Water Follows the Heavens

"There's an air conditioner remote in your room. Right, it works just like the TV remote. If you're hot, you can turn it on instead of sneaking off to wash."

Early the next morning, Chu Ge explained this to Qiu Wuji, who was sitting on the sofa.

"Mm. Mm-hmm." Qiu Wuji sat there with her gaze wandering toward the pajamas Chu Ge had taken off and draped beside the sofa.

He said he was going running and had deliberately taken his shirt off.

Lecher.

His muscles were all flabby. Hideous.

"Sss..." Chu Ge raised his foot to step onto the treadmill. He hadn't even started, yet his whole body ached so much he could barely move his legs.

"Could I skip training today?" Chu Ge asked tentatively.

Qiu Wuji gave him a sidelong look. "Is this why your running artifact turned into a storage artifact?"

Chu Ge: "..."

"That happens when you suddenly start exercising after a long period of inactivity," Qiu Wuji said. "If you'd had a massage to loosen everything up after training yesterday, it would have been better. But you went straight off to shower."

Chu Ge was in too much pain to keep going. All he could say was, "Can anything still be done about it?"

Qiu Wuji looked at his bare torso, her eyes flickering.

Of course there could. She only had to improve his circulation and clear the stagnation. Under her immortal arts, not a trace of soreness would remain.

But that brought up a particularly infuriating question. Grinding her teeth, Qiu Wuji asked, one word at a time, "Why can all my immortal arts work at a distance except healing? Explain that to me."

Chu Ge's eyes darted around as he backed away step by step.

Did that really need explaining?

Hadn't she noticed how male leads on TV could heal men through their clothes, but had to strip women to heal them?

We authors wrote our books the same way. Everything else could work at a distance to show off the wonders of immortality, but not healing. The closer the contact, the better. Taking clothes off was even better... Otherwise, you'd suffer cultivation deviation. Absolutely.

One look at his face told Qiu Wuji everything. She said sternly, "Go patch it. I know you can change this."

"Even if I change it, I'd have to show it in the later chapters. Something like this wouldn't be in the outline or settings. There's nowhere to edit it."

"So right now, I have to touch you to heal you?"

"Seems that way..."

"Then heal yourself." Qiu Wuji rose with a cold laugh. "You can ache to death for all I care."

"Hey, hey, wait." Putting on a shameless smile, Chu Ge said, "I'm cultivating to figure out the secret of your crossing over sooner, too. Every day counts... If this soreness holds me up for a few days, you'll be gone again. We'll waste so much time going back and forth..."

Qiu Wuji looked at him irritably.

"It's only healing. Completely aboveboard..."

"You're not so sore you can't move. How do you think other people exercise? Trying to fool me? Get lost!"

Qiu Wuji lashed out with a kick, but Chu Ge fled before it landed and climbed onto the treadmill.

Of course he could run while sore. How else did everyone else manage it...? Sure enough, fooling the old lady wasn't that easy.

Chu Ge sighed and started running. Qiu Wuji looked at his bare torso and curled her lip again. Quietly, she reached over and snagged the pajamas he had left beside the sofa, secretly casting a spell to turn the little doll design on the chest into a crying face.

Mm. Now it looked different. Much more pleasing to the eye.

Feeling thoroughly refreshed, Qiu Wuji quietly put the pajamas back and went into the kitchen to make breakfast.

Breakfast was simple: rice porridge and fried eggs. Qiu Wuji thought she ought to look at some cookbooks from this world. Otherwise, wouldn't she be missing out on quite a few sights?

A cultivator's calm temperament gave her patience. She had never felt an especially urgent desire to go out and learn more. Chu Ge was actually more concerned about that, feeling she was learning too slowly and remained confined to a single apartment. Qiu Wuji didn't see it that way. She felt she hadn't yet taken in all the sights within this apartment, so why speak of an entire world?

Her lifespan was long. She had time.

Perhaps watching a white-haired Chu Ge a few decades later would have its own pleasures.

Qiu Wuji had long since grown indifferent to birth, aging, sickness, and death, so the thought was perfectly normal. Yet as she dwelled on it, her brows began to furrow...

The idea of him growing old and dying seemed... not very good.

Mm. It must be because the Father God of Creation couldn't die. Better get him cultivating sooner, then.

"I'll take you out to get a phone today, and we'll hunt down a secondhand laptop."

After breakfast, the sore and listless Chu Ge wrote and uploaded another chapter, then headed out with Qiu Wuji again, grimacing in pain.

He still hadn't noticed the change to his pajamas.

Watching him struggle to walk, Qiu Wuji felt a little conflicted. "You could stay home, rest, and write. Nothing else is urgent." "I think it's pretty urgent. You're learning about this world too slowly. How much have you read?"

"I've read about someone very much like you."

"Who?"

"Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, Li Longji."

Chu Ge: "?"

How had she made that connection? What about him was like me?

She must mean his wise and valiant younger years. Mm, she had a good eye.

Qiu Wuji turned her head away. "A phone is that artifact you use to speak across great distances? To call someone to deliver liquefied gas and such?"

"Right. These days, though, it does much more than let you talk across great distances. It combines all sorts of things. Modern people can't do without one. Once you get it, you can take your time exploring."

"Is it expensive?"

"They'll give you a basic one if you top up your phone credit. As long as it does the job."

"Then what does 'secondhand laptop' mean?"

"A secondhand computer. A laptop would be more convenient, but if you like a desktop like mine, that works too. Secondhand because it's cheap. I can't afford a good one right now... Anyway, we'll see once we get there." Chu Ge said, "My computer is my work tool, so I can't let you have it. Otherwise, I'd have had you surfing the internet ages ago. You can absorb information much faster that way than by watching shows. And if you want to earn money by writing, this is a prerequisite."

Qiu Wuji hesitated. "It all sounds like it'll cost quite a bit. Spending like this, how many days will your new royalties last?"

"Aren't we counting it as a loan to you?"

"Are you deliberately making me owe you more, so eventually I'll have no way to repay you?"

"Huh? You even know that trope?"

"Pah." Qiu Wuji snorted. "Do you know the simplest way to repay a debt of gratitude?"

"Hmm?"

Qiu Wuji put on an icy, murderous expression. "If you die, I won't have to repay it."

Chu Ge grinned. "That's not my Qiu Wuji."

Why did I have to be your Qiu Wuji?

Qiu Wuji opened her mouth, but before she could speak, Chu Ge pulled her into a China Telecom store.

Chu Ge's own SIM was from China Mobile, so getting a second line with China Telecom using his own ID was perfectly normal. Everything went smoothly. Topping up the account got him a low-end phone, which he casually handed to Qiu Wuji.

"Remember this. It's your number," Chu Ge whispered into her ear.

His breath tickled her ear as he leaned close. Qiu Wuji wanted to push him away, but she feared too obvious a movement would attract attention.

She gripped the little pink phone tightly and memorized the string of digits that belonged to her, knowing she was becoming more and more like a person of this world...

Yet his was the only name in her contacts. Even behind her own phone number was the imprint of his identity.

And his intention of "I have a responsibility to help you" was being put into practice, earnestly, step by step, even though he wasn't well-off.

-That was my Qiu Wuji.

Somewhere deep down, she began to feel that if he asked again for healing to improve his circulation, perhaps she should just do it... Seeing him grimace and struggle even to walk really was unpleasant...

Suddenly, she wanted to go back... This feeling... wasn't very good.

Yet this time, her soul's stay had clearly lengthened again. Even after she followed Chu Ge to buy a secondhand laptop and returned home, Qiu Wuji felt no sign that she could no longer hold on and needed to return.

Should I go back of my own accord?

There didn't seem to be any reason to run away, did there?

I might as well make him a few more tasty things...

"This thing is called WeChat. I can transfer money to you like this." Chu Ge was helping her set up various apps and transferred a few hundred yuan along the way. "When you go grocery shopping, use this to scan the code. You've seen me do it plenty of times, so you should understand?"

"Mm."

"Oh, right. Pick a WeChat ID." Chu Ge craned his neck to look at WeChat on her phone. "Does our Sect Master Qiu have any ideas for an impressive nickname?"

Qiu Wuji did want a nickname-not to sound impressive, but to deliberately distinguish herself from "his Qiu Wuji."

But she thought and thought for a very long time without coming up with anything. Her fingers slowly searched for characters, imitating the way he typed, and in the end, without her realizing it, her ID became:

"Water follows the heavens; autumn stretches without end."

(End of chapter)