She is a nine-aperture spirit herb who awakened beneath an immortal lord. Out of curiosity about the love tribulations of the mortal world, she borrows the corpse of a marquis’s illegitimate daughter to return to life. Her fingertips can tell whether plants live or die, and her tears can make flowers bloom or wither, but she understands nothing of the treachery of human hearts, until she meets the cold-faced minister who has been devoured by a vicious beast. “You’re medicine. You can ease my pain,” he says. Yet when she transforms into a blade of grass to shield his heart, he hides that green sprig in the deepest fold of his robes.
He is the Host of a Taotie seal, and every night demonic power gnaws at his bones and blood. Only the pure breath of her plants can ease his agony. From “I’ll spare your life” to “I would sooner fall into the abyss of demons,” he knows that spirit herbs and vicious beasts are destined enemies, yet he binds her roots to his lifeline with a pact sealed in blood.
They brave the icy pool together, fall into the abyss of demons together, and meet again in another life. She willingly severs her immortal roots and burns her true form, just to give him one last chance to live. He would rather scatter his soul and descend into the cycle of reincarnation than let a single leaf of hers wither. But fate is merciless. Only at the moment she is reduced to ashes does she finally understand: when plants fall in love, they trade a thousand years of blooming and withering for one glance from the one they love.
“I was only a blade of grass, yet I insisted on entering the mortal world.” In their final life, when a pair of twin grasses sprout from a mass grave, a lightning tribulation splits the leaves, where tears have yet to dry. “You are my tribulation, and also my root.”
