My Path to Immortality with a Blade of Grass - Chapter 10

11 — Extra 2: The Lingzhi’s Story

I’m a mushroom, mushroom, mushroom!

The grayest, plumpest mushroom in the whole wide world!

And the happiest mushroom in the world, too!

I was always so happy. Every day, I greeted the birds in the sky and the squirrels on the ground, and sang endlessly to the other mushrooms.

Because I was always so cheerful, lots of the mushrooms around me thought I was silly.

They also found me annoying.

So they put a curse on me.

Until I received true love’s kiss, I would be unable to speak or sing.

What a vicious curse!

After all, to receive true love’s kiss—

I’d need a mouth first!

One day, a white-bearded old immortal came picking mushrooms in our patch.

While all the other mushrooms instinctively shrank away, I alone, being a happy mushroom, held my head high and met his gaze.

Then he hurried straight past me.

“A lingzhi that stupid can’t possibly be any good!” he said disdainfully.

How rude!

I didn’t know what “lingzhi” meant, but it sounded like an insult to mushrooms!

In the end, though, he took me anyway.

“Other than this silly lingzhi, they’re all just mushrooms!” After circling the patch of gloomy mushrooms, the old immortal sounded helpless. Then, for some reason, his eyes curved with a smile. He muttered to himself, “Still, this silly lingzhi would make a nice match for that silly little snake. Keep her from getting lonely.”

Stop it!

There he went again!

You’re a silly lingzhi! Your whole family’s lingzhi!

I was a happy mushroom!

Not long after bringing me to the herb garden, the old immortal brought in a brightly colored little snake.

Unable to speak because of the curse, I spread my cap as wide as I could. All I could do was greet her excitedly in my heart.

“Hello!”

Perhaps we had a special connection.

She looked at me!

Her eyes were bright and keen, and her patterned scales gleamed in the sunlight.

Just as I thrilled at the thought, Could I really have found my true love already? Is my curse about to be broken?—

She swung her tail and started whacking me all over.

It didn’t hurt.

But she was so fierce.

Mushroom was scared.

After the little patterned snake arrived, I soon got used to being beaten up every few days.

The tail she thought was so fearsome barely tickled my thick mushroom cap, but her ferocity still startled me every time.

Mushroom suffered in silence.

Literally.

Meanwhile, the foxtail grass growing nearby became visibly happier, because the little snake was always circling around him.

She and the foxtail grass never seemed to run out of things to say. They talked about the heavens and the earth, sunrise and sunset, skies full of stars, flowers blooming on the mountains, the countless people of the world, and braised chicken in little towns…

And I, with a belly full of things to say, could only stand quietly beside them, silenced by my curse.

It was a story about three mountain spirits, yet there was no room for me in it.

At that moment, Mushroom was a lonely mushroom.

I watched the foxtail grass and the little snake grow closer every day as though no mushroom were even there.

Even I, a mushroom, could smell the sickly sour tang of romance in the air.

But of those two idiots, one was too shy to confess, and the other was too prickly and oblivious to catch on.

Come on. You were already sweet enough to make honey jealous, and you still hadn’t confessed?

Were you two hopeless?

I wished I could grow hands and feet, grab those two long, skinny things, and tie them together in a knot.

Stay together!

Stay together forever!

I silently prayed to heaven: as long as the little snake and foxtail grass could be together, this faithful mushroom would gladly wait another hundred years to speak!

Heaven heard my prayer.

So a gang of robbers came into the herb garden and hauled me, the little snake, the caterpillar fungus next door, and everything else away…

Only the foxtail grass was left behind, crying out in anguish as they carried the little snake off.

My heart hurt so much I could hardly bear it.

Wasn’t I supposed to be the most valuable thing in the garden? Couldn’t they just take me and leave the little snake with him?

And old immortal, you absolute genius—how did you come up with the idea of hiring a nonvenomous snake to guard your precious herb garden?

Fuck your mother.

Luckily, the little snake escaped just before she could be turned into soup.

I watched her disappear into the vast forest and felt nothing but relief.

Their love had hope again. Even if this mushroom was about to be chopped into dumpling filling or stir-fried with garlic scapes, I could die without regret.

I could smile all the way to the underworld.

My story was about to end.

Except, entirely unexpectedly, it didn’t.

A snow-white little snake saved me.

Clear-minded and perhaps only a hundred years away from gaining awareness, she wound her tail around me, lifted me off the chopping board, and carefully planted me in the forest.

Then, just as the little patterned snake coiled around the foxtail grass, she coiled around me.

She even laid her head gently on my cap.

Mushrooms don’t blush.

Their hearts don’t race.

And yet I distinctly felt that same sickly sour scent of romance beginning to rise from me.

I’m a mushroom, mushroom, mushroom!

The grayest, plumpest mushroom in the whole wide world!

A mushroom with a little white snake of my own!

The happiest mushroom in the whole wide world!