Qiu Wuji didn't need to think twice to know exactly what was going through Chu Ge's head right now.
His image as a perverted Father God couldn't be scrubbed clean anyway, so he might as well give up and let it stay dirty — let her believe this sort of thing was perfectly normal in this world, and that would be that... And maybe there was a bit of seduction mixed in: let her look at that kind of material, and once she was used to it, wouldn't being touched and hugged start to feel perfectly normal too?
He was even willing to post extra chapters for it!
"He's never once had good intentions!" Qiu Wuji cursed furiously in her heart, half at Chu Ge and half at herself — why didn't I flatten his stupid head when I first crossed over?
Thinking back on what she'd just seen, Qiu Wuji still felt her worldview had taken a serious blow. The demon realm really was the demon realm — they could actually record something like that and pass it around for others to watch? Even the demonic path in that other world never went that far. It was absurd. And yet in the group they all treated it as perfectly normal.
Qiu Wuji could tell it wasn't that the whole group was full of perverts — it was that the general view genuinely held such things to be nothing special...
By contrast, Zhang Qiren's case — Chu Ge thought the man had gone bad, felt torn about it, and considered the friendship finished — struck her as rather normal.
The two worlds' ways of thinking were still worlds apart. Even though she kept trying to understand this world, and on the surface already seemed quite like a modern person, deep down she still didn't fit in.
It was funny, in a way: Chu Ge's own thinking had nothing in common with the xianxia world, and yet that world was exactly what he had created. Did that mean a writer's world and a writer's own beliefs didn't necessarily match? Or did it mean that, deep down... Chu Ge was actually a xianxia sort of man?
—Unbound by convention, above the law, sword in hand, hand in hand, roaming the world as he pleased.
Only reality had penned him in and worn away his edges, so he poured it all into his novels instead.
Qiu Wuji suddenly remembered the question Chu Ge had once put to her — but Qiu Wuji, how much do you actually know about me?
She sat there lost in thought for a while, then suddenly gave a little hmph.
Why should I understand this sick pervert whose head is full of dirty thoughts?
"Miss... hey, miss." The driver turned around with a helpless look and called back, "We've reached the last stop..."
Qiu Wuji snapped out of it and found the whole bus empty, with only herself sitting there like an idiot. Her face burned, and she scrambled off in a hurry.
Ugh, now I can't even hear the word "car" without expecting something filthy. What am I supposed to do about that? It's all his fault!
The driver watched her back as she ran all the way out of the bus stop, speechless. He thought to himself that the girl was a stunner even in a mask. Shame — the mask couldn't hide the blush. Anyone could tell her head was full of men.
If Qiu Wuji ever learned of this "thinking about men" misunderstanding, she might just drop dead on the spot.
By now, though, Qiu Wuji's mood had actually eased a good deal. The last stop was close to the countryside, and after running for a while she finally saw, in this world, green hills, clear water, and endless stretches of rice paddies.
The road was still asphalt, as if to remind her this was another world after all... But at least it wasn't high-rises and glass windows and overpasses and iron-skinned cars everywhere. At last there was a bit of scenery she recognized, and even the air was much fresher.
And so her heart slowly drew closer to nature.
She looked this way and that. The fine flowers she'd come out to the countryside hoping to find were nowhere in sight — only nameless wildflowers and dog-tail grass — but Qiu Wuji wasn't disappointed. She plucked a stalk of dog-tail grass and toyed with it as she strolled along, enjoying the view of the paddies.
It was a summer morning and the sun was already fierce. A young man was working in the field, sweat soaking through his thin shirt.
Qiu Wuji stopped and watched him for a while, nodding slightly.
People said this world was flighty and nobody could stand hardship, but in truth there were still plenty of hardworking folk — and the common people in Chu Ge's writing showed that same quality as a whole. Once again the two worlds shared something in common.
The world inside the book was, in the end, only a reflection of reality, built upon the Creator God's understanding.
This was one of the reasons Qiu Wuji always wanted to leave Chu Ge's side and act on her own. Only away from him could she recover a top cultivator's exploration of and reflection on the world; day after day beside him, she had no idea how far off course she'd been dragged.
But the longer she watched, the more Qiu Wuji began to feel that something was off.
The young man at work seemed to possess a power too. It was a very strange power, utterly unlike her own framework of understanding — she actually couldn't analyze it.
Perhaps because she'd stared at him too long, the young man sensed it and turned to glance at her.
Then uncontrollable awe at her beauty lit his eyes, and he nearly started drooling.
A fairy maiden... she's an actual fairy maiden...
The young man's eyes rolled craftily. He turned his back, fished a gel pen out of his pocket, and stealthily wrote a word on his face: "Handsome."
Then he turned back with a dazzling smile. "Hi there, gorgeous — out enjoying the countryside alone?"
Qiu Wuji blinked in astonishment.
She genuinely found this man remarkably handsome — quite possibly the best-looking man she'd laid eyes on in a thousand years.
And yet the word on his face hadn't disappeared. A bright, blatant "Handsome" sat right there in plain sight; no matter how handsome he was, it turned the whole thing ridiculous.
Someone riding a motorcycle happened to pass by. He spotted it and spat: "Fine, I'll admit you're handsome, but do you have to write it on your damn face? Who the hell are you showing off for, you dumbass!"
The motorcycle roared off. The young man kept up an awkward but still polite smile. "They're always jealous of me..."
Qiu Wuji found it highly amusing and said deliberately, "Handsome as you may be, I don't care to talk to a man who writes on his own face."
Looking awkward, the young man thought it over, turned around again, stealthily wiped away the word "Handsome," and changed it to "You like me."
When he turned back, a high heel came straight at his face. "You dare use mind-bewitching arts on this Sect Master? Even he wouldn't dare tamper with my mind!"
Thud. The young man did a midair three-sixty and ended up flat on the field ridge, groaning. "That's not mind-bewitching arts... whose mind-bewitching art gets written on your face...? This crappy power is completely useless... Hey, gorgeous, don't tell anyone, I'm sorry..."
Qiu Wuji was half annoyed, half amused. She couldn't be bothered getting involved, so she turned and walked off.
Still, she was deeply startled inside.
She had once assumed powers were simply like a single technique from the immortal path, but seeing it this way, they really were different — very different.
A phone rang on the young man, and Qiu Wuji heard him answer. "Hello? A get-together? I'm out in the field killing bugs... Oh, tonight? Then sure... Someone's hiring us for a job again? Which sucker's that dumb? Boss Zhang? There are so many Boss Zhangs, which one..."
Qiu Wuji had already walked far away. The young man never imagined his words had been heard perfectly clearly — though a few lines like that hardly seemed to matter. He put the phone away, gazed off in the direction Qiu Wuji had gone, touched his cheek, and sighed. "From now on, anyone who says he'd happily get kicked by a beauty in high heels is getting a slap across the face from yours truly..."
Then something occurred to him. He opened QQ on his phone and entered a group chat: "I take it back, even if Qiu Wuji herself showed up, she can't kick me with high heels, wahhh..."
No one paid him any mind; the group was all in righteous fury. "This chapter's way over the line — short and a cliffhanger on top of it! Big Chu, you're a real dog!"
"I'm coming down the internet cable to bust your ass, just you wait!"
Chu Ge lurked behind the screen, watching without a word, secretly delighted. Being cursed out as a cliffhanger hound was his favorite moment...
Just as he was thinking that, the phantom of a fist appeared on the screen and — thump — punched him square in the face.
Chu Ge: "?"
The phantom fist was weak; with his Golden Bell Shield protecting him, he hadn't felt any pain. But what the hell was that?
A hallucination?
Most people would have brushed it off as a hallucination, but Chu Ge broke out in a sweat and clamped both hands over his butthole.
Holy shit, that power actually exists?
In another room far away, a fat guy curled up into a ball, clutching his hand. "Holy crap, does Big Chu write while wearing an iron mask?!"
His phone rang. The fat guy picked up. "Hiring us for a job? Who's got such a keen eye... no, wait, which dumbass is it...? What use are the powers of people like us, boo-hoo... I punch one cliffhanger hound and my own hand hurts..."