With Five Thousand Years of Culture Behind Me, I Became the Literary Ancestor of Another World

Lin Jian, a poor scholar, wakes to find that he has transmigrated to another world where vital energy flows freely, inhabiting the body of an impoverished scholar with the same name. In this world, scholars can wield literary talent through their poems and writings: poems can slay enemies, lyrics can destroy armies, and prose can bring peace to the realm!

His predecessor died after being humiliated for his poverty, but Lin Jian possesses the priceless legacy of five thousand years of Chinese literary heritage, the Scroll of Heaven and Earth. When the scions of scholarly clans mock him with “A cold crow perches on a withered tree,” he replies without hesitation, “How could I bow and scrape to serve the rich and powerful!” His literary talent first manifests, astonishing everyone present.

Yet the literary tradition in this world has been severed, and the classics of the sages are incomplete. No one knows the Tang poems or Song lyrics, and the finest works of the ages have been lost to the dust. Armed with China’s poems and prose, Lin Jian breaks through an illusion in the county examinations with “Though ground and battered a thousand times, it remains firm,” then slays demons on the frontier with “I will not return until Loulan is conquered.” As one long-lost masterpiece after another reappears, he becomes an anomaly the old powers are determined to erase.

On the path to passing the imperial examinations, he shakes the court with “Memorial to Yueyang Tower,” purges demonic energy with “Song of Righteousness,” and unites the army’s spirit with “Man Jiang Hong.” His poems move ghosts and gods to tears; his writings bring peace to the realm. He rises from a poor student to a giant of the literary world, and from a minor frontier official to a pillar of the state.

But one crisis follows another: the Western Continent’s Holy Light Church seeks to spread its faith, the Buddhist kingdom of Tianzhu wields powers of conversion, and the northern tribes call upon their bloodline totems. Foreign cultivation systems are poised to strike. The Shadow Pavilion, lurking for a thousand years, stirs up turmoil, while the shadow of the extraterrestrial demons looms over the continent.

When the demons tear open the sky and billions perish, the nations are still scheming against one another. In court, Lin Jian declares, his words ringing with conviction: “To establish the heart of Heaven and Earth, and to secure the lives of the people: that is my path!”

Watch as he steadies the realm with a stroke of his brush!