"After closing up my master's shop, I usually found somewhere to set up a stall on my own."
Zhou Zhanxie cleaned out every last bit of stock from the shop belonging to her master, who had turned into a pervert after death, then walked out with Shane and pulled the roller shutter down behind her.
The repeated clatter of the shutter finally attracted the attention of the neighboring shop. A bald, middle-aged man came out holding a cup of tea, his eyes full of suspicion.
Only after he recognized Zhou Zhanxie did a hint of familiar ease soften his expression.
"Little Zhou? Here to pick up some things from Uncle Cai's shop?"
"Yep, that's right, Uncle Ruan."
They briefly caught up, then Uncle Ruan cradled his ceramic tea mug and locked himself back inside his shop.
Shane turned his head to look.
Ruan's General Merchandise.
"You got along pretty well with the neighbors back when you lived in Hong Kong."
"We were all just trying to make a living. What's there to get along well or badly about? Say hello when you see each other, give a shout if anyone needs help over the holidays, occasionally invite someone to stay for a meal-isn't that how everyone gets by?"
"...Pretty well, then." Once the two had walked some distance away, the rubber strip curtain at Ruan's General Merchandise was lifted again.
A pale, gloomy-looking British man with a messy bird's nest of hair and a face covered in stubble walked out with a cigarette between his lips.
Constantine glanced in the direction the two had gone, then looked back at the dust-covered metal shutter of the funeral shop next door and scratched the stubble on his chin.
"Lucky me."
Constantine gave a knowing smile.
He had indeed pursued his quarry all