'This was impossible. Absolutely impossible. She couldn't hide a thing from him even if she tried. That was the biggest drawback of knowing each other so well. Just look at him, all smug,' she thought. 'Someone ought to stick a fox tail on him.'
Pigeon City, of course, wasn't a marketplace for pigeon breeders and enthusiasts. No one knew exactly when it had become the well-known local nickname for the "free market".
Legend had it that the nickname originated from the old days of the Eight Banners' descendants. With no worries about food or drink, they would spend their days fighting crickets, dogs, and chickens, or just carrying their caged birds around.
After that dynasty fell, these dandies lost their fortunes. Their glamorous past was gone, and they could no longer afford such expensive hobbies, so they switched to raising inexpensive pigeons instead.
