Grandmaster, Stop Plucking My Leaves

This book is also known as A Jade in Hiding.

Reborn as a patch of weeds in the cultivation world and bound to the Divine Plant System, Zuo Shan's goal is to lie low in the medicinal fields, work hard to bloom, and hopefully take human form soon!

Later, she finally manages to grow a single flower bud. Just as she's imagining how beautiful she'll look in full bloom, someone picks her up and carries her away.

Fan Yu, founding ancestor of the Yimu Immortal Sect, was using his spiritual sense to inspect his medicinal garden one day when he spotted a Maoweiluo weed running wild through his fields. It dodged the herb boys, found a corner, and planted itself again. It also often used its leaves to write on the ground, scolding the spiritual plants in his garden.

He pulled up the weed and carried it back to his cave abode. Staring for a long while at the flower bud about to bloom on its head, he plucked it and tucked it into his sleeve, then found a flowerpot and planted her in it.

Zuo Shan was so angry her leaves curled up, but she could only keep hiding as a weed. Later, when that jerk wasn't looking, she quietly stepped out of her pot. She hadn't even reached the door before he caught her red-handed.

Fan Yu laid out brush, ink, paper, and inkstone. "Write your story!"

Zuo Shan: ...I was so careful. How did I give myself away so completely?

Standing on the rice paper, Zuo Shan swept her brush across it: "Just an ordinary Maoweiluo. Naturally grown and harmless. I promise not to mess with your spiritual plants again, sir."

Fan Yu: I told you to write your story, not a written pledge.

**

Fan Yu's soul had been gravely injured. It often drifted apart, and none of the rare medicines or ancient remedies he tried had helped.

A certain jade slip recorded: [The rare ancient spirit plant Xingyuan is the most effective treatment for gathering the soul and consolidating the spirit. Boil its roots into soup, use its flowers to make medicine, and steep its leaves as tea. This will cure the condition. Sadly, this plant has long been extinct and is impossible to find in the world...]

It also included a detailed note: Xingyuan resembles the ordinary weed Maoweiluo, but its flower is slightly different. Before it blooms, the two are extremely difficult to tell apart.

**

Fan Yu fussed over a newly finished flowerpot and beckoned to her. "Come on, plant yourself in it!"

Zuo Shan, whose flower bud had been plucked once again, walked away on her roots. "No. I'll plant myself in the ground."

He picked her flower, and now there's no making it up to her!

Much later, Zuo Shan was only one step away from fully taking human form. The required condition was: [Gather seven Xingyuan buds and dissolve them into a medicinal concoction to take human form.]

Zuo Shan humbly wrote on the ground with her leaves: Sir, what's a Xingyuan? Are its flowers easy to buy? Could you get me seven?

Just then, the sect leader came to report something and laughed. "Ever since the Xingyuan Venerable of the Jiaomu Immortal Valley fell, this plant has been extinct. Grandmaster searched for tens of thousands of years without finding any. There's nowhere to buy it!"

Zuo Shan curled her leaves in despair. She'd never get to take human form in this life.

Fan Yu stroked her leaves and opened his palm. It was filled with the fragrance of flowers, and there were exactly seven of them!

Zuo Shan: !!! Aren't these the buds I had just about to bloom? So I'm actually a Xingyuan?

Later on, the System wasn't a System, and Xingyuan wasn't Xingyuan...

Before dying, Zuo Huaixu, founder of the Jiaomu Immortal Valley and the Xingyuan Venerable, sealed her daughter's soul and sent her to another world, arranging for the plant spirit Xing Mu to guard her.

To evade being tracked by her enemies' soul aura, Xing Mu took its young mistress through several cycles of reincarnation and finally returned to the cultivation world. It had only enough energy to make its young mistress a weed and send her to a random location.

One day, Xing Mu was shocked. An old acquaintance had become a powerful figure and ended up in that very person's spiritual field?

Mu Mu pointed at her sleeping mistress. "Sir, tens of thousands of years ago, you held my Shan Shan. Please protect her!"

A few warnings:

This isn't a traditional cultivation story. It has plenty of original worldbuilding, mutual healing, and sweet 1v1 romance.

Tsundere, aloof, taciturn ancestor versus a heroine who can't speak but is still a chatterbox. (Edited and supplemented on June 28, 2023, with a screenshot of changes to a few words on July 5, 2023.)

Theme: Even weeds must strive to grow upward and welcome the sunshine