My sin against Zhu was great. In order to save what we had built, I destroyed it from within – through him. I betrayed his trust and twisted him into everything he wasn’t. This was done in order to save his people, I told myself. His peaceful reign became one of suspicion and terror. I conceived the birth of the infamous secret police which terrorized his people. I sent his armies forth to suppress all dissension. I destroyed my own dream. “Relax your breathing. Feel the chi flow through your arms. Push with your entire body, not just your arms.”Roen let Sifu Lin drone on in the background as he focused on the Chen-style form. It always surprised him how much he sweated practicing t’ai chi. It was even more surprising how hard it was to move at a slow and controlled pace. He originally thought moving at a snail’s pace would be much easier than moving fast, but that wasn’t the case. It forced him to pay attention to his body in a completely different manner.“I said, not your muscles!”
