Nine Lives as a Human

As a blade of grass, Xu Chunniang had stubbornly endured through autumn, but as the weather turned colder, each day became harder than the last.

After the first snowfall of winter, she was buried completely, unable to glimpse even a sliver of light.

Cold, darkness, and loneliness weakened her day by day, until she could not move even a single leaf.

Xu Chunniang vaguely realized that she was nearing the end of her life.

The grass upon the boundless plain withered and flourished once each year.

The strength of a single blade of grass was far too feeble. Even if it survived autumn, it could not contend against Heaven and Earth; it could only grow and wither according to nature's laws.

So her unwillingness and struggle had merely allowed her to linger a little longer. They had not freed her from the fate of all vegetation.

More and more snow pressed down upon Xu Chunniang. Powerless, she lay flattened against the ground, recalling the time when she had still been a seed.

Back then, she had thrust upward with vigor, striving to sprout and grow, never imagining that one day she would wither.

Now, she was like a dying candle flickering in the wind, and the flame of her life was soon to go out.

Xu Chunniang suddenly understood. As a blade of grass, both life and death were things she had to experience.

All things had beginnings and endings, life and death. Such was the fixed course of fate.

From the moment she had been a seed, her ending had already been decided.

From life to death, born toward death.

Death had never been the end of life, but a new beginning.

Xu Chunniang spread her leaves and waited for death to descend.

In the endless darkness, her consciousness