My dao to eternity

The information seller's stall stood empty for four days before anyone in the market thought to remark on it, and even then the remarking came sideways, a fruit vendor complaining to no one in particular that she'd have to find some other source for gossip worth trading now that old Chen had apparently decided to stop showing up.

Li Fan had crossed paths with the man perhaps a dozen times over the years, never buying anything directly — he'd long since learned to treat paid information the same way he treated any other unverified rumor, worth noting, never worth trusting outright — but he'd watched Chen work his corner of the market often enough to recognize the shape of an absence that wasn't simply illness or a poor week's trade. The man's stall sat exactly as he'd left it, canvas still stretched taut over its frame, a single overturned stool the only sign anything had changed at all.

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