Chapter 1 – A blade of grass

It’s 10:30 in the morning on a hot August day, and the sun was already viciously shining through the window. Luckily, Bai Yun had managed to wake himself up before he was roasted alive under the sun’s direct light.

Two months have passed since he had graduated, and without school to rein him in, Bai Yang was like a runaway horse. He now slept when he felt tired, and did as he pleased. Working? Ha! Only in his dreams!

“How am I going to survive in this damn heat?!”

Dazed and still half asleep, he stumbled towards the washroom while muttering some incoherent curses.

Bai Yang had finally managed to wake himself up from his stupor as he washed himself. He strolled into the dining room and was immediately struck speechless as he realized there was no breakfast! This startling realization had almost caused his world to collapse.

“Sure, I might’ve already become an adult… but come on mom! The least you could do is leave some scraps for me. They say, ‘To parents you will always be their little babies.’ ”

Letting out a stream of steady complaints, the depressed Bai Yang returned to his room and left with a cup of instant noodles that he had pulled from his drawer.

“Trying to starve me by leaving me without breakfast? Heh,  you underestimate me!”

Bai Yang proudly poured boiling water onto his cup of noodles. He carefully placed the noodles onto the table to let it soak, while seating himself on the couch like a king. To pass the time, he turned on the tv and switched between channels with no luck. All that was on were advertisements and low quality dramas.

‘Smoke… coming from the north’

Hearing his phone ring, Bai Yang stretched himself in an attempt to reach it, but it was just 10 cm out of his reach. He performed awkward squirms to move towards it, however it couldn’t be helped! The slightest movement on a hellish day like this would result in intense suffering.

When he had managed to get close enough to pick up the phone, he glanced at the screen and realized it was his mom calling.

“Hey MOM… you still remember about this son of yours huh?

“What the hell did I do to deserve a son like this… Let me guess, you’re eating instant noodles right? I say, when are you going to grow up? I…”

A mother knows her son best huh? She managed to guess what he was doing without even being present.

Not in the mood for his mom’s unnecessary preaching, Bai Yang said, “Get to the point already.”

“Stinking rascal, you sure know how to talk to your mom… You graduated two months ago, so that’s enough playing around. I’m giving you two choices: First, go find a job within a month…”

“And the second?” Bai Yang was prudent enough to listen to all his choices before choosing.

“Secondly, if you’re not going to work, I think there are a few good girls around here. You should go court them, and if you manage to get me a daughter-in-law, I’ll pay all your bills.”

“I think I’ll go with the first one mom, I’ll go out soon and find a job within two days. I have some instant noodles to eat, so bye bye~!” and with that Bai Yang decisively hung up the phone.

He wiped his forehead full of sweat. It was just too horrible to think about… being no more than 20 and already hastily getting a girlfriend, then married off blindly after that. Forget it! It’s not happening!

Tossing the phone aside, Bai Yang reluctantly got his lazy bottom off of the couch and took the instant noodles off of the coffee table. Getting a fork, he walked back to the sofa then sat down again.

“DAMN!”

Bai Yang sat down but missed the sofa which was only a few centimeters away from his butt. How could the sofa be so far away?!

His butt collided against the ground, and the noodles along with the hot water spilled all over his pants. He jumped up, let out a shriek of pain, and started patting himself off to cool down. But within the next moment he was scared stiff.

Looking stiffly ahead, his pupils dilated.

“WHAT THE HELL?!!”

Just a moment before, Bai Yang was in his own living room, and in the next he inexplicably appeared in a jungle, surrounded by ancient trees, and thick vines that reminded him of dragons. The breeze carried the scent of intoxicating flowers, and refreshing air.

Wearing nothing but shorts and a pair of flip-flops, Bai Yang froze into an awkward position with his mouth full of noodles, a fork in one hand, and an empty cup of noodles in the other.

He tried to swallow a mouthful of saliva, but instead swallowed a mouthful of instant noodles. Bai Yang choked and threw a coughing fit. Once his airways were no longer compromised, he managed to steady himself enough to look at his surroundings while clearing the tears still left in his eyes.

Rustle Rustle

About three meters away from Bai Yang, in a small patch of verdant grass, a three foot long centipede appeared. However, it quickly turned the corner and disappeared silently into a crevice in a stone wall.

“What the hell is this place?”

Panic and fear began to overwhelm him and Bai Yang subconsciously took several steps back. A sharp burst of pain shot up his foot. Lifting his flip-flop to inspect the source of the pain, he realized his foot had been pierced by a thorn.

Before he could inspect it further, he felt an annoying sting originating from his shoulders, causing him to drop his cup of noodles and slap the source of the annoyance. Feeling a slight crunch, he looked at the palm of his hand and shockingly discovered a mosquito the size of a baby’s fist splattered all over it.

“Enormous centipedes, huge freaking mosquitoes… Did I encounter a wormhole to the African jungle?

He was stunned and awed by the fact that each tree in his surroundings would require several people holding hands just to wrap around the entire trunk. There were also very few plants that were recognizable to Bai Yang.

Looking above at the sky through the gaps in the leaves, Bai Yang dumbfoundedly thought, ‘Is that the sun in the sky? It’s possible for hair to be the wrong color, but the sun is red in the morning and golden at noon, so what the hell is that white disk floating up there in the sky?’

“Is this another world? I’ve really… come to another world! But wait…! I’m not ready, atleast let me get some equipment! I’m not ready to take on another world with just flip-flops and shorts!”

A moment ago Bai Yang was unwilling to move because of the searing heat, but in the next he was inexplicably cold. If you randomly appeared in a mysterious place, wouldn’t you be scared shitless?!

exhale

A cold draft was accompanied by a deafening roar. Bai Yang’s brain short circuited because he could tell that it was the roar of a tiger.

Upon hearing some noise behind him, he immediately spun around, and suddenly came face to face with a 5 meter long tiger.

“Screw this! Wormholes can go to hell for all I care, I just wanna go home!”

Bai Yang issued a stream of desperate screams and curses before he just… vanished into thin air.

The tiger passed the spot where Bai Yang once was, and landed on the ground with a thud. Confusion flashed across the tiger’s mind as its dinner disappeared before it. The tiger looked around as if saying ‘Where’d my meat go?’

The tiger shook its head removing the doubts from its mind and turned around slowly moving towards the forest once again, leaving behind only a thorn pierced flip-flop and an overturned cup of noodles.

Sha Sha

Before the tiger could get far however, a shadow streaked across the forest and penetrated the tiger’s eye with a puchi sound. Letting out a soft whimper, the tiger collapsed to the ground with a soft thud, and twitched a couple times before remaining motionless.

Soon after, the sounds of several footsteps could be heard as three tall men dressed in animal skins appeared from behind the trees armed with longbows and eyes as sharp as knives.

“Hahaha, brother Zhao your aim is as excellent as ever, the arrow entered through the eyes so there’s no damage to the skin at all! We will be able to sell it for a decent price.”

A seemingly young man with a scar on his face stood in front of the tiger, closely inspecting their prize, and occasionally letting out words of praise.

“This is a minor accomplishment, you will be far better than me since you’ve started practicing earlier than I did,” said brother Zhao as he shook his head and denied the praise humbly.

He stood at about eight meters tall with dark copper skin and a body comprised almost entirely of muscle, however despite his healthy figure, the wrinkles near his eyes proved that he was a middle aged man who experienced most of what life had to offer.

The third person, a youth, frowned as he squatted down on the ground, carefully sniffing the air a few times before approaching a leaf. Brushing the leaf to the side, he spotted the cup of noodles and the mangled flip-flop belonging to Bai Yang.

“Brother Zhao, Hu Zi, come over here and look at this thing I just found… It’s so fragrant that I can’t help but drool…”

“Zhu Zi, did you find something good?” questioned  Hu Zi as he strolled over with big strides.

“Do you smell this? Isn’t it fragrant?” Zhu zi drooled as he pointed to the empty cup of noodles.

“What is this strange thing? But it does indeed smell really good.” Hu zi answered as he swallowed a mouthful of saliva while inspecting the foreign the object.

“Hu Zi, do you think we can eat this thing? Eh, this bowl is so beautiful, there is even a painting of a person and some words inscribed on it. It’s too bad no one at our village can read…” Zhu Zi analysed as he squatted down to get a closer look at the cup of noodles.

“This bowl is so exquisite! I bet it would be able to fetch a high price, however we don’t know who lost it here. We’ll take the bowl, but be careful not to break it because there might be a chance we’ll be able to extract some precious secrets from it.” said Brother Zhao

The three hunters cautiously stored the cup of noodles away, and as for the spilled noodles, they just ate it off of the ground, almost swallowing some dirt with it.

Bai Yang without notice was transported to another world, and similarly just like that, left. If he were to hear the conversation between the three hunters, he would probably be amazed. They were treating garbage like it was treasure. However that wouldn’t have happened because he still wouldn’t be able to understand what they were saying.

Bang

With a loud noise, Bai Yang smashed onto the sofa and remained motionless while his brain almost short circuited due to its futile attempt to make sense of what had just happened. Ten whole minutes passed before he could process his thoughts again.

“Where am I?” Bai Yang’s mind was so clouded with confusion  that he wasn’t even able to recognize his own home.

He felt like he was hallucinating and couldn’t understand anything. Taking a deep breath, he recalled his strange experience of appearing in a jungle and coming across a tiger, whose size seemed much bigger than what was depicted on tv shows.

“What the hell is going on?! Am I becoming delusional because of this damn heat?” Bai Yang muttered to himself as he raised his hand to wipe the sweat on his head, but the next moment he froze.

He was holding grass!

“When that tiger attacked me… I think I grabbed something while I was panicking.” Bai Yang cleared his throat as he stared at the crushed pieces of grass in his hand.