Zhongli Backstory ! - Spoiler

I saw a commenter on reddit while i was completing a mission on Genshin Impact on the Guilli plains, the mission was regarding a Goddess Archon who was long dead and forgotten. The mission was difficult so i sought out help from redditors and got face to face to Zhongli Lore ! Now i’m sad and have to share this. Needless to say, it’s full of spoilers. For contest, there was a war where Gods fought hundreds of years ago in Genshin Impact that holds implications on the Teyvat continent citizens till this moment in the game. You can mainly see it in old ruins and historical archives, but also from some gods who still walk among their people.

The commenter published this below an oc comic post they have published about Zhongli and Guizong, the dead Goddess.

Zhongli, during his time as Morax during the Archon War, was an extremely brutish and war-mongering God (much different from the collected himbo daddy we know today). During this time, he met Guizhong, a much weaker but smarter God (the Goddess of Dust). They became best friends, and it's implied that they were lovers as well. They ruled jointly over the people who would become Liyue. The two Gods also spent a lot of time in the glaze lily (the blue flowers in the comic) fields of Guili Plains, and the field itself is their names put together (GUIzhong - ZhongLI).

Guizhong dies at some point of the Archon War, with Zhongli by her side. She leaves him the "Memories of Dust" artifact, which she claims to contain all of her knowledge. (This is the cube that appears between them the comic when Zhongli meets Ningguang.) Since Guizhong’s death Zhongli has tried but cannot open it. The war ravages on, destroying Guili Plains and turning it into the swampy wasteland it is today. Even as the wild glaze lilies became extinct, Zhongli could not open the Memories of Dust. He takes Guizhong’s and his followers to the shore, forming Liyue Harbor today.

The quote about humans in this comic is directly taken from Memories of Dust lore, aka Guizhong’s final words to Zhongli.

Zhongli follows her plea to try and understand the humans, who are so small and full of fear yet also full of triumph and beauty and life. Over the next millenia, he descends frequently, mingling with the merchants of Liyue both in and out of his Rex Lapis persona. Finally, as we see in the Archon story, after making sure Liyue is capable of flourishing without him, he steps down and fully embraces mortal life.

It's also a popular theory that Ningguang is Guizhong's reincarnation, due to her banner weapon being Memories of Dust, her ascension material being Guizhong's favorite flower, her similarities in work ethic, engineering ability, the fact that both were born “weak” but clawed their way to stand at the top, etc. There is not enough evidence in canon to prove this, and people are free to believe what they want! I think it’s a lovely theory that the embodiment of Guizhong’s spirit has now inherited Liyue Harbor.

In order, the comic also touches on several Liyue character pasts.

• Ningguang as a child is described by Zhongli as "walking barefoot down Yaoguang Shoal, trying to sell her wares", for which he has respect for her.
• Beidou is infamous for killing Haishan, a ferocious sea monster, without her Vision.
• Qiqi is canonically dead, having been killed in the Archon war but brought back by Adepti / the Gods as she was considered an innocent bystander -- she received her vision in her last moments of life, as she desperately wished to be able to "freeze" time. She also has a hard time collecting herbs (and ends up hurting herself because she has to fulfill her own overzealous orders as a jiangshi/zombie), thus the piggyback picture.
• Xiangling is self explanatory, I like to think that her affinity for experimenting with weird ingredients introduced Zhongli to slime dishes, which he uses to ascend :>
• Keqing has a lot of criticism for Rex Lapis, which Zhongli encourages and finds absolutely hilarious (she's cussed him out at the Rite of Descension and he ended up laughing for an hour out of amusement)
• It’s canon that Tartaglia was gifted a pair of chopsticks by Zhongli in their early acquaintanceship, AFTER making it clear that he had no clue how to use them. He mentions it again later during the Archon quest, implying he is actively learning how to use them.
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  Now the Link for anyone who wishes to cry with me over this comic.
  Zhongli Backstory Comic