Zhou Wen, a small-time UP creator on a video-sharing site, says:
I just love reading novels. How did I end up transmigrating?
Fine, I transmigrated, but where's my golden finger?
No golden finger? Fine. At least let me fall in love with a handsome guy.
I turn around, and the shabby guy in the long robe beside me has a scraggly beard, patches piled on patches, and a hunched back. How can he be this filthy?
Fine, he's filthy. But why does he have to cling to me like a shadow?
We both have to survive in this world. Zhou Wen asks, "What's your name?"
The shabby guy in the long robe says, "Li Shen, courtesy name Xianchou."
"What can you do?"
"Write novels."
But he can't sit the imperial examinations, and writing novels alone won't feed a grown man in this era. Feeding two is even harder.
Zhou Wen grits his teeth and swallows his pride, becoming an internet celebrity again. Together with this utterly useless scholar, he will weather the storm, relying on one another to survive.
Years later, Zhou Wen lounges with his feet up in a pavilion in an elegant garden, decked in gold and silver and eating cherries, when Li Shen sneaks past.
"Where are you going?"
Li Shen snaps to attention:
"Our new book just sold another hundred thousand copies, but someone is secretly selling pirated editions;
"Tickets for our theater are sold out again, and now people are hanging outside the windows, even the second-floor ones;
"There's another long line at our grand restaurant, and the prefect wants to know if he can cut in line and eat first."
"Also," he says hesitantly, taking out a brocade box, "can we start making plans for our wedding?"
Inside the box is a glittering ruby ring.
Theme: Hard work and creativity can help others as well as yourself
