"I'm home."
Qiu Wuji opened the door and came in, a bag of groceries in one hand and a roll of xuan paper in the other, a plastic bag hooked on her fingers with a brush and a bottle of ink inside.
Chu Ge hurried over to take things from her. "Carrying all that by yourself — we don't even need to buy groceries, you know. Just order delivery and be done with it."
"I don't like other people's cooking." Qiu Wuji rummaged around in the grocery bag, and out came a stalk of dog-tail grass.
Chu Ge watched as, like a conjuring trick, she produced a small bag of soil, snagged a disposable plastic cup off the coffee table, poured the soil in, planted the dog-tail grass upright, and set it on the windowsill.
Chu Ge: "...That is entirely too ethereal."
Qiu Wuji threw him a look. "You're a dog-tail grass yourself. It's what you deserve."
"Didn't you say you wanted a comfortable life for your own sake? How did it turn into what I deserve?"
"Yeah. I stare at one dog-tail grass every day anyway, so one more won't hurt. This one's gone back to plain simplicity — it's nicer to look at."
Chu Ge didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "What you're describing is 'kill a thousand of the enemy and lose eight hundred of your own'..."
"Aren't I still two hundred ahead?"
Chu Ge opened his mouth, then shut it. If you ever really do end up matched with me, that'll be losing ten thousand of your own. Sect Master Dog-Tail Grass.
Whether or not Qiu Wuji had caught his meaning, she couldn't be bothered with him. She cleared the dining table and spread the xuan paper out on it.
Chu Ge stood to one side, watching with interest.
He had never written her as practicing special disciplines like the Dao of Calligraphy or the Dao of Painting — being good at everything would have made her too overpowered — and outside her own storyline she had most likely never studied them either. But cultivation aside, in plain calligraphy, an old veteran who had spent ten thousand years in an ancient world had to be first-rate — far better than his own chicken scratch. Just looking at it was a pleasure.
She wasn't writing the ci poem her name came from, but the famous Zhuangzi's Butterfly Dream: "Once, Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly fluttering about, well pleased with itself, doing just as it liked, knowing nothing of Zhou. Then he woke with a start, and there he was, solid Zhou again. He did not know whether he was Zhou who had dreamed of being a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming of being Zhou. Between Zhou and the butterfly there must be some distinction."
Chu Ge stared at her in astonishment. "You've read that much without my noticing? Even Zhuangzi..."
"Mm. Didn't I tell you last time that I imprinted a great many books and brought them back to read?" Qiu Wuji said as she wrote. "I told you before, too — I want to read this world's Daoist scriptures. I searched some out myself. Never mind the scriptures; these two, Laozi and Zhuangzi, are truly great sages."
Chu Ge was thoroughly ashamed of himself. Everyone was on the internet; she looked up Laozi and Zhuangzi, and he looked up license plates.
Then again, it was perfectly natural that the tale of Zhuangzi's butterfly dream should strike her so deeply. Wasn't what she was living through right now rather like Zhuang Zhou dreaming of the butterfly?
"You think my experience is like Zhuangzi's butterfly dream?" Qiu Wuji said mildly. "Actually, there's more to it."
Chu Ge said, puzzled: "What?"
"When I read that story, I even wondered — did you create me, or did I, in chasing the Heavenly Dao, conceive a Creator God for myself?"
Chu Ge's eyes went wide with astonishment.
What was it I was thinking when I wrote that chapter earlier?
Qiu Wuji finished the last stroke, looked it over herself, and smiled. "Not bad. The words of the sages carry their own spirituality. Even though I don't practice the Dao of Calligraphy, hung in a hall, this scroll will have its own protective power."
"No, that thing you said just now..."
"Oh, that. I was joking." Qiu Wuji said it casually. "From what I've seen and observed these past days, I know you can indeed conceive our world out of all kinds of knowledge. But my knowledge is nowhere near enough to conceive yours, so it certainly can't be that I imagined all this. Still, it's an amusing thought, isn't it?"
Chu Ge sighed. "It is... I just didn't expect the two of us to land on the same idea. But let me say this up front: for ordinary people like me, thinking about this is just a game. You cultivators are another matter — it's easy for you to dig too deep. Once you dig deep into something like this, your mind can split in two. So don't go brooding over it from now on."
Qiu Wuji laughed. "I've already confirmed it, so why brood? If anything, we cultivators are the purer ones. Take the fact that you and I hit on the same idea — I wanted to explore what's real. What did you want?"
"Uh..." Chu Ge beat a flustered retreat to a new subject. "You said this calligraphy has a protective effect?"
Qiu Wuji didn't care to hold him to it and followed the turn. "I don't practice the Dao of Calligraphy, but ten thousand methods in this world come back to one; the power comes along with it. It should have some effect. Hung in the living room, this piece can more or less cast a kind of illusion over intruders — a ward, so to speak."
Chu Ge asked, "You never thought about setting up any kind of defense before. Why now, all of a sudden?"
"I'm arranging decorations for the house; the protection is just incidental. Besides..." Qiu Wuji's lovely brows knitted slightly. "Today I discovered that this world's powers are rather interesting. One actually worked on me. I don't know the mechanism... In any case, I can't take them lightly. Better to put up a little protection."
Chu Ge was startled. "You went out to pick one stalk of dog-tail grass and got hit by a power?"
"Not hit... I just saw one." Qiu Wuji laughed. "Maybe this is what you call protagonist luck? I am the female lead, aren't I?"
Chu Ge: "..."
Then I saw one today too — only what I got was a punch for my cliffhanger. Is that karma, or protagonist luck?
We both ran into someone else's power on the very same day. That's fate, isn't it? Chu Ge brightened and said with a smile, "As long as it wasn't an attack... What kind of power was it, that it could actually work on you?"
Qiu Wuji's beautiful eyes flickered, resting on his face for a moment, and in the end she said nothing. She drifted into the kitchen. "I'm making dinner. Go do whatever it is you do."
That face really is easier on the eyes. He looks handsome enough even when he isn't writing.
But Chu Ge didn't go write. He trotted in after her. "I posted two chapters this morning. Even if I do get called a cliffhanger hound... I'm allowed a break, you know. Work and rest — balance."
"All right, I know you're an M. I tell you to rest, and you insist on coming to do chores. Wash the rice."
Chu Ge: "..."
You know words like "M" now?
Qiu Wuji started washing the vegetables herself and said offhandedly, "Fine, just as well. Keeps you from hiding in your room watching goodness knows what."
Chu Ge put on an ingratiating smile. "If I told you I haven't watched any of that in ages, would you believe me..."
"What's that to me? And didn't you already give up and stop trying to explain yourself? Why are you explaining again?"
"When I get the chance, I explain anyway." Chu Ge rinsed the rice and suddenly smiled. "Actually, there's good news. You'll be pleased to hear it."
Qiu Wuji said, curious: "What?"
"They think you're a reader imitating the Qiu Wuji from the book."
"Isn't that a perfectly normal guess? Who would really believe that Qiu Wuji had turned up in person..."
"The point is, they don't think you're much like her." Chu Ge tipped the rice into the rice cooker, grinning. "So? Good news, isn't it?"
Qiu Wuji's hands stilled over the vegetables, and she went a little distant.
Of course it's good news. Doesn't it mean I'm pulling further and further away from a preset label?
The corners of her mouth curved up without her permission, though she said, "What's there to be pleased about? Isn't this only natural for this Sect Master?"
Chu Ge: "..."
Such a tsundere.
Qiu Wuji started chopping vegetables.
Chu Ge blinked. "Not using immortal arts?"
Qiu Wuji said, "Might as well experience it in finer detail. Too coarse and you lose the flavor of it."
So you think it's more fun this way too? I think so too.
Watching Qiu Wuji in her apron, dealing with the food, Chu Ge really wanted to wrap his arms around her from behind. But he didn't dare.
He could only turn his head aside. "How much water goes in the rice?"
"Just a little over the surface. Yes — like that..."
In the little kitchen, one tending the rice, one tending the dishes, for a while neither spoke. There was only the rush of water and the tap of the knife on the cutting board, woven into the notes of a home.
On the windowsill, the dog-tail grass swayed in the wind, back and forth, just like Chu Ge's heart at that moment.
"I'll finish this afternoon's chapters... and then tonight, let's go out and have some fun?" he said suddenly.
Qiu Wuji said, surprised: "Why this all of a sudden? What's there to do out there?"
"I realized that all this time, I've never really taken you out to enjoy yourself... the things a modern girl ought to get to experience."