Qiu Wuji held her breath down in the pool, sighing a little, though it could hardly be called disappointment — this was more or less what she had expected.
Small details — pinning down the hem of a sleeve, say — could be defied against what the "book recorded." But to reverse a great historical event had always been a bit of a pipe dream.
If she truly reversed things at a whim, the whole world's course would inevitably diverge from what he had written. Wouldn't that throw everything into chaos?
Strictly speaking, Qiu Wuji hadn't come into this with an iron resolve to reverse anything — she had known perfectly well that the Venomous Hand Demon Lord had released the centipede, hadn't dealt with it beforehand, and had even wanted to watch what the centipede would do. That wasn't the mindset of "this must be severed." It was observation, and that it ended in failure was no surprise.
She didn't know herself why she hadn't been more resolute... Maybe, just possibly, it was because she worried that a real reversal would cause trouble on Chu Ge's end? At best the book would collapse and his numbers would vanish; at worst it might affect his health, even his safety?
I don't know.
But in the end she had gone all out with her greatest techniques and guarded against a sneak attack, and had still been eerily "corrected" right back into place... She couldn't tell whether she ought to be disappointed or breathe a sigh of relief.
Qiu Wuji shook her head slightly. She couldn't even sort out her own thoughts, so she stopped picking at them and focused on suppressing the toxin.
In Chu Ge's setting, the Dragon-Falling Pool had formed when an ancient azure dragon fell here. It left behind its shed scale and departed once its wounds healed, so the pool was full of the injury-poison the azure dragon had forced out of its own body. The shed scale sat above the pool, each holding the other in check.
In theory this poison shouldn't be too much trouble. The ancient azure dragon had ascended to the heavens; before its ascension its cultivation had been roughly comparable to Qiu Wuji's now. If it could force the poison out, Qiu Wuji could certainly do the same.
Only, Chu Ge had never written how much time the azure dragon spent on it or how much agony it endured. Anyone could guess it hadn't been easy. If this thing had Qiu Wuji forcing out poison for ten thousand years, her sect would surely fall apart, and her own road to ascension would hang in doubt. So forcing the poison out was out of the question — she had to neutralize it.
Ordinarily, anyone who fell into that pool and was poisoned would leave it at the first instant. This time Qiu Wuji not only didn't leave, she dove deeper. She spread her divine sense, and through layer upon layer of mist she did indeed see a brightly colored mushroom growing at the very edge of the pool's bottom.
It looked exactly like a poisonous mushroom, yet Qiu Wuji smiled instead.
This was what he had written in his later revision: "You found the antidote yourself at the bottom of the pool. It has nothing to do with Chu Tiange."
It fit his "logic," too: whatever grows in a place of deadly poison tends to be the antidote. Only normally no one would think to go searching deeper into the pool. Once you took it into your head to search, you could save yourself.
Qiu Wuji swam to the mushroom and reached out to stroke it. It was bright precisely because it was poisonous, and yet just now it looked rather cute; rubbing its cap felt like smiling as she rubbed Chu Ge's head like a puppy's.
Without a moment's hesitation she picked the mushroom and swallowed it, then flashed out of the pool's depths.
She had barely sat down outside the pool cross-legged to circulate her power when she heard footsteps, and Chu Tiange came stumbling in through the hole the Venomous Hand Demon Lord had smashed open earlier.
"Uh... Sect Master? Greetings, Sect Master." Seeing how deathly pale Qiu Wuji looked, Chu Tiange hurried on, "You're injured, Sect Master?"
Qiu Wuji opened her eyes and smiled faintly. "I got careless and was poisoned. I'm working it out now. I know you have a serpent-saliva fruit in your pocket that can neutralize poison — keep it for your pill refining. That's good stuff."
Chu Tiange: "..."
The Sect Master's divination of heaven's secrets truly was unfathomable. Someone this powerful who got poisoned could naturally cure herself; there was nothing to ask. A profound awe of the Sect Master rose in Chu Tiange's heart, and he withdrew with repeated bows.
Qiu Wuji watched his back as he left, knowing that the red thread someone had tangled up had now been truly and completely severed at this point.
In theory, the whole point of this dungeon had been designed for Chu Tiange alone; everyone else was merely supporting cast. But since she was inside it, Qiu Wuji stood to gain as well.
The azure dragon's shed scale itself was a required component for building her Four Symbols Grand Formation — that went without saying. Misfortune is what good fortune leans on: at her level, the whole process of drawing in the poison and neutralizing it could perfectly well serve as a body-tempering exercise, and the dragon-blood will upon that shed scale was first-rate material for tempering the divine soul.
Tempering the divine soul... Qiu Wuji reached out and drew the azure dragon's shed scale to her, stroking the faint blood-red on its surface.
Next time I go over, how long will I be able to stay?
"The author's lost it. Qiu Wuji just picks a mushroom and cures herself?"
"Is this mushroom the mushroom I'm thinking of?"
"Chu Tiange goes to all that trouble, then walks in, says a couple of lines to Qiu Wuji and leaves? He gets Qiu Wuji's regard as having excellent fortune and being worth cultivating — and that's it?"
"Big Chu, blink if you're being held hostage."
"It's over. I thought this was a harem novel, but now it's not looking right at all?"
"Is the author an idiot? Is he messing with us?"
Chu Ge leaned back in his chair, silently watching the review section blow up, and didn't reply to a single one.
This outcome was only natural. Design a heroine getting poisoned in a harem novel — never mind the cliché of curing it with an aphrodisiac — at the very least the protagonist had to go in, help her up, share a charged moment; whether it was any good came down to the strength of your writing. Plenty of gentlemen had been skimming through days of dungeon plot just waiting for this moment.
But not writing it at all — the heroine getting poisoned amounting to nothing — then what was this plot even for? What kind of half-assed harem novel was this?
The readers raising hell was only normal. If Chu Ge himself had been reading this, he'd have cursed too.
But Qiu Wuji had said no more touching, no more bumping into each other.
Never mind her not allowing it — Chu Ge didn't want it anymore himself.
Get lost. Who the hell is Chu Tiange? As if he deserves it.
Hmph.
Risking the book flopping outright, getting jealous of his own protagonist — Chu Ge didn't know whether he was a freak of an author with no precedent before him and none to follow. But he didn't regret it.
If only for the living, vivid warmth of Qiu Wuji's smile, he didn't regret it.
As for the book's future... it came down to whether Zhang Qiren's proposal back then was workable... Gradually steer it into heroine-betting; or even skip the betting altogether and go no-heroine, with all beauties as bones and dust. That wasn't impossible either — there was an audience for it.
Chu Ge even came up with a more radical idea: just make Qiu Wuji the protagonist and write the thing as a strong-female-lead novel, done. The thought made him laugh at himself. Switching to heroine-betting might actually improve his numbers; switching to no-heroine might bring in a different readership — neither was certain death, both still had a chance. But switching to a strong female lead truly was certain death, because this wasn't the women's channel.
Amusing himself in the middle of his misery, Chu Ge laughed to himself for a while, then at last let out a soft sigh.
He'd said he was walking out of the prison he had drawn for himself... but the road ahead was uncertain. This was a gamble.
Besides, nobody wanted to be cursed at in wall-to-wall comments...
He shook his head, reached over and closed the page — out of sight, out of mind. He picked up the cup on the desk and took a sip, but the cup was already empty; Chu Ge stood up, meaning to go refill it.
He had just turned when he saw Qiu Wuji standing quietly behind him, her gaze seemingly just drawn back from the page he had closed, coming to rest on his face.
The two of them stood face to face as if frozen, gazing at each other in silence. Chu Ge was still holding the cup, which looked a little absurd, but neither of them cared.
Something seemed to veil both their eyes, so that nothing could be made out clearly.
After quite a while, Qiu Wuji smiled slightly and said softly, "Thank you."