Interest from above did not vanish like mist beneath sunlight.
It receded like a tide.
At first, Li Chen noticed it only through absence.
The faint pressure that once hovered over cultivation grounds—subtle yet undeniable—no longer fluctuated. It did not lift completely, but it no longer adjusted. It no longer reacted. It simply existed, inert and indifferent, like a ceiling no longer reinforced.
For cultivators sensitive to change, that difference was everything.
Disciples attempting breakthroughs still failed—but now they failed predictably. There was no longer that eerie sense of an unseen hand pressing harder at key moments. Qi circulated normally. Dao comprehension returned to familiar patterns.
The heavens, it seemed, had grown bored.
Li Chen did not relax.
Boredom, he knew, was a far more dangerous state than curiosity. A curious observer probed. A bored one judged whether something was worth erasing entirely.
So he made himself smaller.
Requests for his guidance increased as news spread that stability was returning. Li Chen declined most of them, citing exhaustion, retreating illness, or the need to consolidate existing knowledge. When he did teach, he spoke only of breath, posture, and patience.
No sword intent.
No Dao insights.
No brilliance.
Some elders felt disappointed. Others felt reassured.
"Perhaps we overestimated him," one elder remarked privately.
Li Chen heard of it and felt nothing but relief.
At night, he sat alone within his residence, not cultivating, simply listening to the slow rhythm of the world. His divine breathing technique remained sealed, its presence heavy and restrained within his dantian.
If I advance now, he thought, someone will notice.
So he didn't.
Far above, where time flowed differently and worlds were no more than entries in vast records, attention shifted.
Observation logs updated.
"Lower realm irregularity diminishing."
"Adaptive behavior achieved compliance."
"Potential suppressed through internal moderation."
Another record was opened elsewhere.
Something louder. Something more defiant.
And just like that, the weight lessened.
Not gone.
But no longer centered here.
Li Chen slept lightly that night, but for the first time in weeks, he slept without his hand resting on an escape talisman.