"Sss—"
In the rented room, Qiu Wuji was applying wound medicine to Chu Ge, who grimaced with pain: "What about your healing technique? Seems like we don't need this kind of crude method, do we?"
"The dagger tip went in barely a fraction. The wound's neither big nor deep. A scratch like that back where I'm from wouldn't even get treated! You wrote it."
Chu Ge: "...I'm an idiot."
A man who has never been stabbed can write characters who shrug off light wounds as nothing; only after actually taking a blade does one learn what pain means.
"I'm stopping the bleeding for you. I asked Baidu about the medicines in your world — in a bit I'll dab on some red antiseptic, slap on a large bandage, and that's that. With your current constitution, you'll heal fast." Qiu Wuji said with a straight face: "I'm not using a healing technique to fix it completely. This is so the lesson sticks."
"So I remember not to play the hero again?" Chu Ge asked. "But your not showing up at first was something we agreed on. I can't have you taking the front every single time... And don't you dare say I'm putting on an act — even if there's nothing wrong with your identity, this really is a man's business! Watching you fight while I stand at the back yelling six-six-six? I just can't do it."
"What are you blathering about? I'm telling you to remember how to fight next time!"
Chu Ge: "?"
"Even if you never learned an offensive technique, you shouldn't have taken that wound in the first place!"
Qiu Wuji said, in the exasperated manner of someone wishing she could hammer iron into steel.
"Two men lose their balance — you punch one of them? What about the other? Was he a corpse? And your fist carries the force of the Golden Bell Shield; to a mortal that's nothing to sneeze at. One punch from you should have knocked him out, or at the very least dazed him. Look at what you actually threw. A time like that and you were still holding back? Do you think you're me?"
"Emmmm..."
From her tone, she actually took the heroics themselves pretty much as a matter of course; it was just that the fighting had been too ugly to watch.
Chu Ge could only smile apologetically: "We said it way back when we talked about it — we're short on practical combat practice, that's why we trained defense and running away first."
Qiu Wuji gave a "hmph" and said no more.
Chu Ge wasn't the type to love a scrap. He was a shut-in who sat in front of a computer typing all day, and for all anyone knew he'd never even traded punches with other kids growing up. For a complete rookie going into his first fight against a pack of fierce, dagger-wielding thugs, he'd actually done all right... Qiu Wuji thought back over it, and somehow got the feeling there was a violent streak in Chu Ge too, one that didn't match that scholarly look on his face.
Mm, a violent streak is a good thing. A female sect master of a xianxia world has fought her way through life and death — how could she admire a scholar with nothing but a glib tongue?
Qiu Wuji cursed him out loud, but in her heart she actually felt rather pleased... it was as though the sense of a divide between their two worlds had grown less obvious.
For a moment neither of them spoke. Chu Ge looked down at Qiu Wuji leaning in to tend the wound at his ribs — that focused, serious expression, the scent of her hair filling his nose. Intellectual, beautiful, and gentle besides.
She had been so angry. She'd said, "The likes of you dare to hurt him?"
Heh heh.
Suddenly the wound doesn't hurt at all. So small wounds really don't need any treatment after all!
Qiu Wuji finally finished taping the medicine on. She lifted her head, about to say something, met Chu Ge's soft eyes, and forgot what she'd meant to say entirely: "...What are you looking at! I hope it hurts you to death!"
"Ahem." Chu Ge looked away and changed the subject clumsily: "Feel like I should hit Lin Wuyang up for some medical expenses."
"Go ask Zhang Qiren for it!" Qiu Wuji said. "Not medical expenses — clothing expenses! Last time you took a hit for him, your clothes got torn. Today you took another one, and your clothes got torn again! Is money easy for you to make, that you can afford to keep throwing clothes away like this? You type those words out one character at a time!"
She really knows how to run a household... Chu Ge said in surprise: "Are you sure today had anything to do with him?"
Qiu Wuji sneered: "He was waiting outside to cut off their escape, and you beat him to playing the hero, that's all. When we left at the end, he sent someone out to put on a show — it covered up that we were ever there, and dumped the whole mess in his brother's lap... Oh, and the man he used was the one who tried to assassinate him last time. So he must be his brother's man."
Chu Ge strung the information together in his head and was a little awed: "This move of Qiren's... it's a clever one."
"Mm." Qiu Wuji said, "Those amusing espers were the ones he hired to stir up trouble — set aside where you stand and the deed itself is rooting out evil, which is why people who look like they belong to the good camp were happy to take the job. And since they were hired from outside, it's easy for him to keep his own hands clean."
Chu Ge picked up the thread: "But in reality, him hitting other families' nightclubs and illegal casinos is probably more about underworld competition than anything. We both assumed he'd point the spear at his own brother — his brother tried to assassinate him, after all... Instead he puts on this 'I know the bigger picture' front, doesn't strike at his own, strikes at rivals. Who knows what his old man makes of that..."
Qiu Wuji said: "Bringing the authorities in to hit underworld rivals is a major taboo in the jianghu. I don't know what the rules are in your world."
"Probably about the same," Chu Ge said. "So he has his brother's man be the one to step forward and draw the underworld's fury onto his brother... Round and round, and it's still a fight over the seat."
Qiu Wuji was silent for a moment: "How many birds is that one stone hitting?"
"No matter how many goals he's serving, taken on its own, helping the police bust drugs is unimpeachable justice. Even if Lin Wuyang knew, he'd probably have to praise him for it."
Chu Ge sucked in a breath as though he had a toothache, thought it over for a long while, and then still sent Zhang Qiren a WeChat message: "Pay for my clothes. Two of them."
Zhang Qiren replied quickly: "So you did know I was running this... Weird. I actually can't read you anymore. Where'd you get this badass all of a sudden? If you'd been this badass back then, would we have ended up that shitty?"
Chu Ge said: "And I think you writing novels is the real waste of talent. If you'd been this badass back then, would you have ended up that shitty?"
"It's from writing novels. I plot out plenty of ways for my protagonists to backstab people..."
"I write protagonists who are so good at picking up women. How come I can't do it myself?"
"..." Zhang Qiren had no answer to that. He lurked in silence for a few seconds, then quickly surfaced again: "All right, it's paid. Check your book."
Puzzled, Chu Ge opened the novel app, and a golden banner scrolled across first thing, dazzling his eyes: "Bully With Backup tipped Chu Tian Wu Ji ten million points, becoming this book's Golden Grand Alliance Leader."
Chu Ge sent a speechless emoji, not knowing what to say.
After the platform's cut, that's fifty thousand yuan? No, wrong — minus taxes, even less... Why do I suddenly feel a pang? You're paying me back for clothes, so what are you giving it to Dianniang for? Did you take Dianniang's clothes off?
Zhang Qiren replied with a grinning emoji: "What, does it feel like you're helping me launder money?"
Chu Ge said: "Do you ever stop talking? My clothes are street-stall stuff. Whatever they cost is whatever they cost. What's this for?"
Zhang Qiren said: "Aren't I your reader? You can boss heaven and earth around, but can you boss around how your readers like to tip? And it's not just you — these past few days I've become Alliance Leader on a dozen or so books, Silver ones too. Giving it to you now is late as it is. I mainly held off before because I was afraid you'd read too much into it."
Chu Ge: "..."
Zhang Qiren said: "Brother Chu, whatever you think of me, when Zhang Qiren goes dark, he doesn't go rotten to the core. At least there's one thing I can promise you: in my territory, there will never be drugs."
Chu Ge: "Mm. I believe you."
"That's about it, then. If you ever need to get in touch with me, it's best to call directly and leave as few written records as possible. I'm afraid that if something happens, it'll drag you in too."
Zhang Qiren left it at that and went silent.
Chu Ge stared blankly at his phone for a while, then finally put it away and looked at Qiu Wuji.
Qiu Wuji seemed to have only just caught up with what had happened. She murmured absently: "Why didn't he tip the characters... my Star Value..."
Chu Ge: "..."
Qiu Wuji sniffed, stood up as though life had lost all meaning, then suddenly remembered there was one thing she'd forgotten to do. She tossed Star Value to the back of her mind and patter-pattered over to the cupboard, where she found a glass bottle.
That bunch of roses, which had come through every tribulation along the way and was still intact, remained vivid and dewy-fresh.
Qiu Wuji filled the bottle with water and carefully set the roses in it. She touched the petals lightly with her fingertip and watched as they gave off the fragrance of life.
With the roses set on the coffee table, the dim living room suddenly seemed bright.
On the windowsill, the dog-tail grass still swayed, setting off the lovely roses and lending them luster.
Qiu Wuji blinked a couple of times, and it suddenly struck her that this was a lot like Chu Ge and herself. Her mood lifted, and she said with a smile: "After I go back, you have to take good care of them. Change the water every day."
Chu Ge didn't catch on at once: "Huh? You actually haven't been here that long this time, have you? Was tonight's operation that draining?"
"How much could tonight's little operation possibly drain?" Qiu Wuji said, as though it were obvious: "It's because the life technique that keeps these roses alive costs enormously. You set it that way."
Chu Ge swallowed a mouthful of old blood that nearly sprayed out. Just for this?
Women!
Qiu Wuji sauntered into the room, planning to hide in bed and cross over. Right before stepping inside, she paused mid-step, glanced back over her shoulder with a smile, and said: "Tonight was... a lot of fun."