Mister Zhongli; a stoic duke, the one people can lean on for support, the one who’s always stern and kind and solid, has completely lost his way.

His wife is gone. Four of his five children are gone. All thanks to one reckless carriage driver, crashing into them on their way to the park. “It was a terrible accident,” the gossipers say. He hears their whisperings, their speculations. It’s driving him mad.

So, not one week after their deaths, he locks himself in his house. His last remaining son, Alatus, stays inside as well. He makes sure nothing can hurt him or his son again.

Alatus begins homeschooling, and neither leaves the house for five years.

Five years of ever-growing loneliness. Five years of safety. Five years where Zhongli only ever saw his son, their limited staff, and his sister.

His sister Xianyun never liked he was ‘hiding’, as she said. Zhongli never saw it that way. It was more like… being careful. But she always let him grieve, in his own way.

Until now, when she decided enough was enough and she dragged him, quite literally, to a social gathering. “You need to leave this house,” she had said, and thus, they had left.

So now he’s standing alone at a party, surrounded by people he doesn’t recognize, slowly sipping at a glass of a sort of champagne, keeping his face neutral. People don’t need to know his inner anxieties about coming here.

He’s completely out of his element. He used to be good at parties– calm, rational, and nice to talk to. He remembers de-escalating arguments, being the voice of reason. He remembers having a wonderful time with friends. Now, though, he doesn’t know where his friends are. Now, he’s closed off.

Zhongli gets overwhelmed. He leaves out the back door, feeling every pair of eyes that follow. His house is too far to walk back to, so he just sits in the garden, back stiff and eyes on the ground.

He shouldn’t have left his house, shouldn’t have come to this party. He shouldn’t have let Guizhong and his children die. He should have died with them.