The scene Chu Ge had declared fit for a painting was actually coming true.
He sat in his room, bent over his keyboard, while Qiu Wuji sat in the living room quietly reading.
The rhythmic clatter of the keys and the soft rustle of turning pages wove themselves into the painting's BGM, and the summer afternoon felt utterly peaceful.
Now and then Chu Ge would get up and go out to pour himself some water — the dispenser was in the living room. His eyes would meet Qiu Wuji's, and both would calmly look away again, as though one more word would spoil the mood.
Watching him boil water and brew tea, a thought sometimes flickered through Qiu Wuji's mind: Right now he's the one working and I'm sitting here doing nothing. Wouldn't it be more reasonable for me to pour his water and tea so he can write in peace? The next moment she flung that "reasonable" idea away. What was this supposed to be — his little serving maid? A red-sleeved beauty adding incense to the scholar's desk?
Where did a notion so completely against my own nature even come from? Has this guy been secretly patching me again?
Chu Ge really hadn't patched a thing this time, because that was her original setting.
To outsiders she was a peerless powerhouse who strode the world; but at home, out of her armor, she was a devoted wife and homemaker. Why else would they call her the perfect woman of fantasy? Only, the plot in the book was nowhere near the point where she showed that side, yet in reality she had unexpectedly been dropped into a domestic atmosphere ahead of schedule.
Unfortunately, she had no such feelings for Chu Ge, so the thought flared once and was snuffed out.
Qiu Wuji plunged back into the vast ocean of that Five Thousand Years of China, and Chu Ge's flow of ideas grew smoother and smoother.
Since the tone for the following chapters was already set and that was how he'd write it anyway, Chu Ge simply went a little more decisive: he let Chu Tiange gradually grasp the truth that fair faces are but white bones, and set him walking a lonely, cold path of cultivation with his mind on nothing else.
The true no-heroine road.
Heroine-betting was abandoned — it didn't suit Chu Ge's temperament. He found it awkward.
Honestly, he wasn't yet comfortable just after switching to no-heroine writing, since he was used to writing scenes where men and women crossed paths, and once he focused on the protagonist's solo story he felt badly out of practice. But in fact it was a little easier to write, because there were fewer things to worry about.
For instance, when the protagonist went out traveling: one, no need to fret over how to keep the heroine out of sight; two, no need to fret over the complications of offending enemy families; three, no need to fret over characterization at all — sky high, sea wide, write as you please. Of course, if you're no good at designing plot it just comes out thin and dull, and not everyone can pull it off. It was a challenge.
Chu Ge had never really tried it before either. This time he gave it a go, and as he slowly got used to it, it seemed... not bad. After all, he read plenty of Zhang Qiren's sort of thing and it was hardly unfamiliar; his writing chops were there, so imitating Zhang Qiren's way of doing it seemed to work.
Seeing his own writing take on more and more of a Zhang Qiren flavor, Chu Ge suddenly wondered, If this really takes off, doesn't that sort of vindicate Zhang Qiren?
New chapter finished, saved, published.
The review section was quieter than before. The disappointed had already quit, and the newcomers weren't many yet, so it looked rather deserted. He refreshed his backend: the subscription numbers for the new chapter had slid too, but it was actually much better than he'd expected.
He'd assumed at least half would run off, and in the end he'd lost only about a tenth. Maybe some were still watching to see, and some simply didn't care what genre he wrote or whether there was a heroine — if the story was good, they'd read it.
On reflection, that made sense. In truth, losing a tenth was already a heavy blow by normal standards; it was just that his expectations had been set so low that it looked decent by comparison. Chu Ge was quite calm about it. He got up and went out to see Qiu Wuji.
Qiu Wuji was no longer on the sofa. The sound of stir-frying and the smell of food drifted out of the kitchen. Chu Ge poked his head in and froze for a moment.
Qiu Wuji was simply standing there, still reading. The wok in front of her was stir-frying by itself, and next to it was a cutting board, with a cleaver chopping vegetables all on its own.
When the food in the wok looked done, Qiu Wuji snapped her fingers, and the contents flew into a plate, laid out in tidy order.
Then she went on reading, head down. "What? Never seen immortal arts used for cooking?"
"I've seen everything... but this I really haven't." Chu Ge didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Why not just conjure it cooked?"
Qiu Wuji closed her book and thought about it. "It'd lack a certain something. This kind of work is better done with a little care — I'm eating it too."
Chu Ge was speechless.
Today's dishes were simple: pork ribs with cabbage, and scrambled eggs. Chu Ge didn't know what dishes Qiu Wuji could make, and Qiu Wuji didn't know much about modern food either, so she'd just bought a little of whatever at the supermarket.
When the food reached the table, Chu Ge nearly swallowed his own tongue.
This is so good... Is this cabbage even the cabbage I imagined?
What was it like, using an immortal's fire control and object control to cook mortal food?
The experience was that restaurant food instantly turned into pig slop.
Qiu Wuji ate with a smile on her face too. "I could make money as a chef, couldn't I."
"You could." Chu Ge figured that if Qiu Wuji ever got an identity, she'd rake in a fortune no matter what she did. A cultivator's very existence was a bug.
He sighed. "I've asked quite a few people. Getting you an identity really is pretty difficult."
Qiu Wuji seemed to have expected it. "Of course. If a stranger suddenly turned up in my sect claiming to be one of our disciples, nobody would believe it either — because she wouldn't be one."
"The approach I've seen other people work out is to gradually leave traces of a life behind, and even build some plausible-looking records of existence in another city."
"Mm, a very reasonable plan." Qiu Wuji smiled. "But I really don't want to spend my days scrambling inside an identity. Your idea of slipping across the border into some war-torn place suits me better. Anyway, if it's hard to arrange, then let's not arrange it. Don't I have something to offset the rent with now... Once I understand this world's situation a little better, I'll head out."
Knew it.
Chu Ge resignedly shoveled rice into his mouth. "How much of the books have you read? Anything you don't understand that needs explaining?"
"Nothing for now... Your world's ancient times have a lot in common with your books, and you've adapted plenty of myths and legends — the Four Symbols, for instance... To me it's more immersive than the present-day world, and quite interesting." As she said it, Qiu Wuji's expression turned a little dazed. "I keep feeling that your world ought to have had spiritual energy to begin with..."
Chu Ge said, "Plenty of books have that kind of setting. That it dissipated after the severance of heaven and earth, or after the dragon veins were cut, and so on."
Qiu Wuji shook her head. "Saying it dissipated completely isn't quite right either. There's still some left, rather thin... Also..."
She paused, then said hesitantly, "I don't know if I'm imagining it, but the spiritual energy I sense this time seems a tiny bit richer than last time. The amount is so thin that I can't be sure."
Chu Ge lifted his head, his eyes turning serious.
Is this... the revival of spiritual energy?
Could that be why she ran out of the book?
If so, I might not be the only anomaly in this world.