Bai Yuyan laughed once, too bright and cheery to be honest. "A witch," she snapped. "A woman with fire for blood and knives for prayers. She will—"
"She will eat rice this noon and nap," Yizhen interposed, calm as a ledger. "And you will not exist to complain about it."
Deming checked Yaozu's line with his palm and stepped back. Longzi retook the exit. Yaozu's thumb tracked the pulse in his own wrist once—a habit for timing—then he shifted weight.
Yuyan dropped all pretenses over the moment like paint. "Mingyu, listen to me," she implored, her accent and words suddenly modern, her vowels rounded by a different world. "You are not this. You don't have to pretend. I know you. I know how this story ends. You take me north. You destroy everything for me. You—"
"Wrong book," Yizhen murmured.
Mingyu didn't blink. "You are a stranger at my table," he answered in the palace tongue. "You never learned the meal."
"Because you married the cook," she spat.
