CHAPTER 40 — The Choice Beneath Alignment
Part Three
Late into the night, as the sect slept within disciplined walls, Zheng Wen Te felt something subtle shift inside his dantian.
Not a breakthrough.
Not a surge.
A convergence.
His memories—regret, failure, abandonment—no longer felt like fractures.
They aligned.
Not severed.
Integrated.
He understood now what frightened them.
A cultivator who severed emotion was predictable.
A cultivator who integrated emotion was not.
He was not harder to control because he was rebellious.
He was harder to control because he evaluated.
And evaluation led to judgment.
Judgment led to choice.
Choice led to divergence.
And divergence—
reshaped Heaven.