Chapter 46 So This Is Our Father God

"Awoo～"

"Ah..."

"Hiss... holy shit..."

"Thud!"

Downstairs from Chu Ge's flat, an old man was watching TV, lifting his head now and then to eye the ceiling and letting out meaningful little clicks of his tongue.

"Those two young lovebirds upstairs really go at it, huh... Pity. Too old to play like that anymore. Still, that girl's a real beauty — like a fairy."

In the living room, Chu Ge was giving off a faint golden glow, lying flat on the floor with his head covered in lumps, eyes still spinning in circles.

Qiu Wuji had gone back to her room for her laptop, found a sound effect from some cartoon of a character knocked out with spirals in his eyes, and played it out loud, amusing herself no end.

Chu Ge came back to himself, sore and amused at once. "So this is how you train the Golden Bell Shield? How did I not know this thing was trained like this?"

"That's right. I analyzed it and simplified the training method. See? You've already got it down. How fast was that?"

Chu Ge said, "You didn't do a thing. You handed me a technique chant and then hammered me, and that's 'got it'?"

"Don't talk nonsense. When did I hammer you?"

"So what, you were helping me firm up my vital gate and build the protective shell?"

"No. I just beat you up..."

Chu Ge ground his teeth. "Qiu! Wu! Ji! You've gotten vicious, haven't you."

"Fine, fine. All right, so I did help you temper your vital gate." Qiu Wuji said airily, arms folded. "To be precise, you've got the basics down now. Your skin just gives off a faint golden glow, and you can take a beating a bit better than the next man. Honestly, it's closer to Iron Shirt than Golden Bell Shield — you're a long way from true mastery."

She sighed and looked at Chu Ge with great pity. "But who told a certain pig-head to set it up himself as the grand, orthodox root art of the Buddhist sect — long-enduring, unbreakable, and not the work of a single day or night to master?"

Chu Ge said, "Who's the idiot author who wrote that?"

"I don't know which pig it was either." Qiu Wuji laughed. "Anyway, thank him for not making me learn this getting-beaten thing... I only know of the method; I've never trained it myself. I'll probably have to study it a bit more before I can teach you the deeper levels. For now, this will do."

Chu Ge climbed to his feet with a grumble. Tempering the vital gate had hurt quite a bit, but he seemed to be recovering fast; he barely felt it now. He could tell his hide had thickened considerably, and it didn't seem to be pure mana protection — more as though his muscle power had been roused into some short-term reconfiguration for defense. He couldn't say exactly how, nor what level of attack it could actually withstand, or how it would differ against edged versus blunt weapons. Without testing, he simply didn't know.

When you were writing, you could spout any nonsense you liked; when it actually manifested on your body, you truly had no idea what was going on.

Chu Ge pinched here and poked there, then asked, hesitant, "If I remember right, the Golden Bell Shield, though it's built on mana and all that, is fundamentally a kind of body refinement."

"Correct. Body first, mana only as an accompaniment — which is exactly why I don't learn this stuff." Qiu Wuji had all manner of spells to protect herself; she went in for light, ethereal grace, aiming for that look of Wave-Walking Steps and silk socks gathering dust. She had no intention of turning herself into a punching bag. Mm. Someone like Chu Ge is just right.

Chu Ge hesitated. "Body refinement, fine, that's no big deal. But... you're sure you finished all the vital gate business just now?"

"No. With your current cultivation, you expect to train your defenses all the way to the seven orifices? Watch yourself."

"The seven orifices are a small matter. But down— down there? The jewels? Are those hard?"

Qiu Wuji was dumbstruck.

That's what you're focusing on?

This is our Father God. Might as well let our world be destroyed...

"Don't make that face." Chu Ge leaned back. "This is a serious cultivation question. Be serious."

"You wrote it yourself. Don't you know?"

"It's a typical bit-part technique. Why would I write it in any detail? How many protagonists have you seen practicing this stuff? Being handsome is a lifetime commitment, okay? That guy spent his whole life trying to shake the name 'Mad Monk of the Thunder Blade, the Reckless Vajra'..."

"...Who's that?"

"Nobody," Chu Ge said. "Anyway, I only set twelve layers and called it the Buddhist sect's supreme defensive art. Heaven knows how your world has been improvising with it."

"Which is why I need to go over it more when I get back. I told you, I've only read about it, never trained it."

"Does the Scripture Repository have it? If not, I'll patch it in — 'he once slew a Buddhist traitor and obtained a rubbing from his corpse.' That ought to work."

"...The Scripture Repository already has it, with exactly that provenance. I killed him myself. I even returned the original to the Buddhist sect and gave them plenty of face — Abbot Dabei personally agreed to let this Sect Master keep a rubbing for study. Not that his agreement mattered; if he'd refused, was he going to declare war on me? I'd already read the thing anyway..." Qiu Wuji repeated, "I killed him myself. Not something you wrote!"

Chu Ge stroked his chin.

He'd never written this plot. So the world's self-completion 'outside the established plot' really was rich. He'd written a single line saying the Scripture Repository held many high-end methods collected over the ages — and 'collected over the ages' implied countless stories that could never be written. Here, the world had filled in one of them for itself.

That being the case, a patch was still very much on the table.

Chu Ge dashed into his room, opened the outline-and-settings file, found "Golden Bell Shield" under the "Techniques" tab, and added a line: "With but minor mastery, one may guard the vital gate below the waist... leaving the golden spear standing firm and never falling, and the jewels hard as diamond and unbreakable."

Save.

In the world of the book, many a monk discovered that he had gotten just a little bit... harder?

Tears streaming down our faces — what use is that to us monks...

Chu Ge wept too. Logic won out in the end: it had to be written as requiring "minor mastery," and he had only just entered the door, so it was no good to him yet... Oh, right. Even if it worked, there's nowhere to use it... forget it. Minor mastery it is, then.

Chu Ge stole a glance beside him. Qiu Wuji stood there with her hands on her hips, watching him edit the settings, that speechless, disgusted look on her face genuinely adorable.

He wondered whether she regretted choosing this to teach him. A perfectly good Buddhist technique — how had it ended up in this state?

"I'll head back first." Once he finished, Qiu Wuji finally spoke. "Your situation is rather unusual, and I'd like to go look through some texts to see what would suit you better going forward. Nothing's going on here for now anyway, so there's no need for me to stay."

Chu Ge was still reluctant to see her go. "How can nothing be going on? You've only just gotten the hang of the computer — there's so much you haven't tried..."

Qiu Wuji smiled faintly and tapped her temple. "I've imprinted several books in my sea of consciousness for storage and haven't digested them yet. I can read them slowly once I'm back, which saves time as well — the flow rates on our two sides do seem to differ."

Chu Ge blinked. That, too, was a seriously buggy business.

His first thought: if he could go in himself one day, he could write "seven days later" out here while holed up inside typing seven days' worth of stockpiled chapters. Wow. Invincible. And even if he couldn't get in, if Qiu Wuji ever really could ghostwrite for him, that would be invincible too... who on earth could out-grind him then?

That was how honest and simple — and how thoroughly hopeless — a wordsmith's reflexes were.

He didn't say much more. This was a proper goodbye with a return at any time, and the awkward misery of her earlier abrupt disappearances was gone. It was no different from going to work or leaving on a business trip, so his reaction was perfectly calm now: "Fine. But don't just read those books when you're back — keep up your own cultivation. Yan Qianlie really is not to be trifled with; I built him up as very strong purely for the cool factor."

"I know, I know." Qiu Wuji suddenly ducked back into her room and came out with a stocking, holding it out to him. "Here. Take this."

Chu Ge: "?"

Qiu Wuji said with a straight face, "Your hands already have something in them, so whatever scatters when this Sect Master vanishes should be a bit safer."

Chu Ge was exasperated past words. He huffed, "Fine. Off you go, then."

Qiu Wuji darted back to her room, burrowed onto the bed, wrapped herself up in the blanket, and only once she was sure the things would definitely scatter inside the covers did she let herself return in peace.

Chu Ge opened the main manuscript file with a deadpan face and began typing: "Qiu Wuji's split soul returned from its wanderings. Her mind was on the affairs of the Heavenly Dao, so she grew distracted and forgot that the closed-door formation she had laid down was not for casual passage. With a 'bang,' the split soul smacked into the stone door, and her whole soul-body spread-eagled against it and slid slowly downward..."

The world inside the book.

Qiu Wuji, feeling that her close personal items were much safer this time, returned joyfully to her true body. With a "bang," the split soul slammed into the stone door and slid slowly down it, spread-eagled.