current timeline: chongyun's present

so chongyun n xingqiu are on the hunt for like some ghost or whatever, and they have to stop by wangshu inn. xq has to stay down a bit for whatever reason, so chongyun takes the elevator up, but what they don't realize is that the elevator is the thing that's been cursed this time around, which is how it ends up taking him a year into the future without realizing it.

he makes a reservation for their room that night, then takes the elevator back down, returning to his own timeline none the wiser. he finds xingqiu, done with whatever it is that he had to handle down on the ground floor, and they take the stairs up bc xq wants to race or smth, but when they get up, for ~whatever reason~ their reservation isn't there! bonkers and wacky.

xq laughs it off as chongyun having his head up in the clouds again, and they don't worry too much about it. the next day, they run off down the stairs to do their ghost hunting thing, only for chongyun to realize he left smth behind in their room, so he tells xq to scout ahead n keep any demons he meets preoccupied. he takes the elevator up, gets his thing, and then glides down to where they're meant to meet up.

current timeline: one year into chongyun's future

except, the place they were supposed to go doesn't look anything like how he remembers it. there's this dark malaise tainting the air, and xq is nowhere in sight.

mostly, chongyun just stands there, dumbfounded, until xiao suddenly appears. conflict-conflict-conflict, chongyun doesn't realize he's gone a year into the future; xiao thinks chongyun isn't being worth his time and so chases him out of the area.

with nothing much to do now that the adeptus has kicked him out, chongyun heads back to wangshu inn bc he figures that xq probably forgot smth too n that they just didn't cross paths, so he should just wait there. however, when he goes up the stairs to verr goldet, he still doesn't see xq anywhere and thus decides to ask verr.

verr gives him this quizzical look. bc chongyun didn't specify who the other party was when booking a room for two (bc, like, c'mon, it's always been him n xq), he has to explain that he's staying here w/xq atm, but verr is still confused, like:

"you booked this room yesterday morning, but it's remained empty since then. i figured it was just some sort of ritual or whatever since it's been a year since the incident in the marsh."

and chongyun's like. "huh? what incident in the marsh? where's xingqiu?"

verr purses her lips and is like, "it's not like you to forget these sorts of things."

that's when chongyun finds out that xq's been, like, super ill or something. probably like a magical coma that doesn't work like real comas do but it's Fine. point is, he's been out one year without xingqiu, and things have Changed™.

so he goes back to his room for a while, and it's the same room as a year in the past bc it's easier to not have chongyun gaslight himself for Literally No Reason, and he looks through his exorcism book and can't seem to find anything on the case from what is apparently now a year ago.

he sleeps on it, and as he's leaving, verr tells him to avoid the elevator bc it's "still broken". he doesn't think too much of the "still" in there, then returns to the harbor, where again, a lot of stuff is different:

yun jin has taken a break from the yunhan opera house (bc no more xq to bring her tea leaves n discuss operatic plots); feiyun's business has taken a dip; hu tao no longer really associates w/the rest of the liyue quartet bc it was mostly her n xq's street rap battles that kept her endeared to the others; xiangling is… well, xiangling is the closest to normal, but grief still weighs on her visibly; and xinyan is just gone, off on a voyage w/beidou.

and chongyun is very obviously like "what the hell is going on here???" bc this is so completely unlike the liyue harbor he remembers leaving just a few days ago.

so for context, the whole disaster that got xingqiu knocked out n kept out was actually initiated by shenhe, probably by mistake? like cloud retainer allowed shenhe n ganyu to meet at last, n ganyu encouraged her to visit the harbor n make connections w/people. there, she met her other clan members, learned where chongyun was and was encouraged to go find n mentor him, since he was obvs out on an exorcism trip w/his bff xq at the time. but while for once, xq was onto smth legit w/the demons n stuff, shenhe was too powerful n still too indelicate w/human life n just yeah she fucked up there.

chongyun runs into her some ways outside the city, and bc he (still mentally one year behind) doesn't recognize her, so he just politely n profusely apologizes until he realizes, oh shit this is his aunt that his relatives have been speculating about for a while now??? at which point he starts apologizing even more.

and shenhe just stares at him, face unreadable, so chongyun thinks he's just completely fucked it up, but before he can think to say anything, she says smth abt how he's acting strange: he never looks at her w/o scorn, never speaks to her w/such kindness. and chongyun is just extremely confused bc to him, this is his first time meeting his aunt.

now, chongyun's best guess at this point is that he's being kept in a nightmare by a demon, and at this point, he's like, "aha! this must be the demon who has been keeping me in a nightmare!" cue a fight, which shenhe easily wins.

the point of this fight would pretty much just be to have chongyun accept that he's not dreaming and for shenhe to know that this isn't quite the same chongyun she's used to. it's kind of a relief, too, since at some point, if they were to go too far with the demon nightmare hypothesis, someone would have to bring up the fact that adeptus xiao is rumored to eat dreams, but chongyun would probably just be like, "………no…" lol

since neither of them have any idea what the fuck is going on, shenhe takes him to cloud retainer, who finds the whole thing to be most fascinating, indeed, and tells them to retrace chongyun's steps.

so ofc, they head back to wangshu inn, where they take the elevator up and travel yet another year into the future.

current timeline: two years into chongyun's future

shenhe senses something abt the elevator as they're using it, but she can't quite place what is wrong with it.

at this point, xq is finally out of his magical coma (and has been out for who knows how long), but when he sees chongyun n shenhe together, he's like, "oh god chongyun!! what are you doing with that violent woman???"

and chongyun is like, "huh???" bc that's still just his aunt to him, but shenhe knows what's up, and she just gives him a glare. xingqiu scoffs n leaves w/o saying goodbye, probably saying smth under his breath abt how it was a Terrible idea for him to come back here at this time of year, considering it's the anniversary of The Incident™, and THIS is how chongyun discovers that even after xq wakes up from his magical coma, their relationship would Still be permanently altered!

anyway, it wasn't too obvious while he was only one year into his own future, but now that he's two years ahead, chongyun suddenly notices that xq looks strikingly older than he remembers. and then, when he looks in a mirror inside wangshu inn, he realizes that he looks older, too, and now it starts to dawn on him n shenhe that there is time travel going on, meaning that chongyun's native timeline, two years into their current past, is one year behind shenhe's native timeline.

chongyun asks shenhe what Incident™ xq was referring to when they briefly crossed paths in the inn just now, and shenhe finally tells him the details of The Incident™ in the marsh. she's kind of the only person who can really explain it to him, since it was just her n xingqiu out there, and xq was in a coma for a long time (and isn't speaking to him now).

and upon learning abt what happened, chongyun's just like, "…………oh……" bc he really likes this aunt he's spent the last few days getting to know, but he also understands why the versions of themselves from a year ago would've handled all this poorly. and shenhe would accept it if he stopped liking her after learning all this, but chongyun is a hopeful boy, and he still strongly believes that all this can be fixed or averted, like… somehow.

so chongyun gets to have a heart-to-heart with shenhe abt the whole situation, bc to him, only like a week has passed at most, but now here he is, seeing what his relationship to xingqiu might look like in two years, and that terrifies him. like, he has to examine his whole relationship to xingqiu now, and what xq means to him and what he wants to mean to xingqiu.

and like, idk abt necessarily romantic feelings, but chongyun does know that no matter what they are, he wants to be together w/xq. again, maybe not as lovers — he's not sure enough in his own feelings for that — but together. shenhe, still not too familiar with human-y things like feelings, listens but is unable to really give him advice, which is honestly fine, since he mostly just needed to talk to someone about it.

at this point, they probably realize that the wangshu inn elevator was the catalyst for the time travel, and chongyun is faced with a few options:

1. he can stay here in this timeline two years removed from his original one and try to fix things now that he at least knows for certain that xq is alive and awake.

   however, all he can really do here is try and hope he can fix everything that apparently happened in these two years that he has no memory of, which he would have a hard time explaining to everyone without just straight-up admitting that there's time-travel bullshit going on, which would probably be really frustrating and disheartening to have to struggle through.

2. he could go back one year and try to fix things before xingqiu wakes back up, which might be easier, but still not ideal for pretty much the same reasons of memory gap + impossible to talk to other people abt Why

3. he can try to save his own timeline.

   however, they don't quite know how to do that, since the elevator takes you Exactly One Year through time, and the both of them have had more than a couple days pass in the future. for various reasons, it's probably also best that they don't go a whole extra year into the past and relive it just for this, either.

in the end, it starts getting late, so chongyun and shenhe sleep on it.

the next morning, they take the elevator back to shenhe's timeline, bc chongyun knows that no matter what, he doesn't want to live in a timeline where he and xingqiu aren't friends anymore.

current timeline: one year into chongyun's future

they take the stairs back up, and they have to exorcise whatever ghost or demon in the elevator that is carrying people through time. in order to do so, shenhe stays at the top to do her half (bc that is her native timeline, after all), while chongyun does his half on the ride down, returning to his own native timeline, bc he rather likes his aunt, and he'd like for all of them to have a good relationship from the start. he doesn't know how he'll solve the xingqiu accident thing, but he knows he has to try.

the elevator breaks on the way down, meaning they have to cut the rope to finish the ritual or time travel or whatever. this results in the lift dropping a little bit below where it normally would — meaning that chongyun lands a year and a few days into the past from where he started in shenhe's timeline — right before the exorcism is completed and its time traveling powers go away. The Incident™ in the marsh has not yet happened, but it's still practically moments away.

current timeline: chongyun's present

chongyun runs out to where he was originally supposed to meet xingqiu, out in dihua marsh, and xingqiu is like, "ah, my dearest chongyun!!"

and then chongyun immediately gets to exorcising the demon that was, like, Actually Lurking there. however, despite years of practice, the first time he ever executed an exorcism was literally, at best, fifteen minutes ago, so he almost slips up when it starts getting particularly intense, but then shenhe finally enters and they finish it off together.

now this shenhe gets to meet chongyun for the first time due to time travel shenanigans, and he n xq get to go have more bff/maybe-someday-more adventures, and everyone lives happily ever after.

The End