Hidden Sage

A ray of sunlight filtered through the dense foliage and spilled across his face. He opened his eyes just a sliver and was greeted by a world of shimmering leaves, all painted with sunlight’s brilliance—a world of green, dazzling and beautiful. His whole body ached with a dull soreness, his mind was hazy, as if something had happened. He closed his eyes again, searching his memory, and only then let out a slight breath.

He wasn’t beaten to death, after all.

Propping himself up with both hands, he struggled to sit up. Lowering his gaze to the different shapes of shoe prints stamped all over his clothes, he let out a self-mocking laugh.

Chen Hongxu—just an ordinary person, only eighteen years old, a junior at an average high school in HJ City, with middling grades. With someone as unremarkable as he, it was only natural to drift quietly through class, perhaps lucky enough to make one or two close friends, then graduate without fanfare. Years later, should they meet by chance, they’d point at each other’s noses and, with forced smiles, lampoon the embarrassing episodes of their high school days.

That was the life goal Chen Hongxu had set for himself, the path he believed he ought to follow—never reaching too high, never aiming too far, just living with honesty and stability, getting by as long as he could, hoping for a peaceful, uneventful life, with no wish for another in the next world.

But a sudden event threw all of Chen Hongxu’s plans into disarray.

It happened one noon after school, when Chen Hongxu was getting lunch at the school c