Shenhe

Shenhe is a disciple of Cloud Retainer residing in the mountains of Liyue. She uses the tall female model and stands with a fair complexion. Her long hair turns from silvery white at the roots to inky black at the ends. The hair is parted off center with one side covering her right eye while the back is fastened by teal ribbons in a loose fishtail braid that ends in a super low pony. A small odango bun is braided at the back of her head and accessorized with a black hairpin. She has pale iridescent eyes with white pupils and her nails are painted with light blue polish that shows an ombre effect.

She wears a black halterneck qipao dress whose chest opening is covered by black sheer fabric and whose full length side slits are fastened by flower frogs revealing a white bustier underneath. Two detached bubble sleeves come with a ruffled shawl in a dark teal gradient. The dress the bustier and the sleeves feature intricate patterns resembling snow lotus in dark silver and gold accents. A metal garter is worn on her right thigh where the cryo vision is affixed. Her accessories include red knots attaching to the sleeve garters and neck straps a lotus headpiece heart shaped earrings and simple black pumps with silver anklets. Red ropes adorn her body as bindings given by her master to restrain her impulses and they form part of her overall look along with the vision secured on the garter.

Shenhe wields a polearm that does not distinguish friend from foe and she has noted there is clearly a limit to the power of the red ropes. This makes her loathe crowded areas. Her elemental skill is known as spring spirit summoning with the description that the power of the spirits is no falsehood and burdened with her orders the divine maiden hurries on. Her elemental burst is called divine maidens deliverance and its description states that the way of the adepti is not defined only by the mysterious and fantastical only by observing the changes in the heavens and the earth and understanding the laws of cause and effect in this realm may its essence be understood. She channels the power of the adepti through these arts and her cryo vision allows her to freeze threats in place during storms for instance letting lightning bolts handle the rest without dirtying her clothes.

Her personality is cool and distant much like the adepti themselves after long years of cultivation in isolation. She was originally part of the tianheng thaumaturges clan of exorcists and had a happy life as a child until around the age of six when her maddened father attempted to sacrifice her to a malevolent god in order to bring back his wife. She managed to defeat the remnants of the god herself yet the incident scarred her for life giving her homicidal tendencies and causing her to believe herself to be a cursed child. The adepti bound her soul with the red ropes which suppress her emotions and cause her to have an indifferent personality. Even with the bindings she often contemplates the most violent means to eliminate others and is almost always easy to anger obliterating her surroundings whenever her emotions get the best of her. She throws hostile looks at some like xingqiu believing him to be threatening others. Despite this she ultimately wishes to fit in human society and places great trust in the traveler. She prefers speaking with a small number of people at a time.

Many humans have mistaken her to be an adeptus herself and worthy of worship something which deeply troubles her despite her stating that she is just an adeptis disciple. She enjoys sampling small quantities of foods in a manner similar to others and due to having a limited diet in the mountains she is used to eating plenty of herbs despite clearly despising their taste. After moving around liyue harbor one of the aspects she cherishes of civilization is having a wide variety of food to choose from. The occasional sharpness in her personality and the red ropes adorning her body add to her mystery. If her past were to be written as a story there would be multiple versions for sure. Be it an immortal or a white haired witch how will people view this mysterious lady. Her secrets and feelings are as difficult to capture as the drifting clouds in the mountains.

Shenhe introduces herself by stating her name and that she was born fated to bear the curse of calamity so she is prone to bring harm to the people around her. The adepti urged her to bind her soul with red ropes to keep her homicidal nature at bay. If one is able to walk alongside her without fear she accepts it and asks for the hand to be given. She has a motto that the mind be purged and the world be saved. Her polearm does not distinguish friend from foe and there is clearly a limit to the red ropes power which is why she avoids crowds. In the mortal world at times like rain she wonders if it is customary to use an umbrella. After the rain the sky clears and so does her mood though she hopes no one shows up to bother her and if they do she will make them disappear. When thunder strikes she can freeze monsters in place and simply let the lightning bolts take care of the rest as a good way to not get her clothes dirty. When the wind is blowing it reminds her of her master who loves to ride the swift winds of qingyun peak.

In the morning she greets others with good morning and notes that the dew is very sweet today and asks if one would like some. In the afternoon if fatigue sets in after lunch she recommends meditating as it is very effective. In the evening she asks if one prefers the artificial light of the cities and towns or the moonlight in the mountains. At night for those close to her she says feel free to rest as she is a light sleeper and if she hears anything in the vicinity she will investigate it. She relies mostly on her own instincts for all the training she has had honing her body and mind learning the adepti arts and it comes down to self preservation. She is not trying to save the world so if she wipes out some evil presence and it happens to benefit others she does not expect thanks as it is just a force of habit.

She has observed that if she treats people kindly they call her an adeptus and if she puts them in their place they call her a witch. The one thing they never call her is human and they all seem to agree that she is fundamentally different from them. She rarely leaves the mountains so she was never taught proper manners and when a conflict arises she takes care of it the way that comes naturally to her. If her methods are not approved she asks to be told and even if she does not fully understand the reasoning she will always defer. During journeys she has grasped the key to controlling her strength knowing when to restrain herself and when to unleash and it comes more naturally now. She thinks that what saves her from herself is not the red ropes but the traveler and if that is understood she asks to stay by her side.

Her vision is a shiny gemstone that she calls a vision and she notes that the gifts fate brings fate can just as easily take away so if one day her connection to it ends that will be it and the light inside will go out. Driving evil spirits away comes easily to her but getting rid of her inner demons is harder and unless one can find a way to let go all the adepti arts and exorcism techniques in the world cannot save anyone. She always hears people say the first snow of the season is a sight for sore eyes yet she has snow every single day in the mountains so she does not understand which instance counts as the first snow and asks for an explanation.

She holds lady ningguang in high regard because wealth in her hands becomes a means of solving complex issues that no weapons could ever hope to resolve and ningguang understands the unwritten rules of human society and what is in peoples hearts which even the adepti cannot achieve. With beidou she does not need to worry about etiquette and does not need non verbal cues to discern true meaning which makes her comfortable though there are too many people around and she needs company to cope with crowds. She likes yun jin performing liyue opera as a type of social interaction where one can get to know about the other persons background without actually interacting one on one and she looks forward to any story being included in performances.

She has heard many stories about ganyu from her master and finds ganyu really quite different from how she originally imagined yet she keeps this to herself and notes that ganyus work in liyue harbor is unbelievably busy with a price to pay for those who want to integrate into the mortal world. It is hard for her to believe she still has living relatives in this world and for chongyun if he has any difficulties with his training she is more than willing to help enlighten him though he will need to meet her alone in the mountains as their family is too sociable and she would not know how to turn down invitations without being impolite. She has seen xingqiu lean over and whisper things and if he dares threaten anyone she will make sure he faces consequences though she accepts it may be just an in joke between friends.

That gentleman zhongli claims to be a mortal yet is very familiar with her master who is an adeptus and her master once said if you see him drinking on a stone stool in front of the abode do not disturb him and let him sit quietly for a while which is precisely what she did. Baizhu has medicinal herbs of the best quality and is easy going and considerate though the little snake on his neck has no filter at all and she notes she did not lift a finger against it as she will not go as far as getting into a quarrel with a snake. She often sees hu tao wandering in the woods singing strange songs and must have heard all of them several times by now so she is used to the singing though she still finds it strange and does not hate it either.

Her first impression of xiao was that he is not one to smile and after meeting him again more recently he is still as reserved as ever but seems a lot more relaxed now and she wonders if he met someone special. The last time her master and shuyu came to dine at wanmin restaurant she noticed shuyu seemed to have adopted a number of her masters mannerisms which gave her pause for thought since she grew up under her masters care too and wonders if she has subconsciously picked up a thing or two.

Shenhe comes from a branch family of a clan of exorcists and due to certain reasons cloud retainer took her in as a disciple. To her cloud retainer is a knowledgeable and chatty master while to cloud retainer she stands out as special from amongst the mortals instructed. Living with adepti as a human is by no means an easy task but she has a unique constitution an immensely strong will and a great talent for adepti arts all of which have won her the acknowledgment of the adepti. The long years of cultivation coupled with the habit of eating divine herbs and drinking the dew of the mountains have made her more and more distant from earthly life and she has even been regarded as a mysterious white haired adeptus. She is a student solely of cloud retainer in name but her impressive constitution and intelligence quickly won several other adepti over and she learned from them all eventually becoming a master of adeptal arts in her own right as a mortal. She very much looks the part as well in her unique temperament and manner of carrying herself indeed it would be no understatement to name her a true adeptus upon meeting her for the first time. However it is precisely due to the long years of tutelage that she has lacked company save for the adepti and odd passing illuminated beast and this isolation has caused her to grow distant and indifferent.

Sometimes a few rumors will escape from liyue small community of pilgrims to make the rounds in the city back streets and these tales often depict someone being in a hopeless situation in some desperate place when suddenly a wandering white haired adeptus comes to their rescue in the nick of time. Most such stories are a collection of lovely intoxicating cliches little different from the oft told street tales of fated marriages and the like. But if one were to ask that white haired adeptus to tell the story it would take a vastly different shape as some annoying creatures worm their way into the mountains from time to time and she simply gets rid of them to prevent them from disturbing her masters meditations and if some people did wind up getting caught in the crossfire and injured well it was their decision to come here and there is not much she can do about that.

She is in all likelihood the least accustomed to mortal life amongst those who take on an adeptal appearance having been sequestered in the mountains since a young age she lacks experience and common sense which makes it difficult for her to relate to people normally. To ordinary people there are many solutions to any given problem but to her any solution that is not the simplest and most direct one may as well not exist. For example she almost never considers negotiation as a solution to being at cross purposes with others mostly resorting to threats instead after all it is simple and efficacious a good solution no. She has also spent much time ruminating on problems that are truly esoteric for example why do we need to pay for food or is there any difference between intimidating civilians and intimidating bandits. She even truly believes that her master cloud retainer is a most brilliant and eloquent conversationalist. In a certain sense she can be considered very pure much like a child she relies on her chaotic yet straightforward intuition and logic to get her through life. Mountain shaper once had this to say about her that little shenhe is not only stronger than most she also possesses a unique character and she knows not the world understands not common sense distinguishes few cuisines and acknowledges no hierarchies so it may not be such an easy thing for cloud retainer to tutor her.

Liyue has no lack of folktales about meetings with the adepti and many of these concern relative nobodies whom an adeptus took under their wing thus elevating them greatly. However the circumstances under which her fate became tied to the adeptal abodes was no such glorious thing if anything it was an experience characterized by anguish. When she was five her mother passed away and her father having loved his wife dearly found that agony hard to bear. Over time this agony turned into resentment and this resentment birthed obsession by which he was driven wandering throughout the land like a man gone mad. He left for close to a year never stopping never able to sleep soundly ever searching for some technique that might bring his wife back. At last when the year was almost out he returned in joyous frenzy and he had brought with him a secret art known as fate transference by making a ritual sacrifice to the seelie summoned by this art a living persons body could be exchanged for a dead ones life. At that time she was yet utterly unaware of the disaster that would befall and she was only an ordinary child overjoyed at her long absent fathers return. He claimed that he had a surprise awaiting her in a cave in the mountains behind and that he would take her there.

Her home is not a fixed place in the way mortals assume and she has said the assumption that every person has somewhere to call home is naive as she got used to living in the mountains alongside the birds and beasts a long time ago. Her affiliation is with cloud retainers abode and she returns there often practicing her arts and meditating. In daily life she drives evil spirits away with ease and helps remove annoying creatures that disturb meditations though she notes if people get caught in the crossfire it was their choice to enter the mountains. She cultivates in isolation yet now interacts more sampling foods and cherishing the variety in liyue harbor. She drinks sweet dew and eats herbs from the mountains though she despises their taste and she meditates when fatigued. As a light sleeper she investigates any sounds at night to ensure safety for those nearby. She contemplates mortal customs like payment for food or differences in intimidation and she defers to the traveler in matters of manners even if she does not fully understand. Her master cloud retainer is her closest kin and she demonstrates filial piety according to mortal customs. She has picked up mannerisms subconsciously from growing up under that care.

In teyvat she remains distant and indifferent due to the red ropes yet with the traveler she feels the control over her strength comes more naturally and what saves her is that presence rather than the bindings alone. She iz prone to bring harm yet walks alongside those without fear and offers her hand in trust. Her constellation is clarity of heart and through it her abilities gain enhancements though she carries on with the adepti arts as a mortal master of them. She views xiao as reserved yet more relaxed now and ganyu as busy with a price for integrating into the mortal world while keeping masters stories to herself. For chongyun she offers training help in the mountains alone and for others like ningguang she holds high regard for solving issues beyond weapons. She does not hate strange songs from hu tao and finds baizhu considerate without quarreling over the snake. All this shapes her existence as she wanders the mountains of liyue ready to purge minds and save the world in her own direct way while sipping dew and wondering about first snow or umbrellas in rain.