Qiu Wuji

Chu Ge's rented apartment was quite a distance from the luxurious downtown café. For a webnovel writer who rarely left home, living in the suburbs was hardly different from living downtown. The biggest difference was that the rent was much cheaper.

After grabbing a bowl of fried noodles, he returned to his apartment. It was almost dark, and the little living room was dim.

The apartment had two bedrooms and a living room. Neither bedroom had its lights on, but the clatter of typing came from one of them. The rhythm of dancing fingertips drifted out of the dark room into the equally dark living room. Despite the presence of another person and the sound, the apartment only felt emptier and more lifeless.

That was Chu Ge's writer friend, who shared the rent with him.

His friend had a rather old-fashioned name: Zhang Qiren. When Chu Ge posted a roommate ad on a writers' forum, he had deliberately sought another writer, hoping they could motivate each other. Zhang Qiren had also been looking for a place, and they hit it off immediately. They had been living together for almost six months.

In the end, all that talk of motivating each other turned out to be bullshit.

"Eaten yet?" Chu Ge asked casually.

An answer came from the room. "Threw something together earlier, then suddenly my ideas started gushing like a bladder gone haywire... Huh? You're back already? Did the blind date fall apart?"

"Yep. Just like your bladder." Chu Ge pushed open his bedroom door and was about to go inside.

The typing next door finally stopped. A thin man in glasses appeared in the doorway, tutting as he inspected Chu Ge's blind-date outfit. "Our boy Chu really does have a bit of that Daniel Wu look. What would you rate the girl?"

Chu Ge replied irritably, "Zero."

Full marks if she let you fuck her, zero if she didn't. Standard procedure.

Zhang Qiren promptly gave him an understanding look, full of regret. "You could've at least saved a photo for your buddy to admire..."

Chu Ge said nothing. He thought that if he really had taken a photo, Zhang Qiren would probably ask where he had found an online picture to fool him with. How could a woman that beautiful possibly turn up on a blind date?

Zhang Qiren asked, "What was it this time? Household registration? Money? A house?"

Chu Ge glanced at him, then suddenly smiled. "Because we're unemployed drifters."

Zhang Qiren's grin stiffened a little, and his voice suddenly rose. "What the fuck do those frogs in a well know? Fortunes change! Don't you dare look down on a young... Uh, do you still count as young?"

Chu Ge ignored that last question and simply said, "So keep at it. Swim over to the fortunate side sooner."

Zhang Qiren nodded. "Oh, right, Chu. My new book goes premium tomorrow. Remember to give me a shout-out in your chapter."

"I haven't forgotten. It's on my mind."

"Thanks in advance... I'm, I'm a little nervous." Zhang Qiren rubbed his hands unconsciously and lowered his voice. "The recent numbers... look pretty dead."

He had actually brought up his numbers several times already. Chu Ge also thought the book's prospects looked bleak, but all he could do was repeat the encouragement he had given several times before. "Don't chicken out. This stuff is unpredictable. Some books look wildly popular but barely get any paid subscribers. Others look niche but have loads of die-hard fans... Either way, this is the moment of truth. Getting nervous won't help..."

Zhang Qiren managed a smile. "True. Whatever. It is what it is, whether it lives or dies. If it takes off, I'll have young models at the club. If it doesn't... I'll be the young model!"

Chu Ge said, "...Have you ever considered that being such a sleazebag might be why your books don't take off?"

"As if you're any less sleazy. Who was it who wrote about doing both sisters in his last book-"

"And that's why mine don't take off either."

"So are you still going to write about sisters?"

"Yes."

"...A kindred spirit."

With things weighing on Zhang Qiren's mind, they didn't chat much longer. They each returned to their rooms. Chu Ge brewed a cup of tea, sat down at his computer desk, and opened his document. Apart from going to the bathroom, he didn't move again.

This was everyday life for Chu Ge and Zhang Qiren.

If Chu Ge's blind date hadn't given them something real-world to talk about, they wouldn't ordinarily have chatted even this much. They lived together, yet were more accustomed to communicating online. A common scene was the two of them sitting side by side at the fast-food place downstairs, eating while each held his phone and bantered with the other in the writers' group chat... It was as though they knew each other's avatars better than each other's faces.

Chu Ge seriously wondered whether he would lose the ability to speak if this went on... Part of the reason he had rattled off so much nonsense in front of Gu Ruoyan today was that he had already grown unaccustomed to normal conversation...

Oh, come on. Why am I thinking about her again?

His fingers hovering over the keyboard, Chu Ge considered absently whether he could add a character like her to his book: an intellectual, white-collar career woman... But he was writing immortal cultivation fantasy. The equivalent would probably be a mid- or high-ranking member of some sect, who would then be conquered and bedded by the protagonist... Hmm.

That was a little troublesome, because one of his established female leads already bore some resemblance to that idea-the leader of the protagonist's sect, one of the strongest cultivators in the world. She had already touched the threshold of ascension and was also the most beautiful woman in the world.

Moreover, winning her over was the main focus of the next stage.

Yes, Chu Ge wrote harem novels, and had a modest reputation in that circle.

As a harem writer, Chu Ge knew perfectly well that the key was to give each female character distinctive traits. This female sect leader was aloof, proud, elegant, and domineering. She was actually very different from Gu Ruoyan, but adding a white-collar-style female character to the sect would make the two seem somewhat similar, leaving him hard-pressed to distinguish them.

Enough overthinking. Just write this female sect leader properly. She's the main heroine, after all.

The book had only recently gone premium and had just two or three hundred chapters, so the plot had yet to unfold fully. At this point, the protagonist, Chu Tiange, was still a nobody. An earlier incident had earned him the sect leader's appreciation, and he had been promoted straight from an insignificant menial disciple to an inner disciple. The sect leader even gave him personal guidance now and then. This was the beginning of the protagonist's rise.

At this stage, the protagonist still regarded the sect leader as his teacher and respected her greatly; she, in turn, merely considered him a promising talent and offered him some support.

As for how the protagonist's reverence would later turn into something less innocent, or how the sect leader would develop a taste for a younger man, that would require a long-term plot. But he could already start laying the groundwork.

For example, he could begin revealing aspects of the sect leader's inner world: how she sometimes felt lonely, how she sometimes reflected on what had been missing from her long life of cultivation, whether there was some reason she had never managed to ascend... And so on.

Why would an ancient being who had spent ten thousand years free of worldly desires suddenly fall in love? All of that required groundwork.

Chu Ge really did put care into his writing.

"Qiu Wuji opened the window and gazed at the moon. Moonlight spilled gently over the mortal world like water, illuminating her perfect profile, hazy and dreamlike. She stood lost in thought for a long time, dimly wondering whether ascension would bring her to the moon. If so, would she merely be leaving one lonely place for another, even lonelier one..."

Qiu Wuji's name came from Jiaxuan's Lyrics: "A thousand miles of clear autumn beneath the southern sky; water followed the heavens, and autumn stretched without end." It neatly echoed the protagonist's name, Chu Tiange-another deliberate touch. If Chu Tiange was a projection of Chu Ge himself, then Qiu Wuji was probably the embodiment of all his hopes and fantasies about his ideal woman. He had poured deep feeling into her.

The reason he had told Gu Ruoyan, "Sometimes it's less, but I still made over ten thousand this month," was precisely that his earlier books had flopped, while this one was doing better and better. Characters he poured his feelings into naturally won readers' approval.

"For some reason, the smiling face of Chu Tiange suddenly flashed through Qiu Wuji's mind. That sunny smile was so unusual in the Immortal Dao, where everyone schemed for their own interests. It could lift one's spirits just to see it..."

Chu Ge's fingers flew across the keyboard. The more he wrote, the more he got into it. As the words appeared, he could almost see a breathtakingly beautiful immortal opening her window to gaze at the moon, lost and lonely.

It got to the point where he could almost feel the cold wind from the open window seeping in from behind him, sending a chill down his spine.

Huh? Wait...

My window's in front of me. Why is my back cold?

Puzzled, Chu Ge turned around.

A cold gleam flashed. A deep-blue sword rested against his neck, its bone-piercing chill seeming capable of freezing even his soul.

Chu Ge stared behind him, dumbfounded. A woman in ancient attire held her sword against his neck, her phoenix eyes fixed on his document with murderous fury.

The air seemed to fall still for several seconds-or perhaps only an instant. Before Chu Ge's brain could react at all, he heard the woman say, each word distinct, "If you dare write that I fall in love with that disciple, I'll take your wretched life even if it means the world collapses!"

Chu Ge was utterly stupefied. "Wait, who are you?"

The woman withdrew her gaze from the document and lowered it to the deep-blue sword tip. "Qiu Wuji."

Chu Ge: "???"

(End of chapter)