Chapter 10 What Is Heaven's Will?

Qiu Wuji was finding that having someone who understood her better than she understood herself wasn't entirely without its benefits.

In theory, that was what people called a kindred spirit... a pity he wasn't a real kindred spirit; the reason he understood her was too galling for words.

But it couldn't be denied that the loneliness of being a stranger in a strange land had been thinned out to almost nothing.

Because there was a familiar face beside her... the most familiar of strangers.

She let out a soft breath and said quietly, "Since I'm here, of course I want to know."

Chu Ge smiled. "Come on. Before I keep you company experiencing all this, you first keep me company while I eat."

Honestly, the gap in fighting strength between Chu Ge and Qiu Wuji was absurdly wide; he faced the risk of a beating at any moment, and possibly a blade besides. Yet mentally, he somehow held the higher ground.

She was, in the end, a woman he had "created."

In his heart the sense of mission was strong: he was the one who had to guide this woman to know the world. He considered it his responsibility.

Looking at Qiu Wuji from that frame of mind, he felt almost none of the cringing fear that such a gap in strength ought to bring. Instead, he felt something rather like an eager father and teacher.

What's it like, taking a woman who ran out of a book and teaching her the modern world?

No idea... but it's fun.

Face customization plus a raising sim — the real-life edition.

Chu Ge casually ducked into a roadside noodle shop, ordered a bowl of beef noodles, and turned to ask Qiu Wuji, "You eating?"

Qiu Wuji hesitated a moment, then nodded.

"Two bowls. Egg in both."

Chu Ge found them a table and sat down, then asked, puzzled, "You actually need to eat? It's been how many years since you went on inedia?"

Qiu Wuji's current state was beyond anything Chu Ge had predicted. By rights she ought to have been a wandering soul, yet she had substance — she even had a smell to her, damn it — as if she had forcibly condensed a flesh body. And her strength was far below what she showed in the book.

Now she even had to eat.

Qiu Wuji said, "Your world is a little strange. A pure soul body can barely persist here, so I forcibly condensed a flesh body. It isn't my original body, nor was it made from any heavenly material or earthly treasure, so it was weak to begin with. As it stands its strength is at most Qi Refining stage — a few petty spells, nothing more."

Chu Ge nodded. That didn't stray from his own setting.

Qiu Wuji's world had only ever been a "human realm"; everyone there was still striving to ascend to the higher realms, and power levels weren't that high — roughly on par with the Chinese Paladin series, a long way from destroying heaven and earth. Qiu Wuji might be the strongest of her generation, but once she crossed worlds, split her soul, and had to condense a body for herself, she obviously couldn't hold on to much strength. She was hardly one of those mighty beings whose true forms descend upon the myriad heavens, omnipresent everywhere.

So in that case, only her fighting strength was above a mortal's; in practice the vast majority of immortal marvels were beyond her...

Even at her original strength, looking at this world she'd probably have trouble feeling superior — mortals could go to the moon, and she couldn't.

Seen that way, Qiu Wuji, who was plainly a mother Tyrannosaurus, now seemed rather like a stray cat — the confusion in her eyes, the way she still forced herself to look composed... tsk.

Qiu Wuji had no idea what Chu Ge was thinking. She glanced warily left and right; the other customers in the shop were all staring at her strangely, so she lowered her voice and asked, "Didn't you say no one would care about my clothes? What about this?"

Chu Ge came back to himself and, with some amusement, pointed at his own short-sleeved T-shirt, then at Qiu Wuji's heavy magic robe. "It's summer. You think everyone's immune to heat and cold?"

Qiu Wuji: "..."

"Didn't I tell you not to wear the magic robe? Ignore your Father God's advice and..."

Qiu Wuji ground her teeth. "Shut up!"

Just then the owner brought the noodles, also studying Qiu Wuji with a strange expression, a little pity in his eyes. Such a pretty girl — a shame about the brain...

Chu Ge cleared his throat. "Two-dimensional stuff. You know how it is."

The owner put on an "I understand" expression and went off shaking his head.

Before Qiu Wuji could blow up, Chu Ge bent his head to his noodles. "By the way, it's been a long time since you properly tasted what a normal meal is like, hasn't it?"

That one sentence broke straight through Qiu Wuji's defenses.

Qiu Wuji ate her noodles through gritted teeth. Shouldn't my first priority be finding some way to change how my own head works? If this bastard keeps reading my mind like a tapeworm in my belly, it's far too humiliating.

But...

These noodles are so good.

How can food in the mortal realm taste this good? Shouldn't this be the work of immortals?

Uh, what immortal would make beef noodles?

Qiu Wuji asked, a little dazed, "Our world's mortal realm is short of everything. Common folk go all year without knowing the taste of meat or touching a drop of grease, and all living beings suffer... Yet here meat is everywhere. So why write it that way?"

Chu Ge said, "That part was true. This world was like that in ancient times too. It's just that we're in a golden age now — the greatest golden age in history, the kind you wouldn't trade for an immortal realm."

Qiu Wuji fell silent, and it was impossible to tell what she was thinking.

Chu Ge said mildly, "You don't have to take any of this as my fabrication; take it as fact. In truth, where your whole world is concerned, I'd rather you didn't treat it as false — you are real, so the world is real. The Qiu Wuji in my heart should hold that belief."

Qiu Wuji narrowed her eyes and stared at him. "Why don't you crush my spirit? Wouldn't that suit you better? Why lecture me instead?"

Chu Ge kept eating, and said around the noodles, "Because that wouldn't be my Qiu Wuji."

Qiu Wuji looked at him for a long while, then bent her head to her noodles and said no more.

Chu Ge shoveled down the rest and wiped his mouth in satisfaction. "I'd love to take you around and show you more of the world out there, but unfortunately, once we're done eating we have to go home first."

Qiu Wuji asked, "Why?"

"I'm already a day into a hiatus, and the outline I want to fix hasn't even been started." Chu Ge scanned the code to pay and sighed. "You think I write books to fantasize about you? First and foremost, it's so I can eat."

Qiu Wuji watched the way he paid with a face full of confusion, wanting to speak and holding back.

Even cultivation doesn't let you send spirit stones over like that... Are you sure the shopkeeper actually gets your money?

Her confusion over the payment method made Qiu Wuji forget to argue with him over that profound question: if he was just making money to eat, why write about her? It wasn't until they were back at Chu Ge's rented apartment that she remembered he had used the word "home" — and she hadn't objected once.

She had once thought Chu Ge was the one with a head full of mush. Now it seemed it was really her.

Muddled like this — where was the bearing of someone who had run roughshod over an entire realm?

But the biggest problem was that she really did seem to have to go home with him; he was the only familiar face she had. She figured she could go rob the rich and aid the poor to get through the early days, but if she wanted to understand this world quickly, there was plainly no faster way than staying at Chu Ge's side.

Especially since... he really didn't seem to mean her any harm.

"Because that wouldn't be my Qiu Wuji." Chu Ge's words brushed through her mind, and Qiu Wuji knew there had been nothing lecherous in them.

It meant the Qiu Wuji of his writing.

"Here..."

Chu Ge was sitting at the computer, pointing at the outline document on the screen.

"This is the next plot. You hear that in the Ten Thousand Serpent Cave, ten thousand li to the southwest, there may be an azure dragon's shed scale, which would benefit the Four Symbols Grand Formation you're setting up, so you lead your people there. Deep in the cave you encounter the Venomous Hand Demon Lord and fight him at Dragon-Falling Pool. You have the upper hand at first, but he sneak-attacks you with a vicious poisonous artifact; you fall into the pool and are poisoned by a strange serpent's venom."

Qiu Wuji said, tight-faced, "How could the Venomous Hand Demon Lord possibly be a match for this Sect Master?"

"Exactly. That's the attitude."

"Your sect disciples are in the outer layer of the cave too, and Chu Tiange... mm, well, naturally the protagonist's luck isn't like anyone else's. He stumbles into a serpent-saliva fruit, which happens to be the antidote to your poison."

"Antidote?" Qiu Wuji went on guard. "Are you going to write one of those trashy storyteller tales where I get dosed with an aphrodisiac?"

"What the hell — I never wrote that your world even had stories like that. Is the world filling in its own social foundations?"

Qiu Wuji said angrily, "Get to the point!"

"You know it's trash, so why would I write it? Writing clichés these days is just begging for a flop. It's nothing more than Chu Tiange earning some credit and rising a bit further in your estimation. I've always been the type to lay things down step by step; the real key to this plot is the protagonist's fortuitous encounter. He gains plenty himself — helping you out is only incidental. After all, the gap between him and you is absurd. He's got a long way to go."

Qiu Wuji said through gritted teeth, "A perfectly good fortuitous encounter, and you have to drag man-woman business into it. Is this the kind of garbage you make your living writing?"

"You think just anyone can write romance well enough to be worth reading? That's a skill in itself! All right, don't look at me like that — I already said I'm changing the outline... wait, hold on..." Chu Ge's expression slowly turned odd. "Actually, now that you've read the plot, the Venomous Hand Demon Lord shouldn't be able to catch you off guard anymore... But if I write it that way regardless, would you still get hit?"

Qiu Wuji was taken aback too, and her expression turned odd as well.

Did this count as foreknowledge of the future?

If she had foreseen the future and he still didn't change the plot, was she going to be hit anyway?

Was the will of heaven impossible to break free of?

Chu Ge hesitated, then asked tentatively, "Want to try not changing it? Can you accept being poisoned? It might be a little unpleasant."

"Getting hurt or poisoned is nothing..." Qiu Wuji hesitated too. "I want to try as well... but no touching and bumping of that sort."

Chu Ge said readily, "Of course. I'll write that you found the antidote yourself at the bottom of the pool. Because as of yesterday, Chu Tiange and you have no further dealings at all."

Qiu Wuji pressed her lips together and ventured, "You didn't seem too willing to change the text before."

Chu Ge was already cutting scenes as he revised, and answered offhandedly, "This is your life. No one has the right to dictate it — not me, and not heaven. This test of ours is exactly that: asking... what is heaven's will?"