Chapter Text
Hu Tao had always been a precocious child, brimming with curiosity, her spirit unrestrained by the wills of those around her. Such, it did not come as a surprise to the people of Liyue that Hu Tao disappeared after the night of Old Hu’s funeral, vanishing into the dark of the night with only a mere few rations and a lamp.
They thought her unable to cope with the responsibilities of the funeral director, some even dreading her inevitable return back to the funeral parlour and her inheriting the directorial position. Yet after 3 days and 3 nights following her initial disappearance, the Liyuen guards were met with an intensely unfamiliar sight. They had been informed of the young girl’s departure, and had been on the lookout for her at the request of an employee of the funeral parlour.
Yet the girl in front of them had none of the traits of the eccentric young lady that had been a figure of gossip citizens of Liyue. Instead they saw a silent silhouette, lips drawn in a tight, wary grimace, an expression entirely unfitting on what should be an innocent and playful face. But what chilled their hearts to their core were her eyes, carrying something most sinister, most unnatural.
For branded within Hu Tao’s eyes were images of red poppies, so red the guards swore they were dipped in blood.
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Unbeknownst to the people of Liyue, just hours before Old Hu’s passing, he and Hu Tao had had a rather heated argument. Hu Tao didn’t remember much of it. But echoing around her mind like a parasite were the apologies that she ached to say to him.
But now he was dead. Their conflict was a trivial thing in the face of such an all-encompassing construct.
The rest of the day after the announcement was a haze, Hu Tao dragging her body from place to place with no real consciousness to speak of, her hands mindlessly arranging the flowers perfectly thanks to the countless hours of practice. And when it came time for the casket to be lowered into the ground, all Hu Tao could wonder was if her grandfather would be unable to move on as a result of their fight.
With an unsettled heart she packed a few essentials and wandered off onto Wuwang Hill in search of the barrier, hoping to be granted audience with her grandfather’s spirit, to say the apologies that she could not utter before his passing.
With every step that she trudged up the uneven terrain of Wuwang Hill she felt a chill run through her whole body. Her gut screamed at her that something unnatural lay within the confines of the land. That she should turn back. That no matter what words were left unsaid it wasn’t worth risking attracting the attention of what lay on that hill.
But she refused to succumb to her suspicions and the butterflies in her stomach. After all, she had dealt with ghosts all the time! Surely there was nothing to fear. Her grandfather had always taken her to Wuwang Hill to assist in quelling the regrets of spirits that lingered and nothing had happened. But something about this particular night felt different.
The moonlight was seeping through the thick canopy of the trees, its rays casting unnaturally upon the rocks. The animals were all in hiding and the monsters that usually laid claim to Wuwang Hill were nowhere to be found. Hu Tao lifted her head to gaze directly at the full moon. An auspicious sign. But not uncommon.
But what was uncommon was the way that the moon seemed to writhe, the way it seemed to be alive. Hu Tao quickly averted her gaze and tried to ignore the unease that it brought. “It’s okay," she muttered to herself. "It's okay!"
But the feeling of unease never left.
It followed her and draped over her like a cloak all the way until she reached the barrier, the wall between life and death. Upon seeing the familiar sight, Hu Tao let out a dramatic sigh of relief. She rushed over, eyes darting around, hoping for a single glance of her grandfather.
Unable to see any glimpse of her grandfather upon her first cursory glance she wrapped her hands in a cup shape around her mouth and called out tentatively, “Yoh! Old man! You there?”
Silence was her only response. Disheartened but not dissuaded, Hu Tao stayed determined and continued to wander around the barrier, calling out for hours on end.
“Yo! Anyone home!”
“Come on out old man! I’m not gonna bite!”
“Please show yourself if you’re there!”
“Will you show yourself already!”
“Come on!”
“.....Please”
Even with no response, Hu Tao insisted on staying by the barrier for days. And as her rations and water began to dwindle and the oil for her lamp burnt away, Hu Tao began to lose hope for a reconciliation.
Silently bemoaning her actions a few days ago, Hu Tao lay exhausted on the soil, sighing into the chilly air. Ready to give up on the futile endeavour, fully convinced of Old Hu’s passing into the afterlife, she packed what little remained of what she brought and got ready to leave when a cold chill elicited goosebumps straight across her skin.
A chilly gust flew by, running through each pore in her body and blowing out the light in her lamp.
Fumbling quickly in the darkness, she rummaged around her bag, attempting to locate what little oil she had left remaining to relight her lamp, when her hands came into contact with something metallic in her bag.
Alarmed, she pulled it out and relit her lamp, to figure out what had appeared inside her bag without her knowledge. And what was revealed to her under the lampfire’s dim glow was something resembling a vision.
“What in the….”
Her first immediate thought was that for some abstract reason, she had been granted a vision by an unknown god. Yet she immediately denied that notion, as even if her plight had been deemed worthy enough for the archons to bless her, what lay within her pale hands was definitely not a vision.
The frame was metallic in texture and certainly retained its toughness. But that was where the similarity ended. Visions that had been granted to those of Liyue were rather square in appearance, regal in finish and orderly, all aspects that Liyue embodied. The one in her hand had its frame twisted, each border looking as if it consisted of countless tendrils intertwining into each other. When Hu Tao gazed closer she could swear there were even eyes opening and closing on the surface of the frame.
But what cemented the idea that this wasn’t a vision was the symbol that lay within the centre. Instead of the symbol of Anemo, or Geo, or any other one of Teyvat’s elements, what lay there was a very peculiar image, one Hu Tao had never seen ever before.
An upside-down trident with both of the outer edges bent.
“Oya, what’s this?”
Of course, nothing responded to ease her consternation.
The pseudo-vision, as she decided to call it for now, was so incredibly unnatural, she found herself questioning whether it was one of a kind; her failed apology to her grandfather temporarily brushed to the deep recesses of her mind. It emitted a fascinating glow and had something of a hypnotising aura. She couldn’t help but feel herself be drawn to it, fingers drawing closer and closer.
So could she really be blamed when she laid her hand on the symbol, so entranced by the faint, comforting feel that it emanated?
The second her fingertips grazed the pseudo-vision, unbeknownst to all those in the world, she vanished from Wuwang Hill, the only lasting evidence she had ever been there being a tipped over lamp and some oil stains upon the soft green grass.
And had anyone been nearby, they would have seen a slowly vanishing bloodstain where Hu Tao had once crouched.
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Hu Tao woke up with a start, eyes bleary with exhaustion in a dark, unfamiliar room. Overcome with a feeling of panic, she tried to get up, only to find her legs and arms bound to what appeared to be a dissection table covered in bloodstains. Out of delirium, she tried to laugh at her absurd circumstance only for nothing to come out of her mouth. Nor did her limbs move at her command. She could only lie silently, inspecting the numerous shelves that lined the walls, eyes wide in alarm.
Could this be the doing of a god? It must be, for what other being would be capable of such a feat?
It was at this moment that a scraggly man in a wheelchair slowly rolled into the room, the bulb of light upon his shoulder illuminating her surroundings a little. His attire was something she had never seen before. Bearing some resemblance to the merchants of Fontaine that sometimes wandered with their wares through the roads of Liyue, the old man wore a long dark cloak with pants, a buttoned shirt underneath it all, finished off with, what was to her, a goofy top hat. Had she been able to speak, she would have definitely made some comment on his appearance. Alas, her mouth felt as if it was sewn shut.
“Oh yes, paleblood…” were the first words that were uttered from his mouth, unprompted and, to her, without meaning. Paleblood? How could blood be pale? She had seen the corpses of adventurers before the employees cleaned them for their funerals, and every single one had been dyed in a dark sanguine crimson.
“Well you’ve come to the right place. Yharnam is the home of blood ministration.”
The man gently tapped his fingers against the handles of his wheelchair.
“You need only unravel its mystery.”
His accent had an unfamiliar lilt to it, and his words drew Hu Tao into deep thought. Mystery? Of Paleblood? Where had she ended up? Had she accidently crossed the barrier? Was this even Teyvat anymore? Or had she been entrapped in the illusions of an adeptus?
After all, she was merely 13, and whilst having seen more than the average mortal, in truth she knew nothing of the land of Teyvat. Perhaps this place had long existed without the knowledge of the people of Liyue.
But that did not matter for now, as in the midst of her deep thoughts, she had blocked out some of the mumblings, only turning back her attention to the old man at the mention of a contract, the word reminding her of the dealings her grandfather had often had with the families of the elderly or very sick to ensure a peaceful burial.
And so, at the mention of these words, Hu Tao dragged her eyes over to the old man and the piece of stained parchment that held in his hands, using what minute control she had over her body. Coming from a land famed for its many contracts, she knew full well how pacts such as these could bind her to uphold them. Alas, her previous exhaustion was unforgiving to her eyes, and thus, in the dim light she could not make out the words on the paper. She could only watch helplessly as her arm moved with a life of its own and signed the contract.
“Sealed” murmured the man.
The old man shrugged back his shoulders with a pop and dragged what seemed to be a long metal pole with a blood bag to the side of the operating table. Had she retained her faculties she might’ve made some comment on the utter absurdity and hilarity of the situation. Unfortunately, as the needle punctured her skin, her vision started to blur and darken.
“Whatever happens, you may think it all a mere bad dream….”
‘I think we’re past that point you old bastard!’ were Hu Tao’s last thoughts before darkness consumed her mind entirely, the man’s laughter echoing through her mind.
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What happened next was something of a fever dream. Even now, Hu Tao wasn’t really sure if they were mere hallucinations.
A beast crawling out of blood only to be set on fire with a well thrown molotov?
Countless tiny skinny figures crawling over her body?
That peculiar but soothing voice that she might’ve heard uttering something about a hunter?
All she could do was cling to her thoughts of the funeral parlour, and the hope that she would wake on Wuwang Hill once her addled mind took her back into slumber.
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Well rested. That was the first thing Hu Tao noticed about her body. The long nap had done wonders for her exhaustion after days of staying awake in front of the barrier. Getting ready to go home she reached for her bag and…..
Ah.
What greeted her fingers was not the rough texture of the soil but the slick feeling of freshly spilt blood on her fingers.
So it hadn’t been just a terrible dream. She seemed to have regained control over her own body, which was a silver lining at least. She sat up and sighed heavily, gazing silently at the cracked bulb in the ceiling.
“Ehhhh, sitting around won’t do any good”
Hopping up from the table, she let out a gasp as her skin hooked onto the now dry needle used for the blood transfusion. Her rough yanking of the needle drew blood from the newly formed wound, but this was not the cause of her anxiety. Her blood was a shade lighter than she had remembered it.
Shuddering, and resolving to find out what happened to her later, she gazed around her, eyes now seeing clearly what had been hidden from her blurred vision the night before.
The room before her was clearly a sickroom, and had seen much use before her arrival. Yet unlike the hygienic environment of Bubu pharmacy, the clinic before her was dishevelled, with vials lying around uncorked, foul scents wafting from each. A rather fancy chair, marred with use, stuffing spilling out onto the stained, uneven floor. And above a short desk, lying next to countless ransacked pill bottles and empty tubes lay a note.
** Seek Paleblood to transcend the hunt **
At least that’s what Hu Tao thought it said. The scrawl was barely legible, written by the hand of what looked like a hurried madman.
“Transcend….”
“Like a god?”
Her occasional role as an assistant in settling the spirits had made her aware of other hidden planes of existence. Yet it didn’t allow her to understand the meaning behind those six written words. Now with more questions than answers, she quickly shoved the note into her pocket and opened the door.
“Yooooooo, anyone there?”
Naught but silence met her call. “Haaaa…..” came out breathlessly from Hu Tao’s mouth and her body slumped forward a little. The clacking of her shoes interrupted the quietude of the clinic as she headed out the door and down a flight of stairs, the light of what seemed like sunset guiding her way.
Peering further into the clinic, her eyes gazed upon a room in absolute ruin, with floorboards shattered under the weight of something that must have been tremendously heavy, overturned tables and countless glass shards littering the floor covered in unnamable liquids. And frankly, she didn't think she wanted to know what they consisted of. It made the thought of treading through it just that much easier.
Turning around the corner, forcing a skip in her step, she came across a corpse. Covered in blood and torn apart, its rib cage was hanging out and covered in gore. The stench from the corpse's ripped intestines made her want to puke. She had encountered corpses in horrendous states, mostly victims of murders or unfortunate adventurers who met their doom in the more remote parts of Liyue, but none of their deaths had been as gruesome as the old man in front of her.
The only thing stopping her from vomiting out the bile gathering in her mouth was the grotesque being hovering over the corpse, teeth sank deep within the throat of the doctor that had given her the transfusion. Clamping her hand over her mouth, she grimaced at the wet feeling of sick against her hand. Clambering backwards, she attempted to retreat to the sickroom she came from, only to knock into a drawer full of vials in her haste. The vials fell to the floor in an ear-piercing clash.
Hu Tao froze, head turning comically slowly towards the beast. Deep red eyes met with manic, glazed over ones before she dragged them dragged over to the steel-like claws on each paw of the wolf. With the beast now fully facing her, she could finally make out the features of the monster. Not that she would have recognised it anyways.
Fur dark like a mitachurl, yet scruffy, much more unkempt than the residents of the open fields of the Teyvat. Eyes white and unseeing, though there was no doubt in her mind that the beast knew exactly where she was. And a monstrous build, rivalling the sizes of some of the adult geovishaps that she had seen occasionally on her path to Wuwang hill.
For a moment there was no movement from either of them, and Hu Tao thought that the monstrosity of a wolf wasn’t going to attack her. But her hopes were immediately dashed as the beast lunged at her with claws outstretched.
With a sharp “Eeeeek!”, she dove to the side and glanced back at where she once stood. The floor was completely crushed, the wooden boards like paper under its claws. Hu Tao immediately reached for the closest thing: A long metallic pole, blood bag still attached to one of its hooks.
Taking sharp swings at the beast, she attempted to bat it away, only to realise that each of her hits did nothing to deter, let alone harm the foul beast. Eyes widening in horror at the realisation she was in a corner, she raised the pole up horizontally, praying that it would defend her as the beast jumped towards her with its maw opened unnaturally wide.
It didn’t.
The metal simply crumpled before the beast’s immense strength and she felt herself being crushed against the wall, bones shattering into mere fragments. Her body went limp and she collapsed to the floor, covered in her own blood.
A weak whimper was all she could make out before the beast descended upon her once more, teeth tearing straight into her stomach.
“Is it … my time?”
In her final moments she silently bemoaned all the things she would never be able to do, the poems she had left unwritten and most of all, the unsaid apology to her grandfather.
‘Perhaps, I’ll get to meet you in the afterlife sooner than I thought old man….’
And her fingers finally fell to the floor.
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Bright. Those were her first impressions of the afterlife. Sculpted stone statues littered the path, surrounded by soft clouds. Serene rays of light graced her skin.
And Hu Tao began to sob. After days of stress and unmanaged grief taking their toll on her, she finally released her pent up agony in sharp whimpers, crying into her legs. No more petting the stone lions outside the ministry, no more reading with Xingqiu and no more playing pranks with Yanfei. She had always thought she would face death with no regrets, but the unspoken and undone things in her meagre lifespan haunted her.
“How shameful, for a future Wangsheng Funeral Director to harbour so many regrets in death.”
She chuckled mirthfully. Deciding to push her grief to a future Hu Tao who would most likely hate her for doing so, Hu Tao dried her eyes and nose on her sleeves and wandered around the stone platform, gazing at all the translucent spirits hovering around. Families united in death, friends chatting together and kids playing little games. It was a beautiful sight.
Hu Tao ran over to a lone spirit and immediately called out to them.
“Yooo, have you seen an Old Hu anywhere? Y'know, long beard, balding with the same clothes as me?”
The ghost seemed to look straight through her, ignoring her words completely.
“It’s rude not to respond to someone y’know!” Hu Tao pouted.
Again, nothing.
With a loud “Ugh!” she went to shake the shoulders of the spirit, only to fall straight through them, completely unable to interact with them. Shocked by this revelation, she ran around the entire area, attempting to gain the attention of anyone, yet none of them graced her with a response.
Biting her nails, she sat down next to an amber tree in frustration. “Why won’t anyone notice me!” Letting her head rest upon the thick tree with a thunk, she contemplated what she should try next. After all, she wouldn’t be the great Hu Tao if she gave up this easily!
But her thoughts were immediately interrupted by a familiar sight. A formal looking aged man, with a hexagram hat and brown robes. Eyes widening in glee, Hu Tao couldn’t help the tears forming once again in the corners of her eyes. Running towards him with her arms outstretched, she dived in for a hug.
Only to once again fly straight through him and crash face-first into a bench.
Oh.
So that’s how it was. Sighing in frustration, she tried everything to gain his attention. Trying to steal his hat and knock against his head, singing obnoxiously to his face. But to no avail. Old Hu seemed as indifferent as ever to her efforts.
She needed to say sorry at least, otherwise this awful feeling of guilt in her heart would simply never vanish. Even if he couldn’t hear, she could at least apologise to his face, and perhaps reduce some of the burden on her mind.
So she stood before her grandfather, heart pounding and prepared to apologise.
But it seemed like nothing was destined to go her way this week.
Before the words formed in her mouth, the whole scene before her froze. The moon in the sky turned a deep red and ███ ████ ████████ appeared before her eyes. Stunned and in hysterical awe, she gazed upwards at ███ ████ ████████ and felt a strong compulsion to worship and grovel before ███ feet.
In the end, she never got to apologise. All she could do was stand stunned as the ████████ ████ ██ ████ dragged her into the darkness, away from the afterlife, away from peace and into places unknown.