"Maybe it's because he's getting old."
The cat and the fish—Fu Qian's rather nonsensical question—clearly made the Thirteenth Chief even more hesitant.
But she wasn't bored enough to pretend she didn't understand. Winona had been with Claire earlier, and there was no way the Night Watchers hadn't noticed Mr. Rick's habit of getting up in the middle of the night to lick anything he could find.
"According to his wife, Claire, Rick just turned fifty-nine a couple of days ago. Before that, he clearly didn't use his tongue nearly as much."
Of course, the Thirteenth Chief's answer was just as much a jab at Fu Qian's nonsense. An odd smile even crept onto her lips as she spoke.
"So that's how it is... I suppose he's quite the old tiger."
At this seemingly loaded answer, Fu Qian said "Oh" and offered his assessment with complete seriousness.
But while these two high-ranking Transcendents were having a conversation that was beneath their station, Fu Qian's thoughts had turned to two other faces—the distinguished medical experts, a man and a woman, whom he'd encountered earlier. The pair who'd led him astray.
The devil was in the details. At the hospital, he'd seemed to remark that, compared with the young doctors who'd made no attempt to block his view, the senior experts had been much more active in disrupting him.
And the old lady at the end had gone so far as to descend as a Transcendent and grab and bite him.
Thinking about it now, those two were probably no younger than the prematurely retired Mr. Rick.
Fifty-nine... Could age be a factor?
No matter how absurd something sounded, Fu Qian never let assumptions tie his hands.
The Night Watchers had served as a living prison, but they'd also helped in other