When a straw sandal came down, Ji Yuan was desperately twisting his leaves out of its path.
He had no hands, no feet, no throat. He could not even shout. Trapped inside a stalk of Blue Silver Grass, with his roots buried in the damp soil of the hill behind Holy Soul Village, he watched a mud-caked sole descend toward his tender leaves.
Don't step on me! Left! Go left!
Ji Yuan cursed furiously in his mind, but his leaves shifted only half an inch. The sole brushed their tips as it landed, splashing muddy water between them and bending his whole body down.
The five- or six-year-old boy paused. He looked at the Blue Silver Grass by his foot and frowned. "It grew back again?"
Ji Yuan's awareness snapped taut.
He knew that young face.
Tang San.
Who else could the child practicing Purple Demon Eye toward the rising sun every morning on the hill behind Holy Soul Village be?
Rage surged through Ji Yuan's roots. One moment, he had been up late reading in his rented room. Then his vision had gone black, and he had woken as a stalk of Blue Silver Grass that could be toppled by a breeze.
He had thought that crossing into another world would at least make him a Soul Master. Failing that, he should have been a wolf. Even a rabbit would have been better than this.
Reality had slapped him in the face.
He was grass.
A stalk of Blue Silver Grass growing at Tang San's feet.
I crossed worlds just to be a roadside weed for the protagonist?
Tang San did not hear him. He merely brushed off his trouser leg, sat cross-legged on the rock again, and fixed his eyes on the purple haze just rising at the distant horizon.
"Mysterious Heaven Skill is still stuck at the first level. My inner force circulates fine, so why can't I break through?"
Hearing that murmur, Ji Yuan felt his hatred turn cold.
Tang San was cultivating.
That meant Ji Yuan still had a chance.
As long as he could live, move, and force a way out of this grassy body, he would never accept his fate.
Morning light fell. Tang San's breathing gradually steadied, and some faint power escaped his body into the air. When it brushed Ji Yuan's leaves, hunger gripped his entire stalk.
It was not dew. It was not sunlight.
It was energy.
Ji Yuan's roots reached for it by instinct. Root tips too fine to see burrowed through the soil, straining toward the scattered wisps of purple haze.
Give it to me.
Even a little will do.
I don't want to die under a child's foot.
The instant his leaves absorbed the purple haze, a cold notification appeared deep within Ji Yuan's awareness.
[Absorbed purple haze released by Mysterious Heaven Skill. Conditions for parasitic evolution met.]
[One initial parasitic spore can be formed.]
Ji Yuan did not let his excitement run wild. First, he focused all his attention on his leaves.
Tang San was still sitting on the rock.
Tang San had no idea the grass beside his foot had set its sights on him.
Ji Yuan looked at that small body with only one thought in mind.
You're the protagonist. You have Mysterious Heaven Skill, Hidden Weapons, Twin Martial Souls, Tang Hao, and every opportunity waiting in your future.
I have nothing.
So I'll take it from you.
A spore lighter than dust formed at a leaf tip, so pale it blended into the morning light.
Ji Yuan bent the leaf little by little. The effort was so slow and painful that his roots began to throb.
Tang San finished cultivating and stood, rubbing his brow while muttering about the intricacies of his technique.
"Still no good."
He jumped down from the rock and started toward the village. His trouser leg brushed through the grass.
This was the moment Ji Yuan had been waiting for.
Go.
The leaf tip flicked, and the spore caught on Tang San's trouser cuff.
Tang San stopped and slapped his leg.
Ji Yuan's whole body leaped into his throat—though he no longer had one.
The spore did not fall.
It clung inside a seam of the coarse cloth as Tang San walked away from the hill, step by step.
As the distance grew, Ji Yuan's vision darkened. A tearing pain shot through his roots, as if that spore had taken half his life with it.
He clung to consciousness and followed through the spore's senses.
A village road. A wooden house. A smithy.
Tang San pushed the door open. Inside sat a tall man who reeked of alcohol, with a tangled beard and a hammer at his side.
Ji Yuan sensed him for only an instant before that oppressive presence nearly crushed his consciousness apart.
Tang Hao.
He could not alert him.
The spore slipped down the trouser cuff and onto the skin of Tang San's calf, then burrowed inward through a pore.
Tang San was heating water when he suddenly stopped and touched his leg.
"Why does it itch?"
Tang Hao leaned back in his chair without so much as lifting his eyelids.
"Plenty of bugs in the hills. Don't make a fuss."
Tang San nodded. "Dad, I'll make breakfast first."
At those words, Ji Yuan laughed coldly to himself.
Good son. Keep making your breakfast. Keep cultivating. Keep being destiny's chosen child.
From today on, everything you gain through cultivation passes through me first.
The spore burrowed into his flesh and crept upward along his meridians. Mysterious Heaven Skill Inner Force was circulating through Tang San's body, and the moment the spore touched it, the current swept it up.
Ji Yuan did not try to seize it by force.
He compressed the spore to a speck, pressed it against the edge of the meridian, and quietly drank.
When the first thread of inner force flowed back, Ji Yuan's yellowing leaves turned green, and their broken tips slowly straightened.
The feeling almost made him lose control.
It was more than being fed.
He had come back to life.
Tang San frowned deeply. "Why is my inner force dissipating so quickly today?"
Tang Hao took a swig of wine and snorted. "If you can't master it, stop practicing. You're a blacksmith's son. What's the point of dreaming so big?"
Tang San was silent for a moment, then lifted the pot lid. "I won't give up."
Ji Yuan's smile deepened at those words.
That's right. Whatever you do, don't give up.
The harder you work, the longer I live.
Over the next few days, Ji Yuan disguised himself as ordinary Blue Silver Grass.
Village chickens pecked beside him. Children chasing each other snapped several stalks nearby. He did not let his leaves sway a fraction more than they should.
Tang San still came to the hill every morning.
Each time he cultivated, the spore quietly intercepted ninety percent of the energy that would otherwise have escaped, leaving Tang San the rest so he would think his bottleneck was simply too stubborn.
Tang San's expression grew darker by the day.
Ji Yuan's roots, meanwhile, dug ever deeper, and faint dark-red patterns appeared along the edges of his leaves.
He was no longer just grass waiting for sunlight and dew.
He could sense worms in the soil and nearby plants competing for water. He could also feel every movement of inner force inside Tang San.
It was a thread.
At its other end was Tang San.
One morning, Tang San did not leave immediately after cultivating. He sat on the rock and murmured to himself.
"Martial Soul Awakening is only a few months away. What will my Martial Soul be?"
Ji Yuan pressed his leaves lightly against the ground. Cold anticipation rose within him.
Of course he knew.
Blue Silver Grass in the right hand.
The Clear Sky Hammer in the left.
Tang San held out his left hand and stared at it for a long time before curling it into a fist.
"If I really have a Martial Soul, maybe I can change how we live."
Ji Yuan fixed his attention on that left hand. The spore inside Tang San moved through his blood toward his palm.
Just as Tang San was about to stand, a needlelike pain stabbed through his left palm. He grunted and gripped his wrist.
"What was that?"
The spore stopped deep within his palm, hiding at the edge of a power that had yet to awaken.
Ji Yuan's entire stalk trembled.
Something lay dormant there—heavy, domineering, far beyond anything a Trash Martial Soul like Blue Silver Grass should possess.
Found it.
I'll stake my claim on your Second Martial Soul first.
Tang San pressed his left hand, confusion spreading across his face.
He looked at the grass by his feet, his gaze sweeping over Ji Yuan.
Ji Yuan did not move.
After a moment, Tang San shook his head. "Maybe I pushed my cultivation too hard."
With that, he turned and left.
Only when Tang San was far away did Ji Yuan drive his roots deep into the mud and swallow the power that had just flowed back.
The hill behind Holy Soul Village was still the same hill, and morning dew still hung from the leaf tips. But Ji Yuan no longer feared the shoe that might come down on him.
He watched Tang San recede into the distance, with only one command left in his mind.
Lie low.
Move toward his Heart Meridian.
Don't let him die, and don't let him find you.
The spore stirred gently inside Tang San. Pure inner force flowed back along the invisible thread, and Ji Yuan's leaves slowly unfurled in the morning breeze.
The next moment, Tang San stopped in the distance and clutched his left palm. For the first time, his expression changed.
"What exactly is in there?"
Ji Yuan did not answer.
He only drove that invisible thread deeper.
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