He changed Tiwat

Key players: Ningguang, Tianquan Star of Liyue, the ninth seat of the Winter Executive, "The Rich".

1. The ritual of summoning immortals: The Emperor is assassinated.

This is Ningguang's first move, aimed at crippling the Northern Bank of Winterland and rescuing Liyue's economy. In contrast, Winterland capital is relying on the Northern Bank for its large-scale expansion in Liyue.

Ningguang's interrogation of ordinary people and arrest of non-existent assassins during the invocation ceremony were actually attempts to pin the blame on the Fools.

2. The smokescreen of the golden house

From the game text, we know that Ningguang already knew that the Fools were going to enter the Golden House, so why did she specifically put the Emperor's Immortal Ancestor's Dharma Body into the Golden House? Moreover, she did not strengthen the guards of the Golden House.

Ningguang's true purpose was to use a useless Celestial Ancestor's Manifestation to lure the Executor Prince into the Golden House, where he would see that there was enough Mora—Liyue's reserves. If the Northern Bank knew that the Golden House was closed and that Liyue's Mora reserves were actually insufficient, they would be confident in crippling Liyue's economy, as Liyue would begin to experience deflation.

3. The expansion of the Northern Bank

Next to the "Three Bowls Before Crossing the Harbor" restaurant is an NPC named Lord De'an. His Minghua Money Shop was acquired by the Northern Bank. The Northern Bank is losing money acquiring Liyue's financial industry.

This is a move by the executor "Rich Man" of the Fools. The Northern Bank lends money without charging interest, but it must be repaid on time. What is the purpose of doing this? This way, they will lose money, but there will be no bad debts, because the Northern Bank has the guarantee of force from the debt collectors.

Their goal is to acquire Liyue's industrial debt. If deflation occurs, they can use this debt to exchange for a large amount of high-quality Liyue assets. After deflation, the value of a 10,000 Mora interest-free loan might be equivalent to 100,000 Mora before deflation. If you can't repay your mortgage, debt collectors will come and seize your house.

Moreover, they have the military support of the Fools, and they can use both economic and military means. If economic means fail, then war will follow. We've all seen this a lot in modern history.

4. The Winter Kingdom needs an economic foundation.

What is the basis of Ningguang's match against "Rich Man"? It is based on the struggle for resources.

Whatever Winterlands need to do, they need Mora. Besides being a currency, Mora is also an alchemical catalyst; forging weapons and crafting items consume Mora, making it comparable to valuable and useful resources like oil.

Every Mora is a product of the Emperor's flesh and blood. If the Emperor were to stop producing Mora, it would be like oil becoming a non-renewable resource.

Naturally, a war would break out over resources, either a trade war or a world war.

The second game, the realm of thought for the seven rulers of the mortal world.

Key players: Morax, the Geo Archon of Liyue, and Barnabas, the Cryo Archon of Winter.

1. The layout of the Geo Archon

Zhongli forged Mora and single-handedly maintained the economic foundation of the Teyvat continent for 3,700 years.

Before Zhongli forged the Mora to unify the world's currency, various currencies clearly existed on the continent of Teyvat (for example, there's a copper coin on Yanfei's hat, the mint in Liyue is called the Golden House, and Mora is also called silver coins, indicating that gold, silver, and copper were used before). So, there must have been places with more gold, silver, and copper, and places with less.

Because of their different basic resources, the seven countries have developed uneven and insufficient development.

Zhongli's minting of the unified currency, the Mora, was a guarantee of peace—he held "Mora hegemony," but did not seek dominance.

With Mora, Teyvat transformed from a place of mutual resource plunder to a place where everyone worked together to develop the economy and achieve prosperity. After all, Mora can print money indefinitely, and Mora can be used to exchange for resources, or even Mora itself is a resource.

2. The Ice God's Strategy

From the game's PV, we learned that the Ice Goddess was originally the most loving goddess, but after some events (the Battle of Kanria), she became a goddess who could no longer love.

We all know that the Ice God rebels against the laws of nature, and the reason why the Fools are called Fools is to symbolize their foolish acts of rebelling against the laws of nature.

The Ice God's love is a great love, a rebellion against the tyranny of natural law, and the world belongs to humanity.

Ice Goddess alone cannot defy the laws of nature, so what did she do? — Concentrate her efforts to accomplish great things.

She is unifying the resources of the seven kingdoms of Teyvat. In addition to sending the Fools to collect the Heart of God, she is also collecting other resources, such as Mora, which forms the economic foundation.

What lies behind the economic war between Winter and Liyue? It lies in the ownership of Mora hegemony, the power to redefine world currency, and the economic foundation that comes with possessing world currency.

Liyue is now the wealthiest commercial kingdom on the continent, and it can define a new world monetary system. If Winter wants to establish a "Winter Coin - Mora" system, they must seize the minting rights of the Golden House.

For this, they need the status of the Lighthouse of Teyvat—the Fatui people who fill the world of Genshin Impact. They need the Seven Kingdoms to acknowledge their strength, and only with this backing, coupled with their status as the world's leading economy, can they implement a new world currency.

So now Winter is waging a financial war against Liyue, vying for the title of Teyvat's leading economy.

3. Zhongli and the Ice Queen share the stage for a dramatic performance.

Both Zhongli and the Ice Queen have their own schemes, and their actions involve a great deal of strategic deception.

Zhongli usually only goes to work once a year during the invocation of immortals ceremony, which is already very healthy. So, as I mentioned earlier, Zhongli felt his body was hollowed out because of the casting of Mora, and he would have truly died if he hadn't faked his death.

After retiring, he was able to preserve his strength to the maximum extent. Although he wasn't as strong as when he was the Rock God, he no longer needed to constantly expend energy, and he was still at least at the level of a Demon God. (Zhongli's voice line: "His power has recovered somewhat, not much, but enough.")

Furthermore, considering his "contract to end all contracts" with the Winter Queen, in which he sent out the Heart of God, we know he was also a god who loved his people. It's entirely possible he would stand on the side of rebellion against the laws of nature for the sake of his people. And by ending the laws of nature, he would naturally end all existing contracts.

In the game, when the Traveler mentions the Fatui and the Northern Bank's expansion in Liyue to Zhongli, Zhongli's attitude is roughly, "This is a problem, but I'm retired, and I won't solve it." If Zhongli truly believes the Fatui's actions are wrong and the Northern Bank shouldn't be located in Liyue, why didn't he address it before retiring?

Zhongli's attitude towards the competition between the two major economies of Winter Solstice and Liyue is one of tacit approval—Ningguang, if you Stars can handle this economic war yourselves, that's great. If you can't, it's because you're incompetent.

Of course, Zhongli's bottom line was that Liyue should not fall, so he manipulated everything during the summoning ceremony to prepare for any possible consequences.

This old man felt that a war of at least the intensity of the Demon God War was likely to break out in the future. For over three thousand years, Liyue had been complacent and weak. The Thousand Rocks Guild used to fight the Demon God alongside this old man, but where is the Thousand Rock Army now? The immortals haven't fought in a long time, have they? They need to practice.

The old man deliberately chose Oser, a demon god who had been sealed away for thousands of years and was already very weak, and who was at sea, so no matter how much he attacked, he wouldn't damage the flowers and plants, as his target.

Therefore, Zhongli was both preserving his strength and training his troops.

Allowing the various actions of the foolish masses is tantamount to allowing the US military to build overseas military bases and create conflict.

Clearly, this contradiction is exactly what Zhongli and the Ice Queen need. Even the lazy Barbatos and the nerdy, terrible movies…

To use the spoiler version from Fire Phoenix—the Eight Wonders conspire together.

The third game: Heaven's justice versus humanity.

Chess Player: The enforcer of heavenly justice, one of the seven rulers of the mortal world.

The chessboard appears quite subtly in the first volume, for example, why Gan Yu summons the male protagonist, the anomaly of the Layered Rock Abyss, and Zhong Li and Xiao Han's conversation in the tea room on the rock (see chapters 76 and 77).

Since the novel hasn't progressed to this point yet, I'll just briefly describe it based on the background setting of Genshin Impact.

Simply put, the story background of Genshin Impact borrows from the concept of "Gnosticism".

Gnosticism, meaning "to possess knowledge," is a doctrine that advocates attaining divinity through the possession of knowledge.

In Genshin Impact, the Heart of God is called gnosis, another translation of Gnosticism or gnosticism.

In Gnosticism, the Eye of God, the Heart of God, and the Primordial God correspond to the three concepts of psychic vision, psychic knowledge, and stranger (traveler).

Humans originated from an ideal world (a world like the Garden of Eden), but were thrown into the real world, becoming strangers. Therefore, every human being is a traveler.

Humanity needs to possess profound knowledge and unwavering beliefs in order to return to an ideal world.

In the Gnostic world, there are two gods: a supreme god and a creator god. (The traveler is a twin.)

The Supreme God is hidden in the ideal world; the real world was created by the Creator God and His angels. (The Maintainer of Heavenly Principles and the Seven Rulers)

The dualistic divine system split the ideal world from the real world. Humanity was banished from the ideal world to the real world. Humanity's pursuit is to return to the perfect ideal world.

Okay, that's the initial background. (Genshin Impact's plot incorporates other elements and won't just follow this development.)

Connect this to the destruction of Kanria five hundred years ago, and the death of the Sumeru Grass God.

We have reason to infer that these destroyed and killed beings may have come into contact with the truth of the Teyvat continent. (There are related hints in Aunt Lisa's backstory.)

For example, is Teyvat a false world maintained by the laws of nature?

Of course, those of you who have finished reading the first volume know that, in my style, the answer won't be simple, right?

Second, character-related information and plot clues

The previous plot summary has already covered the roles of many characters. Here, I will mainly talk about the original characters I created in the first volume.

First, there's the male lead, Han Fulai.

Basically, he is a smart (he could have been a top 2 candidate, he reacts quickly, has a good memory, and is good at observation and reasoning) and kind-hearted (he is principled, grateful, but does not rule out using tactics against enemies). He is a 24-year-old office worker (he has a destiny to work overtime, and even if he dies, he will be dragged to Liyue to work overtime).

His name comes from Humphrey. He studied Chinese literature because Humphrey graduated first in his class from Oxford University's Department of Literature.

However, if Han had been able to get into a top 2 university like Humphrey, he wouldn't have ended up in such a bad situation. So, he was sent to a "bottom-tier 985" university.

Xiao Han's growth in the first volume mainly focuses on his transformation from a corporate slave to a politician. With guidance from Gan Yu, Ning Guang, Zhong Li, and others, he gradually begins to emulate them.

(Note: Actually, the lines "If I have neither talent nor luck, how should I live in this world?" and "Crying under the light-colored sheets at night" in the first chapter were famous memes from the "failure studies" section of Zhihu back then, though perhaps not many people know them now. These two sentences actually refer to the protagonist's "desire to study at Tsinghua or Peking University, but failing the exam and ending up at Zhejiang University." Of course, this is just a joke; in the main text, he should be treated as an ordinary small-town student focused on exam preparation.)

Some readers are interested in the male protagonist's romantic relationships. In the first volume, the level of affection the male protagonist garnered was roughly as follows:

Gan Yu: A close comrade-in-arms who works overtime together to change Liyue; their brotherly bond is evolving. She's willing to "make decisions against the ancestors" within limited limits for Han's sake, progressing towards something more than friendship. (The very chatty Zhenjun: To marry my apprentice, you'd better at least have a house in Yujingtai.)

Yanfei: If Xiao Han confesses his feelings, I'd probably be willing to date him; I've given him VIP treatment. But being friends is fine too. (He doesn't have a place to live, so he can stay at my place, but he'll have to pay rent.)

Ningguang: He's just a younger brother. (Whether he has a house or not, it's definitely not as big as my house.)

Ke Qing: He's a good person. (Whether he owns a house or not, he certainly doesn't have as many houses as my family.)

Xingqiu: He's my ideal male protagonist in a novel. (Wandering the world with a sword, making the four seas his home is also a good idea.)

The male protagonist has only been in Liyue for a little over a month in the timeline, and he didn't come here for a blind date, so the romance won't progress that quickly.

Most of the original characters in this article follow the principle that "their names determine their fate," so their names are all witty and humorous.

For example, Xu Cheng, the simp who appears in Chapter 42, runs the Fontaine Earl brand of underwear. His prototype is a boxer who studied in England and is very good at boxing. Those who know, know. I won't say it outright.

Zhao Hande, who appears in Chapter 104, is clearly Director Zhao, the son of a farmer who hasn't spent a single penny.

Let's focus on the father and son, Mao Cai Gong, who have a significant role. They are important antagonists and play a crucial role in the first volume.

Sheng Jinyong, the son of Shanda, well, there are two inside jokes. One is Shanda, my former employer when I first graduated. From 13 to 14, I worked at Shanda Literature. At that time, Shanda started implementing the 995 and occasionally 996 work schedule. Even if you were sick, you still had to go to work, and you would still be called 12 times to urge them to come.

You can search the name Sheng Jinyong on Baidu. His character assessment is roughly as follows: "In terms of his background, he was an ambitious warlord; in terms of his ideology, he was a local tyrant; in terms of his behavior, he was a wolf in sheep's clothing."

I basically transferred the prototype of this character to the father and son of Maocai Gong.

Everyone knows that Mao Cai Gong is a very despicable villain in Genshin Impact. He forced Chang Jiu Ye to buy his stone amber at a 30% discount, colluded with the Fatui to beat people in the street, broke the legs of the Gu Hua faction's henchmen, and boasted to everyone in the teahouse. Moreover, such a person lives in Yu Jing Tai and is one of the most wealthy merchants in Liyue.

Why can someone like that live so well in Liyue? It's because "you've studied hard for ten years, so why should you surpass the efforts of several generations of others?"

This young master's character was designed specifically to subvert conventional thinking—are high-ranking sons really that powerful? Why can't they be worthy of their positions? Why is it that his father can't be as corrupt as him but is still rich? To be honest, I've seen quite a few such young masters and fairies in real life.

Whether it's the way Mao Cai Gong is portrayed in the game, or the roles I hope Mao Cai Gong and his son will play in the story, they must be villains like this, "local tyrants"—otherwise, if villains are all like Ning Guang and Ke Qing, who are better and more hardworking than you, then why would you rebel against them?

Perhaps because online novels in the past two years have been trying to subvert tropes by frequently writing about villains who are "richer and more hardworking than you" and "have zero capital beyond their abilities," readers can't see that real-life villains are like "I don't care if my friends are rich or not, because none of them are as rich as me," "driving a G-Wagon into a museum," or "blocking a Rolls-Royce with 50 Bentleys."

—Moreover, these kinds of people love to find a sense of superiority in ordinary people. They might even boast that "foreign Wi-Fi passwords are served on plates by housekeepers" or "the correct way to eat an egg is to use a spoon to scoop it out."

The character of the young master of the grand man has undergone at least three transformations.

This young master appears as a classic villain in Chapter 42, seeking a sense of superiority over the male protagonist in order to win the heart of a beauty.

By chapter 43, she had become ruthless yet flexible, abandoning her underlings on the spot, yielding, and even trying to befriend the male protagonist.

By chapter 44, you'll find that he's been fooled by a beautiful woman. And by chapter 100, you'll discover that he's gotten caught up in an even bigger mess and is ruined by the male lead. Even by chapter 103, he'll gain some growth from Maocai Gong's experience.

I put a lot of effort into portraying these two villains to their full potential, using them to depict the current state of Liyue. If you're watching the Ming Dynasty series, the Mao Cai father and son are roughly equivalent to the Zhejiang governor Zheng Bichang and He Mao Cai—extremely cunning when they need to be, and extremely shrewd when they need to be.

The villains in Mondstadt and Inazuma are actually more disheartening—their skill level in the game is even lower than that of Maocai Gong. At least Maocai Gong hasn't committed any capital offenses on the surface.

The Lawrence family of Mondstadt, Yura's uncle, sold out their country with utter blatant blatant disregard for justice...

The Hiiragi family, the Kansei Magistrate of Inazuma, and the Kujo family, the Tenryō Magistrate, practically have "traitor" written all over their faces...

You can imagine how much effort I'll have to put in to raise their skill level in the future, *crying*.

III. Miscellaneous Thoughts on Creation

tired……

Since this story revolves around political intrigue, maintaining both update frequency and quality is crucial. As you can see, my style generally ensures a high level of information while incorporating numerous references and memes. Therefore, the biggest challenge for me is figuring out how to deliver a line in a way that is both interesting and useful, and how to make the plot both unexpected and logical.

Well, it was my own choice, haha. It's also a challenge I've given myself; I crave the joy of creation. I've always wanted to write novels that I could only write because they're my own work.

On the other hand, this style is actually a thankless task in the current mainstream of cat websites. Nowadays, readers rarely have the patience to read about your layout and twists. To give an analogy, if my current writing rhythm is "exhale...inhale...exhale...inhale...", the mainstream rhythm is "exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale".

But writing about power struggles and intrigues can't be done quickly and easily; there's no way around it, there are gains and losses.

Another thing is that I've discovered that I seem to know more about the original Genshin Impact than many readers do? Actually, I'm a new player who got into the game by watching Goddess Cleave!

Because I often see posts saying things like, "You're mixing up ancient poems in Genshin Impact," "How could Ningguang possibly have ambitions to control the Seven Kingdoms?", "The only three-eyed, five-manifested immortal is Xiao," "Guhua is an original character," and "Roran is an original character"...

But this is all from the original work! Zhongli and Xingqiu love reciting poetry! The poems I had the protagonist recite were all ones they had already recited! Ningguang said she wanted the Jade Pavilion to cover the Seven Kingdoms! Three Eyes and Five Manifestations is a collective term! Guhua's story is in the Rain-Cutting Sword! Rouran's story is in the Pearl-Inlaid Boat and the messenger mission!

I once wondered if I should write footnotes as I write the story? After all, if I add the background story to the main text, some people will say I'm padding the word count.

Then I thought, forget it, there's no need to waste the effort. It's impossible to please everyone; it's good enough if some people like it. Those who are willing to read to the end will naturally find the answer.

Finally, it's all fate that has allowed those readers to finish the first volume.

Thank you everyone, love you all~

Volume Two: Yes, Keqing

Chapter One: The Senior Brother of the Ancient Hua Sect

Han Fulai and Xingqiu returned to Qingce Village three days after the completion of the Yuehaiting reforms, and also the first day after the promulgation of the "Liyue Strategic Materials Embargo Law".