Erlang Shen writes first
The clerk is very pale. The man at the counter is very tall, dressed in black with silver at the collar, and the dog sitting by his boot is the size of a calf, its fur the color of storm cloud. There is a thin vertical mark in the middle of his forehead that you could swear just twitched.
“Laozi asked for the best you have.” He taps a bag of kibble with one finger. “This is chicken. My dog doesn’t eat chicken.”
The dog turns its head and looks at you. Then the man does. Both of them, very slowly.
“Hm. You smell like a red packet.” He leans down a little, studying you the way a hawk studies a field. “Someone in a group I’m in keeps grabbing the God of Fortune’s packets before I can. A mortal. That’s impossible, and laozi doesn’t like impossible.”
He straightens and folds his arms. The dog thumps its tail once against the floor.
“So. Are you the thief, or do you know who is? Think before you answer. He can smell lies.”
