"Su Mo! Quick! Swap the plum for the peach!" Tian Meng screamed frantically in his mind.
Su Mo did not hesitate and immediately did as instructed.
He transferred the Blue Silver Emperor bloodline inside Ah Yin into Tang San.
The next instant, the wind stilled and the clouds settled.
The Blue Silver Grass stopped trembling, and its aura and spiritual fluctuations vanished without a trace.
The rapid loss of her bloodline injured Ah Yin's core essence. The golden markings on her blades dimmed slightly, and the entire plant drooped.
She had lost much of her usual vitality.
At the sight, Tang Hao grew even more grief-stricken. His trembling hands slowly and gently cradled the Blue Silver Grass, tears streaming down his face as he sobbed like a helpless child.
He felt... as though Ah Yin had truly left him this time.
Tang San stood silently, his heart aching.
But seeing that his father was hurting even more, he said nothing.
Su Mo was rather frightened now. He communicated with Tian Meng through his thoughts. "What happened? Was Ah Yin really sending out a warning?"
"Exactly!" The chibi Tian Meng wiped nonexistent cold sweat from his forehead.
Still shaken, he said, "I never thought the Blue Silver Emperor would have a contingency... Your draining all the Blue Silver Emperor bloodline from Tang San must have triggered a warning from Ah Yin's bloodline essence."
"Luckily, you transferred her Blue Silver Emperor bloodline in time and interrupted the warning. Otherwise, the two of us might well have met our end here today."
Su Mo now felt a lingering trace of fear too, though he was not particularly panicked.
"With the Frog Home as our fallback, we can just run if we encounter something we can't handle."
"True enough."
Remembering that separate space, Tian Meng let out a long sigh of relief.
"Say, if I keep absorbing it now, I shouldn't trigger another warning, right?"
Su Mo still had his eye on the portion of Blue Silver Emperor bloodline Tang San had received from Ah Yin.
"Of course not. Without her Blue Silver Emperor bloodline, Ah Yin is just ordinary Blue Silver Grass, retaining only a sliver of her core essence and memories."
Tian Meng's answer put Su Mo completely at ease.
Once again, he used Return a Peach for a Plum, stealing every last drop of Blue Silver Emperor bloodline inside Tang San. Now it really was a trash martial soul.
The debt of gratitude for his earlier teaching was almost exhausted as well.
"Just right."
With his business here finished, Su Mo prepared to head home.
"Uh, you two carry on. I'll come play with Little San another time."
Time to scram...
Neither Tang Hao nor his son said anything. They remained immersed in grief.
After a long while, Tang Hao's hoarse voice slowly rang out.
"Little San, kowtow to your mother again..."
Tang San obediently dropped to both knees and solemnly knocked his forehead against the ground three times.
Afterward, he did not rise. Still kneeling, he voiced the questions in his heart.
"Dad, why did this Blue Silver Grass give off such powerful fluctuations earlier? Why did my heart suddenly hurt so much?"
With his back to his son, Tang Hao did not know whether to tell him the truth.
"Actually, this Blue Silver Grass is a soul beast your mother... raised."
In the end, Tang Hao chose to conceal the truth again.
"Your mother went somewhere very far away and left this Blue Silver Grass behind. That commotion just now might have been her trying to tell us something..."
Tang Hao spun a well-meaning lie.
"What was Mom trying to tell us?" Tang San asked.
Yet Tang Hao merely shook his head, his grief deepening.
He suspected Ah Yin might have known her life was nearing its end and used this method to bid father and son farewell...
Had Ah Yin known Tang Hao could invent so much in his head, she would probably have died of anger.
Seeing that he could get no answer, Tang San could only bury his questions deep inside, but his attention shifted to the Blue Silver Grass.
This Blue Silver Grass was actually a soul beast?
How old was it?
Did it have a soul ring?
If he absorbed it, could it strengthen his martial soul's foundation?
If Ah Yin knew her own son harbored such hilariously "filial" thoughts, she would probably have been so furious that even death could not keep her down.
"Dad, have you heard of the things Su Mo mentioned earlier?"
Seemingly noticing how upset his father was, Tang San tried to change the subject.
Tang Hao remained silent for a long time before saying, "The basic knowledge was correct. Those three theories sounded somewhat reasonable, but I'm not sure whether they're true. Only the last one seemed a little more reliable."
Tang San nodded at that.
To be safe, he did not intend to try them lightly.
"But that Su Mo kid was dependable this time. He was actually willing to share those things with you. True or false, at least his intentions were good. He's worth befriending."
Tang San nodded. Previously, when his father had told him to build a good relationship with Su Mo, he had thought little of it.
He had never expected it to pay off so soon.
It seemed he really should nurture this relationship.
Two and a half months later.
Old Jack took Tang San, Su Mo, and Xiao Wu out of the village to enroll at Nuoding Academy.
Perhaps because they were going to Nuoding City, Old Jack had deliberately put on new clothes, making him look even more hale and hearty.
The three little ones had also changed into their best clothes.
Tang San's clothes, however, were still patched.
Just after leaving the village, Tang San kept looking back toward it, turning his head three times with every step.
"Little San, are you reluctant to leave the village, or that drunkard father of yours?" Old Jack stroked Tang San's head and asked with a smile.
"A little of both, I suppose."
"Heehee, how shameless! You're so grown-up, yet you still can't leave your daddy. Are you going to cry when we get to the academy?"
Xiao Wu snickered beside him.
Tang San glared at Xiao Wu, his face darkening, then helplessly looked toward Su Mo on Old Jack's other side. "Brother Mo, keep your little sister in line, will you?"
Su Mo nodded and glanced at Xiao Wu, who immediately behaved herself.
Over the preceding two and a half months, Tang San and Xiao Wu had met a few times. However, because Tang San had been tainted with Xiao Wu's soul beast aura, he naturally bore resentment toward her and had little liking for her.
As a prisoner, Xiao Wu had no mind for romance. She regarded Tang San as nothing more than an ordinary villager.
She did, however, quite enjoy teasing him.
After Xiao Wu's interruption, Tang San's feelings about leaving home settled somewhat. Unable to hide his curiosity about the outside world, he asked Old Jack a question.
"Grandpa Jack, what sort of place is Nuoding Academy?"
Xiao Wu was curious as well.
Only Su Mo had little interest in the subject. He was currently considering what he could fleece from Yu Xiaogang once he reached Nuoding Academy.
Apart from Luo Sanpao, there seemed to be nothing of value.
Yu Xiaogang's Luo Sanpao martial soul could combine with Flender's Four-Eyed Cat Owl martial soul and Liu Erlong's Fire Dragon martial soul through the Trinity Martial Soul Fusion Skill, forming the golden sacred dragon.
And as the main component, Luo Sanpao contained at least a trace of the golden sacred dragon bloodline.
"There's potential here."
He immediately put his plan to condense a Gem of Light on the agenda.
Old Jack was still talking at length about the academy. With nothing else to do, Su Mo decided to read Froggy's journal.
It would help pass the time.
After teaching Froggy the basics and strictly forbidding him from going to the Star Dou Great Forest again, he had let Froggy loose.
After observing him for a few days and seeing that he really was only moving between villages and towns, Su Mo had completely relaxed.
However, although Froggy would not encounter any danger, he unfortunately had not brought back much either, so Su Mo had paid him little attention afterward.
Now that Froggy had come to mind, he might as well see where he had gone.