Reborn as Grass, Locking onto Blood Bags

As a straw sandal came down, Ji Yuan desperately twisted his leaves aside.

He had no hands, no feet, no throat. He could not even cry out. His entire being was trapped inside a Blue Silver Grass plant, roots buried in the damp soil of the back mountain behind Holy Soul Village. Above him, a mud-caked sole was crushing down toward his tender leaves.

"Don't step on me! To the left, go left!"

Ji Yuan cursed furiously in his heart, but his leaves only shifted half an inch. The sole came down brushing his leaf tips, muddy water splashing into the gaps between his leaves and forcing his whole stalk to bend.

The five- or six-year-old boy paused, lowered his head to look at the Blue Silver Grass by his feet, and frowned. "It grew back again?"

Ji Yuan's consciousness instantly tensed.

He recognized that childish face.

Tang San.

Who else could it be but the child on the back mountain of Holy Soul Village, cultivating the Purple Demon Eye toward the rising sun every morning?

Rage churned through Ji Yuan's roots. Just moments ago, he had been staying up late reading in his rented apartment. After everything went black, he woke up as this Blue Silver Grass that could be knocked over by the slightest breeze.

He had originally thought that if he transmigrated, he should at least become a Soul Master. Failing that, a wolf would do. Even a rabbit would have been better than this.

But reality slapped him across the face.

He was a blade of grass.

A Blue Silver Grass growing right beside Tang San's feet.

"I transmigrated just to become roadside weeds for the protagonist?"

Tang San did not hear him. He merely dusted off his pant legs, sat cross-legged on a rock again, and fixed his eyes on the faint purple aura just emerging over the distant horizon.

"The Mysterious Heaven Skill is still stuck at the first level. There's no problem with my internal energy circulation, so why can't I break through?"

Listening to that mutter, the hatred in Ji Yuan's heart instead cooled.

Tang San was cultivating.

That meant he still had a chance.

As long as he could live, as long as he could move, as long as he could carve a path out of this grass body, he would never resign himself to fate.

Morning light fell. Tang San's breathing gradually steadied, and some minute force within him dispersed through the air. When it brushed past Ji Yuan's leaves, it filled his entire body with hunger.

It was not dew, nor was it sunlight.

It was energy.

Ji Yuan's roots instinctively reached toward it. Root tips too fine to see burrowed through the soil, desperately grasping for that trace of scattered purple aura.

"Give it to me."

"Even if it's only a little."

"I don't want to die under a child's foot."

The instant the purple aura was absorbed into his body through his leaves, a cold notification appeared in the depths of Ji Yuan's consciousness.

[Absorbed dissipated purple aura from the Mysterious Heaven Skill. Parasitic evolution conditions fulfilled.]

[One initial parasitic spore can be condensed.]

Ji Yuan did not lose control with joy. Instead, he immediately focused all his attention back on his leaves.

Tang San was still sitting on the rock.

Tang San had no idea that the grass by his feet had already set its sights on him.

Ji Yuan looked at that small body, with only one thought in his heart.

"You're the protagonist. You have the Mysterious Heaven Skill, hidden weapons, twin martial souls, Tang Hao, and every future opportunity."

"I have nothing."

"Then I'll take it from you."

A spore lighter than dust condensed at the tip of a leaf, its color so faint that it blended into the morning light.

Ji Yuan controlled the leaf as it bent little by little, moving so slowly that even his roots began to ache.

Tang San finished cultivating and stood up, rubbing his brow while still muttering about the key points of the technique.

"Still no good."

He jumped down from the rock and was about to head back to the village when his pant leg brushed against the grass.

This was the moment Ji Yuan had been waiting for.

"Go."

The leaf tip flicked, and the spore stuck to Tang San's trouser leg.

Tang San stopped and patted his leg as he looked down.

Ji Yuan's entire body rose to his throat, though he had no throat at all.

The spore did not fall off.

It clung to a seam in the coarse cloth, leaving the back mountain with Tang San step by step.

As the distance widened, Ji Yuan's vision went dark. Tearing pain shot through his roots, as though that single spore had taken half his life with it.

He clung to consciousness and followed the spore's senses.

Village road, wooden house, blacksmith's shop.

Tang San pushed open the door and entered. A tall man sat inside, reeking of alcohol, his beard a tangled mess, a hammer resting at his side.

Ji Yuan sensed him for only an instant before that heavy aura nearly crushed his consciousness apart.

Tang Hao.

He could not alert him.

The spore slid down Tang San's trouser leg, pressed against the skin of his calf, and burrowed in through his pores.

Tang San was boiling water when he suddenly paused and reached down to rub his leg.

"Why is it a little itchy?"

Tang Hao leaned back in his chair without even lifting his eyelids.

"Lots of bugs in the mountains. Stop making a fuss."

Tang San nodded. "Dad, I'll make dinner first."

Hearing that, Ji Yuan smiled coldly inside.

"Good son. Keep making your meals, keep cultivating, keep being the chosen one."

"From today onward, everything you cultivate will have to pass through me first."

The spore burrowed into his flesh and blood, inching upward along his meridians. Tang San's Mysterious Heaven Skill inner force was circulating, and the moment the spore touched it, it was caught up by that power.

Ji Yuan did not seize it by force.

He shrank the spore into a tiny point, pressed it against the edge of the meridian, and quietly absorbed.

When the first wisp of inner force returned, Ji Yuan's leaves shifted from withered yellow to green, and the broken tips of his blades slowly straightened.

That sensation nearly made him lose control.

It was not fullness.

It was coming back to life.

Tang San, however, frowned deeply and muttered, "Why is my inner force dispersing so quickly when I cultivate today?"

Tang Hao took a swig of liquor and snorted. "If you can't cultivate, then don't. You're a blacksmith's son—what's the point of thinking so much?"

Tang San fell silent for a moment, then picked up the pot lid. "I won't give up."

Hearing those words, Ji Yuan's smile deepened.

"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 an ordinary Blue Silver Grass.

Village chickens pecked beside him, and children snapped several blades of grass near him while playing, yet he did not so much as rustle a leaf.

Tang San still came to the back mountain every morning.

Each time he cultivated, ninety percent of the power that dispersed was quietly intercepted by the spore. The remaining ten percent was left to Tang San, making him believe that his bottleneck was simply too deep.

Tang San's expression grew darker by the day.

Ji Yuan's roots, meanwhile, dug ever deeper, while faint dark-red patterns appeared along the edges of his leaves.

He was no longer merely grass waiting for sunlight and dew.

He could sense the insects in the soil, the nearby plants competing for water, and every movement of inner force within Tang San's body.

This was a thread.

At the other end of that thread was Tang San.

One morning, Tang San did not leave immediately after finishing his cultivation. He sat on a rock and murmured to himself.

"In a few months, it'll be time for my martial soul awakening. What kind of martial soul will I have?"

Ji Yuan's leaves pressed softly against the ground as a chill rose in his heart.

Of course he knew.

Blue Silver Grass in the right hand.

Clear Sky Hammer in the left.

Tang San held out his left hand, stared at it for a long while, then clenched it into a fist.

"If I really have a martial soul, maybe I can change things for my family."

Ji Yuan stared at that left hand as the spore in his consciousness moved through the blood toward Tang San's palm.

Just as Tang San was about to rise, a needle-like pain stabbed through his left palm. He gave a low grunt and grabbed his wrist.

"What's going on?"

The spore settled deep in his palm, hiding at the edge of a power that had yet to awaken.

Ji Yuan's entire body trembled.

Something slumbered within it—heavy, tyrannical, far beyond the level a useless martial soul like Blue Silver Grass should possess.

"Found it."

"I'll reserve a spot for your second martial soul first."

Tang San pressed his left hand, a look of confusion appearing on his face.

He looked toward the grass at his feet, his gaze passing over where Ji Yuan was.

Ji Yuan remained perfectly still.

Tang San watched for a moment, then shook his head. "Maybe I was too hasty in my training."

After saying that, he turned and left.

Only after he had gone far away did Ji Yuan drive his roots deep into the soil and swallow the newly returned power.

The back mountain of Holy Soul Village was still the same back mountain. Morning dew still clung to the tips of the leaves, but Ji Yuan was no longer afraid of that shoe that might come stomping down.

He stared in the direction Tang San had gone, with only one command left in his consciousness.

"Lie low."

"Move toward the heart meridian."

"Don't let him die, and don't let him find out."

The spore stirred softly within Tang San's body. Pure inner force flowed back through the invisible connection, and Ji Yuan's leaves slowly unfurled in the morning breeze.

The next moment, Tang San suddenly stopped in the distance. He clutched his left palm, and his expression changed for the first time.

"What exactly is inside here?"

Ji Yuan did not answer.

He merely drove that invisible thread deeper.