Yizhen's mouth turned down a millimetre. The Jackal's tone was shorter—sharp edges and small knives.
It was clear that praise didn't live in it.
Mingyu stood a pace back, his head inclined as if examining the calligraphy on the wall.
He heard courtesy and filed it under not-an-insult-yet.
Deming glanced once at a hinge, at a beam, at a length of floor that could remember a struggle; his jaw set for patience, not violence. Longzi's attention locked on exits the way a soldier prays—without show. Yaozu was where shadows guessed he might be, and guessed wrong.
"You picked a pretty kennel," Yizhen remarked, his gaze sliding over the temple tokens with the wrong year stamped into their faces.
The Jackal says something that makes the corners of his eyes crinkle like paper that's been folded too many times.
"The master thanks you," the translator offers, beat-perfect. "He keeps a careful house."
Beside the brazier, Xinying didn't move.
