Catching a Blade of Grass

August, a season that could roast a person to death.

Ten-thirty in the morning, the scorching sun shone through the window, spilling onto Bai Yang, who was sleeping without a blanket, and waking him up with a literal burning sensation.

This guy had graduated from university two months ago, and without any constraints, he was like a wild horse off its tether, sleeping until he woke up naturally. As for counting money, he could only do that in his dreams.

"Is there even a way for a person to live?"

He got up in a daze, feeling covered in sweat, muttering complaints as he shuffled toward the bathroom in a half-awake, half-asleep state.

After washing his face and brushing his teeth, he finally felt a bit clearer, but upon reaching the dining room, he was speechless—Dad and Mom hadn't left him any breakfast. Was there no justice left in the world?

"My god, even though I'm an adult, Mom, did you have to be so heartless? You could have at least left me something. Am I even your biological child? We agreed that no matter how old I get, in my parents' eyes, I'm still a little Bao Bao who needs to be taken care of..."

After a full, depressed rant, Bai Yang walked to his room with an indifferent expression and took a box of instant noodles out of the drawer.

"You think I'll starve just because you didn't leave me food? You underestimate me too much."

The triumphant Bai Yang used hot water from the dispenser to soak the noodles, carried them to the coffee table in the living room, and let them sit for a while. He flopped onto the sofa in a lazy, "Uncle Ge" style, grabbed the remote, and started clicking through channels. Aside from commercials, there were only brain-dead soap operas, which were infuriating to watch.

"The smoke of war rises, looking north toward the empire..."

His phone rang. Bai Yang reached for it in an extremely reluctant manner, only managing to grab the device ten centimeters away after several attempts. He couldn't help it; the heat was killing him, and even moving an inch was a chore.

He picked it up and saw it was a call from Mom.

"Hello, Mom, do you still remember you have a son?"

"You stinky brat, you just woke up now, right? You might as well just be lazy until you die. I wonder what I owed you in my past life to end up with a son like you in this one... You're probably eating instant noodles again, aren't you? Tell me, when will you ever grow up? The amount of worrying I have to do for you..."

As the saying goes, no one knows a son better than his mother; she had guessed his situation perfectly through the phone.

Letting Mom finish her rant, Bai Yang replied with three words: "Get to the point."

"You stinky brat, is that any way to talk... Here is the situation: you've been graduated for two months now, and you've had your fill of playing. I'm giving you two choices. First, find a job and start working within a month..."

"And the second?" If there was a choice, Bai Yang definitely wanted to hear all the options.

"The second is, if you don't want to work, I think there are a few girls at my workplace who are quite nice. You go and woo one of them to be my daughter-in-law, and I'll cover the expenses..."

"Mom, I choose the first one. I'll go look for a job in a bit, and I'll definitely be working properly in a couple of days. My noodles are ready, that's all, bye..." After saying the last word, Bai Yang decisively hung up the phone.

He wiped the sweat from his forehead. That was terrifying. A fine young man of twenty-four like him couldn't just throw his life away like that. A girlfriend was fine, but a blind date aimed at marriage? Forget it, he hadn't had enough fun yet.

He tossed the phone aside, stood up with extreme reluctance, stuck his butt out to pick up the instant noodles from the coffee table, grabbed a fork, shoveled a mouthful into his mouth, and sat back down...

"What the—!"

As he sat down, Bai Yang felt his butt hit nothing, and he landed straight on the floor. The sofa had only been a few centimeters away; how could the drop be so huge?

He fell to the ground, the noodles overturned, and the broth splashed all over him. He let out a howl from the burn, jumped up, and started slapping the scalded areas. The next moment, his movements froze, and the instinctive scream from the burn cut off abruptly.

His eyes stared stiffly ahead, his pupils dilating instantly.

"What is going on!"

A moment ago, Bai Yang had been in his own living room, but now he had inexplicably appeared in a lush, verdant jungle. Ancient trees towered into the sky, old vines twisted like dragons, and a gentle breeze blew. The fragrance of unknown flowers was intoxicating, and the air was so fresh that taking a single breath felt like a total cleansing of his body.

Bare-chested, wearing oversized shorts and flip-flops, with a mouthful of noodles and a fork in one hand, and the half-spilled noodle cup in the other, Bai Yang froze in a bizarre posture.

He gulped, but he swallowed the noodles the wrong way, causing him to cough uncontrollably. After finally steadying himself, Bai Yang looked at his surroundings, wanting to cry but having no tears.

Rustle, rustle, rustle...

Three meters away, in a small patch of grass, a black centipede a full three feet long appeared, claws waving, before turning and disappearing into a crack in a rock...

"What kind of hellish place is this!"

Bai Yang muttered in terror. Frightened by the meter-long centipede, he instinctively stepped back, only to feel a sharp pain in his foot. He gasped and lifted his foot to see that his flip-flop had been pierced through by a thorn...

A sharp pain hit his shoulder, causing him to drop the noodle cup and slap the spot. It was covered in blood—he had just crushed a mosquito the size of a baby's fist!

"Giant centipede, giant mosquito... did I fall through a wormhole and end up in an African jungle...?"

He stared blankly at his surroundings. Trees that would require several people to encircle were everywhere, and looking around, there were hardly any plants that Bai Yang recognized.

He looked up through the gaps in the leaves and was stunned. Was that the sun in the sky? But why was the color wrong? The morning sun was red, the noon sun was golden, but what the hell was that white ball of light the size of a carriage wheel?

"Did I transmigrate? I must have transmigrated! But I'm not ready yet! At least let me get some gear first! What am I supposed to do in this hellish place with just flip-flops and oversized shorts?"

A moment ago, he had been too hot to even move, but now he was shivering cold. He had appeared in this place for no reason—if it were you, wouldn't you be scared?

Whoosh...

A foul wind struck from behind, accompanied by a deafening tiger's roar. Bai Yang's head felt like it was about to explode; he had experienced firsthand what it meant for a tiger's roar to shake the mountains and forests.

He turned to look, and a five-meter-long yellow-spotted tiger was pouncing toward him.

"I'm done for. To hell with transmigration, I want to go home...!"

With that desperate cry in his heart, Bai Yang's figure vanished in a flash.

Bang! The tiger pounced on empty air, turned its head slightly, as if wondering where the person had gone.

The tiger shook its head and walked toward the depths of the jungle, leaving behind only a flip-flop pierced by a thorn and a box of overturned instant noodles.

Swish...

A sound like a whimper cut through the air. A black shadow flashed by, and with a thwack, an arrow as black as ink pierced the eye of the tiger that had just been showing off its might. It collapsed to the ground with a thud, twitched a few times by instinct, and then went still.

The sound of rustling footsteps approached as three men, sturdy as iron towers, appeared. They were clad in animal skins and carried large bows on their backs, their eyes as sharp as blades.

"Haha, Brother Zhao, what marksmanship! A single arrow pierced right through the tiger's eyes without damaging the fur. This tiger skin will surely fetch a good price."

One of them, a youth with a scar on his face who was the most muscular yet still appeared somewhat naive, patted the dead tiger and spoke with an expression of admiration.

"This is nothing. As long as you practice your archery diligently, Hu Zi, you will surpass me sooner or later," the man called Brother Zhao replied with a smile, shaking his head. He stood about 1.8 meters tall, his dark skin glistening with oil, his arms thick enough to run a horse across, and his body packed with muscle, though the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes betrayed that he was already past middle age.

The third youth frowned and crouched on the ground. He twitched his nose a few times, pushed aside a leaf, and saw the half-bucket of spilled instant noodles and the pierced flip-flop.

"Brother Zhao, Hu Zi, come over here and look at this. It smells so good... I can't help but drool..."

"What good thing did you find, Zhu Zi?" the youth called Hu Zi asked, striding over with his long legs.

"Look at this thing. Doesn't it smell amazing?" Zhu Zi pointed at the instant noodles on the ground, his expression one of salivating greed.

"What is this? It looks strange, but it really does smell good," Hu Zi swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

"Hu Zi, do you think this is edible? Hey, look, this bowl is so beautiful. Huh, there are people on it. I wonder who drew them? It's so exquisite, they look almost alive. Are those characters on it? They must be, but I don't know what they say. No one in our village is literate..." Zhu Zi crawled on the ground, staring at the noodle bowl and chattering incessantly.

"What did you find?" Brother Zhao walked over vigilantly. When he caught the scent of the instant noodles, he couldn't help but let out a gulp as he swallowed his saliva. Upon seeing the noodle bowl, he joined the other two in a state of utter bewilderment.

"This bowl is so exquisite, it must be worth a sky-high price. I wonder which great lord dropped it here. Hu Zi, Zhu Zi, let's take the bowl with us. Be careful not to break it; who knows, this bowl alone might be enough to trade for a precious secret manual," Brother Zhao said with utmost seriousness.

And so, the three of them abandoned the tiger they had hunted and left, carefully carrying the noodle bowl like a treasure. As for the instant noodles on the ground, the three of them ate them up; the taste was so delicious they nearly gnawed a giant pit into the dirt.

Bai Yang had arrived here inexplicably and left just as inexplicably. If he had seen the scene of those three men discarding a tiger to keep a piece of trash like a noodle bowl, he probably would have collapsed on the spot. But it wouldn't have mattered anyway, as he couldn't understand a word they were saying.

Bang...

Bai Yang fell backward onto the sofa in his living room, his body ice-cold and his soul terrified. He remained in that position for a full ten minutes before he finally came to his senses.

"Where am I?" Looking at his familiar home, Bai Yang's mind was a blur.

It felt like a blackout from being drunk. After struggling to recall for a long while, he remembered inexplicably appearing in a jungle and nearly being eaten by a tiger—a tiger larger than any he had ever seen on television.

"What is going on? Could it be that I had a heatstroke and hallucinated because the weather was too hot?" Muttering to himself, Bai Yang remained bewildered. He raised his arm to wipe the sweat from his forehead, but his movement froze; he was clutching a blade of grass in his hand!

He was clutching a blade of grass!

"When the tiger pounced, I must have grabbed something at random..." Bai Yang stared at the grass in his hand, his throat parched.

(New Book, seeking collections, recommendations, and tips. Every bit of your support is the greatest encouragement for Stone. A different story, a different beginning.)