Regret

A person's innate desires could not be called good or evil, but they needed rules, measures, and limits.

Indulging one's innate desires often led to dire consequences.

Take hunger, for example.

Hunger instinctively drove people to eat. Some chose to seize food from others, some chose to deceive others and reap the benefits, and some chose to toil for themselves.

Hunger was not evil; plunder was an evil deed. But slash-and-burn farming was the righteous path that hunger had given rise to.

People were born with both divine and demonic natures. They instinctively yearned for goodness, yet also instinctively possessed the urge to destroy.

A single thought could tip the balance, making good and evil trade places, making gods and devils switch sides.

That was why a cage was needed: to restrain innate desires and keep them within bounds.

To tame one's innate desires was the process of cultivating the heart.

As the saying went: still the heart's ape, tether the mind's horse, subdue the dragon and tame the tiger, and sit in the empty mountain.

The Daoist Sect purified the heart, the Confucian Sect upheld propriety, the Buddhist Sect observed precepts, the Legalist School enforced laws, and the Military School established orders... At their core, they were all forging cages of morality to imprison the "evil self."

Jiang Wang knew himself and did not shy away from his innate desires.

He admitted that there had been moments when evil thoughts had welled up within him, but in the end, morality and character had always kept them in check.

He had witnessed the dark side of this world and understood the complexity of human nature, yet in the end, he could still calmly declare, "A Thought Blooms."

And so, in this seemingly endless darkness, flowers truly bloomed.

Blossoms spread along