Chapter 22 A Ten-Thousand-Year-Old Elder

She was more vivid because she had grown more familiar, and because Qiu Wuji had felt Chu Ge's goodwill and everything he had put into this.

Nobody rolls their eyes at a stranger or scuffles with one. In her heart he now counted as "one of us" — one of us who was a little hungry for her, and that hunger was entirely understandable. It was nothing like the guarded distrust of when she had first landed in this unfamiliar place.

Even the bewilderment of finding herself in a whole unknown world had largely faded.

Nothing to it.

Qiu Wuji gathered the laundry off the balcony, ducked into her room to change, and came out again every inch the poised, mature office lady. Meeting Chu Ge's eyes — which had suddenly lit up like they were sparkling — she pursed her lips. "A man like you would be a villain in his own book."

"He could also be the protagonist," Chu Ge said with a perfectly straight face. "Any man who isn't the protagonist, doing that — he's a villain."

Qiu Wuji couldn't help laughing. "So it seems your Chu Tiange hides it well enough in front of me? Acts the part better than you do?"

"That's not it. Chu Tiange really has no designs on you right now. Don't go back and beat him up for it."

So what you're admitting is that you do have designs, and hitting you would be a waste of effort? Qiu Wuji was caught between annoyance and laughter, and said helplessly, "I need to buy new socks. The pair I had can't be worn anymore."

Chu Ge glanced at her legs. Just to have socks, she had specially conjured a pair that clung around them, and the effect was inexplicably adorable. She still had no idea that plenty of people were looking at the black silk wrapping those legs rather than at the legs themselves. If she ever found out, would she conclude this world was full of perverted villains?

"All right, sit cross-legged right there and I'll walk you through the meridians. Get into the five-points-to-heaven posture properly. Tell me you don't know it again and I'll hit you."

Looking thoroughly aggrieved, Chu Ge arranged himself into the five-points-to-heaven posture. Qiu Wuji stepped up and studied him for a while, then reached out to straighten his posture, adjusting his hands and his feet.

At that close distance she touched him, and a light fragrance swept over him. Chu Ge's thoughts began to wander, and a knuckle promptly cracked down on his skull. Qiu Wuji was smiling coldly. "What are you thinking about?"

Chu Ge didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Now it's your turn to read my mind, is it?"

Qiu Wuji sneered. "Who can't see right through you?"

"Mm... so we take turns entering..." Yeow, what the—

A piercing pain started at the Jianjing point. Chu Ge felt as though one of his meridians had been hauled out taut, and he broke into a sweat from the agony.

Qiu Wuji pressed one finger to his shoulder, her expression somewhat grave. "This body of yours is strong on the outside and hollow within, badly deficient. Your meridians are congested and blocked from head to toe — I'll let that pass. But you look tall and sturdy when in fact your muscles are slack and your five organs are unsettled."

Chu Ge felt he had lost a good deal of face.

He knew his body was in poor shape: nothing visibly wrong, yet wrong all over — no, wait, his shoulders and cervical spine really did have problems. When he went out for a massage, he'd grimace in pain, and the masseur would tell him this spot and that spot were the trouble. A healthy person wouldn't hurt like that — might even find it pleasant.

Qiu Wuji's clearing of his meridians followed a similar principle, only deeper, and far more painful.

Qiu Wuji withdrew her hand and shook her head. "With this constitution of yours, you can't cultivate for now. You'll need some rest and nursing first... far too deficient..."

"Could you stop stressing the word 'deficient'? It makes me feel like you're talking about a completely different problem..."

"And you think that has no problem either?" Qiu Wuji eyed him sidelong with contempt. "The five organs — kidney water included."

In the end she was a mature woman who had cultivated for several thousand years, not some innocent little girl. Qiu Wuji did not need to think hard to know exactly what Chu Ge was worrying about.

Chu Ge went red to the roots of his neck and protested loudly, "Who says? I can go half an hour, easy!"

A man can be no good at anything else, but not that!

Especially not in front of a beauty!

He spoke without thinking. "You want to try it out and see?"

He had assumed he was about to be hit, but no hit came. Qiu Wuji merely looked him up and down with contempt in her eyes, and said nothing at all.

That expression... Chu Ge wished he could tear open a crack in the floor and crawl inside.

There are limits to what a man can endure!

I really can go half an hour, you have to believe me! My hand gets sore, even!

"Yours truly... as of today, yours truly starts working out!" Chu Ge buried his head in the sofa and mumbled out the most solemn vow of his life.

"It's not just exercise — your diet and your sleep schedule need attention too." Eating yellow-braised chicken at a place outside the housing compound, Qiu Wuji spoke at her leisure. "You eat one meal and skip the next. That day you didn't have dinner until the xu hour, and I hear you'd gone all day without eating. That damages the stomach. And you habitually stay up late, which damages the liver."

Chu Ge muttered, "You cultivators can do without food or sleep, though."

Qiu Wuji said unhurriedly, "Isn't cultivating precisely so you can do what mortals cannot?"

"Damn. That actually makes sense." Chu Ge said tentatively, "So should I be calling you Master now?"

Qiu Wuji watched him with a half-smile, suppressing the urge to upend the yellow-braised chicken over his face, and said mildly, "Then should I be calling you Father God?"

Chu Ge was overjoyed. "That'd be just great — we each call each other..." Yeow—

Qiu Wuji withdrew her high heel from under the table and bent her head to her food. "By my understanding of how life works, cooking at home is plainly cheaper and cleaner than eating out. You're not exactly well off, so why do you eat at restaurants every single day? Or is that another difference in this world?"

"That part's the same. The difference is this world has a lot of lazy men. Me, for instance."

Chu Ge suddenly perked up. "Hey, can you cook? I never wrote about your life before you started cultivating, so..."

Qiu Wuji's face was blank. "You didn't write it, but surely you imagined it. Or plotted it out?"

"Mm. Presentable in public and a fine cook at home — that's a must." Chu Ge's heart swelled with satisfaction; if she even fit that setting, so much the better. "So you can."

No wonder I inexplicably know all those mortal arts. Qiu Wuji sneered. "So what if I can? Why should I cook for you?"

Chu Ge brought down the gavel. "Because that's the rent."

Instant kill.

Qiu Wuji bit down on her chicken and ground it and ground it until it was shreds, as though what she was chewing were not chicken but Chu Ge.

"Go buy firewood, rice, oil, and salt!"

"No firewood needed. The rental has an LPG stove. We'll look for rice and seasonings at the supermarket in a bit."

"I want to buy socks!"

"Buy them! Buy a whole bundle!" With his royalties in the bank, Chu Ge waved a hand with the largesse of a wealthy man. "Oh, right — pajamas. Shall we go pick some out?"

Standing in front of the pajama section, Qiu Wuji planted her hands on her hips and watched Chu Ge sneakily draw a shop assistant aside to talk; the place his eyes landed was two identical sets of silk pajamas, one for a man and one for a woman.

She had no concept of couple's outfits. What Chu Ge told her was: "Doesn't your sect have unified attire? People who rise together and turn in together, one of our own — it's only natural!"

The reasoning sounded perfectly normal, but the more Qiu Wuji thought about it, the more something felt off about it.

Are you trying to con a ten-thousand-year-old elder here?

And another thing — I don't want these cute chibi-doll prints. Can we swap them? This Sect Master is majestic and stern, awe-inspiring across heaven and earth. Am I here to wear clothes with little-kid patterns on them?

Unfortunately, the moneybags gave her no room to object. Cheerfully he bought the couple's pajamas, paid, and whisked her away.

And in her heart Qiu Wuji swore a vow of her own: I have to start making money!