Chu Ge was itching to give it a try. He really was intensely curious about his own power; the wish to understand it thoroughly had been rooted in him for a long time.
He glanced at Qiu Wuji, and Qiu Wuji nodded.
Figuring that with Qiu Wuji there to hold the fort nothing could possibly go wrong, Chu Ge relaxed, sat down, and put on the helmet. "How do we do this?"
Zhong Yi pressed a button on the side. "You'll feel mental pressure. Fight it with the same mental feeling you use when you normally drive your power. The moment the load gets too heavy, just shout stop."
As he spoke, Chu Ge did feel a kind of mental oppression. The sensation was... a little familiar—like when Qiu Wuji got angry, and one glare from those eyes could set your soul sea churning.
Fight it with the feeling I use to drive my power... I've never driven my power in my life. Does that sense of looking down from on high I get now and then while I'm writing count?
Chu Ge tried his best to recall that feeling, but he couldn't get the hang of it.
That feeling had always come by accident; he had never managed to summon it on purpose. And he wasn't sitting in front of his document writing now—there was no plot in his head at all—so it was even harder to get hold of.
But the mental pressure kept growing, as if he stood alone on a vast plain while ten thousand horsemen charged down at him, the killing intent so towering it shook him into shivering—legs too weak to run, dangerously close to wetting himself, and when he wanted to scream, no sound would come.
This was no illusion; it was only a direct analogy for mental pressure. Push pressure past a certain threshold and a person snaps.
Qiu Wuji turned serious, watching Chu Ge's tightly clenched fists.
If you can't take it, back out. What are you trying to prove?
She turned her head and glanced at the meter beside Zhong Yi. The dots of light on it were leaping: one star lit, then two, with ten more still dark.
Zhong Yi was saying, "Two stars, relatively low, but not bad—a bit above entry level... Huh?"
The stars began flickering wildly—now one, now two, three, four; there was no pinning the number down.
Caught inside that immense pressure, Chu Ge closed his eyes.
All that ten-thousand-horsemen business was just his own head conjuring it up. It was no different from the night before a paid release, waiting on the numbers—pressure too heavy, too many scenarios spinning in his head, unable to sleep and unable to write a word.
Focus. Calm down. Think about the plot—maybe that'll do it...
What today's next chapter had to cover was... Lu Yuanzhang secretly drawing in Purgatory Fire, and Qiu Wuji cutting down a dragon soul with one sword.
"ROAR!"
The armies in his head became a hideous fire dragon, searing heat sweeping in as though the very next second would reduce Chu Ge to drifting ash.
Chu Ge opened his eyes.
Layers of cloud and mist seemed to rise before him again, as if he were gazing down from an unimaginable height at green mountains and running water below, so tiny they could barely be made out.
Beneath the green mountains, in the Cloud Horizon Sect's underground sanctum, the person facing the dragon's jaws was Qiu Wuji.
One sword in her hand, piercing the stars.
Before he could look any closer came a zzt-zzt sound—the equipment had shorted out.
Chu Ge pulled off the helmet, stunned, and found Zhong Yi wearing the face of a man who had seen a ghost.
All he had seen was the stars flickering every which way, and then the machine had burned out.
What is this?
Mental strength off the charts, blowing past what the equipment can take? What is this, Dragon Ball?
No, that's not it. However the stars flickered, they never crossed the four- or five-star line—the rest never lit at all. Meaning his mental strength, however unpredictable, tops out around four or five stars.
Then how did the machine short out? Does he have an electricity power?
Qiu Wuji stood to the side with her arms folded, giving Zhong Yi a sidelong look. "The Black House has exactly one rule: no member's circumstances may be leaked to an outsider, no matter who it is. Isn't that right?"
Zhong Yi's mouth hung half open. He stared at the smoking instrument, and only after a good while gave a dazed nod. "Yeah."
Having wrecked their equipment, Chu Ge hadn't the face to linger. He grabbed Qiu Wuji and beat a retreat first. "Uh, let's get together another day, ha. If I have to pay for the gear, emmmm, next time there's a job on the list, give me a shout and I'll take a look."
And with that he bolted.
I can't afford to pay for that. What good did showing off do me...
Zhong Yi forgot even to say goodbye. He looked at Chu Ge's fleeing back, then at the shorted-out equipment, like a man sleepwalking.
He really had never imagined that someone could short out the test machine, and then that he himself would be unable to work out why.
Would telling Chu Ge's mother count as leaking it to an outsider? Better not say anything for now. If those two compare notes, I'm the one in the wrong either way.
Zhong Yi was not an official. At least one thing he had told Chu Ge was no lie—his contact with the authorities mattered to him only so that this goofy little group would stir up less trouble, not more.
"Forget it." Zhong Yi stroked his chin, thought for a long while, then suddenly laughed. "That's really interesting."
Chu Ge rode the electric scooter out of the Black House with Qiu Wuji, and along the way found himself in a cold sweat.
The pressure earlier had been almost tangible. It really had been unbearable—he had no idea how he had held on.
"Say..." he asked, a little dryly. "From where you were watching outside, could you tell what happened?"
Qiu Wuji sat on the back seat playing with the mask. "Of course I could," she said casually. "Your mental strength is around the fourth or fifth stage, but because your spirit is anchored in another world, the feedback comes out looking very unstable. That's all. Nothing complicated about it."
"Then how did it blow out the test machine? I saw you—was that you doing it?"
"Not me, and not really you either. How could your spirit have materialized to such a degree?" Qiu Wuji said unhurriedly. "It was only that so-called brainwave sensing. A whole world took it for an incursion from beyond its borders and defended itself, and the signal rolled back on the machine..."
Chu Ge: "..."
Qiu Wuji thought it over, then smiled. "Or shall I put it in a way that sounds much more impressive? That brainwave was holding out against the power of an entire world. We're lucky it didn't explode."
Chu Ge said, "That world... even when I'm not typing, it can still take form inside my head?"
Qiu Wuji shook her head. "I don't know. That's a question we'll have to keep exploring forever. But one thing is certain: what builds that world is you, not your computer—so what does it have to do with whether you're typing or not? Do you think my Father God is a computer, or a document? It's you, Chu Ge."
Chu Ge mulled it over in silence and rode on.
That sounds incredibly badass.
The two of them each turned things over in their own heads and said no more, riding in silence all the way to their apartment complex.
Chu Ge parked the scooter and laughed out loud. "A vehicle owner at last! The more I look at this little scooter, the handsomer it gets."
Qiu Wuji found the little donkey easier on the eyes every time she looked at it, too.
Our own little baby, after all.
Wait—who's "ours" anything with you?
Qiu Wuji jabbed the elevator button in a huff and rode up; the moment they were through the door she slammed Chu Ge against the wall and said through gritted teeth, "When you dragged me into that rotten group of yours, were you hiding the same filthy meaning that fat guy was talking about?"
Chu Ge was utterly floored. A moment ago they had been on a topic that lofty—how had the whole art style flipped the instant they got home?
He would have loved to drive his fist into Panda's fat face. "How could you listen to that damn fatty's stirring? If it really is 'Qiu Wuji spears Ge,' then you're the one who wears the gear—uh, no—what the hell am I even saying!"
Qiu Wuji hauled him up by the collar and flung him—hurling his whole body into the room like a cannonball. "Go do your meditation! Starting tomorrow, you go to the Black House and practice two hours every day!"
Chu Ge hit the floor with a thud and groaned, "Wait, I need to take a shower first..."
"That can wait an hour!"
Qiu Wuji scooped up her clothes and darted into the bathroom. "Because this Sect Master has requisitioned the bathroom! Anyway, if you sneak a shower in the middle of the night, I'll be eavesdropping just the same—so there's no difference."
The instant the door shut, Chu Ge still caught her muttering, "Shameless lecher."
That night, listening to the splashing water next door, Chu Ge's meditation was a mess of restless thoughts.
I am absolutely not picturing what Qiu Wuji looks like in the shower! I'm contemplating a problem of philosophy and mathematics: why does a woman need a whole hour to bathe? Just two extra lumps of flesh—why several times the time?
This profound question troubled Chu Ge deeply, and he could not work it out for the life of him.
Write and stockpile chapters?
That had been forgotten beyond the ninth heaven ages ago.
Back at the Black House, Panda kept refreshing the book page, on the verge of tears. "There really is no fifth chapter!"