Feng Suyin was up before sunrise.
She sat in the kitchen with her tea and watched the sky change. Pink at the edges first, then the particular pale blue that arrived before full daylight. It was quiet. The twins were still asleep.
She was meeting Ji Yuzhe's grandfather this afternoon.
She turned the cup in her hands. She'd walked into difficult rooms before. She'd handled Li Xinlian at her worst, Ji Hanjun at his most calculated, the entire public fallout of the scandal. She could handle one elderly man.
This felt different. The Feng family was what it was. She'd grown up inside it, she understood its mechanics, she knew exactly where its authority ended and where the performance began. She had no such map for the Bai family.
