At noon the next day, Zhu Er, dressed in blue checkered cloth and red-eyed from lack of sleep, came yawning into the County Yamen's rear courtyard and found Xiang Yang practicing his footwork. Sneakily, he stuffed a wrapped piece of yellow paper into Xiang Yang's robes.
"Constable Xiang, this anesthetic of mine is made entirely from the finest medicinal ingredients, with Datura Flower as its main component. An ordinary person will collapse after inhaling just a little and won't wake even after sleeping a full day and night. Even against internal martial arts experts with inner force, it should have some effect."
Xiang Yang did not doubt Zhu Er's words. A mere apprentice daring to deceive him would be like an old birthday star swallowing arsenic—asking for a shorter life. Still, what needed testing had to be tested.
After sending Zhu Er away and telling him to keep his mouth shut—say what should be said, but not a single word of what should not—Xiang Yang finally turned his attention to the anesthetic before him.
He directly opened the yellow paper and saw white powder inside, roughly the size of an adult's thumbnail. It was not crystalline, somewhat resembling milk powder.
He held his right hand over the white powder and lightly waved it, then brought his nose within half a foot of it. It was not odorless; it carried a faint fragrance, fresh yet hallucinatory. With merely one sniff, Xiang Yang felt dizzy and disoriented, and hurriedly wrapped the powder back up.
"I never expected a mere apprentice to possess such skill. It seems that, no matter the world, doctors must never be offended."
After carefully putting away the powder, Xiang Yang stood in the middle of the small courtyard beneath the sun for about the time it took to