Chapter Three: A Ticket Delivered by Assassins

One carried a transparent infant on her shoulder; another's shadow smoked alone; a vendor held tomorrow's obituaries above his head. A sign over the platform read: DEVIATION LAYER—LINCHUAN HUB. A woman's gentle voice sounded over the speakers. “Unregistered Class-A rewriter detected. Bounty activated.” Curiosity in every face hardened into greed. They had not escaped. They had traded twenty hunters for hundreds of deviants. Jibai laughed. He picked up an obituary bearing his photograph. Its time of death was seventy-two hours away. “Why are you laughing?” “You demanded two conditions,” he said. “Before, your power could only turn disaster to your advantage. Now it understands whom you want to protect.”