"You'll speak," Mingyu told them, not moving from the doorway Xinying had just crossed. "She won't ask."
Xinying glanced past him at the low table, the small grid still out, iron-jade-horn where he'd left them. Her mouth tipped, unimpressed. "If this turns into poetry, I'm leaving."
"Not poetry," Mingyu returned. "Inventory."
He stepped aside, and the room belonged to her again—brazier steady, tea barely breathing.
Yizhen folded his fan without theatrics and hooked it into his belt. Deming didn't bother with posture; he looked like a verdict waiting to be read. Longzi shifted one pace off the wall and stopped where a guard might stop—near enough to move, far enough to be unobtrusive.
Xinying set her slips on the table, thumb smudged with ink. "Inventory, then. Who starts."
Yizhen moved first, because he'd been born to reach for edges and test them. He didn't bow. He didn't smirk. For once, nothing pretty got between his mouth and the truth.
