Chongyun's dead but was made into a puppet for the fatui by Dottore who found his constitution interesting.
Chongyun was brainwashed into swearing his loyalty to the Tsaritsa and just to mess with Scaramouche, Dottore recommended to have Chongyun work under him.
Chongyun doesn’t know who he was before he was presented to her highness, the Tsaritsa but he somehow still retains his own moral code. However the orders from the fatui outweighs said morals.
And to mess with both Chongyun and Scaramouche even more, the Tsaritsa holds the most power over Chongyun's orders followed by the other fatui harbinger by ranking but only Scaramouche has the least power despite being the 6th of the fatui harbingers.
Seeing Chongyun being ordered around and having little to no mind of his own, it irritated him.
It reminded him too much of his own past, a doll, to be discarded once he becomes useless to its creator. So much so that he requested Dottore to give him a conscious, or at least some form of thought process that makes him think about the orders he'd been given and not just blindly following every command, ranging from suicide missions to simple chores.
Dottore ended up complying but not without mocking Scaramouche about how Chongyun won't be able to tolerate his trashy personality and most likely would request for another harbinger to follow.
However after Chongyun gained a new conscious and identity named "Cloud", he chose to stayed with Scaramouche cause even though he didn't have a conscious back then, he realised that as much as Scaramouche like having power over people, he doesn't like how he act like a puppet rather than a subordinate, he's also the one most likely to have requested Dottore to give him a conscious.
Just like that, 2 years past and Cloud became Scaramouche's second-hand. Although he has no right to command the other fatui working under him, he was given the right to speak his mind about missions and strategies, given how his lord likes to have absolute control over his own subordinates, it was understandable.
Cloud didn't complain, and was instead quite pleased that Scaramouche was even willing to listen to his opinion.
One day, they received a new mission to retrieve a book. A member of the fatui had rebelled and given the book to the qixing.
In it was the internal networking of the qixing and such that will aid them for the Tsaritsa's future plans.
They succeeded in getting the book back but escaping became a problem since the adepti got involved.
Xiao recognizes Chongyun and demanded to know what they did to him, but Cloud didn't recognize him and was quickly getting annoyed by his words about returning him back to Liyue.
In the end, Cloud got captured while Scaramouche managed to escape with the book(not without cursing and swearing to get Cloud back).
Now Cloud was being chained up in a room with a bunch of people who he doesn't recognize. All of them have some sort of conflicted expression.
It must be the first time they’re handling a puppet instead of a human.
A hand reach towards him with hesitation before its owner turned away and let out a shaking breath.
His dark blue bangs covered his eyes but looking at his attire, he must be someone of high standing.
The adeptus that captured him put a hand on his shoulder and said in a stern voice laced with desperation.
"Chongyun, what...happened."
