The mysterious White Horse Adeptus, associated with the Moons, will soon be released. Let's review what we know about her.
White Horse Adeptus
There’s a legend in Liyue about the White Horse Adeptus, who’s older than Rex Lapis and related to the Moons. Once, the boy got lost in the bamboo forest, and a slender woman with golden eyes and hair ever white-gold garbed in white offered to help drive him out of the forest. The mountain people once viewed her as the “daughter of time,”* like a white horse leaping from a pure spring, one whom no shackles could bind. Just as it was with her proud mother, so it was with her — no wall or eggshell could bar her path.
The shepherds of the plains once pursued her steps, freeing themselves from the fetters of the wilderness, embarking on a migratory search for the waterweeds, and thus did the golden-white foal blaze the trail for all herds in the land. The kingdom of the ocean depths once saw her as an emissary, and based on their imagination, they granted her scales and tail plumage, falling down in worship of the light brought by one who was both mother and daughter.
Before the War of the Funerary Flame, when the heavenly envoys favored the people, great heroes, and wandering champions would visit the clear springs for her blessing, fighting over the tenderness she left in her hurried wake.
While the boy and Adeptus were spending the night in the woods, she told different stories about the three Moons, the War of the Funerary Flame, and the times before the Archons were born. After the moon palace collapsed, the chariot fell, and the three sisters were slain, these legends became lost alongside disaster's descent, the heavens rained down cruel order, and from that day, the stars stilled their orbits, and the earth ceased to turn.
As for the Adeptus, she had no choice but to be trapped within the shell of the starry sky, forced to tarry within this stagnant, foreign land, awaiting her mother's thousand threads, awaiting the erosion of hardy stone, awaiting the next encounter from beyond.
At dawn, the boy and Adeptus went their separate ways: the boy packed his things and headed for that thriving port city, while she stood silently at the boundaries of the bamboo forest. In the dawn's glow, he heard a whinnying cry that then grew distant. He turned and looked, and there was nothing behind him, but a single strand of hair that had come to rest on his shoulder. Many years later, the boy, who was a boy no longer, would remember that moment, and he would understand: the gap between them was like a yawning chasm.
His fate was to leave his home and go to Liyue Harbor, to seek the riches the Geo Archon had bestowed upon him. Hers, then, was to hide herself away, away from the majestic, kindly gaze of that great Lord of Geo, and protect those ancient tales that even she was beginning to forget.
Gold-Eyed Celadon Mare
During the Archon War, the Eight Adepts fought alongside Rex Lapis. Among them was the Gold-Eyed Celadon Mare — an auspicious beast, with the power to take on human form similar to those of the Adepti. Back then, there was a divine mountain in Liyue with a giant tree on its summit. This tree was a god named "Tao Dou," and people thought that behind Tao Dou was the realm of the dead, and if you committed grave sins in life, your soul would be unable to pass beyond that tree and into the afterlife. About two to three thousand years ago, the Eight Adepts rose up — eight people and beasts who laid down a great magic array to purify Tao Dou.
He cared greatly for all living things and volunteered to sanctify himself to pacify the underworld. Without the god's will, not even eight Adepti would have been able to overpower him, much less the Eight Adepts. Tao Dou was sealed in a secret palace in the Qingce Mountains called the "Hidden Palace of Zhou Formula" along with other evil spirits, and the palace itself was enchanted using the Seven-Eight Gates method. After that, Tao Dou's remains sank into the Ley Lines and became a border, separating the living of Liyue from the dead in Liyue. The mortals continued to preserve and maintain the god's new form for thousands of years.
Among the Eight Adepts, there were three joined forces: the Three Hermits of Guizang, the Two Sages of Lianshan, and the Three Beasts of Tao Dou. Although they possessed powers comparable to those of the Adepti, many of them were ordinary mortals. One of the hermits was called "Wind Reader." He came from the Twelve Tribes of the Chenyu Vale, and his descendants became the founders of the Lan clan and the ancient art of Qimen Divination.
The second hermit mastered the art of fishing with a rod and line, and became known to the people as the "Yunlai Angler." It is believed that Yunlai Swordsmanship, which Yuheng of the Liyue Qixing, Keqing, and Qiqi use, was based on Yunlai Angler's rod-wielding techniques.
The third hermit was the Wuwang Kid, also known as Old Man Wuwang. According to legend, he always presented himself in child form and was a master of Qihuang sigils, which he used to catch demons, heal disease, and protect lives from the encroaching presence of death.
The Lianshan Sages included Sage Hu, a master of gourd crafts, and Sage Jian, an expert in bronze mirrors. Little is known about them, but they were known to have mastered the secret art of Lianshan, earning them the title of the Two Sages of Lianshan. A hidden palace is located deep in the mountains south of the Stone Gate. It is believed to be where they retreated for cultivation.
Eight Adepts
The Three Beasts of Tao Dou, also known as the Three Immortals of Tao Dou, lived on the mountain where the divine tree grew. They were known as the Lone Butterfly of the Crimson Flame, the Jade-Plumedand the Gold-Eyed Celadon Mare. During Tao Dou's purification ceremony, the Lone Butterfly sacrificed herself, Silverwing and Wind Reader traveled together, and the white horse went to live in seclusion in the Qingce mountain range.
Although they all had remarkable powers, purifying a god of Tao Dou's caliber was no mean feat. They had to use the secret art of Seven-and-Eight-Gates Array, which involved obfuscating one of the gates so that evil couldn't escape. The Lone Butterfly was in charge of the hidden gate that was chosen to be obfuscated, and so she disappeared from the world in the process. According to legend, Old Man Wuwang looked up to her a lot, took up her mantle, and kept her legacy alive, passing it on to the founders of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor.
Thus, the Butterfly sacrificed her life to restore order to the realm of the dead, some chance meetings ensured that future generations continued using her methods to guard the border between life and death. Although she herself disappeared from the world, her mission to protect Liyue is still alive and well, thousands of years on.
*I wouldn't recommend taking "daughter of time" literally as Istaroth's daughter. Even Venti never called and considered Istaroth his mother, and nowadays, we have a lot of connections with time.
For some reason, after the Zibai's trailer, people assumed it showed Qiqi, but that's absolutely not the case. The child not only survived, but also told of what happened and left descendants. And this girl was from the Lu family. Qiqi died during the war between the Adepti and the demons and was sealed in amber. This is a completely different situation. If you see Violetgrass, it's not always about Qiqi.
