Meanwhile, Chu Ge had been asking around in every direction about how to get an ID, and the feeling he got was that this really couldn't be done the normal way.
Unless you happened to know some big-shot official, an ordinary nobody had no way to work it. A person who popped out of thin air with no past and no history — did you really think the nice policemen would buy that kind of nonsense?
Or he could just come clean and report himself as a transmigrator, and who knew what would happen then… Chu Ge had never bought the talk about being dissected. It ought to be the opposite: flash a trick or two of immortal arts and you'd probably be treated as an honored guest. The history of qigong masters was right there, and it hadn't been that long ago.
Besides, Qiu Wuji really did have a method for longevity… and the gentlemen in the halls of power needed that above all things. The only question was whether a longevity art dragged out of a book could actually be cultivated in the real world. Huh, if it can, could I cultivate it a bit myself?
One thing, though, was certain: he would lose his ordinary freedom. Most likely he'd be housed in a designated place, couldn't just jaunt abroad for fun, and would have to cooperate with state research whenever they wanted him, and so on and so forth.
That was a last resort. For the time being, Chu Ge had no wish to go thinking in that direction.
For Qiu Wuji's sake, she definitely wouldn't want to land in that mess. And selfishly speaking, she was a person from a book that only he had; there was no telling, he might even marry her and spend his life with her. Mm — even without marrying her, they could still spend their lives together. No way was he handing her over for research.
Still, failing to find a method didn't make Chu Ge especially anxious.
Qiu Wuji was a cultivator, after all, and she had roots in another world. She was not some pitiful ancient girl who couldn't get home and could only be tricked into bearing five children.
If it worked out, fine. If not, worst case she'd just push her cultivation higher, ride the skies herself and roam the world. And if her true body ever came over, she could stroll into some war-torn land and hand-build a mercenary army without breaking a sweat. What was so hard about figuring out a world? It might even suit Qiu Wuji's tastes better.
An immortal, after all — passing in and out of the azure void, roaming the four seas, making the world tremble at a word. How could someone like that be penned in by one paltry identity?
So Chu Ge didn't fuss over it much. His main energy still went into putting words on the page.
He'd gone into overdraft buying clothes last time. If he didn't write, he wouldn't be able to afford food, never mind wooing an immortal maiden into becoming his wife. Good thing his royalties were about to land — over ten thousand this month. At least he'd be back on his feet, and supporting two people was no problem.
The book's performance was his lifeline; if it flopped, nothing else was worth mentioning.
So Qiu Wuji refusing to let him write it the way he'd planned had originally been a pretty raw deal, a bit like those other writers who want a harem but get strong-armed by the wife into a single heroine. Of course, it wasn't impossible that an author was just dumping the blame on his wife — but Chu Ge's case was the real thing.
By now, though, Chu Ge no longer found it brutal. It wasn't only out of respect for Qiu Wuji; working with her to explore the link between the two worlds and the "will of heaven" was a fascinating thing in its own right.
Just want to enjoy having the heroine? Don't you want to know why she could come out?
That was something he absolutely had to know.
Otherwise, if the fourth wall sealed up again someday, and it happened to be right when the two of them were madly in love, somebody could end up dead. How could he not get to the bottom of this?
Chu Ge's thinking had always run far ahead and covered everything — as Zhang Qiren said, he loved laying groundwork because that was simply his nature; things a thousand chapters away already had their foreshadowing planted right here.
"Qiu Wuji entered the lowest level of the Ten Thousand Serpent Cave. Ahead, mist coiled over the pool, and a strange scale hung suspended above it; the treasure's radiance mingled with a faint blood-red, that red somewhat dim, as though it had weathered the vicissitudes of ages."
"Qiu Wuji knew that this was the azure dragon's shed scale."
"The Dragon-Falling Pool was full of mysteries — a dangerous place indeed. Qiu Wuji did not fly up. The ribbon in her hand unfurled, meaning to draw the azure dragon's shed scale to her from afar."
"But when she pulled, it would not budge. Some tremendous suction seemed to fix the scale in place above the pool, and a bloody, murderous force invaded straight through the ribbon, churning a person's qi and blood until they verged on madness."
"Qiu Wuji steadied her spirit and calmed her breath, slowly dissolving that bloody violence. The force clinging to the scale could not withstand her drawing, and the scale began to move."
"And just at that moment, a blood-red demonic hand appeared in the mist behind her."
Cliffhanger.
Save. Publish.
Seeing the review section and the group chat flooded with readers cursing him as a "cliffhanger hound," Chu Ge felt fresh and light of spirit.
Without this, would you even chase the next chapter?
He drew a deep breath, his gaze turning a shade more serious, and began the next chapter.
That was the real key.
"Clang!" As though she had eyes in the back of her head, Qiu Wuji decisively dropped the ribbon, spun around, and stabbed with a single thrust of her sword, striking the blood-red demonic hand dead on with a crisp ring of metal on metal."
From within the mist came a cackling laugh: "Worthy indeed of 'a thousand li of clear autumn, boundless and vast.' Her divine sense kept in the heart like the moon mirrored in water — truly, she cannot be ambushed."
An emaciated old man gradually took shape, skin stretched over bone as if his cultivation had whittled him down to a skeleton, his eyes all savagery.
The Venomous Hand Demon Lord.
Qiu Wuji spoke up: "I suddenly feel the writing here is rather mediocre — the villains you write look exactly like villains, as if a label were slapped on them."
The Venomous Hand Demon Lord: "?"
What in the world is she saying? We're both in the same great realm, so how come I can't make heads or tails of her cultivation talk…
Qiu Wuji lowered her eyes slightly, looking at her sword tip: "You slipped in here yesterday, but you couldn't break the maze formation on this level, so you were stuck outside. I broke the formation and entered, and you quietly followed…"
The Venomous Hand Demon Lord listened, his heart pounding in alarm.
How does she know? It's as if she's been watching everything I do.
That shouldn't be possible!
If she knew all along that I was lurking at her side, why didn't she deal with me out there? Why insist on delivering me in here?
Some kind of scheme?
His thoughts raced, but he still said: "Since Sect Master Qiu knows, then — first come, first served, as they say. This place was plainly mine first. Shouldn't it at least be a share for whoever lays eyes on it?"
Even as he spoke, a dark red centipede had already crept out of his sleeve and slid off along the ground, gone in a blink.
As though she hadn't noticed at all, Qiu Wuji said mildly: "A share for whoever lays eyes on it — I agree. And right now I have laid eyes on you, so your life is mine."
The Venomous Hand Demon Lord: "?"
Has somebody taken over Qiu Wuji's body? Shouldn't she be getting angry and arguing that she's plainly the one who broke the formation and came in first after hearing my shameless "a share for whoever lays eyes on it"?
Before he could react, brilliant swordlight lit the dark cavern.
Qiu Wuji struck first!
Inside the cramped cavern, sword radiance came from every direction, layer upon layer of shadow streaking down on the Venomous Hand Demon Lord at its center.
There was not the slightest room to shift footing or dodge.
Thousand Directions, Myriad Illusions — water follows the sky away.
Her opening move was a killing strike!
The Venomous Hand Demon Lord had no time even to trigger the tricks he had planted; his blood banner unfurled in his hand, and he held off Qiu Wuji's great move with bitter effort, inwardly cursing his own bad luck.
That blood-red centipede still needed his divine sense to link with it and drive it, but Qiu Wuji's net of swordlight was like autumn water joining the sky, unbroken and endless — even a tendril of divine sense was shredded the moment it reached out. He could not pull off a single dirty trick.
How did Qiu Wuji turn this ruthless?
We're in the same great realm; I thought we were evenly matched, and with my dirty tricks I'd win for certain. Only now that we've actually crossed blades do I see that realm doesn't equal fighting strength. Her power is absolutely above mine — far above!
Did I follow her in here just to feed her a kill?
Qiu Wuji's sword seal was still unfolding, and she had a follow-up: a fire seal had already gathered in her hand — Taixu Fire, the very bane of banner-type treasures!
The Venomous Hand Demon Lord gritted his teeth, ready to wreck his own cultivation if that was what it took to flee with his divine soul.
Just then, the blood-red centipede he had released earlier and never got to control crawled of its own accord to the edge of the Dragon-Falling Pool.
The dense vapor above the Dragon-Falling Pool seeped thread by thread into its body, and the centipede swelled visibly.
Qiu Wuji had been keeping her eye on that centipede all along. Seeing it transform of itself without anyone driving it, her heart sank a little, and the fire seal in her hand swung sharply around and flew straight at it.
"With a boom, the centipede burst into pieces, its flesh and blood spraying across the azure dragon's shed scale."
The shed scale abruptly blazed with blood-red divine light; an ancient dragon's might spread vast and boundless, hammering every living thing in the cavern without distinction.
Qiu Wuji's ribbon wound about her, forming a nebula-like shroud that just barely held back the dragon's wrath. Over there, the Venomous Hand Demon Lord's treasures had long since been wrecked between the dragon's might and the swordlight; the man himself was riddled by ten thousand sword strikes — a sight too horrible to look upon.
A vicious light flashed in the Venomous Hand Demon Lord's eyes, and his body burst apart with a roar, just like his centipede.
That blast was ten thousand times more savage than the centipede's, and the ferocious shockwave came rushing in; Qiu Wuji, still holding off the dragon's might, could bear it no longer and was hurled bodily toward the Dragon-Falling Pool, tumbling down into it.
At the same moment, a divine soul fled through the air, and the Venomous Hand Demon Lord's gloating laughter came down from above: "For the destruction of this body, I will have my revenge one day!"
"Plop! Qiu Wuji had no strength left to stop the divine soul from escaping; the poison of the Dragon-Falling Pool flooded into her body in an instant."
Nor did she have the attention to spare for the Venomous Hand Demon Lord's divine soul.
Feeling the toxin invade her body, one thought echoed over and over in her mind.
I'm really going to be poisoned…
Is the will of heaven truly not to be defied?