Part Three
After she left, the formation above his courtyard shifted again.
The sky slice narrowed further.
Containment had become intentional.
Observation had become strategy.
Zheng Wen Te stood in the center of the courtyard and closed his eyes.
He felt the walls.
The watching threads.
The measured patience of elders waiting for error.
They believed pressure would produce alignment.
They misunderstood.
Pressure did not produce obedience in him.
It produced clarity.
And clarity was far more dangerous.
Far above the Inner Grounds, beyond formation and doctrine—
the heavens remained silent.
But for the first time—
Heaven was not the only entity observing.