Genshin Impact, I, a mere mortal, cannot accompany you to the very end.

Winter days are short, and she did nothing.

I kept thinking, next time, next day, and the day after that... this old man won't run away again. He's so energetic, he won't freeze to death if he doesn't wear a scarf for a day.

But recently, the day after the old man made her 'fox udon', which was also the last day of the 'lantern festival',...

He is no longer in the mansion.

The boy at the gate told Yae: Your Majesty the Pillar of State has gone on vacation.

travel?

Where can that old guy travel?

Yae no Miko brought the priestess to the Pillar of State's residence several times, but they never saw him again.

The answer each time was, "His Majesty the Pillar of State is not here."

But where did he go?

He attends the Lantern Festival every year.

Miss Fox was unaware that she had transformed into a little fox and was idly squatting on the eaves of the Pillar of State's mansion, thinking that when he returned, she would jump down and give him a good scare, and then give him the scarf.

But in the end, he never came back.

As the winter sun rose, it shone on the large pine and cypress trees in the courtyard. As time passed, the shadows of the branches began to move as well. When the sun set behind the mountains, the silhouette of the branches fell onto Miss Fox.

That's the end of the day.

She yawned, feeling bored.

The last lantern was put down and extinguished, and the streets of Inazuma became dark and shrouded in night.

This year's lantern festival has ended.

So this is how boring the Lantern Festival is without the old man. There are no riddles, no flower market, and no goldfish fishing. Miss Fox just lies on the roof beam of the Pillar State Mansion, yawning one after another.

I used to find him quite annoying.

The little fox, its body wrapped in a scarf, looked at the snow on the street.

Go find him.

-

Regarding the slow update issue... but I update twice a day!

Most authors update twice a day.

Volume 1: Bounty for Extra Chapter Updates

I am gugugugugu, you can call me Sigu.

As the title suggests, a reward is offered for a quick update.

Actually, I didn't want to do this bounty, or rather, I didn't dare to, because I once tried doing a four-hour bounty and I knew how powerful everyone was.

Very powerful. Very terrifying. Very fierce.

I value my life.

But there's nothing we can do; everyone says the updates are slow, fragmented, disjointed, and lack emotional coherence, making it hard to get into the story...

But what I want to explain is that the book currently has less than 50,000 words, and it hasn't even been tested or promoted yet. It's still a pure new book in its development stage, or even a book started during a quiet period.

Pure seedlings.

But when the book reached 6,000 words, it made it onto the click charts (only in the bottom 100), and then its ranking snowballed higher and higher, so everyone came to read it.

This is the consequence of attracting too much traffic during the development period of a new book; it can't wait for you to develop slowly.

If you start laning too early during your development period, the situation you mentioned will naturally occur.

What you were supposed to see was a fully developed book. My original plan was for it to reach the top of the charts and be published after 70,000 to 80,000 words, so you were supposed to see a coherent plot.

How to do?

Everyone's right, the only solution is to offer a reward for a large number of updates.

However, I would like to add that while it's fine for some readers to offer suggestions, please try not to teach me how to write a book.

The bounty rules remain the same as before:

One extra chapter for 5,000 recommendation votes, one extra chapter for 400 monthly votes, one extra chapter for 20,000 cat cookies (any gift is welcome, except for razor blades; please contact me in advance for treasure chests).

The maximum number of chapters is 15, and the deadline is next Thursday.

Oh my god, I'm not watching the game anymore!

It's just one life, isn't it?

Volume 1: Chapter 21 No, no, no!

It's going to thunder over there.

Yae no Miko saw that light.

First, the dark, thousand-mile-long clouds rolled and rippled like waves. As lightning flashed through the gaps, the clouds shattered into pieces, like broken ice. Then, the lightning fell from the sky.

That direction leads to Bayun Island.

"Huh?" At first, she hadn't realized what was happening. Her mind was blank, without any extra thoughts. Her thoughts were still on how to curse this old thief. But as the lightning continued to roll down, the Eightfold Divine Child slowly came back to her senses.

She still didn't feel any extra emotions.

Emotions seem distorted at this moment.

"What a loud thunder," Yae no Miko murmured. But why would there be thunder in winter?

She didn't know, and she didn't really want to know.

As she walked along the road from Narukami Island, she saw many corpses.

Those were filthy corpses, with large gashes torn open on the hounds, their eyes white, staring straight at the sky, and some even had their limbs torn into pieces.

But Yae no Miko had seen it and knew that the wounds were caused by wind elements, so she remained unconcerned and indifferent.

That old guy went on vacation. He went to soak in hot springs, drink sake, and eat winter fusukiyaki. Why would he come to this snowy island alone to kill these monsters?

Isn't he cold? Isn't he hungry?

Yae no Miko still remembered the old man leaning against the fireplace, his lips dry and purplish, his cheeks flushed only slightly by the flames, spouting boastful words without admitting defeat. It was truly laughable... How could such an old man possibly leave his fireplace?

He's so weak, all he can do is cook.

He said he would live for several hundred more years.

But when she heard the rumbling thunder coming from the clouds, her heart felt as if it had become unreal.

There shouldn't be such a big thunder in winter.

Moreover, the sound of thunder was very familiar.

The sense of unease grew stronger and stronger. After a brief emotional pause, the unease that had been suppressed in her heart for months surged towards her like a tidal wave.

Miss Fox walked towards Bayun Island.

Muxi stepped onto the soft snowdrifts, her steps uneven, rising and falling, just like her emotions, rising and falling with the snow.

Yae no Miko began to ponder the sense of unease in her heart.

The old man's usual appearance flashed before her eyes: the way he smoked, the way he cooked, the way he drank tea... Scenes from the past flashed through Miss Fox's mind like a revolving lantern.

Long-overlooked details are slowly coming to light.

He was cooking—last time he made fox udon, he accidentally cut his hand. But he's a samurai who's wielded a sword for hundreds of years; how could a samurai like that cut his own hand...?

Was this an accident?

Is he unable to wield the knife, or is he unable to control his own body?

He smokes...did he cough while smoking? He did cough, but he kept smoking. Miss Fox has told Qingye many times, but he never listens.

Why is that?

Miss Fox recalled the strange smell she had caught that day; as she had said, she had a very keen sense of smell.

The smell was faint, like the smell of rust, and it passed by in an instant... so Miss Fox didn't pay any attention to it, but what was that old guy doing at that time...?

The fox remembered that he held the teapot, covered his face, swallowed the tea, and then smiled at him.

Yae no Miko did not understand the meaning of that smile.

He always liked to laugh like that, a silly, hearty laugh. After seeing it so often, it became a daily occurrence, a habit. People often overlook the little things in daily life and take them for granted.

I don't want to think about it anymore.

The clouds above Bayun Island grew thicker and thicker, layer upon layer, swirling and unpredictable. Miss Fox quickened her pace.

Impossible, impossible.

Along the way, we saw more filthy corpses, most of which had completely disappeared, but a few had not.

However, there are no more wounds from the wind element.

She clutched the scarf beneath the shrine maiden's sleeve, feeling her fingernails dig deep into her flesh.

The lingering filth was completely severed by a single stroke, the cut clean, the surface slightly charred, with traces of lightning visible... It was his blade; he really had come to this forbidden zone.

This is a filthy, forbidden zone for living beings.

Every year at the end of the year, Inazuma would spend hundreds of warriors to cleanse the filth and ensure peace for the people for the year, but it seems that this year it will not be necessary.

Because all these tasks were done by one person.

An old man.

As Yae no Miko looked ahead, amidst the pine and cypress forests covered in frost, layers upon layers of intertwined branches, on the soil, on the snow... lay filthy corpses, forming a path that stretched to the far end of his sight—the path he had walked.

The path that filth has traversed is slowly fading away, and so is the path he has walked.

why?