In this world, demons and monsters lurk everywhere, and humanity relies on literary talent to defend its lands. Poetry and prose serve as a medium for communicating with the Heavenly Dao. Yet the literary world today is lifeless. People know only how to pile on flowery language and pursue ornate parallel prose, having long since lost the spirit and integrity of poetry. Bailu Academy, the Great Xia Empire's foremost institution, is strictly hierarchical. Outer disciples who fail to awaken their literary hearts before the age of twenty are expelled, condemned to menial labor or sent to the frontier as cannon fodder. The protagonist, Lin Yangming, is a PhD in classical Chinese literature from Earth who transmigrates into the body of a good-for-nothing outer disciple at Bailu Academy, a man with the same name. Facing oppression by the powerful, his fiancée breaking off their engagement, and an imminent life-or-death trial, he must draw on five thousand years of Chinese poetry and literature from Earth to carve out a path through this world, rising step by step from outer disciple to Sage of the Literary Dao.
Different storyline, interesting and beautiful.