Returning to the Mortal World

Those two words were all Chu Ge needed. His ballache vanished in an instant, as if a little hand had gently rubbed it away.

Qiu Wuji really was a reasonable woman who appreciated kindness. All the fine qualities he had given her hadn't gone to waste.

Feeling thoroughly pleased, Chu Ge went to pour some water and asked casually, "How did things go with the Poison-Hand Demon Lord?"

"I still got poisoned. It feels as though important events correct themselves to follow the course you wrote."

Chu Ge's pouring hand paused, and he frowned in thought.

After a moment, he finished pouring. "Did the poison hurt?"

"Not too much. I neutralized it quickly." Qiu Wuji's smile deepened.

Not a single person in her sect, Chu Tiange included, had asked her that-not even her most loyal elders and disciples.

This had nothing to do with whether he had written it. Beyond the scenes he had laid out, the characters ought to have acted on their own, yet no one had asked.

Because everyone else saw her as a powerful sect master, capable of anything.

Did he see her as a life he had created? "I have a responsibility to help you."

Or... as a woman?

She didn't know, but it felt strange. A feeling of... someone caring whether she hurt?

It made her a little bashful and annoyed, but also a little warm.

Chu Ge sat on the sofa with his glass in his hands, drinking as he thought. "So the plot I write is an inescapable destiny for you, at least when it comes to important events. If I'd written that the Poison-Hand Demon Lord died at your hands instead of his primordial spirit escaping, he probably would have died."

Qiu Wuji asked, "Why did you write that he escaped?"

Chu Ge gave an embarrassed smile. "Relatively strong villains like that need to be kept around as stepping stones for the protagonist. If you killed him too early, I'd have to create another one. There's no need."

Qiu Wuji rolled her eyes.

Chu Ge also noticed that her expressions were much more varied this time. She was becoming more and more vivid.

Qiu Wuji sighed and settled across from him, leaning lazily against the sofa. "So you're our heaven's will. Feeling pleased with yourself?"

Chu Ge considered that for a while, then shook his head. "Maybe I count as heaven's will in your world... but in the bigger picture, no. For instance, I don't know why you can come out here, or whether my novel will flop horribly."

He paused, then smiled again. "Heaven's will brought us together, but I'm not that heaven's will."

Qiu Wuji froze for a moment and said nothing.

Chu Ge suddenly said, "I was thinking about something earlier..."

"Hmm?"

"Can I practice your cultivation methods? I don't actually know any cultivation methods. I made them up. Could I end up inventing a way for myself to cultivate immortality?"

Qiu Wuji found that rather interesting too. "Shall I teach you, then? As long as our bodies are structured the same way, you should certainly be able to learn. The main problem is that the spiritual energy here is very thin. Even if you practice, you won't achieve much."

Chu Ge nodded. "Maybe this spiritual energy restriction is a patch to keep me from being too much of a bug?"

Qiu Wuji laughed. "Have you written so many novels that you think you're a character in someone else's book too? A patch, honestly..."

"No nesting dolls allowed," Chu Ge said solemnly, then smiled. "I'm just saying. We don't even know if I can practice yet. Shall we give it a try?"

"Mm..." Qiu Wuji taught him a passage of cultivation instructions, then asked, "Did you write these instructions?"

"No. The world probably developed them on its own from my nonsense. I copied a little from Daoist scriptures, like the Seven Slips from the Cloudy Satchel. I don't know if that counts..."

"Daoist scriptures from this world... I'd like to read them." "I bought reference materials on those. All sorts of Daoist scriptures. They may just be text, but converted to PDFs, they take up more than ten gigs. They're stored on my computer."

Qiu Wuji didn't yet understand what PDFs or ten gigs meant, but it sounded like a lot, so she wasn't in a hurry. She returned to the subject at hand. "What I just taught you was the mental cultivation method. Now I'll teach you how to circulate qi. You must memorize it carefully. Even a slight deviation can cause trouble, as you should know very well. Our sect's cultivation method is upright and righteous above all others, using the twelve principal meridians as its foundation and the extraordinary meridians as support. Thus..."

"Wait, wait, wait..." Chu Ge asked cautiously, "Where exactly are the twelve principal meridians? How do I circulate qi?"

Qiu Wuji's eyes widened.

Silence.

You wrote this! You wrote that our cultivation method uses the twelve principal meridians!

And now you're asking me where they are!

I thought you knew your stuff after reading several gigs of Daoist scriptures, and you're asking me where the meridians are! Someone like this created our world?

Qiu Wuji really wanted to hit him.

"Don't you dare say I'm bullying you for no reason! Anyone else would beat you up too!" Qiu Wuji finally lost patience, flipped Chu Ge onto the sofa, and gave him a beating. "Where? Where are they? Where are they? You tell me!"

Chu Ge covered his head and took the beating. This time, it didn't really hurt. With her pressing against him and her faint fragrance drifting around him, the feeling was... hmm...

Qiu Wuji had held back her strength. After hitting him for a while, she found it rather pointless herself, so she got up in a huff, snorted, and headed to the balcony for some air.

At a glance, she saw the clothes she had worn last time hanging outside, fluttering in the breeze.

Her mouth slightly open, Qiu Wuji stared blankly at her crumpled stockings fluttering in the wind. They looked as though someone had kneaded them in his hands...

A blush rapidly climbed her cheeks.

When she had left, she had never imagined this would happen. Intimate garments she had just worn against her skin had ended up in his hands moments later... and who knew what he had done with them...

You can't even ask what he did. After all, it looks like he just washed them for you. Can you really beat him up for being kind?

Qiu Wuji held it in for a long time, her lips moving for ages before she finally squeezed out a sentence. "You don't need to wash my clothes anymore. I-I'll do it myself."

Chu Ge came out too and craned his neck to take a look. His expression darkened a little as well.

What was with those stockings crumpled into a ball? Why did they look as though he'd held them and done something with them? He was certain he hadn't!

Could I be indulging a fetish in my sleep?

I'm done for. Another beating... Chu Ge carefully backed away.

Qiu Wuji stared at him sternly for a long while without hitting him. Instead, a thought surfaced in her mind: Can an unattached man and woman really live together without any trouble just because they claim their intentions are pure?

Yes, they can. As long as my conscience is clear.

She drew a deep breath. "From now on, I'll just conjure clothes like these myself. My thoughts were a mess last time, and I didn't think it through... We could have saved that money."

"It's not that you didn't think it through. You deliberately wanted to try living the way people do in this world." Chu Ge had already retreated into the living room, but he was still answering her. "So why go back to conjuring them? If you're going to fit into this world, go all the way."

"You're unhappy about saving money? I said it was a loan, but who knows when I'll be able to repay you."

"My writing payment came in today. I'm not that hard up. Actually, earning over ten thousand a month means I'm doing better than most people, as long as I can keep it steady."

Qiu Wuji finally couldn't resist a cold laugh. "I think you just want actual clothes around so you can do something with them!"

Chu Ge exploded. "I! Am! Not! A! Pervert!"

In truth, even he wasn't sure whether he wanted to do something with them. Logically, he didn't want to at all, but he vaguely felt... if there were no tangible things to see and touch, if everything was conjured, was she still a real person?

The day she had left her clothes behind had affected him far more deeply than her earlier disappearance. That first time had felt like a dream; this time, he had felt the ache of parting.

Fortunately, she had returned quickly, as though she had simply gone on a business trip.

This time, she was more alive than ever, increasingly like an immortal maiden sketched in flat, two-dimensional words who had descended into the mortal world in full, vivid form.

(End of chapter)

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