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Varka had received urgent news shortly before and left the building in a hurry.
Jean did not know every detail of his destination, but the Grand Master had mentioned Dawn Winery before departing.
Click.
The office door opened.
Barbara stepped inside, her naturally curled twin tails bouncing with each sharp step.
Usually, the sight made her seem cheerful and lively.
Today, however, there was nothing playful about her expression.
She had come to complain to the Grand Master.
Charles had refused to cooperate even after she clearly explained the situation.
Worse, he had stubbornly protected the outsider who had openly mocked Lord Barbatos in the middle of Mondstadt.
Barbara looked around the office.
Varka was nowhere to be seen.
Instead, she found the one person she least wanted to face while angry.
“Barbara?” Jean placed her pen down and studied her younger sister carefully.
“What brings you here?”
“Nothing.” Barbara’s answer came too quickly.
“Where did Grand Master Varka go?”
Jean’s brows drew together.
Barbara was clearly upset.
More importantly, she had asked for Varka instead of coming to Jean directly.
That small detail bothered her more than she wanted to admit.
“The Grand Master went to Dawn Winery,” Jean said.
“I don’t know exactly why.”
She softened her tone.
“You can tell me if something happened.”
Jean intended to sound calm and dependable.
As Barbara’s older sister, she still felt responsible for protecting her.
To Barbara, however, the words sounded like the same distant authority Jean always used around her.
Barbara lowered her head and twisted the edge of her skirt between her fingers.
“Did you tell Charles that I’m forbidden from entering Angel’s Share?”
Jean blinked.
That was not the question she had expected.
She did not remember speaking to Charles about the matter.
Still, she certainly did not want Barbara spending time in a tavern.
Angel’s Share was constantly filled with strangers.
Merchants, adventurers, mercenaries, drunkards, and people passing through Mondstadt all gathered there.
Monsters were frightening, but human intentions could be far more dangerous.
If anything happened to Barbara because Jean had failed to protect her, she would regret it for the rest of her life.
“Yes,” Jean said after a brief hesitation.
“I gave that instruction.”
Barbara looked up.
“Why were you trying to enter Angel’s Share in the first place?”
“I—”
“I’ll overlook it this time, but don’t do it again.
Stay away from taverns.
I’m saying this for your own good.”
Jean’s final sentence carried the full authority of an older sister.
It also struck directly at Barbara’s pride.
She was not a child anymore.
She had turned eighteen.
She possessed a Vision, served the Church of Favonius, and regularly helped people throughout Mondstadt.
She did not need Jean deciding what she was allowed to do without even hearing her explanation.
Barbara’s eyes stung.
Jean had not asked why she went there.
She had not let her finish a single sentence.
“You stupid sister!” Barbara cried.
“I’m never speaking to you again!”
She spun around and ran from the office.
“Barbara!”
Jean slammed both hands against the desk and rose.
Barbara heard her.
Her steps only became faster.
After returning to the Church of Favonius, Barbara wrote a detailed letter to Varka.
She described the blasphemy that had occurred near the fountain that afternoon, including the outsider’s criticism of Barbatos and Charles’s suspicious refusal to let anyone enter the tavern.
She emphasized that the offender appeared to be a complete stranger to Mondstadt and insisted that she should be involved when the matter was handled.
Afterward, she completed her daily prayers.
By the time everything was finished, night had fallen.
Barbara asked Rosaria to deliver the letter to Varka.
Once the nun departed, Barbara finally had time alone.
Whenever she felt upset—or simply needed to escape the city for a while—she liked walking through the countryside.
Starsnatch Cliff, the open fields beyond Mondstadt, and the gentle plains near Windrise all helped calm her thoughts.
Tonight, she chose Windrise.
The roads outside the city could be dangerous after dark, but Barbara was a Vision bearer.
Ordinary monsters were not enough to threaten her.
More importantly, she needed the wind.
She needed space.
And she needed a few hours without her infuriating older sister deciding what was best for her.
“Heave!
Heave!”
Beneath the enormous oak at Windrise, Lucian Vale was attacking the earth with a shovel.
Soil flew over his shoulders in thick clumps.
Earlier that afternoon, Lucian had challenged Venti to a drinking contest.
The bard had confidently claimed that no ordinary amount of alcohol could leave him unable to walk.
Lucian took that as a personal challenge.
After several hours, the Anemo Archon finally collapsed into a drunken sleep.
A man who loved wine as much as Venti surely possessed a hidden reserve.
Lucian refused to believe otherwise.
While Venti slept, Lucian used Heaven’s Door to examine the bard’s memories.
His suspicion proved correct.
Centuries earlier, Venti had buried several enormous jars of aged wine beneath Windrise, intending to retrieve them after one of his long periods of slumber.
The memory was old, faded, and surrounded by the mental equivalent of forgotten notes.
In other words, Venti had completely forgotten the wine existed.
That made it abandoned property.
At least, that was the legal interpretation Lucian preferred.
The wine had aged for hundreds of years beneath the protection of a faint trace of the Anemo Archon’s power.
It was not merely rare.
To a knowledgeable collector, even a single cup could be priceless.
Compared with such treasure, finding a room for the night suddenly seemed unimportant.
Lucian dug for ten minutes.
By the time he finished, the hole was roughly a metre wide and three metres deep.
His shovel finally struck something solid.
Lucian’s eyes lit up.
He cleared away the remaining soil and uncovered an enormous sealed jar.
It resembled a massive fermentation vessel, large enough that an ordinary person might struggle to move it.
A rich aroma escaped from around the lid.
Lucian inhaled once and felt pleasantly light-headed.
“Beautiful.”
One jar this size could last him a very long time.
Better still, Venti had buried eight of them.
Lucian produced a small mirror, connected it to the larger storage space within Man in the Mirror, and carefully transferred the jar inside.
Then he climbed out of the pit.
The treasure was secured.
Now he only needed to refill the hole and erase every sign that anyone had been digging beneath Windrise’s sacred tree.
Barbara approached through the moonlit grass.
At first, she thought she heard someone working.
Then she saw the enormous hole beneath the oak.
She stopped dead.
Lucian Vale—the very outsider she had spent the afternoon trying to confront—stood beside it with a shovel in his hands.
Barbara’s eyes widened in horror.
What kind of criminal was this man?
During the afternoon, he had made arrogant remarks at Mondstadt’s gate and publicly mocked the Anemo Archon.
Now, under cover of darkness, he had come to Windrise and dug an enormous hole beside the sacred oak.
From Barbara’s perspective, there was only one possible explanation.
He was trying to steal the tree.
The absurd scale of the crime left her speechless.
This outsider possessed no respect for Mondstadt’s laws, faith, or traditions.
Even if he personally knew Venti—or whoever that suspicious bard truly was—he had no right to damage Windrise.
“Stop!”
Barbara rushed forward just as Lucian climbed out of the pit.
They came face-to-face.
Barbara looked furious.
Lucian was dusty, dishevelled, and caught holding a shovel beside a three-metre hole.
For one second, neither moved.
Then Lucian’s mind raced.
How?
How had she managed to find him at this exact time and place?
He had escaped the crowd, hidden his movements, waited until night, and travelled all the way to Windrise.
Yet Barbara had appeared again.
Lucian suddenly suspected that the deaconess was his personal calamity.
His eyes narrowed.
“What did you see?”
His voice came out far more nervous than he intended.
No one could learn that he had secretly taken Venti’s wine.
If Barbara saw the jar, he might have to erase that memory.
Barbara placed both hands on her hips.
Her Hydro Vision began to glow as she prepared herself for a possible attack.
“Are you digging up Windrise so you can steal the sacred tree?”
Lucian stared at her.
Then relief flooded through him.
She had seen nothing important.
Thank goodness.
Barbara noticed the change in his face and became even more suspicious.
The next instant, darkness swallowed her vision.
She felt no impact.
No pain.
One moment she stood beside the pit, ready to confront him.
The next, every sensation disappeared.
“Miss Barbara!”
“Miss Barbara, can you hear us?”
“Miss Barbara!”
The repeated calls slowly pulled Barbara from unconsciousness.
Her left arm felt numb.
She tried to move and discovered that she could not shift even a finger.
Panic sharpened her awareness.
Barbara opened her eyes and assessed her surroundings.
She was high in the branches of the great oak at Windrise.
Fresh branches had grown around her body, weaving together like a protective cocoon.
Only her head remained visible.
Her arms, legs, and torso were completely restrained, leaving her unable to gather strength or reach her catalyst.
Memories returned.
The outlaw.
The hole.
The sudden darkness.
Barbara’s face went pale.
Lucian had subdued her without giving her any chance to resist.
She had read enough dramatic adventure stories to know that helpless heroines captured by dangerous criminals rarely had pleasant experiences.
Her imagination immediately betrayed her.
No.
Surely not.
Barbara felt a chill crawl down her back.
Then she realized her clothing remained undisturbed, and aside from the numb arm and the pressure of the branches, she felt no injury.
Nothing had happened.
Relief nearly made her cry.
Perhaps he had only restrained her to prevent interference.
Could he actually be a decent person?
Barbara rejected the thought at once.
No.
A decent person did not insult Barbatos, deceive tavern workers, dig beneath sacred trees, knock people unconscious, and leave them tied inside branches.
He must have spared her because he had some even stranger plan.
Whatever the truth, she had survived.
Tears filled Barbara’s eyes as voices continued calling from below.
“I’m here!” she shouted.
Knights of Favonius carrying lanterns looked upward.
After several minutes of climbing, cutting, and carefully separating the newly grown branches, they finally freed her.
The moment her feet touched the ground, Barbara gathered her skirt and hurried back toward Mondstadt.
Lucian Vale had gone from blasphemous stranger to dangerous outlaw.
And this time, she had evidence.