Little Lingzhi

Ling Zhi was a rare lingzhi mushroom, one seldom seen in a thousand years. By chance, it cultivated into a little mushroom spirit. One day, while wandering through the mountains and gathering herbs to eat, it found someone battered and torn from head to toe.

The little mushroom spirit dragged the battered man back to its newly built cave. Disguised as a little medicine boy, it traded mountain herbs with the villagers for food, slowly nursing the man back from the brink of death.

At first, Ling Zhi gazed at the man's handsome face and cut off a tiny bit of its own flesh, muttering, "Battered Man, you have to wake up. It'd be a terrible waste to let such a precious lingzhi go to waste."

Later, when the battered man woke up, Ling Zhi decided that cutting off a tiny bit of its flesh to save him had been well worth it.

Xiao Ni eyed the little medicine boy who bossed him around and nearly laughed in exasperation. Still, he always did as the boy said, gentle and accommodating. After all, he was living under someone else's roof and was badly injured.

The little medicine boy would be delighted for half a day over trading herbs with a villager for an extra half a chicken. Once he had finished celebrating, he would bring the chicken to Xiao Ni, smiling shyly and uncertainly. "Junqian, you roast this chicken."

He would be thrilled after selling enough extra bundles of herbs to save up for some soft, smooth fabric for Xiao Ni's clothes, circling him happily with flushed cheeks. "It looks good, it looks good."

One day, the little medicine boy held up a storybook and said mysteriously, "Junqian, I have a priceless treasure, even more valuable than anything in this storybook, that I can offer as a betrothal gift. Don't doubt me. It's a lingzhi that can bring the dead back to life."

Later, the little medicine boy held a bouquet of wildflowers, his face red and his eyes full of affection. Earnest and shy, he said, "Junqian, stay here and be my husband, okay?"

Later, Ling Zhi married Junqian, the man it had rescued, just as it had hoped. It also learned that the only betrothal gift Junqian wanted was the lingzhi that was Ling Zhi itself.

The little mushroom spirit had only ever known how to smile. It couldn't make a sorrowful face.

It smiled. "You did save me once, after all. From now on, from now on, you have to take care of yourself. There's only one life-saving lingzhi like me..."

The little mushroom spirit slowly cut open its flesh and gave up its heart's blood, trading its own life as a lingzhi to save the person who had once saved it.

The all-powerful Grand Tutor of Yan came back from the dead. The feared Grand Tutor Xiao did not rush to purge the traitors at court. Instead, he mobilized the nation's troops and offered a lavish reward, all to find the root of a lingzhi with no cap.

Countless people hoping to claim the reward brought lingzhi mushrooms to the Grand Tutor's residence. He glanced at them and paid them no further attention.

His trusted aide asked what kind of lingzhi the Grand Tutor was looking for.

"Its color is a little grayish-white."

"Its cap is plump and soft."

The aide asked in confusion, "Grand Tutor, didn't you say it had no cap?"

Xiao Ni pressed his thin lips together and swayed unsteadily.

A gentle, down-and-out man who is secretly the iron-faced, cold-blooded Grand Tutor with power over the court, as the top; an adorable little mushroom spirit who's a treasure from head to toe, as the bottom.

PS: It has a farming-life feel, with little court politics. The story is just as described here. The bottom is weak, and the top spoils and pursues him. There are many, many, many scenes of the top worrying over the bottom. Expect melodrama, melodrama, melodrama (repeating it three times in case anyone missed it; if that's not your thing, proceed with caution). There's a crematorium-style pursuit of the mushroom spirit.

Synopsis saved on 2021/11/14

Original title: After Becoming the Grand Tutor's Medicine, I Faked My Death and Disappeared

Editing notes by a salted fish who doesn't want to reveal their pen name

Theme: Cherish the people who are here with you now.