The two of them quickly settled back into their daily routine of cooking together and grinding out chapters; that vicious wanted fugitive might as well have been an insignificant little interlude.
The upheaval it stirred up seemed to have nothing to do with them at all.
It was the reader group chat — which had nothing to do with any of it — that ended up passing around the related news: "Wanted serial killer apprehended; enthusiastic citizen acts bravely for justice."
What set the group talking wasn't the arrest itself, but the street photo some other enthusiastic citizen had snapped of the brave enthusiastic citizen: in a shot of truly heartwarming image quality, a crooked-headed Huluwa was grinning from ear to ear.
"He's got a great build even in a mask," was the group owner's fair and objective assessment. "This enthusiastic citizen must be really handsome."
"??? Big Chu, is your focus maybe a little off?"
"Gay bros, confirmed..."
"Chuchu, my Chuchu~"
Chu Ge: "?"
"Who are Bu Jingyun and Jian Chen?"
"We're both. Look at the group name."
"Chuchu, my Chuchu~" was pinned as a featured message by admin Qiu Wuji.
Chu Ge: "..."
You don't even know what the meme means, and you go pinning it? You think the name alone is funny enough?
"Rong Fu's mind has completely gone. He's dopey and vacant — ask him anything and all he says is cultivation." Lin Wuyang called in to report. "This time, forget keeping it under wraps from anyone — even I don't know what's going on."
"Uh..."
"I told you not to hit him so hard. You pound a man's skull like that, of course he comes out simple. You're lucky you didn't beat him to death. Thank god this one's a serial killer who'd deserve to be shot on sight — anyone else and you'd be in real trouble."
"Yeah, yeah, noted. I won't be so hotheaded next time."
"Even so, the current situation is still a bit of a headache. The good-samaritan commendation is off the table, obviously. There might be a bonus, but not much. The bounty for helping catch a wanted fugitive, though, is decent — that comes from the top, and they won't shortchange you. A hundred thousand. So when are you treating me to dinner?"
"In your dreams." Lin Wuyang said, "Be content with that. Think about how many words you have to sweat over to earn a hundred thousand."
"Hiss... now that you mention it, you're right. Should I consider making money this way from now on?"
"There are already people like that — new-era bounty hunters, I guess. They think they've got some special ability, and they don't stop to think this is a job where you keep your head tied to your belt." Lin Wuyang sighed. "Speaking of which, I do want to give you and Black House a warning. Rong Fu's already like this, so the revenge had better end here. If you set your sights on the Wang family, I'm afraid the criminals will end up being you."
Chu Ge gave a soft huff and didn't answer right away.
Lin Wuyang knew what he was thinking too. The one behind it all got off clean, and only a knife got broken — it left a bad taste. And what if they came again? Thinking like that was understandable, but the law didn't support it.
In theory there wasn't even evidence yet that the Wang family was behind it; the police couldn't draw that conclusion.
And whose fault is it that you beat Rong Fu into an idiot? Now even getting evidence is a pain.
He sighed. "You need to know where to draw the line."
"I won't make things hard for you." Chu Ge smiled. "I'm not the type to stir up trouble in the first place."
"Mm." Lin Wuyang did believe Chu Ge wasn't the troublemaking type; his worry was that Panda and Wan Zijun would come out of the hospital still burning and unable to let it go. On second thought, going on about it with Chu Ge was pointless — Chu Ge was just an off-the-books guy in a mask, not even a core member. A real talk with Zhong Yi was the way to go.
Lin Wuyang hung up, and Chu Ge trotted next door to show off his prize. "I made a hundred thousand by accident!"
Qiu Wuji had actually had an ear cocked the whole time, and her expression was frankly envious. A hundred thousand, just like that — this line of work pays fast. Why didn't I think of that before...
Of course, before, she'd had no ID, so she couldn't have earned that money anyway. She knew that Chu Ge's question just now had been partly asked on her behalf. Now it seemed she really could make that kind of money...
But somehow she just couldn't be bothered. Her autobiography was barely past its opening. "A hundred thousand is a hundred thousand. It won't even buy a bathroom — what's there to gloat about?"
Chu Ge: "..."
Qiu Wuji tugged at the hem of his shirt. "Come see if my opening is a little better now?"
Chu Ge leaned over and took a look. "My name is Qiu Wuji. I was born to a farming family, utterly unremarkable..."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa?" Chu Ge was startled by what he saw. "Your style — not only is it getting colloquial, you've figured out how to play with first person!"
Qiu Wuji tilted her head up and thought it over, then smiled. "Because I'm really remembering. It's like telling someone about the past — speaking the memories out..."
"Good, good... but isn't there something a little off here?"
"Huh? What's off?"
"A farming family wouldn't come up with a name like Qiu Wuji. And how could someone as naturally beautiful as you be unremarkable?"
"...That doesn't seem to be my problem." Qiu Wuji looked at Chu Ge with scorn. "Being poor from childhood is a certain master's original text. What holes the derivative story has is your problem."
The literary master took a direct slap to the face, his cheeks burning. "A scholar's business — how can that count as a problem? This is called a BUG. They're unavoidable... As for unremarkable, ahem, it's a perfectly good word, a good word. I'm pretty unremarkable-looking myself."
Having lost face thoroughly, Chu Ge scooted back to his own room to type.
Qiu Wuji watched him flee, a flicker of curiosity in her eyes.
Today, while writing, Chu Ge kept finding excuses to wander over for a lap and toss out a couple of offbeat remarks — very different from the way he used to put his head down and just grind out chapters.
What's gotten into him?
Mm, maybe it was just the new literary-master role making him conscientious.
Come to think of it, Chu Ge's praise had made this opening seem halfway decent. Full of energy, Qiu Wuji put pen to paper and wrote furiously. Strange, though: when she invented stories herself, she had no sense of what to linger on and what to skip, and she'd grind out every last detail until it turned dull and flavorless. But when it came to recalling the past, she knew exactly which things deserved a few more words and which could be breezed past.
Some of it was from countless years ago and she'd long since laughed it off, and she knew to write less about the boring bits — sitting in the sun picking lice — and more about how the family was bullied by the village landlord, how often her mother took ill, how hard her father toiled, how she'd run the household while still small, cutting her feet bloody in the fields at such a young age, and how she'd sit on the edge of the field looking at the heavy heads of grain and smile in contentment, dreaming of buying a single piece of candy from the peddler at New Year — so sweet.
It led on into what came after — her tears of outrage when the fields were seized by the local bully, the agony of her parents dying one after the other, her terror of being taken by the bully and her flight alone into the mountains... The emotion seemed to burst right off the page, even to Qiu Wuji herself.
So I did have a home once.
That was when I wanted to learn martial arts and cultivate, to wipe out all the injustice in the world...
Her luck, in truth, had been good. She had wandered the mountains seeking immortals, and an immortal patted my crown and asked, "Little girl, would you follow me and learn the sword?"
Qiu Wuji pulled her mind back from the manuscript and was startled to find it already dusk outside the window.
She let out a soft breath.
This was a backdrop Chu Ge had glossed over in a single stroke of the pen — and yet it was the vicissitudes of the mortal world that she looked back on from ten thousand years away.
This is my life — the brand cut stroke by stroke into the depths of my heart... What does it have to do with who created the world?
Qiu Wuji suddenly felt that this was not writing practice at all — it was cultivation.
Someday, I will be me.
Suddenly the smell of food drifted in from outside. Qiu Wuji blinked, sniffed, and confirmed it was coming from the kitchen — not takeout.
Listening closely, she could hear stir-frying, too.
Utterly astonished, Qiu Wuji slipped out and peered around the doorway.
Chu Ge was clumsily scrambling eggs, and beside him the rice cooker was bubbling out steam — the rice was done.
Qiu Wuji stared blankly at his back and, without meaning to, pressed her lips together.
Perhaps sensing eyes on him, Chu Ge turned and saw Qiu Wuji hanging on the doorframe, peeking at him; with that little look of hers she was like a "secretly observing.jpg" QQ emoji — absolutely adorable.
Chu Ge grinned. "You were really in the zone, and I didn't want to disturb you. Ordering takeout seemed kind of pointless... mm... I can't do anything else, but scrambled eggs shouldn't turn out too bad. Come try some?"
Without thinking, Qiu Wuji blurted, "It's definitely going to taste terrible."
"Shoo, shoo, let me." She stepped up, nudged Chu Ge aside, and took over — only to find there was nothing left to take over. The eggs were done.
Qiu Wuji silently plated the scrambled eggs, unsure what to call the feeling. Maybe now she could taste a little of what Chu Ge felt when he watched her cook — it was very soft.
However bad it tasted, she had the feeling she could clean the plate.
Ten thousand years crossed, two worlds passed through — and it seems the me of now has a home too?