The two of them headed toward the source of that unusual smell for nearly half an hour.
Yet the closer they got to the low-lying area in the southeast, the fainter the scent became. It was like scattered traces carried over by the wind from somewhere farther away, not the source itself.
Qian Yaoting walked ahead, constantly stopping to adjust their direction, but the smell came and went like a broken line. Whenever he caught one segment, the next vanished.
In the end, the two stopped before a pile of jagged rocks.
Ahead lay a dried-up creek bed, its bottom filled with weathered gravel. The rock walls on either side were coated in a layer of dark gray moss.
As they approached this area, the smell vanished completely, as if it had never existed.
Qian Yaoting crouched down and turned over the stones in the creek bed. Then he leaned close and sniffed the dirt lodged between the cracks before shaking his head. "The smell drifted here from farther away, carried by the wind. The wind direction around here is unstable. The source probably isn't nearby."
Li Long stood behind him, his gaze sweeping over the surrounding rock walls and vegetation.
There was nothing unusual about this creek bed. There were no signs of poisoning, no strangely colored plants, and nothing in the air besides the ordinary scents of soil and minerals.
The string in his heart loosened, only to tighten again.
"Let's head farther west and take a look." Qian Yaoting rose, dusted off his hands, and continued upstream along the creek bed.
Li Long followed behind him, and the two traveled through the forest for nearly another hour.
Along the way, Qian Yaoting occasionally stopped to inspect tracks on the ground or scratches on tree bark, but he