Childe wakes up chilled and disoriented, his skin clammy and his limbs leaden. He struggles to sit up and a firm hand lands on his shoulder, warm press of fingers on dry skin, pushing him down.

“Please rest.”

The voice is low and resonant, thrumming through the dimly lit room. Childe is lying on some kind of cold stone table, and around him he can see…

“Shit,” he hisses, scrambling again to sit up. “Are those coffins?”

“Calm yourself, Harbinger Tartaglia. You collapsed on the street nearby. Heatstroke, I believe. I brought you here to Wangsheng Funeral Parlor to recover.”

Wangsheng… Childe blinks away the blurriness in his eyes and turns. The man by his side is tall and elegant, with golden eyes that seem to glow in the shadows.

“Then you must be Mr. Zhongli.” Childe’s head feels heavy, his arms and legs weighted, but he’s had worse. “I’ll admit, this isn’t how I wanted to make your acquaintance. Guess I’m just not used to Liyue’s heat.”

With more effort than he would like, Childe manages to heave himself off what looks alarmingly like an embalming table and stand mostly upright.

“I have to thank you for your assistance, Mr. Zhongli. I’ve been hoping to get in touch with you. What do you say we do lunch tomorrow?”

Zhongli smiles, a slight, restrained curve of his lips. “It would be my pleasure.”

—
“Aiyah, who was that?” Hu Tao pokes Zhongli on the shoulder as he lingers in the doorway, watching Childe disappear into the busy street.

A child of the Abyss, he does not say. A foreign agent, sent to bring chaos to Liyue. A charming diplomat, hard to read but easy to like.

He can’t help but look forward to their next lunch, and to the turbulence Childe is certain to bring to his ordinary mortal life.