you were standing in front of your own temporary residence again, your small trip to the funeral parlor surely lifted your spirits. the best thing of all is that you managed to obtain a gnosis without much effort.

the gnosis was still in your pocket, safe and sound. you lifted your arm and balled it up, knocking softly on the door in front of you.

diluc was still inside, maybe aether and paimon were too. it was soon time to have dinner as well again, the sun was slowly dissappearing behind the horizon and drifted behind the few clouds that covered the sky.

the orange ish hue from the sunset was complementing the scenery around you, giving it a warm tint as you enoyed the warm rays of sun that landed on your face.

as soon as your fist left the door, your could hear shuffling from behind the door. the door handle moved down from the other side, opening the door from inside.

before the door was opened you noticed the red hair immediately, diluc was opening the door for you. you looked at his features, his eyes seemed half lidded and his expression was exactly like he just worked for the past three hours.

the moment you two locked eyes was the moment a small smile unconsciously made its way to your face.

he had the same subtle reaction, his half lidded eyes opened a little more and the corners of his mouth tilted upwards in the slightest bit, but only for a split second.

"youre back." he said as he looked at you, his hand still gripped on the door handle as he gazed at you.

you nodded at his words, your smile never leaving your face as you opened your mouth, "it took a little longer than expected." you said to him in your usual voice as you recalled the past events.

his eyes softened as he stared and spoke up silently, "i was about to look for you." he said honestly. your mouth slightly parted at his words, not expecting him too care about your disappearance that much.

before you could speak up, you heard an all too familiar feminine voice from behind diluc, "n/n! is that you?" paimon spoke with her all too energetic voice.

hearing her words, you looked past diluc and your eyes met with her dark blue ones, "it is you!" she said and started floating to you while you still stood outside.

"come inside, we have things to discuss." diluc said in his usual stoic tone as he turned his back to the door and took a step back, moving his body to the side and making room for you to pass while holding the door open for you.

his voice was as emotionless as always, but as your eyes met his you saw the smallest smile displayed on his features once again.

it almost was contagious, you wished to see more of his smile. you stepped inside as diluc held the door open for you.

now past diluc, he closed the door as he was still holding the door handle. you heard the clicking sound behind you indicating that the door was closed and heard diluc walk behind you too.

you walked to the dinner table where aether sat down with several pieces of paper scattered around on the table. paimon appeared from your side and spoke up.

"n/n, you wont believe what we all did today!" she started off as you approached aether. you heard paimon talk and turned your head towards her.

with your eyes now locked with hers, you spoke up, "oh? what did you two do?" you asked her as you now stood besides aether, your eyes shifting from paimon to the pieces of paper on the table as you spoke.

aether answered for paimon, "firstly we bought noctilucous jade with zhongli." he said as his gaze was still downwards on the papers, he seemed very focused on them and you wondered what it was too.

you reached your hand out to one of the many papers on the table and held it between your index finger and thumb while you brought the paper closer to yourself.

the blonde boy who was still sitting down spoke up again, "after that, we were sent to the jade chamber." he continued saying, his head tilting up to look at you while he spoke.

you listened to aethers words while you let your eyes scan the words from the paper, you opened your mouth, "the jade chamber?" you commented on aether, not knowing what it was.

"yea! paimon thinks its one of the prettiest places she has seen ever!" paimon answered you as she bounced up and down excitedly in the air.

she continued her rambling, now explaining it to you, "its a place build by lady ningguang. she is the richest in teyvat!" she said as you turned your head at her to make eye contact with her.

you nodded at here and spoke up, "i see, that was probably important." you commented. aether and paimon both nodded at your words.

you turned your gaze back to the paper in your hand, "and this here is a bill or some kind?" you asked aether after you read the words on the paper, you noticed some mora related business on it as well.

paimon now answered for aether, taking the question and answering it, "yep! its mainly just bills from childe." she said as she peered over your shoulder from behind.

"he gave us so much mora we had to note it down!" she continued saying while a smile was evident on her features.

"just imagine all the liyue dishes we could buy with this!" paimon commented again, now almost drooling as she imagined all the delicious meals she could taste soon.

a small smile made its way on both yours and aethers face as you two heard what paimon said. diluc was silently listening to the conversation as he was continuing to write letters to mondstadt with all the information he obtained during the journey.

paimon floated around you while you still had the paper in hand, she appeared on your other side and continued to speak, "anyways, look at this" she said and floated to the table to grab a certain piece of paper.

"we found this in the jade chamber." she said and grabbed the older looking piece of paper between her fingers, now bringing it up to you by floating your way.

you noticed her coming your way and set down the other paper you had in your hand back on the table, your hand touching the wooden table as you set the paper back on its previous position.

paimon extended her smaller hand to you in a way of giving the paper. you retracted your hand and reached towards what paimon was holding, you grabbed the new piece of information and let your eyes read every word written on it.

aether followed the interaction closely and knew exactly what you were holding, he spoke up for you, "that piece of paper shows that a qixing spy discovered traces of classified fatui research on the sigil of permission." he said and put both his palms on the table, standing up slowly.

your eyes widened a bit when you heard aether mentioning your organization, it seemed like the fatui was getting more and more involved with this mission than you knew.

paimon nodded and added to aethers words, "ningguang did say that the fatui have been up to all kinds of mischief in the shadows of liyue..." she said as a worried look spread over her features

"spreading rumors, wanting to get their hands on the archons body and what not..." she added to her rambling while her she held her hands between her back as she looked down.

diluc spoke up too, his eyes still on the work in front of him, "they have been up to no good. as always." he said and you could hear the bitterness in his voice.

you furrowed your brows and felt a wave of nervousness and sadness wash over you, you felt slightly bad for hiding your identity for them. you inhaled deeply and tried to get rid of those feelings, collecting your calm nature again.

luckily it worked, no one suspected a thing about your nervousness and paimon continued talking, her mood almost doing a full 180, "so! we know now that the fatui is mainly behind this all." she said and held her chin, thinking hard in a way.

"we want to directly confront them. tomorrow." aether said as he was now standing up from his sitting position, his palms still on the table while his chair was shoved backwards behind him.

aether then pointed to a certain map that was also spread on the table as he was standing, "we already know where childe is." he said as he pointed to the most south side of liyue on the map.

he furrowed his brows, "we confront him here. in the golden house." he spoke up with a determined look on his face.

diluc put down his pencil and leaned back in his chair, looking at you and aether while he too spoke up, "i will be going too." he said calmly, wanting to confront the fatui too.

suddenly all eyes were on you, as if they were waiting for you to say you would go too. your mouth slightly parted as your mind was racing, trying to think off an excuse quickly.

unconsciously, you looked downwards to the map in a way of avoiding their stares, a million thoughts were in your head.

you knew that if you went there with them you would obviously side with the fatui, meaning you would have to betray them in front of their eyes.

a part of you didnt want to do that, you wanted to stay traveling with them and go on more missions with them, especially diluc.

'should i reject?' 'i could say i have other things to do.' 'maybe if i just...' 'i cant... this is the main goal of the mission...' all your thoughts were contradicting each other, none of the excuses would work.

another part told you it was part of your work, if you had to betray them in their face then so be it.

you inhaled once again, trying your best to not show your panicked mood. you lifted your head up from the map and displayed the calmest look you could muster.

"i will go too." you said as the corners of your mouth curled upwards into a small smile.