CHAPTER 32 — The Price of a Prophet (Part Two)
The courtyard did not move.
No one spoke.
But Zheng Wen Te felt it—
that whisper was not imagination.
It was not metaphor.
It was something sealed.
Something waiting.
His lips parted slightly.
"I…"
The scripture trembled.
The pages fluttered harder now, like wings trying to break free.
Lian stepped forward instinctively.
"Stop."
Her voice was sharp, protective.
"This isn't normal. Ancestor, this—this scripture is speaking."
The sect Ancestor did not deny it.
His expression remained still, but his eyes had darkened.
"It speaks only to him."
The disciples recoiled.
A murmur spread like sickness.
"Only him…"
"So it recognizes him…"
"Is he… truly Shangdi's prophet?"
Zheng Wen Te's breathing grew shallow.
The words on the page blurred.
Not because his eyes failed—
but because something else was rising.
A pressure behind his ribs.
A heaviness in his soul.
The scripture whispered again, closer now:
"Do you regret being born?"
Zheng Wen Te's fingers twitched.
His voice came out raw.
"…Every day."
The courtyard froze.
Lian's eyes widened.
Even Elder Mo's face stiffened.
That was not an answer a cultivator gave.
Not an answer a hero gave.
But Zheng Wen Te was neither.
The scripture did not mock him.
It did not comfort him.
It only asked, endlessly patient:
"Then why did you endure?"
Zheng Wen Te's throat tightened.
He didn't know.
He had asked himself that question for five years.
He had sat in smoke and silence and rot…
waiting for life to finish what he was too cowardly to do.
The Ancestor's voice cut through the air.
"Do not let it pull you in."
Zheng Wen Te blinked.
"What?"
Lian turned sharply.
"Pull him into what?"
The Ancestor's gaze was fixed on the scripture like one watches a sealed coffin crack open.
"The Heart Severing Scripture does not teach cultivation."
His voice lowered.
"It forces confession."
A disciple whispered:
"Confession…?"
The Ancestor's tone was grim.
"It cuts open the soul until only truth remains."
Zheng Wen Te's stomach twisted.
Truth?
He had lived in truth.
Truth was unbearable.
The scripture fluttered violently—
then stopped.
Suddenly, the pages went still.
The ink darkened.
And the world…
tilted.
Zheng Wen Te felt the stone beneath his feet vanish.
Not physically.
Reality itself seemed to slip.
His ears rang.
The courtyard stretched away like mist.
Lian shouted—
"ZHENG!"
But her voice became distant, muffled, as if underwater.
The scripture's words crawled off the page.
They wrapped around Zheng Wen Te's vision like chains.
Then—
light.
Not Shangdi's light.
Not Heaven's.
A memory.
A scene.
He stood somewhere else.
Not in the sect.
Not in this world.
He smelled rain.
He heard the clatter of wooden streets.
Lanterns hung overhead.
A different sky.
A different life.
And then he saw…
himself.
Not fifty years old.
Not broken.
But young.
Wearing unfamiliar robes.
A sword at his waist.
A woman standing before him.
Her eyes were bright.
Angry.
Heartbroken.
She said something—
a sentence that struck his soul like lightning:
"If you walk away now… then every lifetime after this will punish you."
Zheng Wen Te staggered.
"No…"
The woman's voice trembled.
"You left without resolving your heart."
"You left me with unanswered love."
Her face blurred with tears.
"And Heaven remembers unfinished things."
Zheng Wen Te's chest seized.
This was the karma Shangdi spoke of.
This was the wound he carried across worlds.
The scripture whispered softly, almost tender:
"Welcome back…"
"...to the debt you never paid.."