Lu Chen's world stopped on that rainy night seven years ago.
After an emergency operation he couldn't save, he took off his white coat and became the coldest property manager in an office tower.
A black, white, and gray office. A life scheduled down to the minute. No deep connections. He had made himself into an island, until a fiddle-leaf fig in the corridor under his care began to die.
The day Xiang Qing moved into the building, she brought a whole palette of life with her.
She was a picture-book author and a horticultural therapist who believed that “everything has a crack, and that's where the light gets in.”
She understood the tree's plea for help, and saw the deeper desolation in the eyes of the man beneath it.
“Because this tree, and you, both look like you need a rainstorm.” That was her answer to his questioning. Then, stubbornly, she began to seep into the world he guarded so fiercely, bit by bit, with plants, color, and unexpected warmth.
It began with a pot of mint, a pruning session, and a community workshop.
From saving a tree to unwittingly saving a person,
Lu Chen discovered that the past he thought he could never face
was slowly and steadily being pried open by the power of another living thing.
Theme: Healing doesn't erase scars. It means new tissue growing beside them.
