Author Notes: Hello! This is another fic I've decided to make as a side project to my main HI3 one. Updates may not be as consistent, so maybe only 2-3 chapters per week? Hope you enjoy!
/ --- /
Ren
The heavy, iron-reinforced wheels of the handcart ground against the limestone pavement of Liyue Harbor, producing a low vibration that traveled all the way up Ren's arms.
Stacked high on the flatbed were fifty stone statues, each carved into the likeness of a snarling Geovishap, their weight enough to crush a normal man flat if the pile decided to shift even an inch to the left.
By all laws of physics, the precarious pyramid of stone should have toppled long ago. The harbor winds were strong today, whipping off the Sea of Clouds with enough force to rattle the paper lanterns hanging from the eaves, yet the statues remained unnaturally still.
'If any sorcerer back home saw me using the 10 Shadows like this, they would straight up crucify me.'
Ren leaned his weight into the handlebars, his boots finding purchase on the smooth stone. He wasn't relying on balance or luck.
Beneath the cart, where the morning sun couldn't reach, the shadows were alive.
They possessed a viscosity thicker than water, rippling like dark oil. From that abyssal depth, slender black tendrils had extruded upwards—wet, muscular, and uncomfortably sticky.
They were the tongues of Gama, a partial manifestation of his shikigami, wrapped tightly around the midsection of the statue stack, clamping the cargo down with a grip that could crush steel.
Ren grimaced slightly as he navigated a sharp turn near the wharf. Using the Ten Shadows Technique for combat was one thing; using it for logistics was an entirely different kind of endurance test.
It wasn't the physical weight that drained him—though the cart was heavy, Cursed Energy reinforcement dealt with it easily, making him strong enough to push a small car—it was the mental strain.
Maintaining the partial manifestation of the Shikigami required a constant focus in the back of his skull, which got quite uncomfortable even after months of doing it.
He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead, blowing a stray lock of black hair out of his eyes.
'Focus on the grip,' he reminded himself. 'Don't squeeze too hard or you'll snap the merchandise. Then you won't get your sweet, sweet Mora.'
"Good morning, Ren! Heavy load today?"
Ren blinked, pulling himself out of the trance of manual labor.
He was approaching the wooden bridge that separated the commercial docks from the market district.
Two Millelith guards—Jiayi and Lao Cai—stood at the checkpoint, their spears resting lazily against their shoulders.
They didn't step forward to inspect the cart. They were already used to his constant presence.
Or it was more like he was the only one constantly greeting them. While the Millelith had a good reputation, people remained wary of any form of law enforcement.
He didn't know how he felt about that. It was nice that he had such a good relationship with the Millelith, but he felt like that would get him in trouble somehow.
Ren offered them a smile. "Just earning my keep, Jiayi. You know how it is. Rent in the harbor isn't getting any cheaper."
"Tell me about it," the Lao Cai laughed, waving a gauntleted hand. "Go on through. Try not to run over any tourists, yeah? It's busy near Wanmin today."
"As long as no Young Masters start a fight again, I should be alright," Ren joked, earning a laugh from the two guards.
He pushed past them, the wheels rattling loudly over the wooden planks of the bridge.
He appreciated the Millelith. In a world that often felt chaotic and governed by the whims of elemental monsters, the Millelith were a bastion of boring, bureaucratic order.
They liked him because he followed the rules, paid his taxes, and never caused trouble. In exchange, they let the weird foreign kid with the heavy shadows work in peace.
They also saved him from being trafficked when he first woke up in Teyvat, but that's a whole other thing.
As the cart hit the stone streets of the market district, the smells of Liyue washed over him—grilled Tiger Fish, Jueyun Chili oil, and the salty tang of the ocean.
It was vibrant and alive, a stark contrast to the sterile, concrete jungle he had left behind in America.
Ren let out a long breath, his eyes drifting up to the towering red pavilions and the impossible geometry of the floating Jade Chamber high above.
'It's beautiful,' he thought, a familiar pang of homesickness twisting in his gut. 'But I'd kill for some entertainment. Or an air conditioner. God, I miss AC.'
It had been seven months since he woke up in that cage, and the culture shock hadn't quite worn off.
Teyvat was a paradox. It was an ancient society, yet people walked around with glass orbs that let them throw fire and lightning.
Back on Earth, the supernatural was public knowledge, but it wasn't this… pronounced.
Cursed Spirits mainly festered in Tokyo and less often around the world, invisible to the masses, hunted by a society of sorcerers.
Here? The supernatural was the freaking government.
He didn't even want to think about the beings akin to gods, like the Archons, or the demigods like the Adepti.
Ren shook his head, navigating the cart around a group of excited children running with sparklers.
His life on Earth had been a carefully constructed lie. His parents, who did not like the culture of Jujutsu society, had fled Japan to raise him in the West.
They had hidden him, hiding yet training him in the Ten Shadows Technique to give him a chance at normalcy.
'And look how well that turned out,' Ren thought bitterly. 'Eighteen years of normal life, gone in a single afternoon.'
He remembered the letter from the Bureau. The realization that the sorcerers had found him.
He remembered boarding that flight, terrified of facing a family of sorcerers he had never met.
And then, everything got worse when the pain blew up. The cabin ripping apart. The sensation of being sucked out into the cold, thin air at thirty thousand feet.
He didn't know if it was a Cursed Spirit that took the plane down or just bad engineering. He didn't know if aliens really existed alongside sorcerers, as his father had drunkenly claimed one night.
All he knew was that he fell, and instead of hitting the Pacific Ocean, he had fallen through a crack in the world and woke up in a cage.
He was a long way from Tokyo, and an even longer way from the hidden world of Jujutsu.
But survival was the same in any dimension. You try to lay low, you did the work, and you didn't let the monsters—human or otherwise—know what you were really capable of.
"Coming through!" Ren called out softly to a distracted merchant, steering his cart past the crowd.
/ — /
The scent of the harbor shifted as Ren pushed deeper into the Chihu Rock district. The salty tang of the open ocean was replaced by the pungent, earthy aroma of the fish markets—fresh crab, drying seaweed, and the sharp, iron-heavy smell of gutted fish.
It was a smell that usually made his stomach growl, reminding him of lunch, but today it only heightened his senses.
He navigated the cart around a particularly enthusiastic fishmonger shouting about half-priced shrimp, his eyes scanning the crowd for the easiest path through the morning rush.
"Ren! Over here!"
The voice cut through the market noise. A voice that was all too familiar to him.
'Oh god––I mean, Archons.'
Ren felt every muscle in his body lock up for a fraction of a second.
His boots skidded to a halt, and he instinctively flared his Cursed Energy, sending a silent command to the shadows beneath the cart to stop.
The black tendrils tightened instantly, ensuring the 50 lizards didn't go tumbling into a fruit stand.
He took a slow breath before turning his head.
Standing near a stall selling fresh tofu was a young woman dressed in crimson robes that seemed far too light for the brisk sea breeze.
She had a mop of salmon-pink hair, startlingly green eyes, and a pair of white antlers protruding from the side of her hat. A thick, leather-bound book hung from her hip like a weapon.
Yanfei.
Ren forced his stiff shoulders to relax, arranging his face into a polite, welcoming expression. " Miss Yanfei, good morning."
She trotted over, clutching a small basket of tofu. "I told you to drop the 'Miss' already! I haven't seen you since we finalized that liability waiver last month! How is business?"
"Business is steady," Ren replied, "Just a standard delivery to the upper residential district. Nothing too exciting."
He watched her smile, feeling a cold drop of sweat slide down his spine.
It wasn't that he disliked Yanfei. In fact, she was arguably the most helpful person he had met in Teyvat.
She was the one who had helped him set up his business after all. Helping a legally non-existent and clueless individual, and had somehow navigated the bureaucratic nightmare of the Ministry of Civil Affairs to get him a residency permit and an Independent Contractor license.
She had quite literally saved his life.
But she was also a lawyer in the City of Contracts. A city that was under the watch of a literal deity.
In the world Ren came from, he knew of a concept called Binding Vows. A vow was an exchange, a gain for a loss.
If you broke a Binding Vow, the penalty was unknown but most likely fatal. It was a law of the world that could not be cheated.
In Liyue, everything operated on the basis of Contracts. The locals treated it as a cultural quirk, a sign of honor. They liked to say, "Wrath of the Rock to those who break their contracts."
It was easy for them to say, but he was terrified. He saw it as a literal, divine Binding Vow enforced by a God who could drop mountains on people.
Was he being overly paranoid? Probably? But he was not about to risk breaking a contract and possibly getting smited by a god.
'What if Rex Lapis was someone like Zeus? I am NOT risking it!'
"You look a little tense," Yanfei noted, tilting her head. Her eyes narrowed slightly, not with suspicion, but with that lawyerly intuition that dissected body language.
"Is the cargo giving you trouble? That stack looks... legally precarious. Did you check the weight distribution limits for a Class-C handcart?"
Ren's hand shot to his chest, his fingers tapping rhythmically over his heart. Thump. Thump. Thump.
It was a nervous tic he had developed since arriving here. He was checking for the sensation of a chain, a magical weight around his soul, anything that would indicate he had accidentally violated a clause.
"I checked the load stability," Ren said quickly, perhaps a little too defensively. "Subsection C of the transport agreement: 'The carrier assumes full responsibility for securement methods.' My methods are secure. Nothing is falling. I haven't violated the public safety ordinance."
Yanfei blinked, then let out a delighted laugh. "Ren, relax! I wasn't auditing you. You're the only client I have who actually memorizes the fine print. Most adventurers just sign the bottom and hope for the best."
"Most adventurers have Visions," Ren muttered, more to himself than to her. "They can afford to be sloppy."
"What was that?"
"Nothing," Ren said, clearing his throat. "I just... I prefer to be thorough. I don't want any trouble with the Ministry. Or the Qixing. Or... anyone higher up."
He glanced nervously at the sky, as if expecting a giant stone spear to materialize from the clouds because he had parked in a loading zone for too long.
He knew that logically, Rex Lapis wasn't constantly watching. But Ren wasn't stupid. The archon may not be here, but the Contract remained.
The power system of this world was woven into the very earth he walked on, and unlike Jujutsu, he didn't have a textbook for it.
"I don't wiggle out of terms, Yanfei," Ren said, looking her in the eye. "If I sign it, I do it. Exactly as written."
Yanfei beamed at him. "See? This is why you're my favorite independent contractor. Reliable. Oddly paranoid, but reliable."
She patted the heavy book at her hip. "If you ever decide to expand your business and hire employees, come find me. I'll draft up an airtight non-disclosure agreement. We can't have people stealing your... unique trade secrets."
Ren flinched internally. Trade secrets. She meant the way shadows seemed to cling to him, or how he could move five hundred kilograms of stone without a Vision.
She knew he was different—she was half-Adeptus, after all—while she knew he was a sorcerer; she never personally pried into what he was.
Which was something he was very grateful for.
"I think I'll stay solo for now. Fewer variables to worry about. Fewer contracts to break."
"Suit yourself," Yanfei said, her tone breezy. She glanced around the bustling market, her demeanor shifting from professional to casual.
"Though, speaking of 'staying solo'... have you stopped by the Guild intake desk lately? Or perhaps visited the upper terrace?"
Ren hesitated. "Not recently. Why?"
"I ran into Ganyu yesterday," Yanfei said, dropping the name casually.
Ren felt his stomach drop.
"Oh?" Ren kept his voice steady, though his heart rate spiked again. "Is she... well?"
"Overworked, as usual," Yanfei sighed, shaking her head. "But she asked about you. Said wanted me to tell you not to forget about your monthly checkup."
Ren looked down at his boots. It wasn't that he was hiding… Well, he was hiding, but not maliciously!
Ganyu was the one who had helped save and process him after the Millelith pulled him out of that cage.
It was a very vivid memory. Waking up after a plane crash to the sight of soldiers pulling him out of a cage where he was about to be sold by a bunch of thugs.
Then Ganyu came in and approached him after the soldiers freed him.
She was the one who had looked at his terrified, confused face and realized he wasn't a threat, just a lost child with an odd power. She was kind, gentle, and softly spoken.
And she was absolutely terrifying.
Ren had an instinct for sensing strong opponents—perks that come with being a sorcerer.
When he looked at Ganyu, he didn't see a secretary. He saw a dormant volcano. He saw something that could wipe him off the face of Teyvat with a swipe of her hand.
It was a completely different presence than Yanfei. Ganyu was like how his parents described the immortal sorcerer and peak of Jujutsu: Itadori Yuuji.
Strong. Terrifying. A force of nature.
"I've been keeping a low profile," Ren lied smoothly. "You know how it is. Busy season. I didn't want to disturb her with minor paperwork."
Yanfei hummed, unconvinced but polite enough not to push. "Well, you might want to pop your head in. Just to let her know you haven't been eaten by a Geovishap. She worries, you know."
"I will," Ren promised. "Soon…"
"So," Yanfei continued, leaning in slightly, her voice dropping to a whisper. "If you haven't seen Ganyu... Are the exorcists still giving you a hard time? Or has Chongyun finally given up trying to slap a talisman on your forehead?"
"Please," Ren groaned, rubbing his temples. "Don't say the E-word. It's too early in the day for me to deal with spiritual nonsense."
Yanfei stifled a giggle behind her hand, her eyes crinkling with amusement. "I take it that means Chongyun is still pestering you?"
"Pestering is a polite word for it," Ren sighed. He glanced around the market, half-expecting the blue-haired exorcist to pop out from behind a crate of Jueyun Chilis with a talisman in hand.
"He means well, he really does. But he has no concept of personal space when he's in 'detective mode.' He keeps telling me my aura is 'damp.' What does that even mean?"
Ren knew exactly what it meant, of course.
To a native of Teyvat, spiritual energy, or he should call it "Elemental Energy," felt crisp, vibrant, and aligned with nature.
It was the wind in the trees, the heat of a fire. But Ren's power didn't come from Teyvat or the Archons.
It came from the gut, from his very being. It was Cursed Energy, born from negative emotions. Something that, for some reason, none of the other humans in Teyvat had.
To someone as sensitive as Chongyun, who possessed a unique constitution to spirits, Ren probably felt like a walking raincloud in a sunny room.
If he had to explain it, positive energy would be the norm in this world, while his is negative.
"He tried to feed me a popsicle yesterday," Ren continued, shaking his head. "Said it would 'cool my heated spirit.' I told him my spirit isn't heated, it's just tired. But at least with Chongyun, I can just buy him lunch, and he forgets about researching me for a few hours."
Ren paused, his expression darkening. He lowered his voice, leaning in slightly toward Yanfei.
"It's the other one I'm worried about."
"Hu Tao?"
Ren shuddered. A physical ripple of unease that traveled from his neck down to his boots. Even the shadows beneath the cart seemed to recoil.
"She's... different," Ren whispered. "Hu Tao looks at me like I'm a puzzle she wants to take apart. I swear, Yanfei, she's stalking me. I was delivering a package to the Ministry last week, and I felt eyes on the back of my neck. I turned around, and nobody was there. But when I looked down... There was a coupon for a 'Buy One Get One Free' coffin sticking out of my pocket. Why would I need two coffins?!"
He patted his coat pocket nervously, as if expecting to find another one there right now.
"She handles the dead," Ren muttered, his internal monologue racing. "But I can sense that she's a lot stronger than she appears to be."
If any human in Liyue were going to realize that Ren wasn't just a "weird visionless user," it would be the Director of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor.
She lived on the border of life and death. She would know that Ren's shadows didn't smell like Teyvat. They smelled like the grave of a different world.
She also possessed an odd presence that made him steer clear of her.
"You know Hu Tao," Yanfei said soothingly, though she looked a little unnerved herself. "She has a... unique sense of humor. She probably just thinks you're an interesting potential client. You do carry a lot of heavy things; maybe she's worried about your back giving out."
"My back is fine," Ren snapped, perhaps a little too quickly. "It's my nerves that are shot."
Yanfei studied him for a moment. The amusement faded from her face.
"Ren," she said softly. "Jokes aside... are you actually okay? You look exhausted. And I don't just mean physical tired."
Ren opened his mouth to deflect, but the look in her eyes stopped him. It was genuine concern.
It was the same look the Millelith sergeant had given him when they pulled him out of that cage seven months ago—a look reserved for victims.
"I..." Ren faltered. "I'm managing, Yanfe."
"Has your memory improved at all?" she asked gently.
Ren swallowed dryly. This was the lie he came up with—the "Partial Amnesia" defense.
He couldn't tell them the truth. He couldn't say, 'I'm from a city called Tokyo in the year 2125, where we have wifi and curses that eat people in bathrooms.' If he said that, they'd lock him up for insanity.
Especially with the Geo Archon watching over the city, Ren had no desire to explain the concept of parallel dimensions to a God.
"No," Ren lied, his voice thick with a feigned frustration that felt surprisingly real. "I remember waking up in that bamboo forest. I remember the cage, remember my homeland, but nothing else. Nothing about Liyue or any other nations."
Yanfei's expression softened into sympathy. She reached out, patting him awkwardly on the shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Ren. I shouldn't have pressed." She offered him a small, encouraging smile. "Hey, look at it this way. You have a job. You have... well, you have me as legal counsel, which is a luxury most people would kill for. That's a start, right?"
Ren smiled. "Yeah. It's a start. Thanks, Yanfei."
"Don't mention it. And hey," she added, turning to leave, her scarlet robes swirling around her. "If Hu Tao actually tries to measure you for a coffin again, tell me. Harassment is a violation of the civil code. I'll draft a cease-and-desist letter that'll make her head spin."
"I'll keep that in mind," Ren called out.
He watched her disappear into the crowd, the white antlers bobbing above the sea of heads.
Once she was gone, Ren let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He tapped his chest again—thump, thump—checking his heart.
"I really need to chill out." He muttered to himself.
He pushed off, the wheels groaning once more as he headed toward the upper terrace. He had lied to Yanfei, but as he walked, Ren couldn't help but feel a twinge of guilt.
She was a good person. Maybe the best person he had met here. But in a world where gods roamed freely, truth was a currency he couldn't afford to spend.
/ — /
The climb to the upper residential district was the most challenging part of the day.
He stopped in front of a sprawling, secluded estate on the cliffs overlooking the harbor. It wasn't one of the flashy, gold-gilded mansions owned by the Qixing.
It was older, built from dark wood and grey slate, tucked away behind a grove of bamboo that whispered in the wind.
"Delivery for Madam Shu!" Ren called out, his voice echoing slightly in the quiet courtyard.
The heavy wooden door creaked open almost instantly, as if the owner had been standing right behind it, waiting.
Madam Shu was a small, withered woman with sharp eyes and silk robes that dragged slightly on the floor.
She didn't look at Ren; she looked immediately at the stack of fifty stone Geovishaps.
"Excellent," she rasped, clutching a fan made of black feathers. "You didn't chip them?"
"Not a scratch," Ren promised, wiping sweat from his brow. "Where do you want them?"
"Just over there in the viewing room."
Ren maneuvered the cart to the designated door. This was the tricky part. Usually, unloading fifty heavy statues would take a team of three men at least an hour.
Thankfully, he had shikigami.
He positioned his body to block Madam Shu's line of sight, though the eccentric woman seemed more interested in counting the statues than watching his technique.
Ren took a breath, channeling the Cursed Energy down to his feet.
'Gama. Release.'
The shadows beneath the cart surged. The black, rope-like tongues that had been securing the load uncoiled.
Instead of retracting, they elongated, acting like a dozen extra arms. Ren moved his hands in a blur, grabbing the statues, but the shadows did the heavy lifting.
They caught the stone bases, lowered them gently to the floorboards, and slid them into neat rows with unnatural precision.
To an observer, it might have looked like Ren was just moving incredibly fast. To Ren, it felt like coordinating a dozen sticky, obedient limbs.
"Done," Ren announced, straightening up and rolling his shoulders.
Madam Shu stepped into the room, and for the first time, the door swung fully open. Ren glanced inside and immediately wished he hadn't.
'Ok, what the heck.'
The room was vast and windowless, lit only by dim lanterns. It was filled—floor to ceiling—with stone statues.
Not just Geovishaps, but stone foxes, stone cranes, stone boars. Hundreds of lifeless, grey eyes stared back at him.
It looked less like a collection and more like a mass grave of petrified animals.
"They are beautiful," Madam Shu whispered, stroking the head of a stone lizard. "So quiet. Much quieter than the real ones."
A chill crawled up Ren's neck. Teyvat was full of weird magic, and he had learned early on not to ask questions about rich people's hobbies.
If she wanted to run a petting zoo for gargoyles, that was her business.
He coughed, "The payment, ma'am." He wanted to leave. Now.
Madam Shu pulled a heavy velvet pouch from her sleeve and dropped it into his hand.
"Pleasure doing business," Ren said, bowing slightly.
He didn't check the count. He turned and walked back to his cart, the wheels rumbling loudly as he retreated from the eerie estate.
Once he was around the corner and safely out of sight behind a high garden wall, he stopped.
He hefted the bag of Mora in his hand. It was heavy—at least fifty thousand.
"Hehe… Money…"
Ren looked down at his shadow, which was stretching long and thin in the morning sun.
He dropped the bag.
It didn't hit the pavement. It passed through the darkness of his shadow as if the ground were made of water.
There was a faint, liquid ripple, a sound like a pebble dropping into a deep well, and the money vanished instantly into his shadow pocket.
Ren rolled his neck. That was the first delivery of the day, with many more to come.
'Just another day in Liyue Harbour.'