A man bought iron at a foundry, sold what he made, and spent the money at a tavern that evening. A guild spy who saw him at two of those places could learn where he went the rest of the day.
Pei Jing set four bundles of clothes on the table in Cell 114.
The first belonged to Lame Li. In the morning, Li sat on a cold stoop near the Golden Sun offices. His coat was patched with burlap, and an old crutch lay across his knees. Turtle Breathing left him with the faint aura of a Layer Two laborer. The guards looked through him on their way to work.
From the stoop, Pei Jing saw Meng Kui’s men go past and watched couriers come in from the South Sea convoys. The patrols at Slipway Seven had doubled. Three scouts in plain clothes had begun asking about the Iron Whale Squad’s taverns.
At midday he became Hunter Zhang, a rough-spoken dockworker in a cowhide vest stiff with salt and fish blood. Zhang bought scrap iron, rendered fat, and bone charcoal in Forge Alley. He paid in copper and silver. Men who moved cargo would tell him what the canals were like and complain about the price of freight without wondering why he asked.
