From Now On

Qiu Wuji watched him delete the few scenes that brought her and the protagonist together, her gaze growing gentler.

Perhaps his original intentions had been pretty sleazy... but just as he had said, "We'll discuss it together from now on," he was putting those words into practice.

Qiu Wuji felt that even if he had revised his writing before because she had threatened him, this meeting really did not feel that way. It truly seemed that he wanted to do it himself.

Because "this is your life."

Chu Ge did not continue adjusting the outline for later chapters. He went straight to writing the next chapter. He felt there was little point in revising the outline now anyway. The female lead was watching right behind him; if she was unhappy, he would have to change it again. Why bother? He had only taken one day off. If he still could not post a new chapter tomorrow, he would really be screwed. Better to write first.

He was writing the upcoming storyline in which Qiu Wuji was poisoned. This was a minor adventure arc, and there was still quite a bit to cover-at least a dozen or so chapters before the poisoning. With the content settled, and neither profound ideas nor delicate emotional entanglements involved, it was easy to write.

Chu Ge's fingers flew across the keyboard. He soon became so absorbed that he even forgot Qiu Wuji was behind him.

Qiu Wuji stood behind him and watched. Lines appearing on the screen like "Qiu Wuji said coolly" and "Qiu Wuji departed through the moonlight, her robes fluttering" struck her as awkward and strange no matter how she looked at them. She kept wondering whether, when she went back and said those words or made those movements, she would cringe so hard she fell out of the sky.

Come to think of it, what if I simply refused to speak that way? What if I held my robes down as I flew off through the moonlight, so they couldn't flutter?

Would that count as part of the test? Perhaps not. Major events might correspond, but little details like these might not all match. Maybe the actions he writes for other people do correspond, but I've already broken through the boundary and glimpsed the truth. My actions aren't entirely under his control, so naturally they can no longer match perfectly.

Just like what I'm doing now-he didn't write this.

Seeing how absorbed Chu Ge was, Qiu Wuji did not interrupt him again. She glanced around the room, then turned and walked out.

There was a second bedroom next door. Qiu Wuji remembered sensing someone in there during her last visit, but today it was empty. Even the bedding was gone, though a cup and other traces of someone having lived there remained on the desk.

Did he move out today?

So that's why Chu Ge felt lonely? Why he said, "You came at just the right time. Thank you"?

Qiu Wuji pursed her lips. Writing a female lead to keep himself company-wasn't that perverted? Of course, he had written all those twisted antics of the demonic cultivators too. What on earth filled his head? Disgusting.

Qiu Wuji shook her head and left the second bedroom. Standing outside the door, she watched Chu Ge's back as he wrote. His frame, which could normally be considered tall and sturdy, looked a little hunched now.

He has to put food on the table...

He's only trying to make a living.

In the stillness of the night, moonlight spilled like water through the balcony's floor-to-ceiling windows into the living room. The author was writing his female lead, and the female lead stood beneath the moonlight, watching him.

"Clang!"

The clock on the wall struck midnight.

Chu Ge snapped out of his trance and remembered that there was a female lead in his home. He turned to look for her and immediately spotted Qiu Wuji in the living room beyond the doorway, quietly watching him.

At some point, she had changed out of her solemn sect leader's robes. Now she wore only a simple, moon-white martial tunic. It looked neat and practical, yet made her seem even more beautiful.

She was like a goddess who should have been in some distant palace, taking mortal form and descending into the human world.

Chu Ge's heart gave an involuntary leap. Pretending to be calm, he said, "Why are you standing there like that? You can find something to do yourself."

Qiu Wuji said coolly, "Quiet contemplation. Cultivation."

"Right, cultivators are better at being patient than anyone." Chu Ge stood up and smiled. "You standing quietly by the window, gazing at the moon and reflecting on autumn-that was always one of the most beautiful scenes in the book." Qiu Wuji refused to take the bait. This fellow had no good intentions when he wrote about beauty anyway. The more beautiful he made her, the more satisfying it would be to get her into bed.

Disgusting.

She merely asked, "What can I do by myself? Everything I see is unfamiliar, and I need someone to explain it a little. Am I supposed to do what I did last time, using divine sense and spiritual power to analyze how things are constructed? What if I break something..."

She paused, then smiled faintly. "You aren't exactly well-off either."

Chu Ge all but burst into tears.

Wasn't that exactly why she was the woman I'd poured all my beautiful dreams into?

Her compassion and empathy for ordinary people were among her most important qualities. She did not use her status as a cultivator to look coldly down on the masses from some higher plane, full of self-importance.

And that was how she treated ordinary people. Against the powerful, she could be ruthless enough.

He did not know whether such a woman existed in reality, but ever since she had stepped out of his book, one did.

Chu Ge's mood brightened further. After thinking for a while, he clapped his hands. "If you want to understand this world, let's take a two-pronged approach. To understand the world itself, you can start with history books. To understand life out there today, you can start watching TV shows."

Then I'll write while you read and watch shows. Doesn't that feel a little like... hmm...

Qiu Wuji was asking, "I understand reading history books. What do you mean by watching TV shows?"

There was a television in the living room, supplied with the rental. When Chu Ge had signed up for broadband, he had also been forced to take a set-top box, but neither he nor Zhang Qiren had ever used it. If they wanted to watch a show, they could just watch it online. Who watched television? Besides, neither of them watched many shows anyway. Did Japanese action films count?

Chu Ge turned on the television and found himself rather stumped. He had no idea what show would be suitable to recommend.

I'll just pick something at random first and see if it works...

But the moment he selected something, just as the theme song began playing, Qiu Wuji's cold voice came from beside him. "Is this... an image-recording mirror? Or does it capture souls and imprison spirits?"

You certainly have an imagination. Chu Ge wiped away his sweat. Fortunately, he had written about magical treasures such as image-recording mirrors, so this was not too hard to explain. "Yes, it's an image-recording mirror. Basically, it records and preserves performances on a stage, then broadcasts them for people far away to watch."

Qiu Wuji stared. "A treasure so rare and precious, used for something so pointless?"

"...Just think of these treasures as a dime a dozen here."

"But the people in this image-recording mirror are dressed more like me. Are you sure this depicts life in the world outside?"

Only then did Chu Ge notice that this was a major adaptation of some webnovel. He laughed. "Picked the wrong one... but this is actually rather interesting for you and me, because it's a book like mine adapted for the stage. Suppose someone took an interest in my book and adapted it into a show. Then we could watch someone else playing you."

"I don't want anyone else playing me," Qiu Wuji grumbled. Yet she grew interested in watching other people perform, something she had originally cared nothing about. What would a book like Chu Ge's look like once it was put onstage?

Less than three minutes later, Qiu Wuji's face was as black as the bottom of a pot.

The show opened with a man and a woman tumbling around in bed, kissing with passionate abandon. The man tore at the woman's clothes, exposing a snow-white shoulder and an elegant collarbone.

Chu Ge backed away, dumbstruck.

I never imagined it would be like this! What show is this? Will watching porn on a set-top box soon be a thing?

Our webnovels get censored for so much as a kiss. How can you get away with this?

Qiu Wuji's voice was as cold as midwinter frost. "So you wrote me for this?"

Thanks to Hen Feitian for the 10,000-point tip, Reader 20210514120254011 for the 10,000-point tip, and Qiuyemanyuan Wuxinguanshang for the 1,000-point tip... my deepest thanks to everyone.

(End of chapter)

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