So I've gone out on Qixi with a girl too... Chu Ge's thoughts drifted.
It was sudden, and yet somehow not sudden at all.
If I were ever going to spend Qixi with someone, of course it could only be Qiu Wuji.
You came out of the book... That's really good.
"What is Qixi?" Qiu Wuji asked him.
"Emmmm..." Chu Ge's eyes wandered. "It's the holiday for lovers... hey, no hitting, I really didn't know today was Qixi... And anyway, even if it is, what's the big deal? We just came out to have fun, pure and simple. A calm heart cools itself..."
"I only found out it was Qixi after I came out to have fun — I didn't come out with you because of Qixi!" Qiu Wuji waved the nine roses in her hand and said very seriously: "Don't get the wrong idea about this!"
Chu Ge started beaming. "Mm-hm."
"I took the flowers because they were already bought, and it'd be a waste not to." Qiu Wuji looked even more serious. "I can take them home and keep them growing. I have arts that will keep them alive."
Chu Ge was still beaming. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, got it."
"What's with that weird tone of yours!"
"Ah, how about this place? Italian steak. Want to try a little foreign flavor?"
"Is it good?"
"Should be all right..."
"Why do you have to line up just to eat a meal?"
"Doesn't that just prove it's good?"
"A vulgar way of thinking. Let's go somewhere else." Qiu Wuji grabbed him by the collar. "A whole row of people sitting out there waiting in line really is dumb."
"I suspect that if we don't line up today, we won't get to eat anything at all."
"Then we don't eat. While everyone else is at their mealtime, the other things are probably less crowded. We've been snacking the whole way anyway, so we're not hungry. If we get hungry later, we'll just have a late-night snack."
Chu Ge marveled: "Clever, Sect Master Qiu."
"This is simple to know," Qiu Wuji said, chin lifted, ponytail swinging. "This kind of sense holds in any world. You're the stupid one!"
Chu Ge mulled it over, then fished out his phone to book movie tickets. Given the state of things today, it didn't matter what the film was — getting tickets at all wouldn't be easy... He browsed for ages before he found a nine o'clock showing with two corner seats left. With the hand speed of twenty-eight years of being single, Chu Ge snapped them up in a flash and let out a breath. "Come on. Amusement park first, movie after — perfect."
The two of them zipped over to the amusement park, and Chu Ge bought tickets and led the way in.
Qiu Wuji said: "There are more people here than on the subway. Why don't they want a health code?"
Chu Ge: "Emmmm..."
She had only asked offhandedly and didn't press it. She tilted her head back to watch the roller coaster climb and plunge, and shook her head, thoroughly unenthused.
I can fly myself. Why would I ride that?
A bunch of people screaming up there looks so silly.
Chu Ge had expected this. He smiled: "Want to try that one?"
Qiu Wuji turned to look where he was pointing. Someone was throwing darts at balloons and hadn't hit a single one; the pile of plush toys beside the stall was rather cute.
"What is this? You hit with a dart and they give you something?"
"That's right. For you, isn't it pure profit?"
Qiu Wuji hesitated. "Isn't it a bit mean to fleece them like that?"
"I hit the target with my own skill — how is that fleecing anyone? Even the gangsters who run rackets in Korea throw darts here, and the toughs from Kaiyuan throw too."
"I'm a cultivator. It's not the least bit challenging. Even a game needs some challenge before it's fun, doesn't it?"
Chu Ge tilted his head and studied her for a long while, and saw that she truly wasn't interested. He scratched his head. "You know, seems like you've lost your childlike sense of fun."
Fair enough. Getting a ten-thousand-year-old lady enthusiastic about games was probably asking a lot. She'd had that computer for quite a while now, and she only watched shows and videos and looked things up; game ads were everywhere, and she'd never once been curious enough to try one.
Right, not much curiosity and not much playfulness — too Zen. Otherwise they wouldn't have waited this long for their first outing.
Which meant, now that he thought about it, the haunted house — the thing he'd looked forward to most — was pointless too.
What ghost could possibly scare her? He'd better not have her scatter them all into flying ash with one Taixu Fire...
Turning it over this way and that, he was torn. "The tickets were so expensive..."
A hint of a smile appeared at the corner of Qiu Wuji's mouth. "Let's go. Haunted house."
Chu Ge was dumbstruck. "How did you know..."
"I looked it up." Qiu Wuji walked ahead with her hands behind her back, swaying as she went. "It said that when a man takes a woman to an amusement park, what he likes best are the Ferris wheel and the haunted house. The Ferris wheel lets two people hide away in a little cabin up in the sky; and you get to watch people so scared their faces go white that they hug and cuddle..."
Chu Ge: "Lies. It's sealed up tight in there — cuddle my ass."
Qiu Wuji ignored him and went on: "...And in the haunted house, you watch the girl get so scared she throws herself into his arms."
Chu Ge: "Lies. Girls these days would stab a ghost to death with a glass bottle."
Qiu Wuji said leisurely: "This Sect Master would rather like to see how they pull off this ghost-and-god act."
Chu Ge: "I think we'd better skip it. I'm afraid I'll end up paying for damages."
Qiu Wuji: "Does this Sect Master look like someone with so little sense of propriety?"
The haunted house.
"Bang!"
Chu Ge looked at the ghost actor Qiu Wuji had just slapped flat on the floor, and covered his face.
"Um..." Qiu Wuji stammered. "Didn't they say it was all fake? Why would a real person come lunging at me..."
This Sect Master only struck because I sensed the qi of a real person closing in and the qi pulled my hand into motion! What if someone was trying to ambush me? Chu Ge, you have to believe me...
The staffer on the floor was angry and flustered at once: "Everything has to be realistic these days, or who'd pay to come?"
"Um..." Qiu Wuji said awkwardly. "Don't you get hit a lot doing this?"
The staffer clutched his numb half of his face: "When other people see a ghost, the first thing they do is hide behind their boyfriend. I've been playing ghosts for years and I've never seen anyone dare slap a ghost right in the face! Not even the men!"
Chu Ge apologized over and over: "Sorry, sorry, brother, my girlfriend's a bit violent."
A bit violent? The staffer held his face — it hardly even hurt anymore — and instead studied Chu Ge's face, deep sympathy welling up in his eyes.
This young fellow must have it rough at home. The kind who probably has to kneel on a durian.
Red-faced, Chu Ge dragged away an equally red-faced Qiu Wuji, and the two ducked quickly into another passage, away from that fortune-teller of a brother.
"I didn't do it on purpose," Qiu Wuji explained weakly, having forgotten her hand was in his.
"Mm-hm." Chu Ge stole a glance at their linked hands, feeling strange.
Other people reached their goal by getting scared by a ghost. He'd reached his by punching the ghost out, and accidentally at that. However he looked at it, it didn't feel right... Forget it. Goal achieved is goal achieved. He'd send that ghost-playing brother a red packet later...
"Roar!" Another fierce ghost came lunging at them — apparently this one hadn't gotten the warning from his coworker.
Chu Ge didn't dare let Qiu Wuji get a hand in again. Before she could move, he pulled her into his arms, spun her around, and put his back between her and the ghost.
Qiu Wuji's forehead brushed his chest, and something in her heart stirred faintly; an indescribable feeling rippled through her and spread.
She knew perfectly well the ghost was fake.
She knew perfectly well that even if it were a real ghost, she could raise a hand and scatter it into flying ash.
But that feeling, of having someone shelter you in his arms and block danger with his own back...
In ten thousand years, have I ever once felt that?
Chu Ge had pulled her into his arms and, seeing no reaction from her, had no idea what she was thinking. A little guiltily, he let go. "Um... I was afraid you wouldn't be able to hold back again, and I'd have to pay for medical bills..."
Whatever mood there had been, whatever feeling — all of it was wrecked beyond repair.
"Let me pay your medical bills, Chu Ge!" Qiu Wuji stomped viciously on his foot and strode off.
"?" Chu Ge hopped out after her, clutching his foot. "Hey, hey, wait for me..."
What's with her?
Truly: single by sheer skill, twenty-eight years running.