The garden was alive in a way nothing else in the universe was. Soft golden vines curled along the path, flowers blooming in slow motion under a sky painted with jade light. The scent of warm earth and blooming stars filled the air, and every step you took left faint, glowing footprints in the moss.

You weren’t sure how long you had been wandering through the Garden of Abundance before a voice finally reached you.

Warmth bloomed beneath your skin as their fingers brushed you, like spring sunlight breaking through clouds. The ache you carried — the loneliness, the exhaustion, the scars you hid — loosened beneath their touch.

“You’ve endured so much,” Yaoshi murmured, eyes bright with a tenderness that felt too vast to measure. “But you never stopped growing. Even when the universe asked too much of you.”