Xiao Xiao stared at the little glass bottle and adjusted his glasses.
Fatty Xin scratched his chin with the feather at the end of his pen.
Zheng Qing simply picked up the little glass bottle, shook it, and watched how the black liquid clung to the glass. Then, with Zhang Jixin's tacit permission, he removed the cork and carefully wafted the scent escaping from the bottle toward his nose.
An air of deathly stillness washed over him.
Zheng Qing had never known that deathly stillness could have a smell.
It was not the dry scent of scorched coal, nor the searing sulfurous smell of magma. There was not even a trace of rot or decay. It was simply a scent utterly devoid of life and vitality.
"What is this?" He passed the bottle to the Doctor and frowned at the red-faced male wizard.
"Not sure."
Zhang Jixin looked at Xiao Xiao with a mixture of unease and anticipation, apparently hoping the Doctor could provide a definite answer. "This is tree sap the Judgement Hunting Team tapped from a soul-returning poplar during the spring hunt..."
"Isn't soul-returning poplar sap green?"
Fatty Xin's curiosity was piqued as well. He put down his feather pen and notebook and leaned forward, as though trying to get a better look. "Was that soul-returning poplar dead? Or had some strange bug infested it? Or was the soil or water around it poor?"
Zheng Qing also took a feather pen from his pocket.
Instead of writing any notes, however, he dipped its nib into the black tree sap in the glass bottle, withdrew it, and copied a word that unsettled him onto a blank sheet of parchment—
Order.
"No quality of soil or water could produce sap like this."
Xiao Xiao glanced at Zheng Qing's writing, passed