Claiming that something urgent had suddenly come up, Kallen said goodbye to the Guman Family. Madam Tang Li stood by the wooden garden fence and watched him get into the car. Kallen smiled and waved to the old lady again.
But as he started the car, Kallen paused and touched the folded sheet of Black Paper in his pocket.
Kallen reached the entrance of the Lemaire Pottery Gallery as quickly as he could.
He got out and pushed the door open. A corpse lay on the table, its belly cut open and its neck twisted to the right.
In broad daylight, the scene looked somewhat out of place, especially since the shop had a glass door.
But when he approached, he could see that the corpse's belly contained not flesh and organs, but densely packed gears.
Lemar happened to come in from the back with his "dissection" tools. Seeing Kallen, he immediately said, "Mr. Kallen, Mr. Memphis went after someone."
Kallen pointed at the puppet on the table.
"There were two of them. This one was silenced, but he's a puppet."
"How is Memphis tracking them?"
"Oh, he told me to give you this." Lemar handed Kallen a ruler. "Mr. Memphis got a little bored staying in the shop these past few days, so he set up Tracking Formations throughout my shop and on the road outside."
"All right, understood." Kallen took the ruler and fed a little Spiritual Power into it. The ruler vibrated directionally.
The ruler probably wasn't tracking the fleeing target, but locating Mr. Memphis himself.
"I understand. Stay in the shop."
"All right, understood."
Kallen returned to the car with the ruler and placed it beneath the windshield. As the car moved, the ruler adjusted its direction on its own.
In a field in southern