I did not sleep that night.
I sat in the front room of my study, wrapped in a heavy outer robe, a single candle burning on the table beside me. I had a cup of cold tea that I had stopped drinking an hour ago, and a small notebook open in my lap in which I had written, then crossed out, then rewritten the same set of names half a dozen times.
The watchers I had placed on Hou Mingzhi were due to report by midnight.
It was past midnight when the first knock came.
Shen Bao's second, a young man named Wei Jian who had the useful quality of being entirely forgettable, slipped through the side entrance and presented himself with his customary bow. He was breathing slightly faster than normal, which told me the news was significant.
"He moved immediately after you left the pavilion," Wei Jian said. "Within the hour. He dismissed his other guests, left by the private river entrance, and took a carriage west."
"West," I repeated. "The administrative quarter."
