After listening, Jack's intuition told him that Barbatos, this kid, definitely wasn't being honest, so he pulled out a stack of world coins and threatened, "Can you guarantee that you didn't embellish anything when you translated?"
"Uh..."
Venti's eyes darted towards the sky, "Ahaha, I admit, I did a little bit of artistic embellishment."
"Very well, your salary for next month will be halved."
"Wait! How can you do this! I... I did polish it a bit, but the main content of the story hasn't changed!"
"Good! Then you translate it again for me. If I find someone arbitrarily misinterpreting the meaning of the lyrics again, I'll make him understand the profound truth of how difficult it is to go from luxury to frugality."
Venti swallowed fearfully.
Like a primary school student who had made a mistake, he pouted and slowly recounted Barbara's lyrics.
Excluding the parts about falling for someone else and suicide.
The general content was a story of a girl separating from her lover, joining the army at eighteen and returning at seventy, conveying the pain of longing.
But through Barbara's vocals.
This originally sorrowful and tragic song was given new vitality, a rebirth from death, carrying a glimmer of hope amidst despair, a refusal to give up.
After the song ended.
Barbara slowly pulled the microphone away.
She herself was still immersed in the sorrow of the song, remaining motionless for a long time.
Backstage, an elderly female Knight waved her hand to stop the band members who were about to play the next accompaniment, and quietly picked up a small megaphone to remind her from behind the curtain.
"Miss Barbara~ Miss Barbara, it's time for the transition speech to the next song~"
"Eh? Ah!"
Barbara snapped back to reality, quickly lifting her head to prevent tears from accidentally falling.
But with that look up.
The two people brazenly sitting on the distant rooftop immediately came into view.
"!!"
Barbara gasped cutely, as if she had seen something astonishing, her small mouth agape.
"Travel... cough cough, um... did everyone like this song, 'Untransmittable Thoughts'?"
— We like it!!
Fortunately, Barbara, as Mondstadt's first, and possibly only, idol, had skilled professional abilities and immediately salvaged the broadcast mishap.
But her surging heart could no longer be stopped.
Her small eyes would occasionally glance towards a certain direction in the sky.
Travel... did my brother-in-law come specifically to listen to my concert?
Filled with surprise, Barbara seemed to make a decision, directly changing the originally scheduled second original song.
"The next song I'm going to sing is an ancient Mondstadt ballad, a song where the Anemo God witnessed the true love of lovers."
Wow~
Venti whistled at Jack beside him.
What!
The music director backstage was so startled that the bento box in his hand dropped to the floor.
What the hell! Wasn't the second song supposed to be the second part of 'Melancholy Princess Barbara's' currently popular 'Trilogy of Lost Love'? Why did it change to an old, sweet ancient poem?
He was about to send someone on stage to remind Barbara to change it back.
Immediately, the elderly female Knight who had come from the Knights of Favonius to help maintain order glared at him.
Her sister is my Captain, try acting like a big shot on stage again?
The music director from Fontaine immediately turned into a quail, shrinking his neck and asking a staff member for another bowl of bento.
Can't afford to offend, can't afford to offend.
Having offended Lady Furina in Fontaine and barely escaping to Mondstadt, he didn't want to experience being reviled by the entire nation again.
Back on stage.
Several accompanying musicians looked surprised.
But after receiving the new sheet music from backstage, being mere employees, they began to play according to the score.
"La, la la la la..."
As the rhythm began, Barbara instantly returned to her sweet-girl style of the past.
Both her voice and her smile.
Completely shed the title of 'Melancholy Princess' that busybodies had bestowed upon her during this period.
"Are you ready? Let us... sing!"
In her excitement, Barbara even started dancing.
Her almond-shaped eyes gazed directly into the distant sky, as if to convey this passion and love to the other party through artistic expression.
...
"It's similar, very similar."
"Traveler, what are you saying is similar?"
"Barbara, her way of expressing emotions, both subtly and unrestrainedly, is exactly like Jean's."
Jack still remembered.
Jean initially wanted to pursue the noble ideals of the Dandelion Knight, but also didn't want to betray her true feelings of loving someone else.
So, both brave and timid, she proposed a short but passionate romance with the Traveler, who was destined to leave.
Jack stood up, patted his pant legs, and made to leave.
Venti raised an eyebrow, "Aren't you going to watch the rest before you leave?"
"No."
Jack looked at Barbara, who was shining on stage, and the male possessiveness within him was wildly at play.
"A princess's life is incomplete if she hasn't been captured by an evil dragon. Barbara is currently shining like a princess of a kingdom, but a good girl like her needs an evil dragon to exist to awaken that faint, almost invisible courage within her."
Hope in despair, is it? Jack will let her grasp this hope.
With a whoosh.
Jack disappeared from the rooftop like a gust of wind.
Venti scratched the back of his head, somewhat unable to understand his thought process.
Similarly, Barbara, who had been paying attention to this side, also noticed Jack's departure.
Her heart immediately sank.
Could it be... could it be that my expression of emotion was too overt, making things difficult for Brother-in-law? Ugh... but... but it's not my fault for liking the same person as my sister!
Barbara, once again, felt heartbroken.
"Oh, why isn't Miss Barbara singing anymore?"
"Is she feeling unwell? Pastor! Pastor!"
"Miss Barbara herself is a pastor, right? Is there anyone more capable than her in Mondstadt City?"
For a moment, everyone panicked due to Barbara's pause.
Just as everyone was whispering and the backstage staff were preparing to go on stage to save the situation.
A sky-obscuring shadow descended.
"Roar!—"
The red giant dragon, with a wingspan exceeding a hundred meters, opened its enormous mouth and let out a deafening roar.
"Dragon! Giant dragon!—"
"It's red! It's an ill omen!"
That's right.
The one who descended here was none other than the Fire Dragon Ruby, pulled by Jack from the MC World to guest star as the villainous evil dragon.
Back then, Twarin, whose size was far smaller than hers, caused indelible damage to Mondstadt City.
This clearly more destructive-looking fire giant dragon further triggered the Mondstadtian's dragon PTSD symptoms.
"Everyone, don't panic! Miss Barbara, come over quickly, it's very dangerous there!"
The older female Knight raised her knight's sword with a trembling arm, pointing it at the giant dragon.
However, her lifelong courage stopped there; her uncooperative legs couldn't take a single step.
Damn it, why does this guy, who only exists in legends, keep causing trouble in Mondstadt again and again!
"Is that the Traveler?"
Looking at the giant dragon, Barbara showed no fear.
As a god's eye wielder, she had better eyesight than most people and caught a glimpse of that fleeting figure.
She could never forget the protagonist who had appeared countless times in her dreams, even if he turned to ash.
But Barbara did not receive an answer from Jack.
A massive dragon claw struck, snatching her away right before everyone's horrified eyes, taking Miss Barbara, the national idol.
Boom!
The giant dragon flapped its wings.
A gust of wind toppled the enormous stage curtain.
Everyone was thrown into disarray by the scorching hot wind.
Then, seeing the giant dragon disappear, they all ran like mad towards the Knights of Favonius headquarters.
On the rooftop, Venti shrugged helplessly.
"That Traveler, he seems even more eccentric than me."
After a sigh, he too vanished from the spot with a gentle breeze.
Jack, as the Demon King, was having a grand time commanding the evil dragon to abduct the princess.
As an accomplice under the Demon King, he still had to report to Acting Grand Master Jean; otherwise, if the Knights of Favonius forces were hastily mobilized, some petty scoundrels would start to emerge again.
...
In the sky.
Barbara, enveloped by a soft Anemo element, landed on the spacious back of the fire dragon.
As her trembling eyelids slowly opened, a figure she had longed for appeared before her.
"How about it, surprised? Unexpected?"
Jack opened his arms to her.
Barbara's face instantly broke into a smile, and with the passion of a hundred-meter dash, she directly crashed into him, shouting loudly,
"Brother-in-law!!"
"??"
What did you call me?
-------------------------------
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