"Sword and Fairy 3?"
Fang Qiu was just about to close her eyes and let the mood settle before setting pen to paper when Paimon, who had finished grinding the ink beside her, caught sight of the words she had written — and the smile beaming across her face froze solid.
"What's wrong?"
Fang Qiu tilted her head, puzzled.
"Fang Qiu… how does this third Sword and Fairy end?" Paimon asked.
"Heh." Fang Qiu gave her a slow wink, copying Paimon's own move.
"What's 'heh' supposed to mean!"
Watching this adorable Fang Qiu throw her own 'heh' back at her, Paimon pressed a hand to her forehead in defeat.
It was the trick she'd picked up from that bard — the one she'd trotted out to bluff her way clear back when she'd snuck a bite of Fang Qiu's snacks and Fang Qiu had asked about it.
And now Fang Qiu was using it on her.
"Paimon, stop asking. Let Fang Qiu write in peace. Let's just read."
"Didn't Fang Qiu already tell us last time?" Lumine said. "If you know the ending in advance, most of the fun of reading is gone."
"Fine."
Paimon threw a worried glance at the graceful script Fang Qiu had left on the pristine xuan paper, and sighed.
The first two volumes of Sword and Fairy had put her through the wringer. There was no telling whether this one would give the people in its pages a good ending…
It felt like a long shot.
Seeing Paimon and the Traveler each pick out a book and settle onto the bed to read, Fang Qiu smiled faintly and turned back to the characters on the paper.
For this installment of Sword and Fairy, she had decided to write the most classic one of all — The Legend of Sword and Fairy 1.
The protagonist: Li Xiaoyao.
Though when she thought about it, the whole thing was rather funny.
Because she had scrambled the order herself, the third installment had become the first, and the first had ended up as the third.
Awkward, to say the least.
Like the third, the first had also been adapted for the screen back in her past life.
Plenty in that adaptation diverged from the original, but as with the third, the screen version and the source material each had their own merits.
In the original, for instance, the Moon Cult Leader was nothing more than a flat villain, stripped of the characterization a villain ought to have.
The screen adaptation fleshed him out considerably.
Of course, the original was excellent in its own right.
Its pacing was tighter, too — none of that padding a TV series falls back on when it has to stretch itself out to fill the runtime.
Still.
The opening was the same either way. She'd get the opening down first, then take her time working through the rest after dinner, lying in bed that night.
Fang Qiu slowly closed her eyes.
Listening to the sea wind and the wash of waves drifting faintly in through the window, and to Paimon and the Traveler turning pages inside the room, she emptied her mind and began to call up the story of Sword and Fairy from her past life.
A long while passed.
Just as Paimon and the Traveler both turned to look at her in confusion, Fang Qiu opened her eyes, took up her pen, and wrote a passage onto the paper.
If you will never look back, why refuse to forget? If we were never fated, why swear any oath at all?
It was what Zhao Ling'er had said to Li Xiaoyao on their wedding night — and it was the beginning of everything.
The epigraph was done.
Fang Qiu kept writing.
One night.
Li Xiaoyao, robed in white whiter than snow, a three-foot blade of blue steel in his hand, came riding his sword upon the wind to purge demons from heaven and earth.
Every inch the peerless hero.
As he cut the monsters down, one of them broke away and fled, and Li Xiaoyao took to his sword in pursuit at once.
But when he chased it into a cavern, the darkness was too thick to see through, and he slammed straight into the rock wall.
He crashed hard to the ground, and the demons closed in around him.
At their head stood an old hag of a demon.
"Rakshasa hag, steeped in wickedness! Now that I've fallen into your hands — kill me, flay me, do as you please. Say no more!"
Li Xiaoyao stood tall and righteous, fearless in the face of death.
Then a searing pain shot through his ear, and the pain woke him up.
He found his aunt gripping that ear and cursing him out.
"Li Xiaoyao, you itching for a beating? Calling me a Rakshasa hag, are you!"
Then came the usual tirade, the kind that had long since worn calluses into Li Xiaoyao's ears.
So Li Xiaoyao declared that he would be like his father and mother — he'd master peerless martial arts, roam the four seas, and become a hero for the ages.
And so the story of how Li Xiaoyao became a hero for the ages began with a clang: his aunt's frying pan coming down on his head.
Fang Qiu wrote on in silence, and seeing how intently she was absorbed in it, Paimon and the Traveler left her undisturbed.
Lumine turned her attention back to the copy of I Am the Kamisato Clan's Dog in her hands and read on in earnest.
Outside the window, the sea breeze blew softly.
Seagulls wheeled around the ship, letting out cries now and then.
A few of the bolder ones landed right on the mast.
Kaedehara Kazuha set down his book and watched the two seagulls perched up there squawk at each other without pause.
There was no telling what they were discussing.
The sailors were slumped over the rail, faces long with gloom.
Because Miss Fang Qiu had gone straight back to her room the moment dinner was over.
Beidou lay stretched out in a deck chair with one of Fang Qiu's books, drinking as she read.
Not far off, Xinyan tuned the strings of her instrument, looking forward to the song Fang Qiu had promised to write.
She hoped it would be something fierce — real Rock 'n' Roll.
Led by The Alcor, The Crux Fleet pressed on toward Inazuma.
Time drifted by.
Feeling the weariness in both mind and body, Fang Qiu set down her quill.
"Mmm — haaah."
She stretched in her chair, the motion drawing her graceful figure into full, exquisite display.
"Fang Qiu, is it going all right?" Paimon asked.
"Smoothly enough," Fang Qiu said, still working the stiffness out of her shoulders. "Barring anything unexpected, there's a good chance I'll finish the whole thing before we reach Inazuma."
She had meant to say that barring anything unexpected she would definitely finish before they reached Inazuma, but on second thought she decided not to jinx herself, and softened it to a good chance.
"If you finish the whole thing before the Irodori Festival, Miko's going to be over the moon!" Paimon said.
"Fang Qiu, don't cut corners on quality or wear yourself out just to finish before the Irodori Festival. That would cost you more than it gains you," Lumine said.
"Yeah, yeah, the Traveler's right — whatever you do, don't push yourself." Paimon nodded. "I heard a rumor about you back in Liyue a couple of days ago. They say anything Fang Qiu puts out is bound to be a masterpiece, so you can't go trading quality for speed!"
"Don't worry. I won't push myself," Fang Qiu said with a soft laugh.
She knew perfectly well how much quality mattered.
Haste makes waste.
In her past life, plenty of writers' books had died on the altar of frantic mass updates.
Plenty of web novel authors back then wrote no worse than the authors of printed books.
It was only that the former had to post something every day, so it was hardly strange that quality suffered for it.
The latter could wait until they were in the right frame of mind before writing, so of course the results looked more polished.
Of course, the true titans of literature were still to be found among the printed books.
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