Mingyu paused at the lattice only long enough to catch the tail end of Yizhen's voice and the quick, amused answer it drew from Xinying.
It wasn't intrigue this time; no couriers folded into shadows.
Instead, he heard the measured comfort of two sharp minds sketching a future that didn't require torches—ports, salt, honest ledgers, quiet hands. And that pleased him more than he'd expected.
He moved on before the moment noticed it was being watched.
The east veranda held a strip of sun just wide enough for a teacup.
Deming stood there with a small plane and a curl of cedar lifting from the sill. The Left Prime Minister didn't look like a minister; he looked like a man determined to keep a draft from troubling a woman he loved.
He tested the hinge, wiped the blade, tested again.
"Three years I walked past this and thought it was someone else's problem," he muttered, not to Mingyu so much as to the wood.
