By now the sky had gone fully dark, and neon lights lit up the whole city.
Chu Ge lay alone and face-down on the sofa. For over an hour he hadn't moved at all.
Qiu Wuji had vanished.
She had stayed a long time this visit to begin with, and was probably already on the very edge of being pulled back. On top of that she had spent great gouts of immortal power washing Chu Ge's very bones and marrow. Naturally, she couldn't hold on.
She had been straddling him. Vanishing so abruptly left her underwear and stockings scattered right across his back, with the bra draped over the back of his head — a scene of pure comedy.
But Chu Ge was in no mood for any of it.
The meridian circulation she had guided him through just before leaving still lingered in his body. That thread of immortal power left inside him was like a fuse, slowly traveling and turning through his meridians — so real he could feel it.
It also marked the start of Chu Ge's cultivation.
He really could cultivate the method he had made up out of thin air — he had invented only a name and an effect, cribbed a few lines of Daoist scripture to pad it out, and then the world had derived and perfected itself into a genuine cultivation art.
Qiu Wuji's cultivation leaned toward sword cultivation, supplemented by spellcraft, which made it considerably more well-rounded than sects that specialized in a single discipline. And in the book's original design, the sect had stood for ten thousand years while Qiu Wuji swept the world; the Scripture Repository had long gathered countless techniques newly created by generations of sect prodigies, along with all manner of lessons borrowed from other mountains — a sect foundation that had been set up purely to make things convenient for the protagonist.
And now it seemed all of it had fallen conveniently into his own hands.
Those powers like walking through walls were just one single special ability — put plainly, you could think of them as one spell of the immortal path... one spell, practiced to the exclusion of everything else...
Maybe there were a select few with one supremely strong divine ability. If someone really had a power that materialized whatever they imagined, that would be more badass than any immortal art.
But overall it felt like... I've got a whole cow, and you've got one hair, at most a horn — something along those lines.
This wasn't an ordinary man being let into a transcendent world. It seemed to be the other way around.
This was: the true law belongs to me alone.
You could picture the contempt in Qiu Wuji's heart — she had no regard at all for other people's single-purpose abilities. The fact that she hadn't gone straight to the wall-walker's den to slaughter them all was pure respect for Chu Ge's wish not to stir up trouble.
He just had no idea how far the spiritual energy of this world could carry his cultivation. He didn't expect to reach Qiu Wuji's level — he only wondered whether, if he cultivated high enough, his influence over the world in the book might become more controllable.
For instance... forcing Qiu Wuji to stay here forever.
Chu Ge had grown more and more used to having her beside him, and now he loathed these partings more each time — and feared even more that one day she would go and not come back.
Because that was very likely to happen.
What was the meaning of Qiu Wuji's coming to this world? To come to know a brand-new world — a powerful lure for a cultivator at the very top.
But what about when she grew ever more familiar with this world, until she was no different at all from a modern person?
Would there still be any need for her to stay? This was only a world thin in spiritual energy. However enchanting it might be, its meaning for her could never compare to a true place of cultivation.
For the first time Chu Ge began to regret it: maybe he shouldn't have been so selfless about helping her understand the world. He should have let her go slower — much slower...
He sat there dazed for a long, long while, and at last plucked the bra off the back of his head and rose to his feet.
Obviously I can't do that. It's exactly because I treat her with goodwill that she answers me the same way.
She knew it.
Chu Ge let out a breath. This time he didn't go wash her clothes for her; he folded them away properly and put them in her room.
Haven't eaten today... don't want to eat. Time to write!
Make her even more badass!
Ten thousand words today!
The world of the book.
Qiu Wuji stood at the window, gazing at the moon.
This was her favorite form — the most beautiful scenery, as ratified by Chu Ge's own pen.
But today she stood there only a few seconds before suddenly turning away and sitting down at the table to brew a pot of immortal tea.
As if she meant to draw a deliberate line between herself and the Qiu Wuji he wrote.
Chu Ge's worry was not unfounded; her return this time had in fact been a little on purpose.
However many excuses she gave herself — "the situation was pressing," "it was only healing," "bright wind and clear moon" — the plain fact that she had willingly let her skin touch his was very wrong.
She had already wondered, that morning while out shopping, whether she ought to come back. Better to come back after all. She was a sect master who commanded the age — why should she go over there and cook for him, and put up with knowing he thought about dirty things all day without punching him?
Anyway, she had paid him back his money now, and she was light and free.
But... I still have to go over there eventually, don't I... That world has only just shown its true face, I've only just learned to surf the web, and I'm going to desert like this?
The computer is so much fun.
I wonder if that guy, with me not there, and now mixed up in esper business, might get himself in danger.
And there's a beautiful girl living right across the hall. Will he get ideas at the sight of her?
She thought for a while, fretful and getting nowhere, but one thing at least was certain:
Whether it was Chu Ge or Qiu Wuji herself, they both wanted her to break free of the influence of his writing and become a truly independent person.
That was the Dao the two of them shared. That much was certain.
How to break free?
Changing her own temperament — that she probably couldn't manage. Qiu Wuji knew that if she deliberately went around killing until she became a bloodthirsty demon, that would most likely count as a change. But she didn't want to, and that was the end of it.
Changing major events had already been proven useless by facts; the world corrected itself. Besides, she was cautious, and didn't quite dare truly overturn the course of major events. Otherwise — wouldn't swatting Chu Tiange dead settle everything? She didn't dare try it. She was afraid something would go wrong.
So what was there to try?
Do something special that would never have happened in his book — start small and local, and gradually work on the whole world?
Qiu Wuji mused for a long while, then suddenly sent her voice to the side peak: "Elder Zhou, come to the main peak. This Sect Master has matters to discuss."
Soon after, Elder Zhou, hair and beard all white, arrived in the reception hall. Qiu Wuji's slender white hand poured tea, and she smiled. "Our earlier analysis was that the Vermilion Bird fire feather is most likely in the hands of the demon sect — the Fire Prison Sect."
Elder Zhou said, "That is indeed so. Does the Sect Master intend to..."
"I had intended to challenge Yan Qianlie, wagering this sect's Taixu Fire against his Vermilion Bird feather. Yan Qianlie is violent and arrogant, he looks down on women, and he's been drooling over our Taixu Fire for ages. This Sect Master is eight parts sure he'll accept the duel."
Elder Zhou said thoughtfully, "The Sect Master's reasoning is not without merit. But the demon sect has no honor whatsoever. Even if we win the duel, we may not get the feather. Besides..."
He hesitated. "Yan Qianlie's fearsome name is known to all. Does the Sect Master truly have confidence of certain victory?"
Qiu Wuji smiled. "How do you know whether you can win until you fight?"
Elder Zhou: "..."
This was the plot Chu Ge was writing right now. He had only written the opening, and Qiu Wuji had read the outline. She would resonate with the "Covenant of the Heavenly Dao" and complete a pact with Yan Qianlie, and afterward win through an exceedingly grueling battle. It also involved scheming on Yan Qianlie's side, a war between sects, the participation of other sects, every faction stirred into motion, and a great many showings by Chu Tiange — a sweeping, storm-tossed arc crowded with a whole cast of characters, very exciting indeed.
Maybe the reason Chu Ge got praised by his editor is that this arc's opening already looks like it has something worth reading?
The items connected to the Four Symbols Grand Formation were what Qiu Wuji herself was determined to obtain — things tied to her ascension. Before, they were for ascension's sake; now they might have to do with passage between the two worlds. Whether her original body could cross over might well hinge on this, which made it seem even more important than before.
So she would certainly play this arc out in that direction — but could the pattern be changed?
Say, for instance...
She lowered her voice, her expression turning grave. "The Fire Prison Sect's branches and wings are layered one over another, spread across the whole world. Elder Zhou, take some trouble in the coming days to find the important ones ahead of time, and plant a few nails to hold them quietly. Also, make contact with Corpse Yin Mountain in secret — the Boneless Old Man has a blood feud with Yan Qianlie, who killed his son..."
Elder Zhou's eyelids twitched wildly as he listened.
Since when did the Sect Master's whole style change? Is this really the proud, ethereal Qiu Wuji?
Sect Master, are you really going to walk the path of hegemony?
At that very moment, Chu Ge was at his computer, fingers flying over the keys: "Qiu Wuji said lightly, 'The strength of one sect is limited after all, and there are too many restraints on how we act. But if the winds and clouds answer to me, why should this Sect Master not ascend to the very summit and look down upon all under heaven?'"