73: miHoYo: The 648 you spent has really turned you into a water god!

China, Shanghai.

Oriental Art Center.

A performance by a top international symphony orchestra was entering its final, brilliant movement.

Musical notes vibrated within the grand concert hall. The venue was packed, and several mainstream global art platforms were broadcasting the event live simultaneously.

As the final note fell, the conductor turned, faced the audience, and bowed deeply.

Thunderous applause instantly drowned out the entire hall.

At that moment, a sudden change occurred.

All the brilliant lights in the concert hall went out at the same time, without any warning.

Extreme darkness enveloped everything. The applause and cheers came to an abrupt halt, replaced by a wave of suppressed, restless suspicion and wonder.

In the next second, a beam of soft, pure blue light cast down vertically from the center of the dome, landing precisely on the empty center of the stage.

Splash... The clear sound of water echoed in the silent hall. Water so pure it contained not a hint of impurity gushed out from the center of the light in the dome, forming a crystal-clear waterfall cascading toward the stage.

Audience members in the front rows let out suppressed gasps, instinctively shrinking back.

However, just as the waterfall was about to touch the stage floor, it silently disintegrated, turning into billions of shimmering blue light particles. Like a harmless rain of fireflies, it diffused toward the entire audience.

Wherever the light particles went, a miracle was happening.

Under the gaze of nearly two thousand audience members present and millions watching through global live-stream lenses, the physical structure of the entire concert hall began to rapidly reconstruct amidst the intertwining of light and water.

The originally modern and minimalist audience seats were covered layer by layer with deep red velvet, and the seat backs became high and ornate.

Elegant tiers of circular boxes emerged out of thin air, extending upward, with golden reliefs faintly visible in the glimmer.

The stage beneath their feet expanded crazily to the sides and front, eventually transforming into a grand amphitheater styled like a high court.

The entire process took only a dozen seconds. A magnificent opera house filled with classical European style replaced the original modern concert hall.

Everyone was stunned by this scene beyond imagination, forgetting to breathe.

In the center of the stage, within the beam of light descending from the dome, a figure slowly descended accompanied by dancing water spirits.

It was a silver-haired young girl dressed in a magnificent, asymmetrical blue formal dress, wearing an exquisite little top hat.

She finally landed lightly in the center of the high court, ripples of blue water spreading out beneath her feet.

The scene was dead silent.

Everyone's brain had entered a state of shock due to this overly bizarre sight.

“Fu... Furina?”

In the dead silence, a young male audience member in the front row uttered a name with extreme uncertainty.

“Holy crap? Furina?”

“Impossible! Am I seeing things?!”

“It's her! It's really her! These clothes! This hat! Exactly the same!”

The original silence was instantly ignited. The area where young audience members gathered erupted with landslides and tsunamis of exclamations and screams.

Countless people lunged up from their seats, leaning forward desperately as if to confirm this dreamlike scene before their eyes.

Even more people scrambled to pull out their phones, their hands trembling as they opened the recording function and pointed their lenses at the figure on the stage.

On the stage, Furina held a magnificent ceremonial rapier, its tip touching the ground.

Facing the restless crowd below, she elegantly lifted her skirt and performed a stage curtsy.

Then she cleared her throat and announced in a grand and dramatically charged aria:

“Applaud for me, cheer for me! Audience of this world!”

Furina's voice was not loud, yet it clearly reached the ears of everyone present and was even broadcast worldwide through the live signal.

“Furina de Fontaine of the Nation of Justice, responding to the call of the ‘Holy Grail,’ manifests here in the Caster class!”

The moment the announcement ended.

Furina's figure, along with the grand opera house illusion reconstructed from light and water, turned into billions of shimmering blue light points.

The bright lights in the concert hall turned back on.

Everything returned to its original state.

Only the faint, moist water vapor lingering in the air proved that a 'deity' had briefly descended here.

In less than a minute.

Dozens of live videos from different angles and varying clarity were frantically uploaded to major social platforms like Bilibili, TikTok, and Weibo.

The titles of the videos were startlingly consistent, all pointing to one name and a globally popular game.

【Holy crap! A living Furina appeared at the Oriental Art Center!】

【Official marketing stunt? Cosplayer? No! This is a miracle!!!】

【New Holy Grail War Servant! Caster Furina de Fontaine descends upon Shanghai!】

...China, Beijing, Ninth Bureau Command Center.

A data analyst responsible for monitoring global internet public opinion shouted toward the command platform: “Report! A new Servant has appeared! The target... the target is suspected to be a character from the game ‘Genshin Impact’!”

All experts and analysts stopped their work and looked at the big screen in unison.

On the screen, a piece of just-uploaded, slightly shaky mobile phone video was playing.

The silver-haired girl descended from the light, declaring her true name.

“Furina... Fontaine... Hydro Archon...”

Chen Jianguo looked at the screen, his brows tightly furrowed.

From historical figures to political symbols, and now even virtual game characters were popping up.

The summoning range of this so-called “Holy Grail War” had completely exceeded everyone's understanding.

“Consultant Jiang.” Chen Jianguo turned to the leisurely figure in the corner of the conference room, “What are your thoughts on this?”

Jiang Ming Mirror Image No. 1, sitting there, glanced at the girl with the heavy 2D-style on the screen, then looked at Chen Jianguo's serious face.

“Instead of asking me, you'd better go ask the founders of miHoYo.”

“After all, this is a character from a work under their company.”

...Ten minutes after the Furina descent incident.

#Furina Descends Upon Oriental Art Center#

#Caster Is Hydro Archon Furina#

The two topics simultaneously topped the social media trending charts in over eighty countries and regions worldwide at an unprecedented, terrifying speed.

The heat of the discussion and the breadth of its spread were not at all inferior to the “Martial Emperor of America Roosevelt” who descended on Wall Street a few days ago, or “Saint Joan of Arc” who appeared in the Vatican.

If the former two shook the foundations of politics and faith, then this time, what was ignited was the largest and most internet-active group of young people worldwide.

Countless Genshin Impact players and ACG (Anime, Comic, Games) enthusiasts, after their initial shock and ecstasy, flooded into miHoYo's official account comment sections like a tide.

Within just a few minutes, the content of the comments shifted from jokes like “The official stunt is awesome!” and “How much did these special effects cost?” to a complex mix of excitement, fear, and questioning.

“miHoYo, come out and explain!”

“Did the 648 I topped up really turn into the Hydro Archon?”

“So, the continent of Teyvat really exists? Right?”

“miHoYo, how many more things are you hiding from us?!”

...One hour after the incident.

Shanghai, miHoYo Headquarters Building.

Dozens of black vehicles with special license plates silently blocked all entrances and exits of the entire building.

The entire building was instantly physically locked down; no personnel were allowed in or out.

Several core founders of miHoYo, as well as the main creative staff of the Genshin Impact project team, were politely “invited” out of their respective offices by several serious-looking Ninth Bureau agents.

“Gentlemen, there are some matters we need your assistance in investigating. Please come with us.”

On the internet, rumors about miHoYo's headquarters being locked down and the founders being taken away by officials for investigation began to spread like a virus.

An image splicing a news screenshot of “Nasu Kinoko being protected by Sakura Country officials” with a blurry photo of “miHoYo founders being taken away” began to circulate on major forums.

Below the image was a comment that had been liked tens of thousands of times.

“History always repeats itself in startlingly similar ways. The prophets of the new era are also being well protected by the state.”