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Chapter 353 Familiar Scent

Lu Qing and Zhu Yu certainly wouldn't refuse his request. After giving a brief description of the appearance of the other dead people below and the style of their clothes, Lu Yan's expression could only be described as dark and gloomy. The veins on his forehead bulged, his cheeks were jutting out, and he seemed to be on the verge of exploding.

Seeing this, Lu Qing walked up to him without making a sound, put a hand on Lu Yan's shoulder, and said to him, "The dead cannot be brought back to life. If we can rush into that tunnel now and kill all the people who made those noises and whose origins we don't know, and bring your men back to life, then I will accompany you to charge in. It would be worth it no matter what."

Lu Yan was furious. His ears were ringing and he couldn't hear anything. He had only one thought in his mind: he had to go out and gather troops to crush this damn Immortal Fortress!

However, when Lu Qing placed her hand on his shoulder, the heavy force startled him. Upon hearing Lu Qing's words, the raging anger he had just felt was extinguished by half.

"Rest assured, when the time is right, I will hand over the culprit who killed your tax collector to you for personal handling. At that time, whether you want to kill or torture him, I will not stop you. A gentleman's word is as good as his bond." Lu Qing tightened his grip and spoke with particular seriousness.

Lu Zhang sat across the table, looking at Lu Yan, seemingly wondering what his reaction would be, whether he would fly into a rage and have a big argument with Lu Qing.

However, he did not see that scene. Instead, he saw Lu Yan sitting there with a gloomy face, neither relaxing nor speaking up to refute or argue with Lu Qing.

When Yan Shu heard that so many dead bodies were hidden in the secret passage beneath the small pond, she became slightly nervous.

She wasn't afraid of the dead, after all, the dead wouldn't jump up and hurt anyone.

However, the Fairy Castle was truly eerie. The strange farmers, stewards, and servants already made her uneasy, and now that she heard there were dead people, it was hard not to feel a chill run down her spine.

Lu Qing briefly described the situation inside the tunnel. While he was speaking, Fu Wen and Talisman had already finished cleaning up the small pond below and came upstairs.

“Master, the water in the small pond has been drained back, and the buckets have been returned to the woodshed. From the outside, it looks just like usual, except that Second Master did something to prevent the flowers from blooming.” As Fu Lu spoke, he carefully took out the flower seedling that he had wrapped in a handkerchief from his bosom and looked at Lu Qing with a questioning gaze.

Lu Qing glanced at Yan Daoxin, and Fu Lu immediately handed the item in his hand to Yan Daoxin: "Divine Doctor, we found a completely black wooden box down there, with this strange flower growing inside. I brought one up for you to see."

Yan Daoxin curiously took it, placed the handkerchief on the table, and gently opened it by pinching the four corners with her fingers.

The flower seedlings were then presented to everyone.

Although the lights in this room weren't very bright, they were still better than in the tunnel. Although Zhu Yu had seen the seedlings right away, the torchlight was dim and flickering, so he couldn't see them clearly. Therefore, he was now looking at the things on the handkerchief with great curiosity.

Under the candlelight, the seedlings looked even more translucent and verdant. The shape of the leaves and buds, as well as their unusual colors, were unlike anything I had ever seen before.

Zhu Yu looked at the flower seedling, then at Yan Daoxin. She had heard Lu Qing say that Yan Daoxin was obsessed with medicine and pharmacology, and also liked to study things like poison pills, so he rarely stayed at Shanqing Temple. He spent most of his time traveling all over the country.

If it weren't for Lu Qing meeting them halfway through the journey, and then being drawn into various other matters, leading them all the way to Lan Di, they might be somewhere by now.

Such a person is naturally knowledgeable and well-informed.

But judging from Yan Daoxin's slightly furrowed brows and the way he carefully handled the seedling, he didn't seem to recognize it either.

"This thing grows in dark places, without any light at all?" He asked incredulously, voicing the exact same question that Zhu Yu had internally grumbled about.

Lu Qing nodded with certainty: "I can be sure that the place where that thing is located, even without the protection of that black wooden box, is still dark and sunless, and absolutely cannot see a single ray of sunlight."

"Oh...that's quite something!" After a brief moment of confusion, Yan Daoxin's eyes lit up, and he seemed quite excited. "I was worried that being held up by you would waste a lot of time, but I didn't expect to encounter some interesting things along the way!"

He held the flower seedling with a handkerchief in one hand, and with his other hand, he picked up a little soil from the base of the seedling with his thumb and forefinger, and gently rubbed it. He felt that the soil was a bit sticky, and the stains left on his fingers were not the usual color of mud, but a dark red with a rusty look.

He brought his finger to his nose and sniffed it; a fishy smell immediately filled his nostrils.

Yan Daoxin paused for a moment, but didn't show much. Instead, he lifted the seedling a little higher, brought the small bud to his nose and smelled it. After thinking for a moment, he smelled it again, and then beckoned to Zhu Yu: "Chief Secretary Yu, your nose is always the best. Come and smell it."

Zhu Yu hadn't even had time to smell the flower bud before he was startled by the noise from the other end of the passage and hurriedly retreated. Now, seeing Yan Daoxin calling him, he quickly went over, took the handkerchief holding the flower seedling from his hand, and brought his nose close to the flower bud to smell it carefully.

A very faint, delicate fragrance peeked into her nostrils, causing her to pause in surprise.

The fragrance is very faint, almost elusive, yet it carries a strange, inexplicable familiarity.

Humans never lose their sense of smell; all the scents we've ever smelled will be remembered. It's just that sometimes the impression isn't deep enough to immediately identify the scent.

Zhu Yu was certain that she had smelled this faint fragrance somewhere before, and probably more than once or twice, but she couldn't remember where she had smelled it right now.

Yan Daoxin could guess Zhu Yu's reaction from her furrowed brows and deep-thinking expression.

He didn't say anything, but simply took out paper and pen from the side, and with just a few strokes, he vividly drew the shape of the flower seedling, then wrapped the handkerchief back up.