Dugu Bo's face lit up with delight. "What materials do you need? I can provide them all."
"No matter how hard they are to find, I'll get them for you."
A brand-new poison, and a potent one at that, with no known antidote. Dugu Bo absolutely loved the sound of it.
Since Shen Feng was willing to teach him the formula, Dugu Bo naturally wouldn't hold back. When he offered to provide the materials, he was also hinting that he'd be happy to pay for the lessons with some rare ingredients.
But Shen Feng wasn't so shallow!
Was this supposed to be a test for the cadres? Which cadre could resist such temptation?
They were just materials. He didn't care about them at all.
Shen Feng waved his hand and smiled. "Your Excellency, the raw materials for Paraquat aren't rare. I have plenty here, so there's no need to prepare any specially."
"However, I can't make such dangerous substances here, so I'll have to ask you to come with me."
Dugu Bo thought for a moment, then shook his head with a smile. "No problem. Just lead the way."
They left the guesthouse, and Shen Feng led Dugu Bo to his Exclusive Laboratory.
The laboratory wasn't large, covering less than two hundred square meters.
But it was packed with equipment: workbenches, test tubes and beakers, all kinds of labeled bottles and jars, and an assortment of exquisite instruments whose functions were anyone's guess.
At a glance, it was clearly a modern chemistry lab. Well, in Shen Feng's case, it could also be used for physics experiments.
After all, resources were limited. He couldn't make everything perfect.
But the moment Dugu Bo stepped inside, he looked like a country bumpkin seeing the big city for the first time. His eyes were dazzled.
Then again, that was understandable. Shen Feng's lab was a little crude, but its experimental equipment was far superior to their practice of using a single cauldron to refine everything.
"Your Excellency, what do you think of my place?"
Dugu Bo nodded in approval. "Clean and tidy. There's plenty of equipment, but it isn't cluttered. Not bad, not bad. It can hold its own against my Alchemy Room."
Shen Feng smiled but didn't call him out. "Your Excellency, come with me. We'll need to use the workbench to make Paraquat."
The experiment had barely begun when Dugu Bo turned into a walking question mark.
He didn't recognize a single one of the raw materials Shen Feng used to make Paraquat.
Shen Feng would pour in a bit of one clear liquid, then a bit of another. Sometimes he'd add some white powder, then stir it around with a glass rod.
After watching the whole process unfold with practiced ease, Dugu Bo had more questions than answers.
Dichloride, Dimethyl Sulfate Salt—one unfamiliar term after another. They were not only difficult to understand but damn near impossible to pronounce.
When he asked where these things came from, Shen Feng's explanation made his scalp tingle.
First you filtered it, then filtered it again, and again. Then you screened it, and screened it some more. After that, you distilled and combined it, then did the whole process again.
Time flew by. By the time the moon was high in the sky, Dugu Bo had only just gotten the hang of using a graduated cylinder and beaker.
After failing another simple chemistry experiment, Dugu Bo sighed and carefully placed the graduated cylinder and beaker back on the workbench.
"Xiao Feng, how did you come up with something this complicated?"
"Given your age, you couldn't possibly have had time to work out such a comprehensive method for making poisons."
Shen Feng had been ready for the question. He chuckled and readily admitted, "Your Excellency, you're right. I didn't come up with any of this myself."
"I'm just recreating the work of the ancients, step by step, according to what's written in their books."
"Truthfully, I only have a rough understanding of how most of the raw materials are made. I know what happens, but not why."
Then Shen Feng selectively told Dugu Bo about the ancient corpse he'd encountered while Soul Hunting at the age of six.
Soul Hunting was real, the ancient corpse was real, and the knowledge inheritance he'd received in the form of a travelogue was real.
It was all true, and it could stand up to scrutiny and questioning.
Shen Feng had simply concealed a few details, leading Dugu Bo to believe that all the knowledge had come from that place.
Dugu Bo raised an eyebrow, looking somewhat surprised. "You're saying all of this came from the wisdom of the ancients?"
Shen Feng nodded without reservation. "That's right. It's all the accumulated wisdom of the ancients. I'm merely a successor who inherited it generations later."
Possibly from an entire universe away, but I'm not lying.
As he spoke, Shen Feng took a booklet of chemical formulas and an incomplete set of notes he'd written himself from the bracer on his right wrist.
"Your Excellency, these are some of the teachings I received from that senior. If you're interested, you can take a look."
In the single day he'd known Shen Feng, Dugu Bo's worldview had been overturned again and again.
It had started with the incomprehensible Paraquat, followed by the unheard-of high-end laboratory, then the miraculous use of chemistry to make poisons, and finally a collection of baffling poison-making formulas.
Every last thing kept tugging at the curiosity of Dugu Bo, a native poison master of the Douluo Continent.
Dugu Bo didn't sleep a wink. By the time dawn broke and the sky began to brighten, he was already at Shen Feng's door, his jade-green eyes bloodshot.
"Xiao Feng, stop sleeping and get up. What does this formula mean?"
Hearing the call from outside, Shen Feng—who was getting dressed inside—let the corners of his mouth curl upward.
Phase two: success.
He'd used Paraquat to pique Dugu Bo's interest, then the wonders of the laboratory and chemistry to draw him in. He'd led him into familiar territory, then used his wealth of experience to keep the upper hand and maintain control.
Finally, once he'd earned Dugu Bo's trust, he would bring up the problem afflicting him under the guise of concern, then offer a solution in exchange for enough benefits.
The whole process was somewhat complicated and took a long time, but for a transmigrator like Shen Feng, who had no powerful backing, it was undoubtedly the safest strategy.
Take Tang San, for example. He hadn't even figured out his own situation before running his mouth, mocking Dugu Bo's poison as garbage. That was a sure way to get himself killed.
If Tang San's father hadn't been Tang Hao, and Yu Xiaogang's father hadn't been Yu Yuanzhen, Tang San's personality—risking his life just to show off—would have left grass growing three meters tall over his grave by now.
Even so, Dugu Bo poisoned him three times to put him to the test.
Good grief. Shen Feng wouldn't dare play that kind of game.
But enough about Tang San. He was the protagonist, after all. Shen Feng couldn't compare.
Shen Feng quickly finished dressing and opened the door. "Your Excellency, it's so early. What's the matter?"
Dugu Bo grabbed him by the wrist. "Come on, let's go to the lab. Explain these formulas to me again."
"I've lived all these years and never seen anything so ingenious. So it turns out making poisons can be so—"
"Art!" Shen Feng prompted.
"Right, art! Poison is an art, too. It's just that ordinary people don't understand."
"Especially these colorless, odorless mixed poisons that kill with a single drop of blood. They're the art of arts."
Dugu Bo was clearly excited. After spending all night studying Shen Feng's notes, he'd evidently grasped a few things.
Shen Feng smiled. "Your Excellency, I have even more 'artistic' things here."
Dugu Bo's pupils shrank. "Come on, come on! You've got me itching to see them. We'd better hurry to the lab."
Day after day passed. Before they knew it, half a year had gone by.
The lab had acquired plenty of new equipment, as well as an additional workbench.
Shen Feng and Dugu Bo were standing in front of it in white lab coats, each staring intently into an Optical Microscope.
Suddenly, Shen Feng seemed to spot something and immediately called out to Dugu Bo.
"Old man, come take a look!"
Dugu Bo abandoned his own observation at once and darted over to Shen Feng's side. He seemed to attach great importance to what they were observing.
"What is it? Did it work?"
Shen Feng's face brightened, and he nodded. "Old man, we successfully made the No. 6 Jade Phosphorous Serpent Antivenom!"
Dugu Bo's expression shifted, and his face lit up with joy. "Really? Let me see!"
He lowered his eye to the microscope's eyepiece. What he saw was a batch of perfectly healthy blood cells.
His hands clenched into fists, his body trembling with excitement. The massive Soul Power fluctuations of a Titled Douluo spilled out of him uncontrollably.
"Hahaha! Yanyan can be saved! Yanyan can be saved!"
Shen Feng's expression changed abruptly. "Old man, don't get excited! You can't unleash your Soul Power in the lab!"
That morning, half a year ago, Dugu Bo had come looking for Shen Feng. Since then, everything had progressed according to Shen Feng's expectations.
First, Shen Feng had taught Dugu Bo everything from scratch, starting with extracting raw materials and ending with making Paraquat himself.
Then, under the pretext of observing the effects of poison on living organisms, he'd guided Dugu Bo to use the microscope to study changes in human cells.
With Dugu Bo's health already on the verge of collapse, it was only natural that he'd start using the microscope to examine his own condition.
Everything in the laboratory had been provided by Shen Feng, and he was the only one who knew how to use the microscope and the other instruments.
As their discussions grew more involved, Shen Feng naturally earned Dugu Bo's trust. Before long, Dugu Bo had brought him into the research on Jade Phosphorous Serpent Poison.
It wasn't that Dugu Bo had trusted Shen Feng so easily. It was that Shen Feng had always treated him sincerely.
No matter how calculating Dugu Bo might be, after half a year of Shen Feng teaching him wholeheartedly in the lab, it was difficult for him to feel wary of Shen Feng.
That growing sense of goodwill wasn't something a person could simply control based on personal likes and dislikes.
Humans were social creatures. Even two people who were completely opposed to each other would develop some goodwill after spending a long time alone together. They might even open up to each other and come to rely on one another.
Though the circumstances between Dugu Bo and Shen Feng didn't go that far, six months together had been more than enough to make Dugu Bo let down his guard.
That was clear from the way Shen Feng affectionately called him "old man."
At Shen Feng's warning, Dugu Bo immediately realized his mistake and quickly reined in his Soul Power.
The instruments in the lab were extremely troublesome to make, especially in a world like the Douluo Continent, which had almost no industry.
If anything broke, it would definitely slow down their future research.
And the lab was full of bottles and jars containing dangerous substances. If Dugu Bo had truly unleashed his Soul Power, the entire Soul Hunting Town might have had to be evacuated.
After all, the toxicity of chemical waste was no joke.
Wiping the cold sweat from his brow, Shen Feng said with lingering fear, "Old man, antivenom serum is antivenom serum, but the poison in your body comes from your Martial Soul."
"Antivenom Serum works on biological toxins, while the toxin produced by your Martial Soul is a Soul Power toxin. I can't say that injecting Antitoxin Serum would have no effect, but the effect wouldn't be very significant."
"If we relied only on the Antitoxin Serum, I doubt you'd be able to save your granddaughter."
Dugu Bo's expression darkened. "You mean that after all our work over the past six months, we still can't save Yanyan?"
Shen Feng shook his head. "It's not that she can't be saved. It's that we'd only be treating the symptoms, not the root cause."
"If we made the Antitoxin Serum from your blood, it would definitely ease your granddaughter's poisoning."
"But the poison in her body comes from you, and even you aren't completely immune to it. How can you be sure that serum extracted from your blood could completely detoxify her?"
Dugu Bo knitted his brows and pondered for a long time before answering, his voice dispirited. "You're right. I was too impatient."
"Still, I've gained more in the past six months than I did in the preceding few decades. Thank you, Xiao Feng. At least now I have a glimmer of hope."
Dugu Bo's thanks caught Shen Feng off guard. He smiled warmly. "Old man, if you trust me, I might be able to completely cure the hidden problem in your body."
The six months hadn't just been a time for earning Dugu Bo's trust. They had also been a time for Shen Feng to assess Dugu Bo's character.
If Dugu Bo had really been the kind of man who turned on others without a second thought, Shen Feng wouldn't have cared whether he lived or died.
He might have been just like Tang San in the original story, lying, cheating people out of their belongings, and leaving nothing green behind.
Fortunately, Dugu Bo's character was decent and essentially matched his depiction in the original story. He was truly a loyal and righteous man.
Good people were scarce these days. Shen Feng would never let a good person down, much less let one suffer for it.
"Three treatment plans."
Shen Feng held up three fingers. "Old man, after studying this for half a year, I've come up with three ways to deal with the hidden problem in your body."
Dugu Bo stared at him, his jade-green eyes filled with disbelief. He grabbed Shen Feng by the shoulders.
"Xiao Feng, are you serious? You're not just saying this to make an old man happy, are you?"
Before you continue