The wedding preparations had resumed their full urgency the morning after Shen Han left.
Servants moved through the corridors with the focused efficiency of people working against a deadline, carrying silk panels, ceremonial ornaments, and endless trays of things that needed to be somewhere other than where they currently were. The courtyard walls were being dressed with the last of the lanterns, long strings of them hung between the wooden pillars that lined the outer walkway, and Xiao Zhi had been watching two servants argue quietly about the correct spacing for approximately ten minutes before she decided she had something better to do with her morning.
She had been watching the lanterns go up when the thought returned to her.
