The two left the seawall and blended into the bustling crowd of tourists. Milluki was still thinking about the battered van, swiping across his terminal as he tried to track it down through the city's traffic network.
"Don't bother." Bai Zhu folded the Old Zhang's Meat Burgers business card and slipped it into his pocket. "These restaurants have nothing to do with what's inside Pix's stomach."
"Nothing to do with it? What about that stamp?"
"Just a marker," Bai Zhu explained. "The old man wanted to know where the nets he'd cast had landed, so he needed some way to mark them. Anyone with a tooth-mark stamp was someone he was watching closely."
Milluki stopped tapping and looked up. "He knows something's wrong with those people? Then why come here to ask questions? Isn't that pointless?"
"Or maybe he can only watch so many people, and there are too many he needs to watch." Bai Zhu suddenly halted.
Just ahead stood Baba Sisters, where they had eaten earlier. A sharp crash came from the restaurant's kitchen, as though a plate had shattered on the floor.
A girl in a waitress's skirt ran out the back door clutching her hand. She crouched beside a trash can, blood seeping between her fingers.
Bai Zhu's gaze settled on her wound.
A black strand of flesh, finer than a hair, emerged from the cut on the girl's fingertip. It probed the air, then swiftly withdrew. The whole thing took less than half a second, so fast it could have been an illusion.
The girl noticed nothing. She merely shook her hand, found a bandage in a nearby first-aid kit, and stuck it on carelessly.
"What are you looking at?" Milluki followed his gaze but saw only an injured waitress.
"Nothing." Bai Zhu looked away