Qiu Wuji watched as he deleted the scenes where he interacted with the protagonist, his gaze softening.
Perhaps his initial intention was rather lewd… but as he said, "We'll discuss it from now on," he was doing just that.
Qiu Wuji felt that if he had changed the story before because he was threatened, this meeting didn't seem like it at all; it truly felt like he wanted to do it himself.
Because "this is your life."
Chu Ge didn't continue adjusting the outline; he immediately started writing the new chapter. He felt there wasn't much to revise. The female protagonist was watching from behind; if she wasn't satisfied, he'd have to change it again. What was the point of revising it? Taking a day off was only enough; if the new chapter still hadn't been published by tomorrow, he'd be in real trouble. He'd just write first.
He was writing the subsequent plot about Qiu Wuji's addiction. It was a small side story, but it still had some content—at least a dozen chapters before the addiction developed. The content was confirmed, and it wasn't a particularly thought-provoking or emotionally complex project, which made it easy to write.
Chu Ge typed rapidly, quickly becoming engrossed in the text, even forgetting that Qiu Wuji was behind him.
Qiu Wuji stood behind him, watching, finding the phrases displayed on the screen—"Qiu Wuji said calmly," "Qiu Wuji departed on the moon, his robes fluttering"—awkward and strange. She kept wondering if she would feel incredibly awkward saying or doing those things herself.
What if she didn't speak like that? What if she pressed her robes down to prevent them from fluttering when she flew away on the moon?
Would that be part of the test? Probably not. Major events might correspond, but these small details might not. Perhaps his descriptions of others' actions were accurate, but Chu Ge had already broken through the boundary of reality, and her actions were no longer entirely under his control, so a perfect match was impossible.
Like what she was doing now, it wasn't something he had written.
Seeing Chu Ge so absorbed, Qiu Wuji didn't disturb her further. She glanced around the room, turned, and left.
There was a second bedroom nearby. Qiu Wuji remembered sensing someone was here the last time he came, but today it was completely empty, even the bedding was gone, and only a water glass and other traces of someone having lived there remained on the table.
Did they move out today?
So he felt lonely? So that's why he said, "It's good you came, thank you"?
Qiu Wuji curled his lip. Writing a female protagonist to keep him company—that's perverted. Yes, those perverted practices of demonic cultivators, he wrote them all. What was he thinking? Disgusting.
Qiu Wuji shook his head and walked out of the second bedroom. Standing outside the door, he watched Chu Ge's back as he wrote; his once tall figure now looked somewhat hunched.
He needed to eat…
Just for survival.
The night was deep and quiet. The moonlight, like water, streamed into the living room through the balcony's French windows. The author was writing about the female protagonist, who stood under the moonlight watching him.
"Clang!" The wall clock pointed to midnight.
Chu Ge woke with a start, only then remembering that there was a female protagonist in his house. He turned to look for her and immediately saw Qiu Wuji quietly watching him from the hall outside the door.
The solemn sect leader's robes had been changed at some point, leaving only a simple moon-white warrior's shirt, looking neat and concise, yet even more beautiful.
It was as if a goddess who should have lived in a distant palace had descended to earth.
Chu Ge's heart skipped a beat, but he feigned calmness and said, "What are you standing there for? You could find something to do."
Qiu Wuji said indifferently, "Meditate, cultivate."
"That's right, cultivators are the most patient." Chu Ge stood up and smiled, "You standing quietly by the window, gazing at the moon and reminiscing about autumn, is the most beautiful scene in the book."
Qiu Wuji didn't respond to this. Anyway, this guy's use of beauty in his writing wasn't for any good purpose; the more beautiful the writing, the more it was for the sake of making it easier to seduce her.
Disgusting.
She simply asked, "What can I do myself? Everything is new and fascinating to me, and I need someone to explain things to me. Am I supposed to use my divine sense and spiritual power to analyze its structure again, like last time? What if I break it..."
She paused, then smiled slightly, "You're not exactly well-off either." Chu Ge burst into tears.
That's why she's the woman he poured all his beautiful fantasies into.
This compassion and empathy for ordinary people is the most important element, instead of relying on her status as a cultivator to coldly look down on the masses, arrogant and self-righteous.
And this is towards ordinary people; towards the strong, she's ruthless enough.
He doesn't know if such a woman exists in reality, but ever since she stepped out of the book, she has.
Chu Ge's mood improved slightly. After considering for a while, he clapped his hands and said, "If you want to understand this world, take a two-pronged approach. To understand the world itself, you can start by reading history books; to understand the external reality, you can start by watching dramas."
Then I'll write, and you can read books and watch dramas. Isn't that a bit like... um...?
Qiu Wuji was asking, "I can understand reading history books, but what about watching dramas?"
There was a TV in the living room, which came with the rented apartment. When Chu Ge got broadband, he was forced to use a set-top box, but Chu Ge and Zhang Qiren had never used it—they could just watch dramas online. Who watches TV? Besides, nobody watches many dramas. Does Japanese adult films count?
Chu Ge turned on the TV, feeling a bit awkward. He didn't know which drama to recommend.
He randomly clicked on one to test if it worked...
As soon as he clicked on it, the theme song started playing, and Qiu Wuji's cold voice came from beside him: "Is this... a memory mirror? Or something that can capture and imprison souls?"
You have quite the imagination. Chu Ge wiped his sweat. Luckily, he had written about magical artifacts like the "Record-Recording Mirror," so it wasn't too difficult to explain: "Yes, it's a Record-Recording Mirror. It's like recording a performance on stage and showing it to people far away."
Qiu Wuji paused, "Such a rare and precious treasure used for something so trivial?"
"...Just think of it as something commonplace here."
"But the costume in the Record-Recording Mirror is closer to mine. Are you sure it's from the outside world?"
Chu Ge then noticed that this was a major adaptation of a web novel and chuckled, "Wrong click... But this is interesting for both of us because it's a book like mine that gets adapted for the stage. If someone likes my book and decides to adapt it into a play, then we can see someone else playing you in it."
"I don't want someone else playing me," Qiu Wuji retorted, but he also became interested in watching others act, something he wasn't particularly interested in before. What would it be like if a book like Chu Ge's were adapted for the stage?
Within three minutes, Qiu Wuji's face turned as black as the bottom of a pot.
The drama opened with a man and a woman in bed, passionately kissing. The man was tearing at the woman's clothes, revealing her snow-white shoulders and beautiful collarbones, while the woman responded fervently, panting heavily.
Chu Ge stared in disbelief, backing away.
"I never expected this! What kind of drama is this? Is watching movies on a set-top box just around the corner?"
"Even writing a kissing scene in our online novels gets censored, how can you do this?"
Qiu Wuji's voice was as cold as frost in December: "So you wrote me just for this?"