Lin Xiu has always felt as small as a blade of grass, living as humbly as duckweed adrift.
In the modern world, he was an ordinary, invisible wage-earner. When he died in a car accident, no one even cared.
After he transmigrates into a book, he is still a nobody: a background character with terrible talent and not a single line of dialogue. Every day, he has to cut grass to feed the demon beasts and clean up their droppings under the thumb of a heartless steward. His monthly wages are so low he can barely afford enough to eat.
How is someone as insignificant as him supposed to save a heaven-blessed prodigy high above everyone else?
The System says helplessly, "But if you don't complete the mission, you won't be able to return to your original world."
Lin Xiu is unmoved. He closes his eyes, pulls up the covers, and goes to sleep. "Whatever."
He can barely keep himself alive.
Until one night, he accidentally comes across the heaven-blessed prodigy, who has become a cripple in a single night and been abandoned by everyone, standing alone at the edge of a cliff.
Rain pours down, almost blurring his vision. The young man is dressed in white, soaked in blood. The hand that once held a sword hangs limply at his side, and his eyes are as empty as cold ashes.
Lin Xiu can finally hold back no longer. He rushes forward, grabs the other's shoulders, and demands angrily, "If you've lost your cultivation, cultivate again! If people bully you, get back at them! If you're not afraid of dying, why are you afraid of living?!"
He scolds him in frustration: "Xiao Lingyu, aren't you the invincible protagonist of a power fantasy? Can you have some backbone?!"
Pinned in the rain by the young man, Xiao Lingyu stares blankly into those eyes brimming with anger and finally rasps, "...Stop crying."
That night, Lin Xiu trudges through the mud, carrying Xiao Lingyu back on his back step by step. Then he accompanies him through secret realms, helps him rebuild his foundation, and personally sends the moon that fell into the mire back to the heights above.
Three years later, at the Nine Provinces Tournament.
The once-fractured sword prodigy Xiao Lingyu, whose cultivation had been completely lost, stands atop the platform in robes white as snow, sword in hand. His sword energy sweeps the clouds from the skies for thousands of miles, and he claims the tournament's top prize.
Amid a chorus of cheers, he flourishes his sword and sheaths it, then walks slowly down to the side of a mysterious young man wearing a veiled hat. The two leave hand in hand, close as can be.
A breeze lifts one corner of the hat.
Only then does everyone realize that this obscure young man is none other than the genius alchemist who has recently risen to fame!
The crowd is stunned. The whole hall erupts.
Later, Xiao Lingyu often tells his friends, "My wife often compares herself to duckweed, small and insignificant as a blade of grass. I couldn't disagree more."
His partner is clearly green bamboo:
It grows through rock, and neither wind nor snow can break it.
Theme: Strive tirelessly to improve yourself, and embrace the world with virtue.
