Chapter 21 Descending to the Mortal World Again

Those two words were all it took. Chu Ge's ball-ache of frustration vanished on the spot, as if a small hand had rubbed it better.

Qiu Wuji really was a woman who saw reason and knew gratitude — all those fine qualities he'd stuffed into her had not gone to waste.

Chu Ge went off to pour himself some water in high spirits, and asked offhandedly, "So how did that business with the Venomous Hand Demon Lord go?"

"I still got poisoned. It seems the important events correct themselves toward whatever you wrote."

Chu Ge's pouring hand paused in midair; he frowned and mulled it over.

He waited a moment before finishing the pour. "Was the poisoning bad?"

"It was fine. I cured it quickly." Qiu Wuji's smile only deepened.

It was a question no one in the entire sect had ever asked her, Chu Tiange included — not even her most loyal elders and disciples.

It had nothing to do with whether he wrote it or not. Beyond the scenes he had fixed for them, the characters ought to have had lives of their own — and yet no one had ever asked.

Because everyone else saw her as a powerful sect master who could do anything.

Does he treat me as a life he created himself? "I have a responsibility to help you."

Or... as a woman?

I don't know, but it feels very strange. A feeling like... someone actually caring whether I was hurt?

A little flustered and annoyed, and a little warm, too.

Chu Ge sat on the sofa hugging his cup, drinking and pondering. "So the plot I put out there — at least where the important events are concerned — is an inescapable fixed fate for you. If I'd written the Venomous Hand Demon Lord dying at your hands instead of escaping as a divine soul, he probably would have died."

Qiu Wuji said, "Then why did you write him escaping?"

Chu Ge gave an awkward laugh. "A fairly strong villain like that has to be saved for the protagonist to step on. If you killed him off early, I'd have to build another one from scratch. No need."

Qiu Wuji rolled her eyes.

Chu Ge noticed it too: Qiu Wuji's expressions were far richer than before, more vividly alive.

Qiu Wuji sighed and sat down across from him rather languidly, leaning back against the sofa. "So you're our heaven's will," she said lazily. "Aren't you pleased with yourself."

Chu Ge stared into space for a moment, then shook his head. "Maybe I count as your world's heaven's will... but in the bigger picture, no. For one thing, I don't know why you came out, and I don't know whether my book is going to flop outright."

He paused, then smiled again. "There's heaven's will in our meeting. But that heaven's will isn't me."

Qiu Wuji was taken aback for a moment, and said nothing.

Chu Ge said abruptly, "I was thinking about something earlier..."

"Hm?"

"Your cultivation method — can I practice it? I don't actually know any cultivation method at all. I made it up. So I can just make one up and cultivate immortality with it myself?"

Qiu Wuji found this rather interesting as well. "Then shall I teach you? If our bodies are built the same way, you should certainly be able to learn. The main problem is that the spiritual energy in this world is very thin — even if you practice, you won't get much out of it."

Chu Ge nodded. "Maybe this thin spiritual energy is just a patch to keep me from being too much of a bug?"

Qiu Wuji couldn't help laughing. "You've written so much that you're starting to think you were written by someone too, patches and all..."

"No dolls inside dolls," Chu Ge said gravely, then grinned. "Just a thought. Right now we don't even know if I can practice. Shall we try?"

"Mm..." Qiu Wuji passed him a stretch of the formula, then asked, "Did you write this formula?"

"No. The world probably derived it on its own from my nonsense. I copied in bits from Daoist scriptures — the Yunji Qiqian and the like. I don't know if that counts..."

"Daoist scriptures from this world... I'd like to have a look."

"I've bought reference material on that stuff. All kinds of Daoist scriptures. Don't let it fool you that it's nothing but text — converted to PDF, it takes up a dozen gigabytes or so. It's all sitting on my computer."

Qiu Wuji didn't understand for the moment what a PDF was or what a dozen gigabytes meant, though it sounded like a great deal; so she didn't press it, and returned to the point. "What I just passed you was the mental method. Now I'll pass you the method of circulating qi. You must memorize it carefully — a slight deviation and you'll run into trouble. You should know that very well. Our sect's cultivation method is the most upright and magnificent of all: the twelve principal meridians take the lead, the eight extraordinary vessels assist, which is to say..."

"Wait, wait, wait..." Chu Ge asked cautiously. "Where exactly are the twelve principal meridians? And how do I circulate qi?"

Qiu Wuji's eyes went wide.

Silence.

You wrote this! You wrote that our cultivation method runs through the twelve principal meridians!

And then you ask me where the twelve principal meridians are!

I thought a man who'd read gigabytes of Daoist scriptures would know all about it, and you ask me where the meridians are! Someone like that created our world?

Qiu Wuji very badly wanted to hit him.

"Don't you dare say I'm being unreasonable and bullying you! Anyone else would beat you just the same!" Qiu Wuji finally couldn't hold back; she flipped Chu Ge over on the sofa and gave him a beating. "Where, where, where are they? You tell me where they are!"

Chu Ge covered his head and took the beating. This time the hits didn't really hurt; she had him pinned, a faint fragrance drifting from her, and the feeling was... mm...

Qiu Wuji had been holding her strength in. After pounding on him a while she felt it was pointless too, so she got up huffily, gave a harrumph, and walked off to the balcony for some air.

The first thing she saw was her own clothes from before, hanging out to dry, fluttering in the wind.

Qiu Wuji's mouth fell half open, and she stared dumbly at her stockings, all crumpled, drifting in the breeze — looking for all the world like someone had crumpled them in his hands...

And her underwear... it had come off her own body directly at the time. Hanging there, it looked downright indecent.

A flush raced up her cheeks.

When she had left, who could have imagined this? The intimate clothes she had just been wearing were in his hands the very next moment... with no telling what he'd done with them...

And I can't even ask what he did. It plainly looks like he only washed them for me — am I supposed to go beat a man up over a kindness?

Qiu Wuji held it in for ages, her lips working for quite a while, before she finally squeezed out a sentence: "You don't need to wash my clothes for me anymore. I—I'll do it myself."

Chu Ge had come out too and stuck his head over for a look, and his face darkened as well.

What's the deal with those stockings, all wadded up like that? It looks like I was holding them and doing something with them. I'm sure I never did!

Don't tell me yours truly has a thing for clothes in his sleep?

That's it, I'm in for another beating... Chu Ge carefully backed away.

Qiu Wuji glared at him for ages with a stiff face, but didn't hit him. In her heart, though, a thought surfaced: When a man and a woman live together, is one line about "bright wind and clear moon" really enough to settle everything?

Mm, it is. A clear conscience is all that's needed.

She drew a deep breath. "From now on I'll just conjure clothes like these myself. Last time my thoughts were in a mess and I didn't think it through... I could have saved that money."

"It wasn't that you didn't think it through — you deliberately wanted to try this world's way of living." Chu Ge had already retreated into the living room, but his voice kept answering. "So why go back to conjuring? If you're going to fit into this world, do it all the way."

"I'm saving money and you're not happy about it? These were borrowed, and who knows when I'll be able to pay you back."

"My royalties came in today. I'm not that hard up — I'd say earning over ten thousand a month puts me ahead of most people, as long as I can keep it steady."

Qiu Wuji finally couldn't hold back a cold laugh. "I think you just want real clothes around so you can do something with them!"

Chu Ge jumped as if scalded. "I! Am! Not! A! Pervert!"

In truth, even he didn't know whether he wanted to do something. By any reasonable measure he didn't want to at all. But he had a vague sense that... if there's nothing solid to see and touch, if all of it is conjured, is she still a real person?

The day she left her clothes behind had shaken him far more than her earlier disappearance. That time it had felt like waking from a dream; this time he had felt a parting.

Still, it was all right. She came back quickly, as if she had only gone away on a business trip.

The her who came back this time was more vividly alive still — less like an immortal sketched flat and thin in two dimensions, and more like one who had descended into the mortal world in full, solid form.