"Did you hear a deer?"
Zheng Qing instinctively gripped the talisman gun in his hand and looked around, warily peering into the deep night as though, at any moment, a vicious-looking Pointy Fork might come charging at them with foam at its mouth and a savage gleam in its eyes.
"No, it didn't!"
Jiang Yu raised her voice slightly, cutting off Zheng Qing before he could stray any further down the wrong track. She shot the black cat a fierce glare as she unscrewed the lid of another opaque wide-mouthed bottle. "...Speaking of light, I happen to have some Hundred Herb Candles in my bag. They might come in handy."
After slurping down the last drop of wine from the cup, the black cat silently shrank itself, turned its head away, and pretended not to see the witch's glare.
The witch kept a straight face and tapped the wide-mouthed bottle with a bent finger.
A dark yellow pellet slowly floated out of the bottle. It was very small, roughly half an inch across, with a slightly uneven surface. A slender black wick protruded from its center and swayed gently in the night wind, looking remarkably like Sanmao's hair.
Zheng Qing instinctively touched the ahoge on top of his head.
"This is a Hundred Herb Candle?"
He curiously examined the little "pellet," making no effort to hide his surprise. "I thought... I mean, aren't Hundred Herb Candles supposed to be candles?"
"Idiot," the black cat muttered under its breath.
However, everyone present simply ignored its muttering.
"That's right." The witch tucked back a lock of hair hanging beside her ear and answered in a light tone. "A Hundred Herb Candle is a special kind of magical candle. An ancient rite says: sacrifice a sheep, use candles in the shrine... A candle