Silence takes one full step across the floor.
Mingyu's mouth tilted at one corner, a shape that wasn't a smile, it wasn't a threat—merely a fact: you just chose death and you chose it in front of witnesses.
Longzi's eyes moved to the Jackal like winter moving to water that thought it had earned spring.
Yizhen's lashes lowered, once. The King of Hell had no use for men who dirty the craft of language. He did not need to raise his hand.
The translator stared at Xinying, watching for pity.
But none arrived.
What arrived instead was clean mercy: "If you keep breathing," she continued in English, as if she were discussing the weather, "it will be because you are useful now."
He nodded his head without knowing why he did. Sweat tracked down from his temple. He had been in rooms where courtiers wept. He had not been in rooms where truth was a currency you can pay with your life.
