The Novel

"Eat up."

At the dining table, Lin Zhishui sat beside She Xilu and casually put a chicken wing in her bowl. "Why did you get up so late today? Did you stay up late last night?"

"No..."

She Xilu shook her head in confusion, then lowered her head and eagerly bit into the chicken wing. It scalded her at once. She jerked her head back, hurriedly stuck out her tongue, and drew in several breaths of cool air.

"Slow down." Lin Zhishui pushed his glass of ice water over to her. "Your period isn't due for a few more days, right? A little ice water won't hurt."

After taking the glass, She Xilu froze for a moment, then looked at him, her face burning red. "Y-you even... keep track of... that? P-pervert..."

Lin Zhishui laughed. "What's the big deal? I even know your bust measurement. Otherwise, how do you think the things I buy you fit so well?"

She Xilu's little face reddened further, and she instinctively hunched her shoulders to hide her chest.

"Don't slouch." Lin Zhishui patted her back, making her straighten her spine.

She Xilu murmured an acknowledgment and tried to sit up straight, though she still kept her head lowered as she ate.

Only after a while did she say, "I... I had a really... really long nightmare..."

"Another nightmare?" Lin Zhishui sounded puzzled. "Didn't Han Suxin's hypnotherapy work last time?"

She Xilu thought about it. "This n-nightmare seemed... different again..."

"What did you dream about this time?" Lin Zhishui asked curiously.

She Xilu stopped eating and spent a long while trying to recall it, looking lost. Finally, she said, "Before, I always... always dreamed about that snake. Last time, I dreamed about that... that well, with black liquid pouring out of it... This time, I... I dreamed about the inside of that well."

"The inside?"

Hearing that, Lin Zhishui gently prompted her. "What was inside?"

If he learned a little more, he could ask Han Suxin when he had the chance. Perhaps she knew what psychological state would cause dreams like these.

She Xilu bit her lip, recalling the dream as she spoke. "Inside the well, there were... lots of bodies... There was a black dragon, a colorful deer with l-lantern-shaped antlers, and the bodies of all sorts of strange c-creatures. Those bodies were all... all clogging up the well..."

The corner of Lin Zhishui's mouth twitched. "A colorful deer with lantern-shaped antlers? Isn't that the mythical beast from your first novel, the Seven-Colored Divine Deer?"

As She Xilu's first reader, he had naturally read quite a lot of her work. Back then, he had been especially keen to win her over, so he needed things they could talk about.

Little Snake's first book had been an utterly ordinary cultivation fantasy, the sort that attracted no interest even after more than a million Chinese characters. She had been writing to an empty room the whole time. Its setting elements-the Creation of Heaven and Earth, ancient Immortals and Gods, the reign of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, the Heaven-Connecting Jianmu, the Heavenly Court, the Moon Palace, Spirit Mountain, and so on-were nothing new, and they were far too convoluted.

With no standout setting or ideas, all she could rely on was the plot.

The trouble was, her plot was also incredibly boring, her prose was rather immature, and it had a female protagonist modeled after White Snake. Posted among male-oriented cultivation novels, it attracted even fewer readers.

Apart from detail-obsessed sticklers like Lin Zhishui, probably no one could keep reading.

In truth, even he hadn't lasted more than a few tens of thousands of characters.

He had only reached out to chat because he discovered that the author herself was rather interesting. Despite having no readers, she persistently left encouraging comments for herself in the review section every day. He thought it was so pitiful that his sympathy got the better of him.

The book was still terribly written. Back then, he had only skimmed through it, skipping around. After all, it was over a million characters long. Reading it carefully would have been pure torture.

Man, winning a girl over really wasn't easy.

"S-Seven-Colored Divine Deer?"

She Xilu paused, then said in realization, "I guess it was..."

"All right, I get it. Looks like writing has scrambled your brain." Lin Zhishui rubbed her head and said with exasperation, "So the reason you dreamed about that snake might also be that you wrote a novel with a snake as the protagonist?"

When she had first started writing, her prose had been rather poor, and she hadn't written much about the heroine before she took human form. He hadn't known exactly what kind of snake the heroine was, so he had simply treated her as White Snake.

"I guess so..."

She Xilu nodded, looking a little bewildered. "I... I can't remember clearly either. It's been... been years. Maybe I was thinking of using... using a black snake as the heroine..."

Lin Zhishui laughed and pinched her soft cheek. "You flop authors really do think in strange ways. Someone else has White Snake, so you come up with Black Snake?"

She Xilu pouted slightly and murmured, "I... I was just following my whims and letting my imagination... run free..."

"It's too clichéd."

Lin Zhishui smiled as he continued, "And all those world-ending calamities and Outer Demon invasions are so boring, too. All that fighting and killing isn't popular anymore. No wonder your book flopped."

"Then why... why did you finish it..." She Xilu shot him an aggrieved look, then lowered her head and went back to shoveling rice into her mouth.

"Because I like you, obviously. You're such a clam whenever we chat that I always have to find something to talk about. Otherwise, I wouldn't have read it."

Lin Zhishui suddenly grinned. "Besides, I remember your first book ended in tragedy. The heroine actually got chopped in half trying to save the hero? And all you gave her at the end was an open ending about reincarnation... Holy shit, were you taking revenge on society? Good thing it flopped. With no readers, nobody got that far, or they'd have been furious."

"I wasn't..." She Xilu gave a soft huff. "I thought writing it that way was... was more realistic. Doesn't tragedy... touch people more deeply?"

"That's not touching their hearts. That's blowing their hearts to pieces."

Lin Zhishui rolled his eyes and casually wiped a grain of rice from the corner of her mouth. He was about to throw it away, but when he noticed her looking over, he deliberately put it in his mouth instead.

She Xilu had just been about to argue, but when she saw what he did, her face flushed. Unable to speak, she silently turned back to her food.

"Do you want to talk to Han Suxin about your situation yourself?" Lin Zhishui asked as he ate. "You can't keep having nightmares like this. Let her help you."

"N-no need..." She Xilu murmured, sounding reluctant.

"Up to you, then." Lin Zhishui said casually, "I'll send you her personal WeChat contact later. Add her if you want. Just put down that you're my wife in the request, and she'll accept. Then you can explain your dreams, what might be causing them, and everything else, and ask her advice."

"I'm not..." She Xilu pouted slightly.

"What did you say?" Lin Zhishui glanced at her.

She Xilu hurriedly said, "N-nothing..."

Lin Zhishui smiled and tapped her forehead with the thick ends of his chopsticks before going back to eating.

After they had eaten for a while, he suddenly said, "Oh, right, rent's due again this month. How about we move somewhere nicer?"

"No need. This place is... is pretty good..." She Xilu shook her head slightly.

"All right. Saving some money is good, too. We can buy our marital home sooner."

Lin Zhishui smiled. "By the way, I made quite a bit again today. Is there anything you want? You can buy whatever you like, as long as it isn't eighty or a hundred thousand."

His mention of a marital home had turned She Xilu bright red again. She kept her head down and concentrated on her rice, timidly saying, "There's... there's nothing I want..."

"Then I'll transfer you ten thousand, and you can buy something yourself," Lin Zhishui said casually.

She Xilu blinked. "I'll... I'll have money soon. You don't need to."

"You'll have money soon?" Lin Zhishui asked in confusion.

"My... my new book is really popular, and it's almost ready to go paid..." She Xilu spoke softly, but with a hint of pride. "I'll get lots... lots of royalties. Then you can help me s-save it... together..."

Blushing, she had wanted to say they could save up together to buy their marital home, but she still couldn't get the words out.

"Really popular?" Lin Zhishui laughed. "How popular?"

She Xilu bit her chopsticks and thought for a moment. "My editor said it might be the s-second most popular in the platform's history..."

"That impressive?"

Lin Zhishui stared in surprise. "I haven't read your books in ages. Are you that good now? What's that thing you authors say when you get popular... Oh, are you about to ascend to godhood?"

"Hmph." She Xilu gave him a reproachful look and said quietly, "You don't... don't care about me at all..."

"Hahaha, mainly it's because I've been busy practicing calligraphy this year, so I haven't read many novels. Besides, whenever I think about how silly you are in real life, it really ruins the reading experience, so I can't keep going," Lin Zhishui said, unable to hold back his laughter.

He couldn't help feeling happier and happier.

His own "career" was getting on track, and his Little Snake's new book was a hit, too. Two blessings at once.

PS: A huuuge thank-you to everyone for the tips and recommendation votes~~ There are too many names, so I'll put up a separate post later to thank you all individually rather than take up too much space here~