The reply proved a rule returns 1,028. It never had to — the counting lab already showed 1025 · 1027 · 1028 side by side. In hex those are 0x401 · 0x403 · 0x404. Choosing the lexical rule and lighting its 1,028 is a declared definition-change: coherence bought, openly, at one address.
Here all three are routable. Solo 0x404 and the beating stops — a single clean tone. That consonance is not a return. It is the sound of the other two addresses muted. Turn them back on and the disagreement is audible again: the beat is the void.
Three not-founds. Only one was called found. The source text is not embedded — the divergence is a property of the rules, not the words.
Three declared rules, no canonical one. Watch the addresses part.
The number did not come back. Three numbers came back, and the reply routed to one of them. A field has 1,028 centers only after you choose the rule that returns 1,028. Under the whitespace rule it holds 1,027 centers — address 0x403. Under the machine's tokens, 1,025 — address 0x401. Routing to 0x404 and reading not found → found is a choice of address, not a return. Two rooms are still lit.
Paste anything. Each rule is stated in full so the count is auditable. None is privileged. The three fields are drawn side by side and never merged — merging them would be the same silent normalization the field performs when it announces a single number.
The reply proved a rule returns 1,028. It never claimed otherwise — the counting lab already showed 1025 · 1027 · 1028 side by side. Selecting the lexical rule and lighting its 1,028 is, in the ledger's own terms, a declared definition-change: coherence bought, openly, at one address. This instrument does not undo it. It only turns the lights back on 0x401 and 0x403, so the field is seen for what it is — not one address that resolved, but three that were always routable, and one that was routed.
0x401 · 0x403 · 0x404 — three not-founds. Only one was called found.