"What are you doing?"
The proprietress went to the kitchen to hurry the food along.
As soon as she turned the corner, she saw someone bent over beneath the covered walkway, rummaging around in the water tank. At the sound of her voice, the person startled like a bird from a bowstring. His hand shook, and the thing he had picked up dropped back into the water with a splash. He hurriedly fished it out and stuffed it into his robe. The proprietress caught only a glint of reflected light. Her neighbor was a squad leader in the Four Divisions Office, and with the restaurant being inspected all the time, she had grown wary.
That water tank was there to put out fires in an emergency.
If someone sabotaged it and then started a fire, her place would go up in flames.
Or was this some kind of criminal?
The proprietress hurried over and pointed her folding fan at him.
"Don't move. What did you just stuff into your robe? Why are you being so secretive? Did you steal something?" She deliberately raised her voice. The husband-and-wife pair of cooks and kitchen helpers heard the commotion and came out. Their solid builds gave her a great sense of security.
The female cook was carrying a cleaver used for chopping ribs.
The man looked up with an ingratiating smile and explained, afraid she might hack him to pieces. "I didn't steal anything, I didn't. It fell into the tank because I hadn't put it away properly."
The proprietress fixed him with a look. "What is it?"
Only then did she get a good look at him. He was indeed a customer at her restaurant.
He hesitated for a couple of breaths, then cautiously took a transparent glass tube from inside his