely because she knew these things that Shadow thought Thunderbird was too cruel; after all, even she couldn't accept such a 'punishment method'.

"So terrifying!!!"

After Tingying recounted the current situation at Crane Gate, Paimon, who was already terrified, wished he could just shrink into Ying's arms and never come out again.

Being trapped in a single day for thousands of years... just thinking about it is enough to send chills down your spine.

"Is there a way to break this deadlock? Even just knowing what happened back then would be helpful, since it would be very difficult to remove the resentment from the ley lines using forceful methods."

Su Feng wasn't particularly concerned about the cruel retaliation suffered by the former residents of He Guan; he was more interested in finding a way to ease Thunderbird's resentment.

"There is one, and it's quite obvious."

Ying raised her slender finger and pointed in a certain direction before gently answering Su Feng's question. When everyone followed Ying's finger, they saw a small figure not far away.

"A little kid... wait! According to what Ying just said, all that's left here are the souls of the former residents of He Guan!"

Paimon reacted quickly after seeing the figure.

“That’s right. Although he looks like a normal person, he is actually just a soul. If it weren’t for the protection of the ley lines and the power of the thunderbird, he would have dissipated long ago.”

"But more importantly, he is the only one in the entire Crane Temple who has shown a complete soul."

Ying succinctly explained what made this child special, and after hearing this, everyone understood why Ying thought this child was the breakthrough point.

Simply put, all the souls that can be seen in Heguan now are incomplete, like a piece of paper, except for him, who is a thick book. This obvious situation makes it clear to anyone that something is wrong.

"Should we make contact with them now?"

Although she had traveled through the starry sea for a long time, she had never seen anything like this before. Ying hesitated, unsure whether she should approach the child.

"We have no other choice now. Let's go and see what's going on."

Compared to Ying, who seemed a bit flustered, Su Feng appeared completely normal as he walked towards the lonely child.

Just as he said, they don't have many other options now.

Chapter Fifty-Eight: The thunderous anger had not yet subsided.

"Eh? Are you guys from outside? It's been so long since anyone's been here! I'm so happy! My name is Aryu, hello everyone!"

Upon seeing the group of people who suddenly appeared in front of him, the little boy named Aru couldn't help but get excited.

He seemed to have not seen anyone outside of Heguan for a long time, so he was quite enthusiastic when he saw the group.

"So your name is Aryu? But why are you here all alone?"

Upon hearing the boy's name, Ying glanced at the people around her and decisively chose to speak first—she didn't expect Su Feng or Ying to be able to communicate well with this obviously abnormal child, so after thinking for a moment, she stepped forward first.

"Hmm, big sister seems to be a very kind person? Although I've never met her before, I can feel her kindness!"

"I never expected to meet someone like you, older sister!"

Despite it being their first meeting, Aru seemed to have an instinctive trust in Hikari and promptly extended an invitation to her.

"Big sister, today is the festival! If a rare guest comes along, I'm sure Kapaciri will be very happy, maybe this time..."

As she finished speaking, Aru's voice became so soft that no one present could hear it. At that moment, almost everyone noticed Aru's unusual behavior, but after exchanging glances, they tacitly refrained from exposing her.

However, Aryu's slightly unusual behavior quickly disappeared, and he skipped around and extended the invitation again.

"Big sister, let's go to the festival together, but there are a few things we need to take care of before that."

After saying this, Aryu led everyone towards a place still shrouded in thick fog.

Soon everyone found a huge perch in the thick fog, and under the perch, two more stiff figures who could only exchange a few words came into view.

Compared to Aru, who is almost identical to a normal person, these two figures are simply thin slices of skin. The back-and-forth of the wine is just following the script to complete the dialogue and actions they are supposed to perform.

It's virtually impossible to get any more information from them.

"It seems that Thunderbird has gone even further than we imagined, leaving only such a tiny fragment of the soul visible... This torture is far more terrifying than we thought."

Upon seeing the two figures, Su Feng couldn't help but say this to Ying beside him, and Ying nodded in agreement.

She didn't know what Thunderbird wanted to do, but binding the soul to the ley lines and leaving only this small fragment to mechanically repeat the cycle of a certain day's script was truly too cruel.

Even being completely bound and sealed away would probably be better than this endless cycle of reincarnation, right?

But if we think about it more carefully... how many times has the boy named Aru experienced this cycle?

Compared to the other residents whose souls were only partially preserved and were tormented, how much more pain did he endure, having clearly repeated countless cycles of reincarnation?

Neither Su Feng nor Ying knew this, nor did they particularly care to know.

While Su Feng and Ying were exchanging ideas about Crane View and Thunder Bird, Ying had already completed the necessary procedures for offering sacrifices to this perch. Soon, the power emanating from the huge perch dispelled the thick fog, and when the fog cleared, Aru cheered under the clear sky.

"Wow, big sister is amazing! She completed the offering so easily, even though no one else in the village could do it so easily."

Aru blinked as if looking at a hero and said those words, and perhaps because of the admiring gaze of a child, Ying couldn't help but put her hands on her hips and show a proud expression.

"But there are three other places like this~"

Unfortunately, Aru's next words immediately broke her down, and her face fell.

"Wow! Are there really so many troubles to deal with? How come we always seem to encounter these kinds of tasks that just look incredibly troublesome and keep repeating themselves, no matter what?"

Even Paimon couldn't help but complain at this point, but no matter how much he complained, he still had to do the work. However, this time Ying focused his attention on Su Feng and Ying—if these two could help, things would be easier to resolve, right?

Unfortunately, Su Feng soon dealt a heavy blow to this traveler who wanted to skip the process.

"I'll leave the matter of offering the perch to you. Shadow and I will go to the sacrificial site to see what's going on. Maybe we can find some clues."

Su Feng decisively handed over the time-consuming, repetitive task to Ying, while he himself planned to go with Ying to the sacrificial site where something was most likely to have happened to see if they could find any clues.

"Hey! How could this happen!"

Ying was dejected after her failed attempt at skipping, but she quickly had to pull herself together and prepare to complete her commission—after all, she was the one who accepted the commission to explore He Guan, and it was her job to do so.

After tossing the dejected Ying over to work, Su Feng and Ying went to the Mochi Festival at the foot of Mount Sugana.

"What a unique sacrificial site from that era!"

Upon arriving at the sacrificial ground, filled with soul fragments mechanically following a script, Su Feng couldn't help but utter these words.

Even though he didn't know much about this, he immediately understood what the sacrificial site was used for after seeing it, and he vaguely guessed what might have happened on Crane Gate.

“Ignorance and stupidity will inevitably bring disaster, but this is human nature, and it is also the reason for the existence of us demons.”

When Ying saw this blood sacrifice site, a symbol of ignorance, she was not moved at all. Having experienced a long history, she was not surprised that such a thing had happened. And now, humanity was gradually getting rid of this ignorance and brutality under the guidance of the demon gods who loved them.

In retrospect, Thunderbird simply encountered what all the original demon gods might have experienced.

However, compared to the demons who loved and guided humanity step by step, Thunderbird responded to this primal bloodshed in a more terrifying and brutal way.

Inside the golden cup, the blood was not yet dry, and the thunderous rage raged on.

Chapter Fifty-Nine: An Innocent Yet Mature Child

While primitive and savage blood sacrifices may no longer be seen in Teyvat today, they were actually quite common when humanity was still in a primitive stage.

It is clear that the former inhabitants of Crane View also went through this stage, but the Thunderbird, which does not love people, never cared about the sacrifices of these insignificant people.

Until one day, these people of Heguan stepped on a huge landmine, and the Heguan civilization, which wasted its small but noble souls with useless blood, was completely annihilated by the furious power of the thunderbird.

Now it seems that the boy named Aru was probably the one who was sacrificed.

Although we don't know the exact nature of his connection with Thunderbird, that's the reality.

"..."

"What do you think we can do now to alleviate or even eliminate Thunderbird's resentment?"

After roughly understanding what had happened at the sacrificial site, Shadow finally focused his attention on the most crucial issue.

“That Aru is probably the most crucial one. Regardless of why Thunderbird values ​​him so much, since he is currently the only one in Crane Gate who can be communicated with, we can only try to find a breakthrough through him.”

After pondering for a long time, Su Feng finally decided to find a breakthrough from Aru. However, he was not sure what the Thunder Bird's attitude towards Aru was. If the Thunder Bird valued Aru, then even he or the Shadow could not imagine how terrifying the experience Aru had gone through, having repeated blood sacrifices for thousands of years under the Thunder Bird's resentment.

But if Thunderbird didn't care about Aru... then it doesn't make sense that it destroyed the entire Tsuruga civilization in its rage, yet preserved Aru's complete soul.

So in the end, Su Feng thought that the only thing he could do was try with Aru.

Just as Su Feng finished speaking, Aru's figure gradually appeared in the sacrificial ground for some unknown reason. After Aru appeared, the previously machine-like human figures suddenly stopped moving and mechanically looked at the little boy.

If it were an ordinary boy, he would probably have been terrified and cried by now, but Aru showed no signs of distress. He even smiled brightly and waved to Su Feng and Ying.

"Do you want to participate in the festival, big brothers and sisters? Unfortunately, this part of the festival isn't very open to you, so I'm sorry..."

The boy was about to step onto the familiar sacrificial ground once again, but at this moment, not a trace of sadness or pain could be seen in his expression.

Compared to the agony of facing separation from his own flesh and blood again, he was more worried that Su Feng and Ying would not be able to accept the scene to come, so he tried to send them away from here.

However, just as Aru was about to use her connection with the remaining power of the Thunderbird to send Su Feng and Ying away through the ley lines, Ying suddenly waved her hand.

As Shadow moved, she suddenly injected surging lightning element into the ley lines, and the ley lines, which were about to move under the power of the Thunder Bird, suddenly fell silent.

Not only the ley lines, but also the figures that depended on them for existence fell silent. Although the figures couldn't violently expel the power and resentment of the Thunderbird from the entire ley line, they could still completely solidify the ley lines and temporarily render everything that depended on them useless.

"Eh?"

Aryu was puzzled that Shadow could do something like this. He didn't even understand what had happened. After looking around at everything that seemed to have frozen, the confusion in his eyes deepened.

This was a situation he had never encountered in the long cycle of a thousand years. Although his soul had been completely integrated with the power of the Thunderbird in this place over the long years, in the end, his consciousness was still just that of a small, innocent child.

The right way to harness this power was still too far away for him; even now, all he wanted was for Capachelli to forgive everyone and come back to hear him sing a song.

At this moment, Su Feng finally seemed to realize something and looked at the boy in front of him with a strange expression.

"Have you never resented the people of your tribe who made you a sacrifice?"

Su Feng ignored Aru's doubts. What puzzled him more now was whether Aru really didn't care at all about what had happened to her. Having relived the pain of blood sacrifice countless times, did she really not resent anyone?

"Huh? Big brother, you actually knew about these things?"

“But…everyone used to say that only an innocent child like me could quell the eagle’s anger, and I do owe Capachelli a song, so I should participate in the ceremony. If Capachelli comes down again, then I can sing for her.”

"After she hears my song, she shouldn't be angry anymore, right? Then everything will be over."

Aryu spoke these words very seriously.