Beside the river, the night was deep.
A fine drizzle had started that evening, brushing softly against the face — cool and comfortable at the tail end of summer.
The bicycle rolled leisurely along the riverside road, voices drifting faintly from it: Chu Ge, at Qiu Wuji's request, telling the story of the Qixi magpie-bridge meeting.
A girl of this world ought to know these stories, oughtn't she?
"The Qixi story? Well, it goes like this... Long ago there was an honest, good-natured cowherd..."
Qiu Wuji thought it was going to be a beautiful story, and the way it opened made her feel it was just a little bit like her and Chu Ge.
An immortal maiden. A mortal man.
But as she listened, the wistfulness in her heart soured: "Hey — this cowherd steals someone's clothes? And you call that good-natured?"
"Uh... that's just how the story goes."
"You made it up, didn't you?"
"I've written plenty of books and never wrote a protagonist like that, so this really isn't something I made up... Different eras have different values. As for the people in your world being relatively respectful toward women, that's because it was all written on top of my values. If it really followed the ancient way, it wouldn't be nearly so nice..."
Qiu Wuji thought about it, face dark. "Seems about the same to me. The cowherd stole someone's clothes; you stole someone's stockings."
Chu Ge: "?"
She seemed to feel her comparison wasn't quite right either — Chu Ge really was quite respectful to her, and thank goodness he wasn't like the cowherd... Qiu Wuji huffed, "Anyway, if it were me, one slap and the cowherd's head would be—"
"Smashed to pulp, right?" Chu Ge was stricken with grief. "I clearly wrote a female sword immortal. How did she turn out like this..."
"You're the one who won't let me use a sword," Qiu Wuji said. "And I don't see anyone carrying one in this world either, so I'll switch attack modes. I'll work on it later — create a head-smacking divine ability, handy for using around here."
"...Do you still want to hear the story or not?"
Qiu Wuji felt the very origin of this love story left her unable to put herself in it at all. She might as well not listen.
Chu Ge said, "Sure, the opening is full of things to gripe about, but what follows is genuinely moving — otherwise it wouldn't have been passed down all this time and turned into a traditional festival."
He paused, then finished the story, and went on: "No matter how many complaints the opening earns, in the story's setting the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl are a loving couple. Every year, on the day of their Qixi meeting, the magpies come of their own accord to build a bridge. It's people's wish that lovers will be reunited in the end, and it carries their hope that love will last as long as heaven and earth. That's why on this day, men and women in love meet..."
He had been sneakily hinting that he and Qiu Wuji, right here and now, were a pair of lovers. But she didn't take the bait. Instead she fell silent for a good while, then said slowly, "One in heaven, one below, meeting across the divide of two worlds — in the end, they can hardly see each other?"
"Skreee—!" Chu Ge clamped the brakes and nearly flipped the bike over, furious. "What nonsense are you talking about!"
The braking threw Qiu Wuji forward before she could react; she bumped into his back and instinctively flung her arms around his waist. Chu Ge felt something soft pressing against him, but had no attention to spare for the experience. Still furious, he said, "Don't go setting flags like that!"
Somehow — though she was the one who usually beat him — when he actually got angry, Qiu Wuji felt a small jolt of alarm. She pursed her lips, let go of his waist and sat up straight, and in the end didn't dare continue down that road. A little weakly, she said, "Even so, they do meet in the end. What are you getting so worked up for?"
"Is seeing each other once a year supposed to be a good thing?" Chu Ge said angrily. "The reason this story has lasted a thousand years isn't that it's beautiful — it's that it's incomplete! Stories can be incomplete. Reality can't!"
"All right, all right, what's the rush..." Qiu Wuji said gently. "You're not the cowherd. You're our Heavenly Emperor. Nothing but you yourself could ever separate the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl."
Chu Ge froze for a moment and said nothing.
The reason a careless remark from Qiu Wuji had pricked him into anger was that he already carried a faint worry in his heart — a textbook case of getting rattled.
To this day, no one had worked out why Qiu Wuji was able to cross out of the book.
What if one day she can't come out anymore?
Which meant a single flag really might come true. It had struck the exact spot in Chu Ge's heart that he feared and avoided the most.
But Qiu Wuji wasn't wrong, either...
You are Father God, not the cowherd.
The world is in your hands. Whether you get to meet is up to you — not up to someone else's mercy, and not up to the magpies.
And there's something interesting in what Qiu Wuji just said... is she quietly assuming we're a cowherd-and-weaver-girl sort of relationship?
Chu Ge lifted his head to the sky and let the drizzle fall on his face. He let out a long breath, then suddenly grinned. "Say — they only see each other once a year. So what do you think they do, on that one meeting?"
Qiu Wuji spat. "Just ride your bike!"
Chu Ge's expression changed drastically; he wiped at his face and even let go of the handlebars.
"What fresh nonsense is this now?" Qiu Wuji said in exasperation.
Chu Ge, bitter and indignant: "They're up in the sky doing that — so what is this rain?!"
Qiu Wuji's jaw dropped.
Chu Ge pedaled furiously and shot off like a streak. "Come on, let's go get a late-night snack — think of it as finding some shelter from the rain!"
Qiu Wuji: "..."
There was a block of shops right nearby, in the old part of town: dim streetlights, buildings in the style of twenty or thirty years ago. One storefront on the corner still had its lights on, apparently a small restaurant that also served late-night food, and someone looked to be just coming out of a private room to settle the bill.
Chu Ge parked the bike and pulled Qiu Wuji inside.
Qiu Wuji felt this guy was deliberately holding her hand now, because there was no need for it at all when going in the door — it wasn't as if a crowd would separate them...
Just as she was about to pull her hand back, her gaze happened to brush over the group paying the bill, and her heart gave a sudden jump. She even forgot to pull away.
She recognized one of the young men: the esper who had been writing on his face that morning.
"Fuck, I just remembered it's Qixi today!" Seeing Chu Ge and Qiu Wuji walk in hand in hand, one of them turned to his companions in heartfelt anguish. "Other people get to walk around hand in hand as a couple, and here I am shooting the shit with a bunch of gay bros?"
Everyone laughed, their eyes sliding over Chu Ge and his companion. When the young man saw Qiu Wuji, his eyes went a little fixed.
Isn't that the beauty I ran into this morning? What a coincidence!
Boohoo, so she's already got a man...
Then a fat guy laughed. "That's nothing. We've got it good, comparatively — at least we've got friends to hang out with. Take that book Ah Jun and I have been reading lately: the author's the real tragedy. It's Qixi, and he still posts a ten-thousand-word daily update, hahaha. Just thinking about it, he's giving off the fresh fragrance of a single dog. The more I think about it, the better I feel."
Someone asked, "The author's a single dog — what's that got to do with you? Why are you so pleased?"
"Serves him right for those stubby chapters that always cut off at the good part." The fat guy turned to the young man. "Oh, right — Ah Jun, listen, I found out by accident today that Big Chu is probably a Nanjiang local, like us..."
Chu Ge: "?"
The young man pulled his gaze back from Qiu Wuji. "Don't tell me you actually followed the internet cable and went to beat him up?"
The fat guy put his hands on his hips. "Of course. Beat the bastard half to death — which is why he honestly finished writing the plot this afternoon, isn't it? Ugh, guess I was a bit impulsive..."
The young man: "Good beating. He's been writing nothing but Chu Tiange for two days straight — I want to read Qiu Wuji, damn it!"
Qiu Wuji: "..."
Chu Ge: "???"