An accidental success

Qiu Wuji could not withstand Chu Ge's strange gaze.

She felt as though that gaze could melt a person, like some bone-dissolving acid, leaving her uncomfortable all over. Her instinctive response was to beat him up, but then she wondered whether hitting him when he had done nothing would be going too far... Neither option felt right, so she simply stamped her foot and headed out. "I'm going grocery shopping. Go write your novel instead of sitting there staring!"

Chu Ge laughed. "As you command."

Qiu Wuji really no longer needed someone to accompany her grocery shopping. In an excellent mood, Chu Ge returned to his room, switched on his computer, and began clattering away at the keyboard.

She said my writing was great!

Chu Ge felt as though he had inexhaustible energy.

A lot had happened yesterday, but however much had happened, only a day had passed. He had saved just under half a chapter before bed last night. Now inspiration gushed like an uncontrollable bladder, and he soon finished a chapter and uploaded it. He felt he could keep up his streak of ten thousand words a day, perhaps even more.

Chu Ge thought this might have something to do with exercise and cultivation-his mind had become much sharper. Before, he could struggle for ages and still fail to squeeze out a chapter. Now the writing truly flowed.

Those writing machines must all be in pretty good shape, Chu Ge thought.

After uploading the chapter, he checked his subscription figures while he was at it-and froze.

Since the homepage feature began, his average chapter subscriptions had risen by over a thousand...

He had only recently passed the three-thousand-subscription "quality title" threshold, then grown a little more, reaching roughly 3,500. This surge had taken him straight past 4,600, and it had only been one day. There was still room to grow!

Even compared with other novels receiving homepage features, this was an unbelievably fantastic number. Plenty of authors failed to gain even two hundred in a day.

This...

Even Chu Ge himself thought it seemed a little unreal. He scratched his head and puzzled over it, unable to understand. It made no sense... Sure, there were precedents where books with little promotional exposure early on suddenly soared after getting a major recommendation. But those people wrote well. He had clearly started letting himself run wild in the later chapters. Could that produce the same effect?

These results fed into one another, creating a snowball effect. Chu Ge opened the bestseller rankings, and sure enough, gaining over a thousand average subscriptions in a day was reflected very clearly on the real-time chart. His book looked poised to charge straight into the top ten.

He did not know how long it would last, but this was exposure too-and major exposure at that.

Once this snowball started rolling, future growth became even harder to predict. It had already gone beyond what an ordinary recommendation could be expected to achieve. Maybe ten thousand average subscriptions would soon be within reach?

Chu Ge practically scratched his scalp raw and still could not see what was so amazing about these later chapters. Never mind the romance; just the fact that the protagonist had been sidelined so much should not normally have been a good thing...

After thinking for ages, he could only conclude that his recent flood of updates deserved some of the credit.

Provided quality did not suffer, extra updates definitely made a big difference to a book's performance. The site also had an update-volume leaderboard. If he kept this up and made it onto that, it would be another nice source of exposure. Back when he had been such a slow typist, he could only drool over the prospect. Now it seemed he could actually make a push for it.

Thinking of it that way, his future really did look bright?

How strange. He had never expected any of this, so how had things turned out this way... Was this really an accidental success?

The only thing slowing him down was the difficult damn path he had chosen. The more he wrote, the more the story felt like an ensemble cast, which was a huge headache and hard to handle. But things had come this far, so he could only grit his teeth and keep writing. Whatever their commercial results, well-written ensemble stories usually earned a good reputation.

Who cares? If I die, I'll die with my dick pointing skyward. I kept writing before without checking the dashboard, so why start fretting over gains and losses now? There was no need to waste so much energy on this. Chu Ge took a deep breath, closed the dashboard, and opened his document again to write the next chapter.

This stretch of the plot saw upheaval sweeping across the entire world. It really did need careful polishing.

In the section he was writing now, the narrative did not focus much on Qiu Wuji. It merely mentioned that she was "assigning tasks to her disciples while honing herself in seclusion, putting everything into preparing for her battle with Yan Qianlie."

Only to serve his own private agenda had Chu Ge added another sentence: "Her divine soul grew ever more solid, and her soul fragment roamed abroad to observe the changes beneath heaven, enduring without exhaustion."

This was not merely to tell readers that Qiu Wuji's seclusion would not prevent her from keeping up with developments in the story. More importantly, of course, it was to let her stay here a little longer... So the creator god was not omnipotent. Even these personal indulgences had to be added gradually in keeping with the plot. He could not simply boost her actual strength with a forced stroke of the pen.

Now he had finally added it.

Yet as he wrote, Chu Ge suddenly frowned slightly, his fingers pausing.

When was she honing herself in seclusion?

She was here visiting bars, watching performances, reading novels, and scrolling through videos.

If this continued, would it affect her strength and jeopardize the battle?

The book had decreed that she would win. In theory, her victory should be certain, yet he could not quite shake his unease.

Surely nothing would go wrong?

The thought left him unsettled. The soaring results had not disturbed Chu Ge's calm, but now he could no longer sit still. He pulled out his phone and sent Qiu Wuji a WeChat message: "Where are you?" Qiu Wuji was scanning a code to pay at a beef stall in the market. She had discovered a market in the opposite direction from where Chu Ge usually went. Everything was cheaper than at the supermarket over there, and looked better too. She had no idea why Chu Ge always went to the supermarket. What a blockhead.

Today she planned to make stir-fried beef with potatoes. She had never heard of potatoes back in her world. That blockhead was rather particular about his writing, saying this crop had been introduced from foreign lands and would look out of place in an immortal cultivation setting...

How dull. Who cares about that? Look how many things you've kept me from eating.

Just as she was thinking this, she suddenly felt her divine soul becoming increasingly solid. Saving Moon Shadow last night had used up considerable strength, which should have shortened her stay this time. Now she felt none of that at all. She almost had the illusion that she could stay as long as she wished.

In a very good mood, Qiu Wuji scanned the code and paid, a smile unconsciously curling her lips.

No need to guess. He's been tinkering with the book again, slipping me more benefits.

She herself had not realized that her former resentment toward his ability to casually alter her body and powers was steadily fading.

The WeChat notification sounded just then. Qiu Wuji tapped Chu Ge's pretty anime-girl avatar and curled her lip.

"Where are you?"

With the bags of potatoes and beef hooked over her little finger, Qiu Wuji used voice input as she walked. "At the market."

"Can you come back now? I'm a little uneasy."

"Why? Did we overlook something with Moon Shadow that might bring trouble our way?"

"No... I remembered that you're cultivating less while you're here. Could that put you at a disadvantage when you return to your own world? The more I think about it, the more uneasy I get."

Qiu Wuji paused, then laughed again. "Ha..."

She turned to look at the crowd around her and said with a smile, "We'll talk when I get back."

Before long, Qiu Wuji arrived home. The door was open, and she immediately saw Chu Ge fidgeting on the sofa like a monkey. Seeing her enter, he came over and took the groceries from her hands.

Qiu Wuji said, "I forgot I don't have a key. Get one cut for me later."

"You're still in the mood to talk about that?" Speechless, Chu Ge set the groceries aside and asked very seriously, "What do you think about what I said earlier?"

Qiu Wuji's lovely eyes shifted toward him. "What if I said I wanted to go back and train?" she asked languidly.

Chu Ge pressed his lips together. Though reluctant to part with her, he still said, "That would be good too. At least until the fifteenth day of the seventh month..."

"Ha..." Qiu Wuji could not help laughing. "Isn't heaven's will supposed to be inviolable? How could I lose a battle you've already decided I'll win?"

Chu Ge snapped, "That's exactly what I'm afraid you'll think, and then you'll underestimate your enemy and act recklessly. Could you win even if you didn't make a single move and just stood there letting someone hit you? We're still testing how this so-called heaven's will works. We haven't reached any final conclusions yet, all right? And you're already-"

"All right, all right, stop scolding me." Qiu Wuji smiled faintly. "Do you really think I'd think that way? Aren't I your Qiu Wuji? Don't you know me anymore?"

Chu Ge: "..."

"Whether heaven's will decrees my victory or defeat." Qiu Wuji's smile faded, and she said earnestly, "I am Qiu Wuji. I will always do everything in my power to defeat every opponent."

Chu Ge said helplessly, "Then what are you doing now...?"

"Chu Ge... You write stories. You can define our cultivation, but you aren't truly an immortal, so it's difficult for you to grasp its subtleties." Qiu Wuji said calmly, "You yourself wrote that perceiving and savoring every detail around you, missing none of the scenery along the way, is cultivation-not sitting motionless in seclusion, oblivious to the passing years and ignorant of the mortal world. You wrote that. It's the definition you gave us, and it resonates deeply with me. But when you actually encounter it, you can't put yourself in our place and understand..."

Her smile blossomed again. "Does the Father God truly not know that I'm cultivating right now?"

Chu Ge stood dumbfounded for quite a while. Was that how it worked? I suppose I did write that, but...

Qiu Wuji turned and carried the groceries into the kitchen, her high ponytail bouncing. "Perhaps you're simply... too worried about me to think straight?"

(End of chapter)