"How is this classical Chinese? Huh? How is this classical Chinese?" Qiu Wuji grabbed Chu Ge by the collar, grieved and furious. "This is plainly vernacular! I only used a little parallel prose for the scenery!"
Chu Ge's head was aching a bit too.
Calling it classical Chinese was definitely wrong. Her style was really ancient vernacular — the same vein as the Four Great Classical Novels. Open Journey to the West and the first chapter drowns you in poems and odes until your head spins, but most of the narration and dialogue is still fairly plain speech. By today's standard you could at most call it half-classical; there's still a gap between it and real classical Chinese.
Chu Ge certainly didn't expect much of a result from a style like that — but he hadn't expected much to begin with, so he'd just let her post it.
He just hadn't expected it to get bounced back. It couldn't even get into the catalog.
After all, he wasn't an editor or on the review team; everyone's standards for a manuscript were different.
"When it comes down to it, that opening stretch of scenic parallel prose is just too much. There's no need to show off that savagely — just honestly write 'a towering green mountain' and be done with it. But no, you had to go and plant 'here is a fu that tells of this scene,' with 'The river stretches away, and who knows where fisherman or woodcutter went; the mist lies deep, and faintly a boy comes home' — a good two or three hundred words of that. Unnecessary. Truly unnecessary..."
Qiu Wuji bit her lower lip, her face stricken and indignant. "I thought about it for ages! The scenery is necessary grounding, too. I've read several thousand years of stories and storybooks, and they all write it this way..."
"Emmmm. Several thousand years of reading..." Chu Ge scratched his head. Put that way, it really was a hard problem. The reading memory and the letter-writing style Qiu Wuji had built up over all those years were deeply rooted; they couldn't be changed just like that. And she'd read hardly any novels in this world — certainly not enough to overwrite a foundation of ten thousand years.
"Speaking of which, didn't you deliberately study my writing style back then?"
"Huh? I was reading the story... Writing style? Isn't writing style just... that?" Qiu Wuji sat on the edge of the bed, staring blankly. "And then I read so many Daoist scriptures and ancient texts too, so it went back again..."
"You adapted to speaking quickly enough. Why can't you do it in writing?"
"Speaking's different — there's an environment for it. Writing can't be like that. You wouldn't put the things you say in the group chat into a book either — 'Lulu, give me a hint'..."
Chu Ge: "...Fair point."
Qiu Wuji looked wronged. "So am I supposed to read like mad to find the feel of modern prose?"
"How about this: if you set aside your own style and deliberately imitate someone else's, could you manage it?"
"I could try. Imitate yours?"
"You're posting on the women's channel, so imitate a big name from the women's channel. The women's channel cares about beautiful prose too — it's just that the way they're 'beautiful' is different. Study that," Chu Ge said. "If you imitate me, then you'd have to post on the men's channel."
"What's the main difference between the men's and women's channels? Female protagonist versus male protagonist?"
"It's a difference of perspective, of who the reader slips into. And a difference in priorities: the women's channel puts more weight on relationships, the men's channel on career. Though that's not absolute — the women's channel has plenty of strong-female-lead career novels, and the men's channel has its share of romance fluff. But the details are still different — perspective, way of thinking..."
Qiu Wuji's head was swelling. "Stop, stop, stop..."
Chu Ge had to say: "Every trade looks simple from the outside, but once you dig in there are all kinds of tricks. That's what 'each trade is a mountain apart' means. You can't even tell the men's channel from the women's channel, and you're sure you want to keep writing?"
Qiu Wuji thought for a moment. "You people really do slice things finely, with subdivisions for different readers. Over on our side... hey, tell me — if I don't publish here, but take it over there to publish and spread, would that count? With this Sect Master's influence, it'd be easy enough to make it known throughout the world in ten days or so... I could even find some people who study the Dao of Books and put our heads together..."
Chu Ge's mouth slowly fell open.
So she writes a book over there, and the book builds a world inside itself — it's nesting dolls all the way down...
"Let me try it first? If it doesn't work I'll come back and think of something." Qiu Wuji said, a little embarrassed, "Um, I've stayed quite a long time this time. I'll go back for a few days first?"
That tone of asking his opinion gave Chu Ge a small, pleased feeling.
After all, I'm the head of the household!
Chu Ge didn't press her. He patted her shoulder. "Go run your test. I don't have high hopes, but I'm curious. I hope you succeed."
Qiu Wuji said nothing, only stared stiffly at his hand.
Chu Ge awkwardly pulled it back.
Qiu Wuji shoved him toward the door. "Out, out — I'm going back."
Only then did Chu Ge remember that whenever she went back now, she had to hide on the bed because her clothes fell away. The very thought stirred something in him, and he blurted out: "That protagonist name of yours really doesn't quite work over in that world. How about I change one character?"
Qiu Wuji couldn't quite follow his jumping train of thought. "Change what?" she asked, puzzled.
Chu Ge turned back and changed one character in the document: "Chu Muqiu."
Then he looked over and smiled. "How's that?"
Qiu Wuji stared blankly at his smile, and something strange stirred in her heart too, something she couldn't put into words.
Isn't this just "Chu Ge wishes to court Qiu Wuji" all over again, said over and over in new variations?
Hmph.
She turned her head away. "All right, all right, so you can write books. Get out — I'm leaving."
Chu Ge reached out and caught her slender hand. "In our world, saying goodbye calls for at least a handshake."
Qiu Wuji let him hold it, let him knead it twice, and said nothing at all.
Qiu Wuji went back.
Chu Ge stood in her room, looking at the computer she'd even forgotten to shut down, and thought that this time she'd gone back rather like someone fleeing a disaster — hurried, flustered.
Was that really necessary? It's not like I'm going to yank off your blanket.
Chu Ge breathed in the faint fragrance left on his hand, his eyes coming to rest on the document on the screen, and sank into thought.
In his own setting, the Dao of Books in that world definitely couldn't reach the level of creating worlds — far from it. The most such cultivators could do was summon a book spirit or two, or use the properties of written characters to produce certain spell effects.
Even in his own planned outline, not even the ascended heavenly realm could create worlds through the Dao of Books. That was a method belonging to the supreme act of creation; only the protagonist could possess it, or someone at the level of the final boss — and in this book's setting it didn't exist at all.
So if Qiu Wuji went back hoping to create worlds and stack nesting dolls, she shouldn't be able to manage it. She couldn't break through the limits of her world.
So the nesting-doll problem could be set aside. What Chu Ge was really wondering was this: he had never written that Qiu Wuji writes books, so what exactly was the nature of what she was doing now — going back, writing a book, and spreading it across the world?
It would definitely have some influence and change the world somewhat... it just shouldn't affect the direction of the plot. Would a change of that degree cause problems?
This was part of the test too.
Who knows whether Qiu Wuji thought of that layer... judging by how she ran off, probably not.
Chu Ge felt like an overworked parent.
Yeah... a parent ought to do a parent's job! Chu Ge glanced left and right like a thief, sat down in front of the computer, and opened Qiu Wuji's hard drive and browser.
So which 'car' did you actually watch last time, and what kind of weird stuff are you searching for day after day — let Dad have a look!
Mm... the car, here it is...
Chu Ge clicked it open for a look and nearly sent the mouse flying.
This damn thing is an M-type guy getting whipped and broken in with a leather crop?!
No wonder her reaction that day wasn't as violent as I imagined — instead she just looked me up and down with that utterly bizarre gaze... So that's it!
Sure, I didn't get beaten that time! But that's not a good thing, damn it!
And I've never even watched that kind of thing myself!
Chu Ge was so furious he nearly coughed up blood. He pulled open the phone's group chat: "Whoever sent Sect Master Qiu that M-porn the other day — step up and die!"