In a small town in Denmark, there lived a highly learned scholar. He buried himself in books and research all day long, and his shadow always accompanied him silently. One day, while the scholar was reading in the garden as usual, suddenly a strange thing happened. He felt as if his shadow had moved a bit. It was not the kind of swaying caused by the wind, but a wriggling with self - awareness. The scholar's eyes widened in surprise. Before he could react, the shadow actually detached itself from his body and stood opposite him.
The shadow looked at the scholar and grinned. That smile seemed rather eerie to the scholar. The shadow said to the scholar, "Let's exchange our identities and experience each other's lives." At first, the scholar thought this idea was absurd, but the shadow spoke in a very persuasive tone, "You are so dull in your research every day. Don't you want to experience a carefree feeling?" The scholar hesitated for a while and finally agreed. In an instant, a strange light flashed, and they swapped their identities. Now, the shadow took on the appearance of the scholar, and the scholar became like the shadow.
The shadow, now in the form of the scholar, swaggered into the scholar's study. He looked at the room full of books, with a curious glint in his eyes. He randomly picked up a book, only to find that he couldn't understand the words at all, but he didn't care. He just regarded the book as a novel toy. He ran around in the study, making a mess of the books and scattering the scholar's carefully organized notes all over the floor.
However, the real scholar, now existing only in the form of a shadow, watched his study being messed up and was very worried, but he could do nothing but float silently by the wall.
Then, the shadow - scholar was invited to an important academic conference. He sat among a group of scholars who were all enthusiastically discussing profound academic issues. The shadow - scholar couldn't understand what they were talking about at all. He could only nod from time to time, pretending to understand. But when someone asked him a question, he stammered and couldn't answer, causing the other scholars to cast doubtful glances at him.
The real scholar watched all this from the wall in the corner. He was worried about his reputation. How he wished he could change back to his original form and answer those questions to save his reputation.
After going through all this chaos, the shadow also realized that it was completely incapable of living the life of a scholar. He found the real scholar and said that he wanted to change back to their original identities. The scholar readily agreed. Another flash of light passed, and they finally changed back to their original identities. The scholar looked at the study that had been restored to neatness and let out a sigh of relief, and the shadow also returned to its original state of silently accompanying the scholar. Since then, the scholar has cherished his life more and also understood that everyone has their own unique significance of existence.
