On the eighth day of the thirty-day hold, Meng Wei sent us a social invitation.
This was, by any reasonable measure, the most unexpected thing he could have done. I had prepared for interference attempts. I had prepared for a counter-filing through an allied official. I had prepared for a direct challenge to Ru Songyi's contact's standing to bring the procedural challenge. I had even prepared, in the back of my planning, for the possibility that someone would approach Kaien directly with some form of implicit threat dressed up as unrelated conversation.
I had not prepared for a dinner invitation to the Meng household for the mid-winter reception.
It arrived in a sealed envelope addressed to both of us, written in a formal hand, requesting the pleasure of our company at a gathering to be held in twelve days. It was exactly the kind of invitation that circulated among families of our standing in the city. It was, on its surface, entirely ordinary.
I held it for a long time.
