Hu Tao Is Monetizing My Existence. [100]

At the summit of Tianheng Mountain, Yelan stood alone, wrapped in a pale moon-colored cloak.

The cloak was spoils of war—something she had seized from the Fatui a few days ago. She had altered its cut slightly, and now it fit her surprisingly well.

The mountain wind lifted strands of her hair as she looked out across the distance, toward the rushing Bisha River. Her eyes were hidden beneath her windswept bangs, making it impossible to read her expression.

“Ma’am, I’ve gathered all the intel you requested.”

A middle-aged man, breathless from the climb, handed her a scroll.

Yelan took the scroll and glanced through its contents.

This was a report on the investigation into why Jiang Bai had been found in the Bisha River.

They had questioned everyone living upstream and downstream—fishermen who frequented the banks, Treasure Hoarders camped nearby, traveling merchants who had passed through.

Everyone who might have seen something had been asked. No possible clue had been ignored.

Yelan skimmed the report, then pulled a map from her coat.

The Bisha River connected to nearly every waterway in Liyue—whether it was meltwater flowing from Dragonspine, or the underground springs of Huaguang Stone Forest, it all eventually converged into the Bisha.

So, pinpointing how Jiang Bai ended up in that river was no simple task.

“None of the locals had seen him…”
That made it unlikely he’d been thrown into the river partway through.

“Some reported seeing a chunk of ice the size of a boulder floating downriver… and the timing matched when Jiang Bai was found…”
That ruled out the Huaguang underground springs.

Liyue didn’t have any particularly frigid regions—its temperatures were too mild to produce large blocks of floating ice. The only place capable of something like that… was Dragonspine.

Her eyes lifted to that towering, snowbound peak piercing the sky.

Dragonspine was vast. Beneath its glaciers flowed countless hidden rivers and underground channels.

Jiang Bai may have fallen into one of those subglacial rivers along with a massive ice floe and been carried downstream, eventually washing up near the Bisha. Perhaps he had even been a part of that ice floe—and only once it began to melt did his body emerge and get noticed.

“Which would mean… he might not be from Liyue at all.”

It was the only explanation for why there were absolutely no traces of his existence anywhere in Liyue.

But Dragonspine… that wasn’t a place one entered lightly.

Nor did it fall within Liyue’s borders.

“Ma’am, should we keep digging?”

“Look into any unusual events that happened in Dragonspine a month ago,” Yelan replied coolly.

People didn’t just appear in the middle of a river. A person buried under layers of ice wouldn’t leave that place on their own.

If something had occurred back then, it might just lead them to Jiang Bai’s true identity.

The agent nodded and departed swiftly.

Yelan remained on the mountain peak, silently watching over Liyue Harbor.

To her, Jiang Bai’s identity wasn’t the most important thing.

What mattered… was knowing what was going on.

As Liyue’s hidden guardian, her duty was to ensure that every potential threat stayed firmly within her grasp.

—

For Cartis, the roads of Dragonspine were all too familiar by now.

He skillfully avoided monsters, took shelter in a cave before the next blizzard, and waited as night fell—snow descending with it in thick, silent sheets, painting the world in white.

He lit some dry wood he’d stored in the cave on a previous trip. The crackling fire pushed back a fraction of the chill.

Setting up a small pot over the flames, he gathered a scoop of clean snow from outside the cave and let it melt inside the pot. It would be boiling soon—clean, drinkable water.

Rubbing his hands together, Cartis exhaled a cloud of breath, then carefully pulled a notebook from within his inner coat pocket. By the fire’s glow, he began to flip through the pages.

It was a travel journal—a record of his adventures.

He hadn’t been in the habit of keeping one before. His experiences hadn’t felt much different from any other adventurer’s.

But one particular event had changed that.

Trapped once in a cave, he had only survived by relying on a journal left behind by another explorer.

That was when the idea struck him: perhaps he should start recording his own path. That way, if something ever happened to him, he’d at least leave something behind.

He mimicked the style of his predecessor, documenting his travels one entry at a time.

June 3
This is my second time climbing Dragonspine. I nearly died during my first attempt—but clearly, I’m not the kind of man who gives up easily.

June 5
Following the guidance from the old journal, I arrived at a collapsed ruin. It’s been abandoned for ages—there’s no way to tell what it once was.
The place was filled with traps, and crawling with ruin machines. I carefully lured them away and dealt with them one by one.

June 6
I finally managed to disable the traps. A stone wall shifted aside, revealing a hidden passage.
There was no light—no way to tell where it led. I wasn’t ready to go in yet.

June 8
I returned to the base camp below the mountain to resupply. Stocked up on food and packed enough torches to burn for three full days.
Then I came back and reopened the entrance.

June 9
I don’t know how long I walked through that tunnel. I passed countless murals—ancient and faded, but still legible enough to record.

The first showed a group of people dancing around a towering white tree—some kind of ritual.
One man placed a crown upon his head before the tree. Those around him knelt on one knee. He raised a scepter—becoming their first king.

The king regularly held rituals beneath the tree, praying for peace and good harvests.
Under his rule, they built grand architecture and carved their history into stone.
This land—lacking the blessings of the gods and not yet home to many—began to form a nation.

Over time, a princess appeared at the king’s side.
As she grew older, she joined him in worshipping the ancient white tree.

But peace never lasts. Punishment descended from the sky.
The tree withered. The land froze.
Snow blanketed everything. People began to die.

They knelt and begged the heavens for mercy.
The old king died in the cold. The princess took up his mantle, guiding her people through the endless winter.
She sent a warrior into the outside world, hoping to find a way to earn the sky’s forgiveness.

But the snow only worsened. People died one after another.
And the warrior… never returned.

—

This is a fan translation of 胡桃拿我冲业绩 by 余溯. All rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!