The mist thickened around Lin Xian as he stumbled through the ruins of the Sealed Grove, each breath a ragged pull against the heavy, cloying air.

  Somewhere behind him, distant bells tolled — harsh, frantic.

  They would come for him.

  But the real battle was not here.

  It raged inside him.

  The Spirit Garden trembled within his soul, fragile and unstable.

  He could feel it — not just as an abstract presence, but as a living, breathing reality:

  The cracked soil.The battered sapling.The poisoned ground where once ancient gardens had bloomed.

  Each step he took echoed through that inner landscape, shaking loose dust and withered roots.

  Lin Xian gritted his teeth, pressing a bloodied hand against his chest.

  He could ignore the external world for a few more minutes.

  He had to.

  If he didn’t stabilize the Spirit Garden now —If he let the corruption fester even a moment longer —It would collapse.

  And he would die.

  He closed his eyes.

  Reached inward.

  Fell.

  He stood once more within his Spirit Garden.

  The sky overhead churned with bruised clouds, the faint stars beyond barely visible.

  The sapling at the center still pulsed weakly, its two leaves fluttering against a dry, stagnant wind.

  Around it, the soil cracked and oozed with a sickly blackness.

  Blight.

  Corruption.

  Rot that had festered unseen for centuries, choking the very heart of the Verdant Path.

  Lin Xian staggered forward, boots sinking into the sludge.

  The ground gurgled underfoot, coughing up tendrils of withered roots that clawed at his legs.

  He yanked free, heart pounding.

  Ahead, the sapling quivered — not in fear, but in warning.

  A figure rose from the blighted soil.

  At first, Lin Xian thought it a tree twisted into mockery — a tangle of broken roots and rotted vines woven into the shape of a man.

  Then it turned.

  Its face — if it could be called that — was a hollow mask, weeping black sap from empty eye sockets.

  And it spoke.

  Not in words.

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  In memories.

  Han Zhi's laughter.Elder Mo’s cold disdain.The sneers of disciples who had never once bothered to learn his name.

  "You are nothing," it whispered in a hundred voices."A weed. A mistake. Unwanted. Forgotten."

  The figure lurched forward, dragging rotted vines behind it.

  The air filled with the stench of decay.

  Lin Xian took a step back — then another.

  Panic clawed at the edges of his mind.

  He could not fight this thing.

  He had no techniques, no polished martial skills.

  Only a sapling.

  Only cracked soil.

  Only himself.

  The figure lunged.

  Lin Xian barely dodged, the withered vines scraping across his shoulder in a burning lash of agony.

  He hit the ground hard, mud splattering across his robes.

  The blight spread wherever the creature touched — flowers shriveling, grass blackening, soil cracking into dead dust.

  It was not just a monster.

  It was everything he had ever feared he would become.

  Forgotten.Useless.Dead.

  The sapling pulsed weakly.

  Lin Xian pushed himself to his knees, gasping.

  He reached toward it, desperation clawing at his throat.

  "Help me," he whispered.

  The sapling quivered — but no power surged to his aid.

  No golden aura.No martial prowess.

  Just the faint, stubborn heartbeat of life refusing to yield.

  The blighted figure advanced, vines hissing against the soil.

  Lin Xian understood, then.

  This was not a battle to win with strength.

  It was a battle to survive with care.

  With will.

  With heart.

  He pushed to his feet.

  Staggered toward the sapling.

  The blighted figure lunged again.

  Lin Xian ignored it.

  He tore a piece of his robe free, wrapping it around his bleeding hand.

  He pressed that hand into the cracked, blackened soil around the sapling.

  And he began to work.

  Slowly.

  Gently.

  Tearing away blighted roots.Scooping poisoned soil aside.Packing fresh earth — weak, but still living — around the fragile trunk.

  The sapling responded, fluttering feebly against his touch.

  The blighted figure shrieked, vines lashing furiously.

  Pain ripped across Lin Xian’s back — but he gritted his teeth and continued.

  Digging.

  Tending.

  Caring.

  Not fighting.

  The blight recoiled.

  The poisoned ground shuddered, fractures spiderwebbing outward.

  The sky overhead cracked, spilling shafts of pale green light into the garden.

  The blighted figure screamed — a sound of fury and fear — and rushed him one last time.

  Lin Xian didn’t flinch.

  He pressed both hands into the earth around the sapling.

  Poured his will into it.

  His defiance.His hope.His belief that life could grow even here, even now.

  The Spirit Garden answered.

  Roots burst upward from the soil, coiling around the blighted figure.

  It shrieked, struggling — but the roots tightened, thorns digging deep.

  The creature crumbled into dust, carried away by the rising wind.

  The corruption withered.

  The soil, once cracked and blackened, darkened into rich, fertile loam.

  Tiny shoots of green poked through the earth, timid but eager.

  The sapling straightened.

  Its leaves unfurled fully, gleaming under the newborn light.

  Lin Xian collapsed beside it, laughing and crying at once.

  He had done it.

  He had saved it.

  He lay there for what felt like hours, feeling the gentle pulse of Verdant Qi growing stronger inside him.

  Not a flood.

  Not a storm.

  But a steady, stubborn current.

  He was a cultivator now.

  In a way no sect elder could ever understand.

  Through care.

  Through patience.

  Through heart.

  Through life.

  When he opened his eyes, the Spirit Garden had changed.

  Still small. Still humble.

  But thriving.

  The soil was rich.The sapling stood proud.

  And at the far edges of the garden, vague shapes stirred — hints of future growth.

  Vines.Groves.Forests yet to bloom.

  He smiled.

  The journey had only just begun.

  And he would walk it.

  Root by root.Step by step.

  No matter how long it took.