Can't Stop Loving You | Childe x Zhongli | Genshin Impact [COMPLETED]

Arc 4: Chapter 44: Adventure Start

They showed up as promised, with Tartaglia a little late because he hadn't slept much the previous night. He also brought the least things along with him. Childe preferred coming up with solutions along the way. That was how he lived life and he was going to continue doing that way. The fact that he couldn't really die just made him care less.

Zhongli on the other hand brought extras. As per usual, he liked to be prepared for anything. Looking at how light Tartaglia was packed, he already knew that he was going to be sharing some things with him. Oddly enough, he didn't mind at all, as if it was the usual.

Yong An had the most things. He had a bulky bag filled with lots of things he had deemed as essential and another bag filled with what looked like more clothes. It seemed like he was the type that was extremely prepared. In his other hand, he held two bolster shaped bags.

"Hi guys." He said rather breathlessly. Tartaglia wasn't surprised, considering the amount of things he had brought, "I'm sorry but I only have two tents... It's only for one person each too..."

"It's fine, I'll share one with Zhongli, you can take one." Tartaglia said, grabbing one of the bags and swinging it over his shoulder. It was like he was being nice but truthfully, he just wanted Zhongli to himself. He turned to the brunette and smiled, "you don't mind, right?"

"No, I don't." Zhongli said without hesitance. He was slightly surprised by himself for answering so quickly. Besides, the tent wasn't that small, was it?

"Then that's settled, we should get going."

-

They set off on foot and everything was rather smooth. The hilichurls kept to themselves and the trio made no move to provoke them. There were lesser fatui now without a harbinger in place. The Tsaritsa seemed to be in no hurry in replacing Childe, as if Liyue wasn't important anymore. It felt like she had just tossed him here, where things were very far away and didn't matter as much. Tartaglia did feel a little upset and angry at that. To think that he once looked up to the Cryo Archon so much was unbelievable.

The expression on his face grew dark without him realizing. He marched alongside them, thinking about the ways he would exact his revenge on them until Yong An jolted him out of it.

"Stop, look." He pointed at a distance away, where they could see what looked like hilichurls gathering along the path they took. They had makeshift barricades and towers to block the path. It wasn't unseen before, but it was uncommon to see hilichurls act that way. "We should get rid of that, just in case others come this way too."

"Yeah yeah, sure. It'll be easy." Tartaglia didn't even bother to listen and charged in. He swapped out into his melee stance and started attacking the hilichurls that were minding their own business.

What he hadn't expected however were the hilichurl archers hiding nearby and the samachurl that healed the hilichurls. There was a pyro and electro combination that sent him flying again. Sometimes the world just liked playing cruel jokes on him.

Thank god Zhongli managed to get the shield up before Childe got hurt but it didn't stop him from face planting. He scrambled up to see Zhongli taking the fight instead and was certainly doing much better than he did before. He felt weak and rather helpless. Zhongli still had to be the one protecting him this whole time...

He glanced aside to see Yong An seemingly laughing slightly at him. The adventurer had an evil glint in his eye and it was almost like he was amused. That bad gut feeling he had when they first met was pinging again. Tartaglia was starting to think that maybe he wasn't as nice as he seemed to be. The fact that this normal adventurer seemed to look down at him made him feel really bad.