What He Gave

Qiu Wuji held her breath beneath the pool's surface, feeling a little rueful, though not particularly disappointed. This had been within her expectations.

Minor details, like holding down the hem of her clothes, might be able to defy what was "recorded in the book," but reversing major historical events had always been something of a fantasy.

If she really could change them at will, the entire world would inevitably take a different course from what he had written. Wouldn't everything fall into chaos then?

Strictly speaking, Qiu Wuji hadn't been utterly determined to change the outcome this time-she had known perfectly well that the Poison-Hand Demon Lord had released the centipede, yet she hadn't dealt with it beforehand. She had wanted to observe what it would do. That wasn't the mindset of someone who "must sever the connection." It was an experiment, so its eventual failure was hardly surprising.

She didn't know why she hadn't been more resolute... Perhaps, just perhaps, she had been worried that truly changing things would cause problems on Chu Ge's side? At best, his book might fall apart and lose its readership; at worst, it might affect his health or even endanger him?

She didn't know.

But in the end, she had unleashed her full strength and guarded against a sneak attack, only to be bizarrely "corrected" back into place... She didn't know whether to feel disappointed or relieved.

Qiu Wuji shook her head slightly. She couldn't even untangle her own thoughts, so she stopped dwelling on them and focused on suppressing the poison.

In Chu Ge's setting, the Fallen Dragon Pool had formed when the Elder Azure Dragon fell here. It had left behind a shed scale, then departed once its wounds healed, so the pool was full of the poison the Azure Dragon had expelled from its injuries. The shedding scale suppressed the pool, holding its poison in a balance of mutual restraint.

In theory, this poison shouldn't have been too troublesome. The Elder Azure Dragon had ascended to the Heavenly Realm, and before its ascension, its cultivation had been roughly comparable to Qiu Wuji's current level. If it could expel the poison, then of course she could too.

But Chu Ge hadn't written how long the Azure Dragon had taken, or how much pain it had endured. It was easy enough to imagine that it hadn't been simple. If this stuff forced Qiu Wuji to spend ten thousand years expelling poison, her sect would surely fall apart, and her own path to ascension would be in jeopardy. Expelling it was therefore out of the question. She had to neutralize it.

Normally, anyone poisoned after falling into the pool would get out immediately. But this time, Qiu Wuji not only stayed, she dove deeper. She extended her spiritual sense through the layers of mist and, sure enough, spotted a brightly colored mushroom growing near the edge of the pool's bottom.

It looked poisonous, yet Qiu Wuji smiled instead.

This was what he had written in his later revision: "You find the antidote at the bottom of the pool yourself. It has nothing to do with Chu Tiange anymore."

It fit his "logic," too. Something growing in a place filled with deadly poison was often the antidote. Under normal circumstances, people simply wouldn't think to search the bottom of the pool. Once they did, they could save themselves.

Qiu Wuji swam over to the mushroom and gently stroked it. Its vivid colors clearly signaled poison, yet now it looked rather cute. Rubbing its cap felt like she was smiling as she ruffled Chu Ge's silly head.

Without hesitation, she plucked the mushroom and swallowed it, then flashed away from the bottom of the pool.

She had only just sat cross-legged outside the pool to circulate her energy when she heard footsteps. Chu Tiange stumbled in through the opening the Poison-Hand Demon Lord had smashed earlier.

"Uh... Sect Master? My respects, Sect Master." Seeing Qiu Wuji's deathly pale face, Chu Tiange hurriedly asked, "Are you injured, Sect Master?"

Qiu Wuji opened her eyes and smiled faintly. "I carelessly got poisoned. I'm neutralizing it now. I know you have a Snake Saliva Fruit in your pocket that can counteract poison, but keep it for your alchemy. It's a fine ingredient."

Chu Tiange: "..."

The sect master's ability to divine heavenly secrets was truly unfathomable. Naturally, someone this powerful could cure herself if she was poisoned. There was nothing to ask. Filled with profound awe for his sect master, Chu Tiange murmured his assent and withdrew.

Qiu Wuji watched him leave, knowing that the romantic thread someone had arbitrarily tied between them had now been completely severed.

In theory, this dungeon had essentially been designed for Chu Tiange. Everyone else was merely a supporting character. But since Qiu Wuji was here, she wasn't without benefits either.

The Azure Dragon Shedding Scale itself was something she needed to construct the Four Symbols Formation, but that went without saying. Fortune lay hidden within misfortune: at her level, the process of taking in and neutralizing poison could readily serve as body tempering. And the dragon blood will upon the Azure Dragon Shedding Scale was an excellent resource for tempering her divine soul.

Tempering her divine soul... Qiu Wuji reached out and drew the Azure Dragon Shedding Scale into her hand, stroking the faint traces of blood upon it.

How long could I stay next time I went over?

"This author is ridiculous. Qiu Wuji picked a mushroom herself to cure the poison?" "Is that mushroom the kind of mushroom I'm thinking of?"

"Chu Tiange went through all that trouble, only to go in, exchange a few words with Qiu Wuji, and leave? He got her to notice him as someone with great fortune who was worth nurturing, and that's it?"

"Chu, buddy, blink twice if you've been kidnapped."

"It's over. I thought this was a harem novel, but now it's starting to look wrong."

"Is the author a fucking idiot? Are you screwing with me?"

Chu Ge leaned back in his chair, silently watching the review section explode without replying to a single comment.

This was the inevitable result. When a harem novel set up a heroine getting poisoned, even if it didn't go for the cliché of curing an aphrodisiac, the protagonist should at least go in and help her up, giving them a little intimate contact. Whether the scene worked depended on the writer's skill. Plenty of "gentlemen" had skipped several days' worth of dungeon chapters, waiting for this very moment.

Yet he hadn't written any of it. The heroine's poisoning might as well never have happened. What was the point of setting up this plot, then? What kind of damned harem novel was this?

It was perfectly normal for the readers to erupt. If Chu Ge had been reading this himself, he would have cursed too.

But Qiu Wuji had said no more touching or brushing against each other.

Never mind her forbidding it-Chu Ge himself didn't want it anymore.

Get lost. Who the hell is Chu Tiange? Does he think he's worthy?

Hmph.

Risking his book becoming a total flop because he was jealous of his own protagonist-Chu Ge didn't know whether he was a freak of an author unlike any before or after him. But he didn't regret it.

For Qiu Wuji's vivid, radiant smile alone, he wouldn't regret it.

As for the book's future... That would depend on whether Zhang Qiren's earlier suggestion could work... He could use this to gradually turn it into a "shipping stocks" story, or even drop the shipping altogether and make it a story without a romantic lead, treating every beauty as nothing but bones beneath the skin. That wasn't impossible. There was an audience for it.

Chu Ge even came up with a more radical idea: simply make Qiu Wuji the protagonist and turn it into a female-led novel. The thought made him laugh at himself. Switching to "shipping stocks" might improve the book's performance, and removing romance might bring in a different set of readers. Neither would necessarily doom it; there was still a chance. But turning it into a female-led novel really would be certain death, because this wasn't the women's fiction section.

After laughing to himself for a while, finding a little humor in his misery, Chu Ge finally let out a quiet sigh.

He called it stepping out of the prison he had drawn for himself... But the future was uncertain. This was a gamble.

Besides, nobody wanted to be cursed out by an endless flood of comments...

He shook his head and closed the webpage. Out of sight, out of mind. He picked up the cup on his desk and took a sip. Finding it empty, he stood up to get more water.

The moment he turned around, he saw Qiu Wuji standing quietly behind him. Her gaze seemed to have just shifted from the webpage he had closed to his face.

They stood face-to-face as if frozen, quietly looking into each other's eyes. Chu Ge was still holding his cup, which made him look a little comical, but neither of them noticed.

Something seemed to veil both their eyes, making them hard to read.

After a long while, Qiu Wuji smiled faintly and said softly, "Thank you."

Thanks to Eight-Foot Squid for the 10,000-point tip, Tommmm and Given to Exaggeration for the 3,000-point tips, and Black Feather Kuhane, NYXL, and Just Read Books Why Change Your Name for the 1,500-point tips...