Rewind | Genshin Impact

Chapter 5

Once everyone was packing up and heading home after their intense day of questioning, Venti spent a bit longer packing up his items. As a result of this, when Xiao was just about to leave Venti grabbed his hand.

Xiao looked at Venti with an alert expression on his face, but Venti just ignored it.

"Can we talk?" He inquired, just above a whisper.

Xiao looked left and right, before breaking out of Venti's grip and grabbing the bards wrist himself. Xiao quickly led the two of them out of the police station and into a nearby alleyway.

Well this was definitely creepy, lets just hope that Xiao definitely wasn't the murderer.

"What?!" Xiao snapped, he let go of Venti's wrist and had an annoyed expression on his face.

Right... Scaramouche.

"Uh yeah, hey, sorry to disturb you-" He paused before continuing. "I just wanted to ask you about something."

"Which is?"

"I want to ask you about - Scaramouche," Venti carefully said, as if he said a single word wrong things would crash down.

There was a quick flash in Xiao's eyes. Venti could detect worry, sternness, fear, and something else. "It wasn't him if that's what you're asking." He said harshly.

"W-what?" Venti choked out. "How can you be so sure? You saw how intensely they were speaking the other day."

"Look that - Scaramouche isn't that stupid." Xiao settled with.

"Isn't that stupid to murder Kaeya?" Venti pressed on.

"Scaramouche is strategic and calculated, he wouldn't make such a mistake."

"Yeah but- hang on..." Venti trailed off as a thought came to mind. "How do you know so much about Scaramouche?"

"I- It doesn't matter. I barely know you." Xiao backtracked, which made Venti even more suspicious.

"Well do you know what they were talking about?" Venti continued.

Xiao sighed. "Not exactly."

"What do you know?"

"I-" Xiao quickly looked to the left and right again. "Look, just, if I were you I would stay out of it. Us even talking is risky."

What is going on?

"And Xingqiu gets falsely accused?"

"As far as we're concerned it could very well be Xingqiu." Xiao snapped, then he turned on his heals and started walking away. "Stay out of it Venti."

5th May 2020

"Guilty." The judge declared, silence then gasps followed that statement. When suddenly a cry was heard at the front of the room.

"But I promise - I would never-" Xingqiu begged, he dropped to his knees and begged everyone to believe him.

"All evidence points to you." The judge declared sternly, before turning his attention to the guards. "Take him away."

The sound of Xingqiu's protests faded away as he was dragged out. Venti turned over to look at Chongyun and was surprised to see him sitting there silently. He couldn't possibly believe Xingqiu might have done it... right...?

After Venti's conversation with Xiao, they didn't talk much further. Not that Venti was looking for him anyway. Ever since the autopsy Venti had distant himself from everyone at the dinner party. The fact that one of them was a murderer scared him to his core - and despite what the judges thought he was nearly positive it wasn't Xingqiu.

Xingqiu just didn't have that in him. Venti knew that normally murderers deceived people but out of everyone there is just couldn't be Xingqiu. Xingqiu was too smart, too smart and works too hard to throw away his life just to simply murder someone. Along with this - as far as Venti was aware Xingqiu had absolutely no reason to murder him. It made absolutely no sense. Venti was nearly confident that even if he searched and searched for anything that could incriminate him in the slightest - he would still barely find anything. The only evidence the court actually had was that he prepared the food... Prepared the food with Xiangling.

Xiangling...

Venti wasn't intending to pry any further, but he couldn't help himself. So when they left the courtroom that day Venti found himself running after Xiao again.

It wasn't that Xiao necessarily was the person who would know the most about Xiangling, if anything he should be asking Chongyun. However, he knew that Chongyun definitely wasn't in the correct mind frame to help him with this right now. But further then that, something about Xiao made Venti trust him, although Venti just couldn't place what.

"Hey!" Venti greeted as he finally caught up with the other boy. Xiao quickly looked at him then teared his gaze away.

"What?"

"Uhhhh I need to ask you something..." Venti continued, his voice a bit higher than usual. Venti noticed Xiao quickly check behind him, then to the left and right before muttering-

"If this is about Scaramouche-"

"No!" Venti interrupted him. "No I promise it's not."

"Then what?"

"Well, do you know Xiangling-"

Xiao cut him off by sighing and rolling his eyes. "What happened to stay out of it?"

"Hey!" Venti cut in. "As far as your concerned I could be asking her out on a date."

"But you're not." Xiao interrupted.

"Okay, yeah, I'm not but that's not the point."

"Well then - what is your, presumably, very important question?" Xiao asked nonchalantly.

"You know her, right?"

"She works at that restaurant downtown?"

"Yeah, yeah, that's the one. Do you know anything about her relationship with Kaeya?" Venti questioned.

"You're insane if you think she could have done it - the girl wouldn't hurt a fly." Xiao scolded him.

"Well maybe she is just putting on an act." Venti suggested.

"You are searching in the wrong direction Venti..." Xiao quietly trailed off.

"Wait... Why are you saying that as if you know who did it?" Venti asked, starting to get concerned. It definitely didn't help when Xiao suddenly avoided eye contact.

"I don't- It's not-" Xiao sighed. "Look, I've just had my fair share of murder cases."

"Well then who do you think did it?"

"I don't want to point my finger at anyone if it's not them."

Venti was taken aback by this. "But then what about Xingqiu? Because he is being falsely accused."

"We don't know for certain if it was a false accusation."

"But-" Venti was about to continue arguing when everything started to fade to black around him, and a ticking sound started playing in his ear. Venti leaned over to grab Xiao's arm for support.

Tick Tock Tick Tock

"Whoa - are you okay?" He heard Xiao's voice fade out along with his vision, until he couldn't see anything at all. The only sound was the ticking of the clock.