The passersby were treated to a very peculiar sight.
A man walking down the street with nine cotton candies in his hands, no idea what to do with his arms or legs, with a constipated look on his face.
Trailing beside him came a beauty with long, flowing hair, cradling a single cotton candy and licking it with a smile.
The scene was ridiculous and yet somehow warm. Plenty of people turned to look, and before they knew it they were all wearing the doting smile of an auntie.
"I want cotton candy too." A couple walked past, and the girl tugged at the boy's sleeve: "I want that many of them too."
The boy said: "Don't kid yourself that guy's got pure intentions. However many cotton candies he's carrying now, that's how many little balloons he's going to use once they're home. Wanna bet?"
The girl said: "Isn't that a good thing? If you've got what it takes, go use ten yourself."
Sunk by a single sentence, the boy shut his mouth in a hurry.
Qiu Wuji's ear twitched. Without turning her eyes: "What are little balloons?"
Chu Ge pretended not to hear. In his heart he wanted to crush that guy to death — judging a gentleman by his own petty mind!
Do I look like I'm planning to use ten little balloons?
I don't want to use little balloons at all.
Qiu Wuji didn't press the point. If you won't say, can't I just ask Baidu when we get home? She finished one cotton candy, casually took another from Chu Ge's hands, and kept eating.
Chu Ge couldn't help asking: "You look like you're turning grief into appetite. The book flopped, didn't it..."
Qiu Wuji's sore spot had been ruthlessly prodded. Then something seemed to strike her, and her eyes went dangerous as she glared at him: "Is your will interfering? Is that why nobody's reading my book?"
Chu Ge: "Emmmm... my will is observing, but I never meant for you to flop. Surely it can't have that much of an effect."
"Maybe it's your subconscious! It wants me to flop!"
Chu Ge hugged the cotton candies and tipped his head back, thinking it over for a good while: "I shouldn't have any such intention. My observation is only meant to find out what effect your book can have... Of course, maybe the subconscious reckons it'd be better if it had no effect at all? Not sure... But if my subconscious thinking so could affect reality, that'd be a bit much, wouldn't it? I mean, I didn't actually do anything."
Qiu Wuji stopped talking too, and bent her head to her candy.
Most likely it has nothing to do with his subconscious — I really did just flop, boohoo.
In grief and indignation, Qiu Wuji swallowed a whole cotton candy in one bite, took another, and mumbled around it: "Is writing a book really that hard..."
"You could say it's not hard — those big shots all say it's just a matter of having hands — but this stuff does take talent," Chu Ge said. "If it's really eating at you, I can just add a setting for you — say you've got a knack for telling stories too, and there we go."
"Absolutely not!" Qiu Wuji said. "What I want is to be free of your influence, not to depend on it for everything! And no more stuffing cultivation techniques into me, either, from now on..."
Chu Ge smiled wryly: "Then what about the things you comprehended and the breakthroughs you made in the original plot — do those count?"
Qiu Wuji was briefly at a loss for an answer. At last she said: "Anyway, I want to have something that's different from what you wrote. Does learning to write books myself count?"
"Absolutely it counts." In Chu Ge's view, you eating ten cotton candies already counts... If the book were written that way, readers would be calling it a broken character setting.
Of course, maybe it wasn't enough.
So Qiu Wuji said: "Then — then keep teaching me to write books?"
Chu Ge hmmphed: "Say it — Master."
Qiu Wuji glared furiously.
This time Chu Ge held firm. He tilted his head back to look at the sky and simply ignored her.
Qiu Wuji glared for a long, long moment. At last she softened, and said sweetly: "Master~"
Chu Ge grunted: "I'll teach. Soon as we're home."
"These twenty thousand words of yours — the prose is beyond reproach, it wipes the floor with a whole bunch of writers. But can you think of the key reason why nobody's reading?"
Back home, the two of them sat before the computer, heads close together, looking at the document.
Qiu Wuji had forgotten how intimate a posture this was; her mind was entirely on business: "I spread my divine sense and eavesdropped on some reviews in the mortal world. They said it was a dry ledger of events?"
"Right. Too flat and straight. Say the protagonist leaves the mountain, sees a monster eating people, charges in, bang-bang-bang, kills it, done. Then he walks on, sees another monster, fights again... If it were you, would you want to hear a story like that?"
Qiu Wuji wasn't convinced: "I've read your Journey to the West. Isn't that one long road of slaying monsters and subduing demons? The whole appeal is how they deal with all those different monsters, isn't it? I thought it was wonderful."
"Not exactly. First of all, it sets up a long-term expectation — the journey west to fetch the scriptures — so you're waiting to see what hardships and perils they'll run into along the way. And second, each episode isn't a bare encounter; it has its own little story with its own plot."
"For example?"
"For example, the True and False Monkey King: what exactly happened, which one was the real one, how the truth came out — that's a complete process of suspense. The great classics aren't just deep; their storytelling technique is top-tier to begin with. A story has to be interesting before it can be handed down."
Qiu Wuji's eyes started going in circles.
"And then, a story needs ups and downs, and contrast. You go up and fight, win, then on to the next one — that's boring."
"So you have to lose first, then find a way to win? That's the ups and downs. What's contrast?"
"Mm... for instance, people love to see the pure turn seductive, the wanton turn bashful, the saintly fall — that kind of thing sticks in the memory. Your protagonist goes out into the world and is exactly the same from beginning to end, and every monster he faces is savage and vicious. That's boring..."
Qiu Wuji thought for a long while, then said plaintively: "He who updates ten thousand words a day flops?"
Chu Ge: "?"
Qiu Wuji: "..."
The two of them stared at each other, wide eyes to wide eyes, for quite a while, until Chu Ge covered his face: "This is your idea of drawing inferences from one instance? Fine, so you're not an idiot."
Qiu Wuji hugged her little pig pillow and said nothing.
Both masters thought their disciple was an idiot — each repaid in kind.
"How about this," Chu Ge said after thinking it over for a long time, hesitantly. "Stop worrying about how to make up stories. Really. Try describing something that has already happened — how about that?"
Qiu Wuji sighed: "Writing an autobiography?"
"More or less. I know you're not content to be a mere bit of filler in the book world — you want to create a world of your own. But for now, you can treat it as training. Nothing gets done in a single step. You trained for ten thousand years — what's one book?"
Qiu Wuji said darkly: "That sort of thing could only exist as a side story of yours. How would it make money?"
"I'll pay you," Chu Ge said, repeating the argument he'd made before. "Working for a capitalist is worse than working for me — it's all work anyway!"
"But that's being a housew—"
"No, no — a writing studio is legitimate work! You can call me Boss."
Qiu Wuji didn't know whether to laugh or cry. You really are addicted to stacking buffs, aren't you?
Then again, in the old days an apprentice working for his master was the standard play. Seen that way, learning to write from him and writing side stories for him while training herself seemed fairly normal — an acceptable arrangement.
Besides, he seemed to be getting richer and richer these days. Supporting one more person no longer meant scraping by and tapping Huabei the way it used to, so she didn't need to hurry to find ways to cover household expenses...
But he was her disciple too — why did a disciple not have to work?
So Qiu Wuji asked: "You're learning cultivation from me — why don't you have to do work for me?"
Chu Ge scratched his head: "What cultivation work do you have for me to do? I give you new pills and you still refuse them."
Qiu Wuji was stumped, but pressed on: "Even showing filial devotion to your master means helping with chores! I haven't thought of what yet, but there's always something!"
"Uh..." Chu Ge said cautiously. "Then... how about I give Master a shoulder rub?"
"Get lost!"
"Then... how about you give your master a shoulder rub?"
A moment later Chu Ge was lying face-down on the floor with lumps all over his head, while Qiu Wuji flipped her ponytail and went out to buy groceries.
He really is a masochist.
Still... writing my own autobiography?
Thinking about it seriously, it might actually be interesting. After all, his book has no past of mine in it.
As Qiu Wuji walked slowly on, her thoughts sank into distant memories.
When I first set out on the path of cultivation, quite a few senior and junior brothers courted me... and later, while I roamed the jianghu, there were others too.
At the time my heart was set on the Dao, and I paid them no mind.
Time slipped away, and looking back across ten thousand years, every one of them has lived out their span and is gone.
I thought I had long since seen all there was to see in such things...
And yet now... Chu Ge wishes to court Qiu Wuji.
In the next ten thousand years, will you still be there?
"If I weren't set on figuring out how we can be together forever, I wouldn't bother with any of this power stuff at all." Chu Ge's words welled up in her heart again.
Maybe... he will be.
Other people cultivate first and foremost seeking long life. He alone does it for Qiu Wuji.