For the next few days, Youying stayed in his room at the Grand Narukami Shrine, pondering over Seven Nations Kill.
First came the game cards. Youying considered leaving the card composition unchanged; with a total of 160 cards, playing with them seemed temporarily manageable without any major issues.
The only problem with these 160 cards, then, was their names. Youying originally thought about "Teyvat-localizing" them, just like the identity cards.
"Basic cards go without saying—nothing much to change there. As for trick cards, most of their terminology should be about the same as in Liyue, right?" Youying thought to himself, but he still ended up altering the names of a few cards on his paper:
"A bit problematic... Happy While Desiring Shu and Southern Barbarian Invasion?"
"As for equipment cards... weapons can just be skinned with signature weapons, and defensive gear can use artifact set names..."
Then he realized a problem.
There were no horses in Teyvat!
Although Youying hadn't noticed this issue when he first crossed over—and seeing people getting around by carriage was a common sight in Inazuma—he practically had no reserves of vocabulary for things like this.
"Well... how about I just don't change the card names?" After struggling with it, Youying simply chose to give up. After all, if you are going to change them, you change the whole set; since some here fundamentally couldn't be changed, he might as well leave them all alone. After all, saving trouble was better than asking for more.
For the rest of the day, Youying spent most of his time recalling details such as the suits, point values, and quantities of these cards.
"Alright, finally done. The rest is getting ready to print the cards. Hmm... as for the illustrations, I'll have to ask Guuji to borrow an illustrator from Yae Publishing House when the time comes."
"Oh my, you remember me now?"
Talk of Guuji and Guuji appeared.
"You came just in time, Guuji." Youying took the piece of paper and handed it straight to her. "I've already finished the design and composition of the card deck. For the specific card face designs, I was thinking of borrowing an illustrator from Yae Publishing House later. Once those are done, we can start printing the game cards."
"Mm, just do as you see fit." After giving it a quick glance, Guuji set it aside. "The last part is the design of the character cards, right?"
"Yeah." Youying nodded. "Originally, I wanted to only use characters I knew who had a Vision to make into character cards. But later I realized that if I planned to make 20 to 30 character cards for the first batch, half the roster would already be used up. Unless I released a new card for every constellation a character had, there simply wouldn't be enough to put out, which obviously isn't realistic."
"So I'm considering including monsters, Treasure Hoarders, even Shogunate soldiers and Favonius Knights into the character cards as well," Youying said, rubbing his chin.
"Oh, so in that case, am I going to be made into a card too?" Guuji blinked, a faint, dangerous purple glow flashing in her eyes.
"Of course... uh, I mean, if you want, Guuji, I can make you a limited-edition card—the super rare kind that you could never pull even if you died trying." Youying started to reply smoothly, but seeing Guuji's dangerous gaze, he quickly changed his tune.
"Just teasing you. I don't really care about such things."
"Lady Guuji is magnanimous; this humble one is henceforth at Lady Guuji's disposal—ah, no, I mean ready to charge forward for Lady Guuji."
"When you said that just now, didn't you actually sound rather happy instead?"
"Ahem." Youying tried to forcefully change the subject. "Putting that aside, those monsters and Treasure Hoarders are fine, but shouldn't we probably consult the people with Visions and get their permission before we turn them into cards?"
As a fine young man from 21st-century Blue Star, Youying still had a pretty good awareness of copyright.
"Mm... that makes sense. You can go look for them one by one when you actually need to start making them. After all, asking everyone all at once isn't very realistic." Guuji nodded. "So, who are you planning to find for the first batch?"
"You, Ayaka, and Naganohara Yoimiya." Youying thought for a moment and said, "The three of your images, once placed in Inazuma, are pure popularity and hype—especially the influence of you and Ayaka, and Yoimiya's approachability. Besides, I want to borrow Yoimiya's fireworks to make a splash and build some hype during the Inazuma festival."
"You've barely known her for half an afternoon and you're already calling her Ayaka? You're even calling the little girl from the Naganohara family by her first name directly? Little fellow has quite the knack for attracting peach blossoms, doesn't he?" Guuji's voice sounded rather sour. "I daren't even imagine what you'll call her once you get a bit closer in the future."
"Ahem, stop messing around, Guuji."
"Fine, fine." Guuji stopped teasing him. "As for the festival, there's less than half a month until the one at the end of the month, but this much time should be enough to design and draw the cards, right? Mass printing will probably take about another month or so."
"We can hold a pre-sale at the festival, and then run a promotion saying the top 10 people to place an order can get your autograph or something. People will definitely rush to buy them. Let's make some deposit money off them first; we can't keep letting Yae Publishing House run at a loss," Youying said. "Oh right, after keeping aside whatever is necessary for my essential expenses, please invest my royalties into this too. Even though most of it is a technical stake, it's still a small gesture from me."
"Is it possible that your Mora came from my Yae Publishing House in the first place?" Guuji's mouth twitched.
"Uh... that's not important." Youying felt a slight pang of awkwardness.
After briefly finalizing the subsequent plans with Guuji, Youying set off on the road to the Kamisato Estate and Naganohara Fireworks.
Considering distance factors, Youying's first destination was the Kamisato Clan.
In front of the Kamisato Estate.
"Trouble you to announce me. Youying is here to visit. I am a friend of Miss Kamisato, and by order of Lady Guuji, I have an important matter to discuss," Youying said to the guards at the gate, while holding up a pink Amulet.
In Guuji's words, this was given to him by the wise and beautiful Lady Guuji herself.
"Wait a moment, I'll go announce you right away."
Seeing the Amulet, the guard's expression straightened. He bowed respectfully to Youying and spoke, then walked inside.
After a while, the guard came back out.
"Sir, Miss Kamisato went out this morning, but she should be back shortly. You might need to wait a little while, sir. The Clan Head invites you to step into the drawing room and wait for a moment."
"The brother-in-law, huh..." Youying thought to himself, as a figure surfaced in his mind.
A young man with short light-blue hair, a warm smile frequently hanging on his face, dressed in white attire with an upper garment consisting of a collarless haori with furisode sleeves and an elongated back hem, while his lower attire consisted of white trousers similar to suit pants.
"Since that's the case, I must trouble you to lead the way." Quickly collecting his thoughts, Youying followed the guard into the Kamisato Estate, deciding to have a proper meeting with this man who might potentially be his future brother-in-law.