Wei Zhengnan came home at the hour he always came home.
This was something I had not fully appreciated until recently — the reliability of his schedule. He was a person who kept to his habits not because he was rigid, but because he had structured his life deliberately, and the structure served him. His budget review ended at the sixth hour. He stopped at the ministry water room to wash his hands, spoke briefly with the assistant who managed his correspondence, and departed. The journey took approximately the same amount of time each day because he took the same route, at the same pace, and did not deviate from it without cause.
I was in the main room when he arrived. I had been sitting there for some time, not doing anything in particular, which was unusual enough that he noticed it immediately.
"You're back," he said.
"An hour ago."
