zhongli, punching a hole into the side of the mountain: it's free real estate
everyone pls read on fulfilment: where zhongli and childe go on the run some years after the post-liyue quest and has almost everything i've ever wanted to see in a zhongchi fic of all time like so:
Zhongli says, “I’m not a god anymore.”
“Aren’t you?” Childe asks. “You take away a gnosis, but the earth underneath us is still yours. You summon meteors from the sky. All the adepti in Liyue answer to you.”
“You’re right,” says Zhongli.
“It doesn’t matter if you are or are not,” Childe says. He looks away to the towers down below, the ruins that Zhongli sealed, excavated from rivers of water. “I just know I want to be here.”
They sit in silence for a while, the sunlight heavy.