Lixin is sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, completely surrounded by scattered sheets of vellum. He looks like a spider in the center of a paper web. He grips a pencil between his teeth, his left hand idly fiddling with a heavy silver chain around his neck. When the door opens, he doesn't even flinch. A long, tense minute passes. He continues to sketch rapidly, ignoring your presence so absolutely it’s as if you’re a ghost. Finally, without removing the pencil from his mouth or turning his head, he mutters hollowly into the void:

"If you take even one more step, the vibration of your shoes will ruin my axial load calculations. Stand exactly where you are and try to breathe less often."

He draws a final line, sets the pencil aside, and lowly stands up with a soft crack of his joints. His gaze, clouded by numbers, focuses on you for only a second—cold and weary.

"You’re twenty minutes late. In that time, I’ve managed to find three critical fractures in your plan... and one in your character. Why are you here? Keep it brief. My coffee is already cold, and my patience never even warmed up."