CHAPTER 51 — The Weight of Being Heard
Part One
No thunder followed.
No reward descended.
No punishment struck.
The plaza simply existed again.
Wind moved.
Cloth shifted.
Someone coughed.
Reality resumed with unsettling normalcy.
That was what terrified them.
Heaven had spoken.
Heaven had asked.
And nothing visible had happened.
The visiting faction leader slowly steadied himself, his fingers trembling.
"You… answered."
It was not accusation.
It was disbelief.
Zheng Wen Te stood where he had always stood.
Not glowing.
Not transformed.
But something invisible had locked into place.
Not in his cultivation.
In the world.
Lian approached carefully.
"You're not injured?"
"No."
He was not stronger.
He checked.
His meridians remained as they were.
No surge.
No breakthrough.
No divine gift.
Heaven had not rewarded him.
And yet—
There was weight now.
A subtle gravitational tension around him.
Not pressure.
Recognition.
Elder Rui stepped forward slowly.
"What did it take from you?"
Zheng Wen Te looked at him.
"Nothing."
The elder did not look convinced.
Because something had changed.
The sky was ordinary again.
But it no longer felt distant.