"Purple-yellow gasoline?" Xiang Xiaotong was astonished.
Lu Geng reached for the sample jar, inserted a syringe, and drew out a syringe-full. He then dripped it into a beaker.
Song He and Xiang Xiaotong leaned over, fanning the air toward their noses with their hands. It really did smell like gasoline, but the scent was extremely faint.
There was mainly a disgusting sour stench, eerily similar to the smell of human flesh rotting in a filthy ditch during summer. The two of them sniffed it and felt their scalps tingle, followed by a wave of chills throughout their bodies.
Lu Geng lit a small cotton swab and tossed it in. The expected blaze never appeared. Instead, the flame spread gently through the beaker, eventually stabilizing at a few centimeters high and crackling softly.
"Pure gasoline isn't like this. There are too many impurities, right?" Song He said, his face glowing with delight. "Did the Gasoline Bacteria work?"
"Yeah. This sample was produced just yesterday, and we haven't had time to purify it yet. It burns rather feebly, but it definitely contains large amounts of aliphatic hydrocarbons, cycloalkanes, and aromatic hydrocarbons! They're genuine gasoline components!" Lu Geng said proudly.
"Where are the bacteria?" Xiang Xiaotong asked urgently.
"Dean, please come this way!" Lu Geng gestured.
Song He and Xiang Xiaotong followed him forward, crossing more than half the laboratory before reaching a huge transparent cabinet in the corner.
The cabinet was packed densely with white hexagonal cells, like an enormous artificial beehive. Partitions divided it into many sections, and different liquids flowed back and forth within each one.
Song He leaned closer for a look. The cells seemed to be made of some kind of plastic. Thick bacterial colonies grew along the walls of some cells, especially densely near the water's surface.