After the tide awakens in Whale-Fall City, Three-Kilogram Beast House is welded shut by the Old City District Office of the Tide Bureau and slapped with a closure notice. If it fails its follow-up stability inspection within thirty days, its license will be revoked and all its beasts confiscated. Dong Bailu breaks her contract. Her tide patterns no longer work, and she can sell beasts but not keep them. She spends two hours cutting through the welds with a hacksaw, then presses the stamp beneath the counter. Words appear in her palm: Three beasts this month. Put the price tags up. No changes. The shop cannot be deregistered until they are all sold. Zong Heming arrives with an enforcement team to buy the shop. She brings out a gray-green moss ball that costs three yuan per jin at the market, writes a price tag for 388, stamps it, and says that to buy the shop, he first has to buy one beast. The license is tied to the registered beasts. Zong Heming scans the payment code on the street and the money arrives. The stamp turns by itself, and the glass displays the first sale: seller Dong Bailu, buyer Zong Heming. He folds the notice, leaving it slightly crooked. Dong Bailu records the sale as the first entry in her ledger. But the moss ball shifts inside its cage. Why did she notice?
