CHAPTER 46 — The Weight of Being Human
Part One
The sect quieted after the trial.
Too quiet.
No summons arrived the next morning. No formal declaration. No punishment. No praise.
Silence became the new containment.
Zheng Wen Te remained in his courtyard beneath the trimmed tree. The adaptive formation above him shimmered faintly, adjusting to every fluctuation in his breathing.
He did not cultivate immediately.
He sat.
For the first time since arriving in this world, he allowed himself to feel the cost.
Integration was not painless.
It was heavier than severance.
When he closed his eyes, he did not see formations or elders.
He saw Earth.
A cramped living room. An unpaid electricity bill. His wife's tired eyes. His children pretending not to notice the arguments.
He had failed there.
Not spiritually.
Practically.
"I was not strong," he murmured.
The leaves above him rustled faintly.
Here, in this world, they called him anomaly.
They called him destabilizer.
They called him evolutionary risk.
But on Earth—
He had simply been a man who could not carry the weight.
The irony did not escape him.
He breathed slowly.
"I integrated here because I severed too much there."
The formation responded to the spike in fluctuation.
It tightened slightly.
He let it.
Pain moved through him like an old river finding its path again.
He did not suppress it.
But this time—
It was not philosophical.
It was personal.
Tears formed.
Not dramatic.
Not shattering.
Just quiet.
He had not cried when his family left.
He had numbed himself instead.
Severed weakness.
Severed shame.
Severed hope.
Now—
He understood what that severance had cost him.
Integration meant reopening wounds.
And that was far more terrifying than facing Heaven.