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"Event Card: [When the Crane Returned], Event Card—Combat Action: Lightning Stiletto."
"Damn it! You switched three character cards within a single action round again. In that case… we were clearly just one hit away. Your Keqing had already fully charged, yet Mona ended up taking the damage… No matter whether I attack one more time now or end my turn early, as long as you use Mona's fast action next round to switch to Keqing and unleash her Elemental Burst… there's no chance to turn this around. I concede…"
"Heh heh."
"Wait until I tweak my deck—I want to experience the joy of a triple switch in one round too!"
"Hold on, someone's coming."
Following Victor Wang's gaze, Cyno turned his head and saw Lumine and Paimon standing at the doorway.
Paimon was looking around, and the very next second, she met their eyes and immediately flew over.
"Victor! And Cyno! How did you two end up playing cards at Angel's Share?"
Cyno said, "I was originally playing cards at the Cat's Tail, but some fellow players there mentioned that a few days ago, there was a master of Genius Invokation TCG who didn't even play personally—just by guiding a little girl, they defeated many opponents. After asking around, I found out that this master was Victor."
Victor Wang continued, "And then Cyno tracked me down here. Although I didn't come to Angel's Share to play cards in the first place, when you meet a worthy opponent, you can't exactly refuse the challenge."
Cyno asked again, "So you came to find us?"
"That's right. Actually, a few days ago, inside a fairy tale book Collei bought from the souvenir shop, there was a prophecy tucked inside—"
"Stop." Cyno raised his hand to interrupt Paimon. "Let me 'prophesy' your 'prophecy.' The prophecy you're talking about wouldn't happen to be searching for 'a flower that doesn't exist,' 'a guide who never loses their way,' 'a person who never lies,' and 'a legend that never ends,' would it?"
"Huh? How did you know… Wait, don't tell me Collei and Sucrose already came by?"
With a straight face, Cyno replied solemnly, "No, Collei definitely hasn't been here. If you don't believe me, just turn around and look."
Confused, Lumine and Paimon turned their heads—and then saw Collei and Sucrose pushing the door open as they entered.
Behind them, Cyno delivered a perfectly timed homophonic cold joke, icy as a thousand-year glacier: "The reason Collei hadn't come before is because now, Collei can be said to have come."
Paimon let out a couple of awkward dry laughs, while Lumine forced a comment, "I think that joke was worse than the last one about the 'Grand Inquisitor' and the 'Grand Wind Mechanism.'"
"Is that so…"
Cyno frowned and actually began to ponder deeply, as if brewing up an even funnier cold joke.
Paimon hurriedly stopped him. "Hey, that's not important! Anyway, if Collei only just arrived, how did you know about the prophecy?"
"I'll explain," Victor Wang said. "A few days ago, due to some coincidences, I heard a prophecy about the 'lantern of utmost joy' from a woman dressed in a style that looked like Snezhnaya."
"A woman with a Snezhnayan style… Could it be Scarlett? That explains it—we ran into her too. She was very interested in the prophecy and even hoped we'd let her know once we solved the riddle."
"That's exactly it."
"Then that saves us a lot of explaining. Cyno—the one who never lies. Victor—the legend that never ends. We'd like to ask you to be the answers to the riddle! If you have any ideas, you don't need to figure everything out right now. Just write them down and drop them into the mailbox next to Mondstadt's public alchemy bench before twelve PM tomorrow!"
Victor Wang and Cyno nodded one after the other. Collei and Sucrose, who had finally arrived, didn't even get a chance to speak before they followed Lumine and Paimon as the group wrapped things up and left.
While continuing to play cards, Victor Wang also kept an eye on the flow of people in the tavern. At one moment, he spotted the original target he had been waiting for. Taking advantage of the break between rounds of Genius Invokation TCG, he left his seat and walked over to Venti's table.
"There's something I should mention—about the prophecy Lumine and the others saw recently. I'll be straightforward. I once visited the tea party islet of the Hexenzirkel. Lady Alice altered the incantation used to summon that island, so if anyone wants to land there again, the old spell won't work."
"No worries. The incantation I have is the latest version." Venti gently shook his wine glass, speaking with full confidence.
"That's good."
Victor Wang stood up, ready to leave, but after thinking for a moment, he sat back down.
"Aren't you curious?"
"Curious about what?"
"Curious about how I've been to that island, how I know the prophecy Lumine is looking for is on that island, and how I know that in the end, the matter of landing there would fall to you."
"Everyone has their own secrets. Just like how you have many questions you want to ask me, but you know you won't get answers, so you simply don't ask. I'm the same. If I know I won't get an answer—or that the answer would be a lie—then it's better not to ask at all."
Venti greedily took a big gulp of wine, then laughed. "But… if I piece together the correct answer through various bits of information, you wouldn't mind that, right?"
"..."
Poetry and language drifted with the wind—and so did all spoken secrets.
What's more, they didn't even need to be spoken. If the Anemo Archon wanted to focus on a particular person or group, it would be like having full-map vision. Only secrets buried deep in the heart, never expressed in any form, could truly remain hidden.
Although one could hope that the freedom-loving Anemo Archon wouldn't actively do such a thing on moral grounds, judging from the incident involving Dvorak's ancestors, what if obtaining information from the wind was a passive ability?
Seeing Victor Wang frozen in place, Venti seemed to console him. "The one thing I'm truly curious about is why you possess wisdom… but I imagine even you can't clearly explain that yourself. So, let's just drink."
No matter how much Venti actually knew, time continued to move forward without pause.
The next day.
"The flower that doesn't exist—final candidate: Albedo. Backup candidate: Tighnari."
"The guide who never loses their way—final candidate: Mona. Backup candidate: Amber."
"The person who never lies—final candidate: Noelle. Backup candidate: Cyno."
"The legend that never ends—final candidate: Victor. Backup candidate: Klee."
"These eight people, plus me, Lumine, Sucrose, and Collei—that's a total of twelve! What a massive lineup!"
After Paimon finished reading, Amber immediately raised her hand and asked, "Why are there backup candidates?"
"Because there's also the possibility that we misunderstood the riddle—assuming we're allowed to trial and error."
"That makes sense… But now that we've gathered everyone, where would that 'lantern of utmost joy' be?"
"Don't worry about that. Last time, when we used a gentle breeze to divine things at Windrise, we already found out the location of the 'lantern of utmost joy.'"
"Huh? Since when did Paimon and Lumine learn divination?" Mona asked curiously.
"Well… we just understand a tiny bit of it, that's all. Don't worry about the details—let's set off now!"
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