Qiu Wuji watched him delete those few scenes where she and the protagonist crossed paths, and her gaze grew softer and softer.
Maybe his original intentions had been pretty sleazy... but just as he'd said, "From now on we'll talk things over together" — he was doing exactly that.
If he'd changed the text before only because she had threatened him, then this time around it didn't feel that way at all. It really did seem like he wanted to do this himself.
Because "this is your life."
Chu Ge didn't bother adjusting the later outline; he just started hammering out the new chapter. There wasn't much point in revising the outline anyway — the heroine was standing right behind him watching, and if she wasn't satisfied he'd have to change it again, so what was the use of fixing anything? He'd only taken one day off. If tomorrow's chapter still didn't go up, that would be a real disaster. Write first, worry later.
What he was writing was the upcoming arc where Qiu Wuji gets poisoned. It was a small dungeon arc, but there was a fair amount of content to it — she wouldn't even get poisoned for a dozen chapters or so. With the content settled, and since it wasn't a project demanding deep thought or delicate emotional entanglement, it was easy to write.
Chu Ge typed like flying and quickly sank into it, forgetting even that Qiu Wuji was behind him.
Qiu Wuji just stood there watching, and lines flickering across the screen like "Qiu Wuji said mildly" and "Qiu Wuji trod the moonlight and departed, sleeves fluttering in the wind" looked more awkward and bizarre the longer she stared at them. She kept wondering whether, when she got back and actually said these things and made these gestures, she would be so embarrassed she'd fall right out of the sky.
What if I just refuse to talk like that? What if, when I fly off treading the moon, I deliberately pin my sleeves down so they don't flutter?
Would that count as part of the test? Probably not. Big events might line up, but little details like this don't have to correspond every single time. Maybe when he writes other people's actions they correspond, but I've already broken through the boundary and glimpsed the truth — my actions aren't fully under his control anymore, so obviously it can't match up perfectly anymore.
Just like what she was doing right now — he certainly hadn't written that.
Seeing how absorbed Chu Ge was, Qiu Wuji didn't disturb him again. She looked around the room, then turned and walked out.
There was a second bedroom next door. Qiu Wuji remembered sensing that someone lived over there the last time she'd come, but today it was utterly empty — even the bedding was gone, though a water cup and other traces of a lived-in life still lingered on the desk.
Did they move out today?
So that's why they seemed lonely? So that's what "you came at just the right time, thank you" was about?
Qiu Wuji curled her lip. Writing himself a heroine to keep him company — that had to be some kind of pervert. Right: all those sick games the demonic cultivators played, he'd written every one of them. What exactly was going on in that head of his? Disgusting.
Qiu Wuji shook her head and walked out of the second bedroom. Standing in the doorway, she looked at Chu Ge's back as he wrote. That figure, which could fairly be called tall, now looked a little hunched.
He has to eat...
It's just to make a living, that's all.
Late at night, all was quiet. Waterlike moonlight spilled through the balcony's floor-to-ceiling window into the living room. The author was writing the heroine; the heroine stood in the moonlight watching him.
"Bong!"
The wall clock's hands stood at exactly midnight.
Chu Ge snapped out of it, only then remembering that there was a heroine in his home. He turned to look, and immediately saw Qiu Wuji out in the living room beyond the door, watching him quietly.
The solemn sect master's magic robe had been changed at some point; now she wore only a plain moon-white light warrior's jacket and trousers, crisp and simple, and somehow even more beautiful.
Like a goddess who belonged in some distant palace, shedding her divinity and descending into the mortal world.
Chu Ge's heart gave a traitorous thump. He spoke with forced calm: "What are you standing around like that for? You could find something to do for yourself, you know."
Qiu Wuji said mildly, "Quiet contemplation. Cultivation."
"Fair enough — cultivators have more patience than anyone." Chu Ge stood up and smiled. "You standing quietly at the window, gazing at the moon and longing for autumn — that's already the most beautiful scene in the book."
Qiu Wuji didn't take the bait. Whatever beautiful things this guy wrote, there was never any good intent behind them. The prettier he wrote her, the more satisfying it would be for him to push her down.
Disgusting.
She only asked, "What can I do on my own? Everything I see is new to me, and I need someone to explain it. Am I supposed to do what I did last time, use divine sense and spiritual power to analyze what things are made of? If I break something..."
She paused, then smiled slightly. "You're not exactly well-off either."
Tears streamed down Chu Ge's face.
No wonder she was the woman into whom he'd poured every beautiful fantasy he had.
That pitying empathy for ordinary people was the crucial ingredient — not throwing her cultivator weight around to stare coldly down at the teeming masses as if from a higher dimension, so full of herself.
And that was toward ordinary people. Toward the strong, she was vicious enough.
He had no idea whether such a woman existed in reality, but ever since she'd run out of the book, one did.
Chu Ge's mood improved a notch. He considered it for a while, then clapped his hands. "If you want to understand this world, hit it from two directions at once. To learn about the world itself, start with history books. To learn about the reality outside, start with binge-watching shows."
Then I'll be typing away while you read and binge-watch — doesn't that feel a bit like... hmm...
Qiu Wuji was already asking, "Reading history books I can understand, but what does this 'binge-watch' mean?"
There was a TV right in the living room, included with the rental. When Chu Ge had signed up for broadband, he'd been raped into taking a set-top box besides — except Chu Ge and Zhang Qiren had never once used it. If you wanted to watch something, you just watched it online. Who watched TV anymore? Besides, neither of them watched much of anything. Do those Japanese action flicks count?
Chu Ge turned on the TV, and for a moment he was a bit annoyed — he had no idea what show would be appropriate to recommend.
He clicked something at random, just to test whether the thing even worked...
But the instant he clicked in and the theme song started up, Qiu Wuji's voice came cold from beside him: "Is this... a recording mirror? Or something that hooks the soul and captures the spirit, imprisoning the souls of the dead?"
Your imagination is really something. Chu Ge wiped his sweat. Fortunately he'd written about recording mirrors and similar treasures, so it wasn't so hard to explain. "Right, it's a recording mirror. It's like capturing a performance from the stage and preserving it, then spreading it out for people far away to watch."
Qiu Wuji blinked. "A rare and precious treasure like this, used for something so pointless?"
"...Just assume this treasure is a dime a dozen around here."
"But the people in this recording mirror are dressed closer to my own style. Are you certain this is the outside reality of this world?"
Only then did Chu Ge notice that this was a major adaptation of some web novel. He couldn't help laughing. "Wrong click... Though this one's kind of interesting for you and me, because it's exactly the kind of thing where a book like mine gets adapted and put on stage. Say someone takes a shine to my book and adapts it into a show — then we'd get to see other people playing you in it."
"I don't want anyone else playing me," Qiu Wuji grumbled. Yet her interest was piqued by this thing she would otherwise have had no interest in at all — what would a book like Chu Ge's look like once it was moved onto a stage?
But not three minutes in, Qiu Wuji's face had turned as black as the bottom of a pot.
The show opened with a man and a woman rolling around between the sheets, devouring each other feverishly. The man tore at the woman's clothes, baring a snow-white shoulder and a lovely collarbone; she responded ardently, panting and moaning.
Chu Ge backed away, jaw hanging.
I didn't think it would be like this either — what kind of show is this? Watching skin flicks on the set-top box is only a matter of time?
We web novel writers can't even write a kiss without getting censored, and you people get to do this?
Qiu Wuji's voice was like frost in the twelfth month: "So this is what you write me for? For this?"