"Wait a minute, did you just say you smelled a faint fragrance?"
"Yeah, I did. At the time I thought maybe one of the ladies passing by for breakfast brought the scent from her sachet. But when I looked up, I didn't see anyone—what I did see was my girl had vanished."
"So that means the scent appeared at about the same time your child disappeared?"
"...It should be, yeah, I think so."
"Did you tell the government officials about all this? I mean, specifically, about the scent?"
"I told them! Why, is it something important?"
The vendor wore a baffled look. It was just a smell, after all. If it hadn't happened right when his child was lost, he probably wouldn't remember it at all.
Shen Hao sighed. From the vendor's expression, he could tell the guy had mentioned the scent to the officials, but they hadn't bothered with it—no wonder there wasn't a single mention of "the faint fragrance" in the case files.
