A scene worthy of a painting

On their way home from the supermarket, passersby thought they were seeing a well-matched young married couple heading home. The man was handsome and the woman pretty, a pleasing sight. The man carried bags large and small, visibly filled with pajamas, oil, salt, and the like, laden down with purchases; the woman looked fresh and unburdened, carrying only a bag of rice.

At first glance, it seemed perfectly normal. But think about it a little, and something was off...

Who was carrying the rice again?

And that was no small bag of rice. It looked like a hefty ten-kilogram bag. Did everything the man was carrying even add up to that much?

Before anyone could think it through, the pair had strode briskly into the residential complex and disappeared from sight.

"Have you no shame?" Qiu Wuji asked, keeping her eyes straight ahead.

"You already said I was weak anyway." Chu Ge had nothing left to lose. "Carrying twenty pounds is no different from holding an embroidery needle for you. It's called giving more work to the capable."

Qiu Wuji asked, "Can strength-or being able to fight-earn money? Would I need an identity for that too?"

"Yes. You could make money, maybe even become a big shot, but you'd need an identity. Unless you crossed the border and went somewhere war-torn, which would be a little difficult right now, and unnecessary." Chu Ge held his tongue. He had actually wanted to say she could stop worrying about work and let him support her, but he had already made those grand declarations a few days ago. He could hardly take them back now, so he kept quiet, somewhat deflated.

Of course, Qiu Wuji had no desire to live off someone else either. She was already trying to break free of the "Creator God's" "heavenly constraints." Naturally, only an equal exchange would let her exist as an independent individual.

So cooking counted as labor and could cover her rent. Teaching him cultivation did not, because he had given her the cultivation methods in the first place. She was merely returning them to him. In her heart, Qiu Wuji had her own stubbornly maintained dividing lines.

Of course, cooking for someone else was rather beneath Qiu Wuji's dignity... She could only tell herself that she needed to eat too, and that the other party was the Creator God, which made him qualified, more or less... Only then did she grudgingly accept it.

They carried their bags into the little kitchen that never saw any use. Chu Ge's face darkened slightly, and he quietly slipped away. Both annoyed and amused, Qiu Wuji surveyed the kitchen, which was so filthy that even a dog would refuse to crawl through it. The stuff in the seasoning container that looked like salt had clumped together, and who knew which previous tenant had left it behind.

Come to think of it, Chu Ge's and Zhang Qiren's rooms were both fairly clean and tidy, and the living room and balcony were decent too. They seemed to get cleaned from time to time. Why was the kitchen alone in such a state...? Perhaps because neither of them had ever used it?

Watching Chu Ge flee with his face and ears burning red, Qiu Wuji's eyes took on a sly, foxlike glint of amusement. She flicked her slender fingers, white light flashed, and the entire kitchen suddenly gleamed like new.

I'm an immortal cultivator... The Cleansing Technique is only a minor spell.

This Creator God is adorably stupid.

Outside, Chu Ge called to have cooking gas delivered while craning his neck to peek into the kitchen. Its newfound cleanliness surprised him for a moment, but he quickly understood. His gaze lingered instead on Qiu Wuji's back in her office outfit as she bustled about, sorting the seasonings into their containers. The sight of her from behind looked so...

Chu Ge hated that he was such a failed writer, too inept to describe this scene or what he felt.

It was like a pebble dropping into the lake of his heart, sending out ripple after ripple.

Qiu Wuji turned and asked, "Who are you talking to?"

"I'm having someone deliver cooking gas."

"Then why did you stop halfway through?"

"Because I was looking at you."

Qiu Wuji looked as though she wanted to hit him, and Chu Ge fled in a flash.

Qiu Wuji gave a "Hmph" and went back to organizing things.

When she finished and came out, Chu Ge was sitting on the sofa, holding his phone and doing who knew what. Qiu Wuji leaned over for a look. It was the review section for his book on the app.

Qiu Wuji ventured, "Since... since you're getting so much abuse, why don't you just..."

"That's not it!" Chu Ge looked up at her solemnly. "Now I'm the one who doesn't want to write it that way."

Qiu Wuji pressed her lips together, then put on a stern face. "What are you thinking? I meant, why don't you just stop reading the comments?" "I still need to read them." Chu Ge smiled. "People have started fighting."

"Hmm?"

"The single-female-lead and no-female-lead camps heard about it and joined in. They're saying this is how it should be written. 'Have you people never seen a woman before?' 'Only a loser takes every woman he meets.'"

"..." Qiu Wuji shook her head, thoroughly speechless. "I don't understand your world. Arguing over how someone else writes a book... Will their fates be dictated like mine? Why do they care so much?"

"You argue over differing interpretations of the Dao too. It's much the same, really. Everyone has their own ideas. Getting everyone to agree is the hard part."

Although Qiu Wuji found it difficult to accept lumping novels together with interpretations of the Dao, she understood his point. She had only one thought: people in this world really had too much time on their hands.

Chu Ge gazed absently at the reviews and murmured, almost to himself, "This is strange. My book only recently reached the premium subscription benchmark, and it's still pretty obscure. How did it reach people outside its usual audience...? Readers who prefer no female lead shouldn't even know about my book. Why did so many suddenly come over to argue the moment I wrote something controversial, and not even all that controversial?"

Qiu Wuji reacted immediately. "Is someone helping you?"

"That shouldn't be..." Puzzled, Chu Ge checked his site messages. There was no notification of a recommendation, so the influx had not come from a promotional slot. He checked some third-party forums too, but there were no related discussions. That was normal enough. All he had written was someone saving themselves from poisoning without any romantic tension. Such a trivial matter might get him yelled at in his own review section, but it hardly warranted an argument on a forum.

But that made it even stranger. Where had those people heard about it?

"How strange." Chu Ge shook his head, still baffled.

Qiu Wuji asked, "Is it good or bad for you?"

"Good. If my existing readers stopped reading and no new ones came in, I'd be dead for sure. But here are the new readers, aren't they? Though I don't know how many will stick around." Chu Ge put down his phone and turned to her with a smile. "Anyway, whether it's a blessing or a curse, I can't avoid it. I'll just keep writing."

Qiu Wuji nodded without saying anything more, though a small pang of guilt stirred in her heart.

She really had caused him a great deal of trouble... But there was no helping it.

Chu Ge had long since stopped agonizing over it. "Speaking of which, why are you reading my reviews? The history books you asked for a couple of days ago have arrived. Those are what you should be reading."

Qiu Wuji followed his gaze and found a neat stack of books in the corner. She went over, picked one up, and examined its cover. "Five Thousand Years of Chinese History... Your civilization really is young."

It isn't even as old as I am.

Chu Ge wore a strange expression and held back for a long moment. "All right, I get it. You're an old lady."

Qiu Wuji's gaze turned dangerous.

Chu Ge said, "All that stuff in your world is just us writers making things up. We throw around tens of thousands or hundreds of millions of years to give it a sense of ancient grandeur. If you really examined it, a cultivation world that's tens of thousands of years old but still looks exactly as it did tens of thousands of years ago, with no development or change in its civilization, is what doesn't make much sense... But that isn't important. Cultivation novels are about cultivation, not social change. If you want to read about social change, there are other books for that. No need to look for fish in a tree."

Qiu Wuji looked thoughtful.

Chu Ge rose to his feet. "Time for me to write... I'll write, and you'll read. A scene worthy of a painting."

Just as he was congratulating himself on delivering such an impressive, evocative line, the doorbell rang. "Gas delivery!"

The atmosphere shattered, and the mundane business of daily life came rushing in.

Seeing Chu Ge's embarrassed expression, Qiu Wuji could not help laughing.

On the other side of the city, Zhang Qiren closed a thread on the No-Female-Lead Forum, which Chu Ge had never paid attention to. "Brother, this is all I can do for you."

(End of chapter)

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