The Lion's Lair (Genshin Impact)

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"WHAT WERE YOU DOING IN THERE?!" A very exhausted Ningguang shouted at you, slamming her palm on the metal table. Your handcuffs clinked.

This was your first time in an interrogation room. You mentally cursed at yourself. How the LQX had found the apartment in the first place was a mystery of its own.

Your reflection in the giant one-way mirror stared back at you: hair and outfit dishevelled; your knees scraped from the concrete back at the parking lot. It had been an hour since the explosion, and another two since you were thrown and cuffed into this rotten hell-hole. All you had done since you were brought here was wait. Waiting for the Captain to question you. Waiting for a glass of water. Archons, it was awful.

"IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK!" you screamed back, burying your face into your hands, trying to muffle your sobs.

"THEN TELL ME WHAT TO THINK! How do you think it looks like when there's a woman, alone, in an apartment that's sworn to be one of the many hideouts of the most dangerous criminal in the entirety of Teyvat?!"

'One of the many? Exactly how much does she know?'

You whimpered.

"I WAS JUST THERE TO THANK HIM!"

"Thank who?" A man this time. Shorter than the Captain, he seemed really young. His face was... attractive. His tuft of dark green hair reflected the bright fluorescent lights. He wore regular clothes as if he had just gone grocery shopping, but the badge and gun strapped at his waist told a different story.

You hadn't seen this man before. It was unnerving.

"This... man who saved me from getting mugged. If I had known he was a criminal, I'd have run away the second he offered to take me up to that Archons-damned apartment," you replied. "I could've died along with them! The Geo Archon bless their souls."

Ningguang scoffed and the green-haired man shot her a look at the gesture.

"Can you start from the beginning?" There was an almost nauseating desperation in his voice.

"Last night – I was walking by that same building, through the west alley – "

"Bullshit. We already checked the cameras and there's no movement from seven p.m. last night to ten a.m. today," Ningguang scorned.

"I said, the west alley. There are two: one that leads to the south, and another to the west. The cameras in the west alley have been down for the past, I don't know, three years."

"She's telling the truth. The recordings are from the south alley," a voice from the speakers boomed. You felt like you were in a movie.

"Go on," said the green-haired man.

"Around nine p.m., I left the office –"

"Where do you work?" Ningguang interrupted yet again.

You sighed through your nose, rubbing your eyes with your fingers.

"The Liyue Journals, Mt. Tianheng branch."

"The Liyue Journals?"

"The newspaper? It's not very popular. We only have two branches, but one got shut down. Also, everyone else quit so it's just me and my boss now."

"She's right," the voice from the speakers spoke again, "Agent Xiao if you could come out for just a second."

'Agent Xiao.' The name clicked in your head as you tried to remember all that Xingqiu had once told you.

"I see," Agent Xiao nodded. He left the room and re-entered a few seconds later, flipping through a file with your name written on it.

He poked his cheek with his tongue while reading it, eyebrows scrunched in disappointment and then passed it on to the Captain, who mimicked his expression.