"No," she agreed.
'But it's not nothing.'
"No," she agreed again.
The lamp burned low. She replaced it. Kept working.
---
The administrative wing of the palace looked different in daylight.
She had spent three months in this palace and had learned its geography completely — every corridor, every checkpoint, every room that connected to every other room in ways the official plans didn't fully document. She had learned it as a regent, as someone responsible for it.
Walking through it now as Lian Mei, merchant, was a different experience.
The guards at the administrative wing entrance checked their credentials. She watched them do it — thorough, professional, the specific quality of people who had been trained recently and were taking their training seriously. New rotation. New protocols.
Someone had been working on the security structure.
She filed this.
'Current authority: operational competence, confirmed.'
