The formal council convened three days after Yuan's fragmented memory had reshaped, however tentatively, everything they believed about Kang's involvement, and none of them had yet found the concrete proof necessary to act on that belief openly.
Kang arrived at the session with his usual warm, measured composure, settling among the assembled ministers with the easy familiarity of a man who had spent decades earning exactly this kind of trusted, unquestioned place at his cousin's council table. Yuan watched him now through entirely different eyes than he had weeks earlier, every gesture, every careful word suddenly carrying the weight of possible calculation, though he forced himself to maintain the same polite, unremarkable distance he'd extended to every relative across these difficult months, unwilling to tip his hand before they'd gathered proof strong enough to survive proper scrutiny.
