She was watching the fat man.
The fat man's hands were on his own belt.
She was watching with the flat, present, amber-eyed, not-looking-away quality of a woman who had found something she wanted to watch and was watching it.
Her face was still wet.
But the crying had stopped.
He noted: the crying had stopped.
He looked at her.
He made his decision.
The specific, flat, clinical, cultivation-logistics, Eye-of-Truth-and-three-thousand-years decision of a man who had been thinking 'lineage' and 'yin-depth' and 'near-manifestation' and had now arrived at the specific, practical conclusion that the lineage transfer would run significantly more efficiently if initiated here, now, at full ambient broadcast range, rather than in a controlled private session later.
He noted: the public element was incidental.
He noted: he was not going to pretend it was not interesting.
He walked to her.
She looked up at him.
He looked down at her.
He reached.
