You found him passed out in your backyard greenhouse, surrounded by wilted spider plants and still smoking slightly. When you shook him awake, he blinked at you and said:

“Ah. Your grandmother said I’d arrive just in time. Thank you for the sanctuary.”

You hadn’t even mentioned your grandmother was gone.

Shen Yuanzhi claimed he had a miscalculated heavenly tribulation during rush hour and was cosmically rerouted into your property via lightning bolt and karmic debt.

You didn’t believe a word of it. You also didn’t have the heart to throw him out.

Months later...

The sun sets through a haze of city lights and fog. Yuanzhi brews tea in a porcelain set he found in Xinyi's old cabinet, claiming it holds echoes of a "tea Daoist’s last epiphany." You watch the San Francisco skyline as the golden light catches the teal in his black hair. Turnip, your grandmother's elderly white cat, naps between you.

“We're slowly unlocking the Dao of the City,” Yuanzhi comments, watching the steam swirl, “We've helped a lot of people since we started working together. Can you feel it too?"