A fair amount of people may not know, but while many Liyue characters are available to be interacted with during this year's Lantern Rite event, Zhongli in particular has a series of rather charming encounters that are NOT limited to his initial location outside Third-Round Knockout. Without spoiling much, and for TL;DR's sake, you can find him, in this order, at: Third-Round Knockout > in front of the Blacksmith, down the walkway to the shipyard > Wanwen Bookhouse, left > Wangshu Inn, second floor > Cloud Retainer's lookout/sitting place high above Qingyun Peak > Qingce Village, W travel point and > back at the Liyue Harbor terraces overlooking the main harbor's sea "gate", on the NW portion of the bridge connection between both sections. Each location's interaction can only be triggered once per day, and on real time days (I did not post this earlier because I didn't figure it'd be this long, or meaningful). It is unknown right now if this "quest" still continues, but the language in the last interaction gives no indication it will.

Going into further spoilers: The 2nd day you'll learn about the Yun's family past in smithing (yes, THAT Yun). The 3rd day kills 2 big fan theories; the first being that of Morax wandering in the mortal realm as a female (and/or in other other shapes), the second being that of the Yakshas possibly being more related to Sumeru that Liyue.

https://preview.redd.it/8xqs1gxw1ch81.jpg?width=3827&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=02789f40f2b447a68382e1163eea3a613e12c085

https://preview.redd.it/mnq0zxhy1ch81.jpg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8674d91b0c2def2387d0e7e74896948b543535e2

The 4th sets a precedent for Wangsu as a strategic location, also for Xiao's demon hunting.

https://preview.redd.it/ilv3vfz52ch81.jpg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=369c9d920abf1bbd1fa5b610dec011ce1e84b301

https://preview.redd.it/3x7f9ip82ch81.jpg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=54dea978acebd1fb08601e93c1420fca18afbc43

The 5th has us learn Morax sees Cloud Retainer as a friend…and teacher (this may have interesting adepti/lower god implications down the road), oh, and birb is a bit of a tsundere.

https://preview.redd.it/cyp31k3f2ch81.jpg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a33e311cc1d137345ab4c26a2c49ea20ffd2347e

https://preview.redd.it/qskylb9g2ch81.jpg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=03dca3eb63a238a2c05a593bdf5d78962b58e10b

The 6th also kills a theory, that of an entity buried/sealed under Qingce.

https://preview.redd.it/jg3ndqvl2ch81.jpg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=67fd67a3739831094675c9b21975a50f513aebff

https://preview.redd.it/6vrs58zo2ch81.jpg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d7d3c35ebcd14cd8d1185feef6c898b40aec1252

And the 7th is, well….just a happy grandpa.

https://preview.redd.it/u0qeu5fw2ch81.jpg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f1899287183eee8ab747052fab21148f18058675

I didn't post literally every line of dialogue both to keep from spoiling too much, and because I figured it'll find itself into the Wikis soon enough.