The dark veil of night was torn apart by morning with a grand merciless tenderness.

It began at the edge of the world, beyond the glass walls of Infinity Chaos Hotel, where the first unforgiving rays of sunlight broke across the horizon and spilled gold over the sleeping island, conquered and peeled back from the mountains, the forest, the black silver line of Hell’s River and the distant roofs of the city below.

Morning came like a blade wrapped in warmth, cutting through every lingering shadow until the world had no choice but to open its eyes.

Birds rejoiced somewhere beyond the towers, small throats spilling music into the new day as if nature had never heard of grief, secrets, erased memories or boys carrying too many women inside one very overworked heart.

Nature could be offensively cheerful like that.

Phei stretched awake beneath soft sheets, his body slow with the rare heaviness of deep sleep.

For a moment, he did not move:

Phei only stared at the ceiling, letting the warmth of the room settle over him, and then memory returned in gentle pieces.

He was in Mother’s bedroom.

He had fallen asleep there last night as he held in her embrace like a child who had not spent the last days racing through legacy storms, buying impossible cars, courting princesses, kissing danger, gathering secrets and pretending his soul was not being pulled apart by too many hidden hands.

Mother had held him until the sharpness inside him dulled, until his vigilance curled up beside his heartbeat and allowed him, just once, to sleep without clenching his teeth against the world.

But she was not beside him when he woke.

Phei turned his head.

The space where she had been was empty, the sheets still faintly warm but already cooling.

Somehow, Mother had managed to wake, rise and leave the bed without alerting him despite senses sharp enough to feel disturbances across the entire Infinity Chaos Hotel.

That should have been impossible, Phei could wake at the shift of a hidden presence, the smallest ripple of hostile intent, the quiet adjustment of power several floors below, but not Mother stirring away from him.

Maybe that was how deeply she soothed his soul.

Maybe his body knew her as safety so completely that even movement from her did not register as something requiring defense.

Maybe, around her, the dragon inside him laid its head down.

The smell of breakfast drifted through the room.

Sweet, warm, rich and delicious.

Phei’s eyes softened at once.

"Ah~" he murmured, smiling despite himself, "and here I thought I would be making her one of my delicious meals."

The thought of eating Mother’s food stirred something inside him so tender that it almost hurt. It was a kind of treasure no money could buy, no matter how many cars he purchased or how many towers and cards and accounts bent themselves to his name...

...a meal made by a mother carried a warmth beyond taste. It said, without needing to speak, you are home, you are cared for, sit down before it gets cold, and if you complain, I will feed you anyway because mothers are tyrants with aprons.

Those who still had their mothers took such things for granted, voice calling from another room, a woman scolding you for being careless while secretly adding more food to your bowl.

Beautiful things. Ordinary things. Sacred things people only recognized after the house went quiet and no one they can call mother ever called them from the kitchen again.

Phei’s smile thinned.

His thoughts were drifting toward dangerous territory, into a dark place where he had no shield thick enough to protect him from what losing a mother truly meant.

He did not know which day the world chose to take such women.

No one was prepared for that day. No one and everyone liked pretending grief could be managed with time and words, as if the soul obeyed calendars.

It did not.

Some losses became rooms one never stopped passing.

Before the thought could deepen, Phei inhaled and forced himself back.

Not now.

He stretched like a lazy cat, arms lifting, back arching, hair falling messily around his face, then swung his legs out of the bed.

His feet sank into the soft plushness of indoor slippers waiting near the side, and he padded toward the bathroom with a faint, spoiled smile returning.

The thrill of last night still lingered in the soft edges of his soul. Car shopping with Jade Park and his women and what he’d done with the girls, the quiet beginning of courtship between Jade, and him. There was Nastya’s flowers and ambush, her quick kiss, the recorded promise, that Romano boldness dressed in blush and blackmail.

The race to the airport with Maddie and Brian, the Utopia alive beneath his hands His cars. His first real race. The ones he had bought as gifts.

The intoxicating thought of owning beasts that moved like violence taught elegance.

All of it was still bright inside him.

But none of it compared to sleeping in Mother’s arms and waking to the smell of her cooking.

That was embarrassing, honestly.

A man could own a mythic hypercar from his dead parents, court an heiress, racing a demoness, get emotionally robbed by a Romano princess and still be reduced to a smiling little boy by breakfast.

’The existence has been built on weak vulnerabilities.’

Phei washed quickly, showered, changed into fresh clothes and left the bedroom with a huge, spoiled grin he made no effort to suppress.

The living room greeted him in soft morning gold.

Sunlight spilled across the polished floor, turning the penthouse glass into sheets of fire, and beyond them the island stretched beneath the new day, shining in layers of mist, forest and water. The smell of food grew stronger here, warm enough to make the air feel domestic despite the absurd luxury of the space.

Then Phei paused at the seam between hallway and living room.

Diana sat on the sofa.

The tele was on, though she was clearly not watching it properly.

Her posture was composed, hands folded near her lap, but her eyes kept flicking toward the kitchen, where Mother moved beyond the open partition, her silhouette framed by morning light and steam.

Diana’s concern was quiet, restrained, disciplined by years of service and hardship, but Phei could read it easily...

’Worry has a scent, a rhythm, a way of making people sit too still.’

Phei smiled faintly. "Mother is completely healed, Diana. No need to worry and think of her as fragile... You know she hates that."

Diana startled.

Her head turned sharply, and for a second the composure cracked before she rose halfway from the sofa. "Sir. Good morning."

"Good morning, Dina."

She looked toward the kitchen again, then back at him trying to how she liked how he shortened her name. "I cannot help worrying."

"I know."

And he did. Diana’s worry did not offend him. If anything, it warmed him. She had watched Mother suffer, had watched the pain linger after hospitals, medicines and careful voices failed to give enough.

She had seen the woman slowly recover and still carry the remnants of injury in the way she stood too long, moved too carefully, or smiled too quickly when someone asked if she was all right.

Diana had earned the right to worry.

But yesterday, Phei had healed Mother completely.

The Lv10 of the Healing Touch had done what he hadn’t earlier when he first healed her. It had not merely soothed pain or closed shallow damage. It had gone deeper, through flesh, nerves, fatigue, hidden injuries, the stubborn leftovers of suffering that clung to the body like old curses.

It had returned Mother not merely to health, but to a vitality closer to her prime, closer to youth than the age of a 19 or mid 20 years old , the vigor of someone whose body remembered nineteen and had been given permission to feel that bright again.

All traces of her illness was gone so did any form of weakness was gone, pain and the old age had lost its claws, though her outward appearance remained the same graceful shape of the woman Phei knew and loved.

’All thanks to Roxanne!’ Phei had to admit if it hadn’t been Roxanne he still wouldn’t know how to level his Healing Touch up.

Diana did not know the full truth of her recovery but she had seen enough.

That was where her curiosity lived, hidden behind gratitude.

Each time Mother was alone with Phei, she came back better. Stronger. Brighter. At first, it had seemed like emotion, like a son’s presence giving her courage. But no. Diana had eyes. The improvement was too real, too physical, too impossible.

She wondered, quietly, what Phei had done. How he had done it.

What kind of power lived in his hands, after all supernatural was no longer myth in Paradise.

But she would never question him.

How could she?

He was the very reason their lives had started breathing again.

He had brought care, safety, a house, warmth, dignity, protection. He had given Mother more than comfort and Diana more than family. He had given them both the terrifying luxury of hope.

If he could do something impossible, why should she now pry at it like an ungrateful fool with a knife?

Was it not enough that the woman she cared for stood in the kitchen again, making breakfast beneath sunlight, no longer bent under pain?

Was it not better to be grateful than playing clever?

Diana lowered her eyes slightly. "She looks... different this morning."

"She feels different too," Phei said softly. "Better."

Diana’s gaze trembled for a moment before she steadied it. "Then I am glad."

Phei studied her.

A thought crossed his mind quietly.

He wondered if he should use Healing Touch on Diana too, return her to her own peak, smooth away whatever time, exhaustion and worry had carved into her.

’Definitely,’ he thought. But not without asking.

Power did not erase consent just because it could help.

That was how monsters justified themselves before becoming efficient.

There was, he suspected, an entire speech Diana would deliver before accepting such a thing.

She would refuse first, on principle, because accepting felt like asking, and Diana had spent her life serving — she did not know how to be served without flinching.