[Genshin Impact] A world where only travelers are alone.

Chapter 57 Wind Sprite

Oblivious to her confusion, the boy continued excitedly discussing with the unidentified creature on his shoulder: "Right, right? I think so too!"

The latter responded with a series of chirping sounds.

Cecilia felt like the whole world had become surreal. With such a huge language difference, how did these two manage to communicate?

She timidly raised her hand and asked, "Who is this...?"

The boy finally noticed her being ignored, and scratched his head sheepishly as he introduced her: "This is my friend, a very powerful wind spirit."

Is that impressive?

Cecilia looked at the little guy with a mixture of belief and skepticism.

With its bright, round eyes, delicate, frail hands, and wings as thin as cicada wings, it doesn't look like someone who deserves the title of "very impressive" from any angle.

The little guy even cooperated by striking a pose to show off, waving his little hands in an attempt to demonstrate his reliable "muscles."

...In short, isn't this just mutual praise in business? Right?

Cecilia figured that given the boy's personality, it was highly likely that he was just boasting, so she simply took it as a joke and didn't dwell on it any further.

She politely bowed to the wind sprite: "It's a pleasure to meet you."

Where she couldn't see, the transparent feathers shimmering with a bluish-green glow on her earlobes fell gracefully as she lowered her head, immediately attracting the wind sprite's attention.

The little guy tilted his head, as if he didn't understand.

The boy noticed the subtle movement, cupped the wind sprite in his hands, and held it up to his eyes: "Hmm~ friend, it seems you've seen something that interests you? Would you mind telling me?"

The wind sprite whispered something in his ear.

"Oh, I see—I see—" the boy replied as he listened.

Cecilia couldn't help but ask, "Can you really understand what he's saying?"

"Of course—" the boy drawled, sounding confident, but the next second, meeting Cecilia's respectful gaze, he abruptly changed his tone, "You don't understand!"

Cecilia: "Huh?"

"But my dear friend and I are on the same wavelength; even if we don't understand, what we do understand is still correct, right?"

The wind sprite nodded its little head in agreement.

However, this thing was really too mysterious to be true. Cecilia, who was meticulous by nature, found it hard to convince herself to believe the boy's unfounded words, even though the wind spirit had admitted it.

The boy chuckled, "Since you don't believe me, let me explain what my friend just said."

He said he really likes you!

"Huh?!" Cecilia was stunned, her gaze sweeping from the boy to the wind sprite.

The little guy being looked at seemed confused as well, staring blankly at her with his round eyes for a while before suddenly nodding vigorously.

The boy exclaimed excitedly, "Right, right? My comprehension skills have always been excellent!"

Cecilia suspected they were setting her up. Was the wind spirit really only admitting it because she didn't want to embarrass her friend?

As it turns out, that's not true.

The situation was quite the opposite. The boy seemed to have pointed out an emotion that even the wind spirit herself hadn't been able to discern, because after a moment of confusion, the little creature revealed an obvious happy expression and flapped its wings, flying straight toward her.

Cecilia never imagined that the wind sprites would feel like this, cool and soft.

She froze for a moment.

But the wind sprite seemed oblivious to her stiffness, continued to rub against her cheek, and then lay directly on her head.

Cecilia reached out to touch it, but hesitated when she was about to, somewhat afraid to make the move.

As a result, the wind sprite seized the initiative.

The little guy stretched out his little hand and grabbed her index finger in one go, then moved around and ended up lying on her hand.

Cecilia looked to the boy for help.

The boy, always eager for drama, chimed in, "Wow, that's great, friend! You look like a cute little accessory, quite a good match for Cecilia!"

The wind sprite blushed slightly and gave an embarrassed chirp.

Cecilia wanted to run away, but when she saw the little guy's smiling eyes when he turned to look at her again, she couldn't help but soften her heart.

She poked his cheek: "Want to come with me?"

The wind sprite chirped twice, but unfortunately Cecilia didn't have the boy's talent and didn't understand what he was saying at all.

Seeing the bewildered look in the person's eyes, the wind spirit lowered its head, thought for a moment, and then suddenly flew away.

Cecilia's golden eyes flashed with disappointment, thinking he was showing through his actions that he didn't want to follow her. But the next second, she saw the wind sprite crawl into the boy's backpack and pull out a small blanket.

It was called a small blanket, but that was only relative to people like the boy and Cecilia. For the petite wind sprite, it was really too big!

The little guy, clutching the blanket that was several times his own size, could barely fly high and struggled to fly toward Cecilia.

Cecilia accepted it, completely bewildered.

The wind sprite put his hand next to his head, indicating that it was time to sleep; this blanket was specially brought over for her to cover herself with.

Cecilia glanced at the boy, who laughed and joked, "It's alright, it's alright, go to sleep. Someone as smart as me naturally had a backup plan prepared long ago!"

Cecilia was then relieved and found a spot covered with straw to lie down.

The wind sprite immediately burrowed into the blankets.

Cecilia asked, "So you mean you want to come with me?"

The wind sprite nodded happily.

"Hey, how come I'm suddenly considered superfluous?" the boy complained softly.

However, he was just saying it casually. He was quite happy to see his two friends getting along well. He took out another blanket from his backpack, found a place to lie down, and started to sleep.

*

Although she had left the Lawrence family, long-standing habits cannot be changed overnight, so Cecilia was not surprised that she woke up so early.

She tiptoed around and tucked the blanket around the still-sleeping wind sprite, then walked out of the cave alone.

This should have been the time when the sky was just beginning to brighten, but perhaps due to the hurricane, the sky outside was still somewhat overcast.

Cecilia stared at the wind walls around her, unconsciously falling into deep thought.

There were too many changes yesterday, and she didn't have much time to think about the family trial. Now that she has some free time, she naturally wants to think about it more.

The first thing to do is to determine whether everything in front of us is real or fake.

Cecilia found it hard to believe that she had actually traveled back a thousand years, and she didn't think that the Lawrence family really had such power to reverse time, and that they were wasting their talents on family trials.

But so far, the boy and the wind spirit she has come into contact with are too vivid, and don't seem fake at all.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed.

Ultimately, she lacked experience. Although Mr. Lawrence paid attention to the education of his children in all aspects, he was not comprehensive enough to teach her even about illusions.

Cecilia now understands why the family trials are so mysterious—it's entirely to prevent them from having any chance to cheat beforehand.

If you can't distinguish between truth and falsehood, you must be more cautious in your actions; otherwise, no one can predict how much turmoil the butterfly effect will cause.

The difficulty had increased significantly, and Cecilia was starting to have a headache.

Convincing myself... should I really join the rebellion and compile the picture book as the boy suggested?

From the moment the boy mentioned this, Cecilia had a premonition that he was related to those who rebelled against the Lone King in Mondstadt's history, and might even be that nameless boy himself.

She wasn't sure if her involvement would have any negative consequences.

But she had to find a way back as soon as possible, because the gatekeeper had not told her whether time in the real world would continue during the trial.

Ms. Wendy is still there. If she suddenly falls into a coma, even if my father might have guessed the inside story of the family trial, he definitely won't put aside what happened before and wait for her to wake up. Instead, he'll take advantage of her inability to stop it and get rid of Ms. Wendy as soon as possible...

Cecilia's hands tightened, and she didn't even want to think about it anymore.

She had to take the risk, even though she wasn't sure if the boy's suggestion was right. In this situation where she was completely in the dark, this was the only thing she could do.

After making up her mind, everything became much easier, and Cecilia felt much more at ease.

She had just gotten enough fresh air outside and was about to go back when she noticed something was wrong as she approached the cave entrance.

Two more sets of footprints appeared outside the door.

Cecilia immediately became alert and rushed into the cave at top speed, just in time to run into two sneaky guys approaching the wind sprite.

"Who are you?!"

The uninvited guest was taken aback, as if he hadn't expected anyone to appear so suddenly.

Taking advantage of this opening, Cecilia made her move, flashing behind the two men in an instant to try and subdue them. However, the two men were not simple either, and they reacted instantly the moment she approached, raising their hands to parry.

In a short while, the three of them had exchanged several blows.

The commotion was so loud that the boy and the wind sprite were quickly awakened.

Upon seeing this, the boy panicked and rushed into the middle of the group to stop the fight, shouting, "Stop fighting! Stop fighting! We're all on the same side!"

The wind sprite flew onto Cecilia's head and pulled her back.

The red-haired guy was clearly out of control. The boy tried to persuade him several times, and finally even his blond accomplice had to come up and stop him.

"Tsk." He stood aside, annoyed.

Cecilia quickly regained her composure and straightened her skirt: "You two know each other?"

"Hehe." The boy introduced them to her one by one, "The one with red hair is Legnford, didn't I tell you before? No, no, I think I mentioned Gunnhildr, it's this one over here."

He pointed to another guy, who responded with a polite "hello."

"Hello," Cecilia replied.

Legnford clicked his tongue again, looking even more annoyed. It wasn't until Gunnhildr tugged at his sleeve that he finally greeted her, but he still couldn't help muttering, "Damn it, if it weren't for her, we definitely would have run into the wind spirit this time!"

Heaven knows, this little guy always thinks they're stupid and can't understand him. He won't let anyone hold him except the boy. This time, they came so early just to catch him while he was still sleeping and try to take advantage of him.

The result is now—

He glanced at the wind sprite perched on Cecilia's head, glaring at them with wide eyes because they were bullying Cecilia in a two-on-one fight, and became even angrier.

(End of this chapter)

The author says: It's been almost ten years since I last visited my maternal grandmother's house. My mom made me visit so many relatives, and I finally managed to find some time to write. Updates may be a bit slower for this reason, so please forgive me (Ｔ▽Ｔ).