Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well, Draining Dugu Bo Dry

By the time the sky had fully brightened, Dugu Bo had brought Chen Ming before a ring of emerald-green poisonous mist. Shielding Chen Ming with his Soul Power, he leaped straight into the poisonous barrier.

What appeared before Chen Ming was an utterly breathtaking sight. All kinds of precious herbs grew across the ground like wild grass, while the ice and fire energies between heaven and earth continually collided and churned, producing a unique vitality that nourished the land and all living things.

Impossible to understand! Impossible to understand! Impossible to understand!

Although he had read descriptions of the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well in his previous life and had speculated about its appearance in this one, once he began gathering data, Chen Ming felt a long string of illogical phenomena flood his mind.

Everything that existed had its reason for existing, but Chen Ming could not understand why so many things could exist together. The wonder of the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well must have originated from the fallen Ice and Fire Dragon Kings, yet Chen Ming simply could not comprehend the changes in the dissipating ice and fire energies, nor the mysteries of yin and yang they had brought forth.

What principle could make this originally impossible sight become reasonable?

Fortunately, Chen Ming was not truly an AI and would not enter an endless thinking mode. He could stop himself. Otherwise, he might have crashed right here.

Seeing the stunned expression on Chen Ming's face, Dugu Bo curled his lips into a proud smile. "This is my treasured land. Besides me, you are the only person in the world who knows about it. If you can cure my poison, you may take whatever treasures you wish from here. If you cannot, then I can only keep you trapped here."

"Senior Dugu, do you know why Sunset Forest is called Sunset Forest?"

Chen Ming looked at the basin-like Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well and the iceberg within it as he asked Dugu Bo.

"There are three explanations. One says that the sunsets in Sunset Forest are beautiful. Another says that the first emperor of the Heaven Dou Empire slew a powerful enemy here and destroyed an empire, thus naming the place. The third says that Sunset Forest had been called Sunset Forest since ancient times, so later generations simply continued calling it that," Dugu Bo replied.

"No. The source of the third explanation is actually a vague legend, but it is merely a tale of gods and monsters. I recorded it once, but never believed it."

"Hundreds of thousands of years ago, heaven and earth shattered, great wastelands and stars fell, and a sunset descended from the sky and crashed into the ground. Magma surged, bloody rain fell from the heavens, and ghosts wailed while gods howled. Ten thousand years later, Sunset Forest came to be."

"This is a passage from the Heaven Dou Empire Gazetteer. Its exact source can no longer be verified. But looking at this terrain, Senior, do you not think this place resembles something that was smashed into existence?"

"Sunset Forest, sunset... Did the sunset come first, or did the forest?"

"Sunset Forest... sunset..." Dugu Bo savored those words. As he looked at the sunken terrain, it felt as though lightning had flashed through his mind.

That was right. Why could Sunset Forest not have been named because a "sun" had truly fallen here? This was the core of Sunset Forest. Perhaps this was where the sunset of Sunset Forest had once crashed down.

This treasure-bowl-like environment had also been born because of that fallen sunset.

"So that's how it is. This makes much more sense." Dugu Bo felt that he understood this place a little better.

Because Chen Ming's cultivation was not high, Dugu Bo could only let him remain for the time being on the outer edge of the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well, near the poison barrier. Otherwise, if Chen Ming entered the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well with his current cultivation, it would be easy for him to suffer an imbalance.

Only then did Dugu Bo, whose head had grown somewhat feverish, realize that he had rashly trusted a little brat younger than his own granddaughter and brought him into his most secret place.

Yet after considering it carefully, Dugu Bo felt that he truly had no other choice.

Leaving aside whether those famous experts could even recognize that he had been poisoned, if he truly commissioned someone to cure him, the price he would have to pay would certainly not be small. Whether they could cure him in the end, and what state they might leave him in, were both unknown.

Worse still, if someone set their sights on him and followed him here, even his old home would no longer be safe.

Since this kid could speak so convincingly, he was probably not completely incapable, right?

With that in mind, Dugu Bo deliberately began testing Chen Ming's medical and pharmaceutical knowledge. But after questioning him, Dugu Bo found himself in a state he did not know how to describe.

"Your theories are all correct, your concepts are sound, and some of them are things even I never considered. They have given me quite a bit of inspiration. But you know absolutely nothing about actual prescriptions, poison formulation, poison analysis, or antidotes. And you call yourself a student of medicine?"

"How did you even end up learning like this?" Dugu Bo felt deeply awkward. A rough inquiry made Chen Ming sound terrifyingly impressive, like a seasoned master, but once Dugu Bo asked in detail about prescriptions, poison-making, or detoxification, Chen Ming knew nothing at all. Dugu Bo had never seen anyone so strange in his life.

"I only read some books and thought things through on my own. Senior, you can teach me some poison arts and pharmaceutical arts. I think I learn rather quickly."

"How quickly can you learn?"

"I have a photographic memory and can draw inferences from one example."

"Fine." Dugu Bo irritably flung one of his collected books on poisons at Chen Ming, then sat down in front of him. "I'll give you one hour. Memorize this book."

"Why take that long? Half an hour will be enough." Chen Ming opened the poison manual, which was only slightly thinner than his palm, and began flipping through it rapidly as his processing power started operating at high speed.

Using his eyes as input tools, Chen Ming imprinted every character and illustration in the poison manual into his mind, then stored them away, categorized them alongside the various data he had previously recorded, and compared them.

Even though he deliberately slowed himself down somewhat to avoid seeming too frighteningly inhuman, and used that time to connect and compare the book's contents with the knowledge in his mind, this twenty-thousand-word poison manual still took Chen Ming only around ten-odd minutes.

"Senior, I've memorized it." Chen Ming returned the book to Dugu Bo.

"What does the third page say?" Dugu Bo casually opened to a page and began quizzing Chen Ming.

"It is about distinguishing different types of snake venom. From the second page through the fifth, it records the characteristics of eleven kinds of snake venom. The fifth page begins discussing their antidotes."

"The antidotes take up six pages, but only nine types are covered. Two snake venoms are considered incurable: Nine-Section Jade and Nether Poison Python."

"Nine-Section Jade venom is considered swift and deeply invasive. It can destroy every structure in the human body before treatment can begin, so it is incurable. Nether Poison Python venom takes root in Soul Power and even the spirit. Treating the body alone cannot remove it. The book says that a Spirit Master specializing in purification might be able to cure it with their own abilities, but ordinary medical texts cannot save the victim."

"..." Dugu Bo checked through the book and found that Chen Ming's words were almost completely accurate. He placed the poison manual by his thigh, then threw two more books at Chen Ming.

An hour later, Dugu Bo looked at the small stack of books beside his thigh, sweat pouring down his body.