Where was everyone?
Where had those two huge people gone?
And where had that huge hammer gone?
Dugu Bo could only feel a terrifying surge of power suddenly appear, so overwhelming that he couldn't look directly at it! By the time everything had settled, Tang San and Tang Hao—and even Tang Hao's hammer—had vanished!
"Um... was that you just now?"
"Yes."
Dugu Xue nodded and asked, "Let me ask you: what rank would this Clear Sky Douluo fellow have among the experts on Douluo Continent?"
"Well... he was one of the top experts! Probably in the top five, though I can't say for sure! There might be hidden powerhouses on the continent."
"Top five?!" Dugu Xue was stunned by the answer, and struggled to process it! A parallel world where the concentration of Soul Power far surpassed that of their world, yet its overall strength was only this high?
"W-what's wrong?"
"Nothing."
At that moment, Dugu Xue's thoughts raced. No way. No way! With strength as trash as this Tang Hao doppelganger's, he can rank in the top five? Then... wouldn't the Immortal Court's army be able to trample the entire continent at will?
As he thought it over, Dugu Xue's heart gave a jolt. I mustn't be careless! I mustn't be careless! I'm already an old man, yet I'm still being this overconfident! Remember: an arrogant army is doomed to lose!
Dugu Bo watched Dugu Xue silently digging up Immortal Herbs. After hesitating for a long time, he finally said, "Senior, please bestow an Immortal Herb upon me!"
"Senior?"
Dugu Xue wasn't unfamiliar with the form of address, but it felt strange to be called Senior by his own doppelganger.
Dugu Bo suddenly dropped to one knee, clasped his hands, and pleaded, "Senior, please bestow an Immortal Herb upon me. I only need one Earth Dragon Golden Melon! As long as it can solve my granddaughter's Martial Soul defect, I'm willing to pay any price!"
Recruiting doppelgangers from other worlds and bringing the natives of those worlds into Emperor Qingtian's fold had always been part of the Otherworld Expedition Plan!
So Dugu Xue had planned from the very beginning to recruit Dugu Bo and bring him into the Immortal Court ahead of time! And helping him solve his Martial Soul defect would be no trouble at all.
At that moment, Dugu Bo mentioned his granddaughter.
Dugu Xue thought of his own granddaughter, and a smile unwittingly appeared on his weathered face. "What's your granddaughter's name? Does she have the same Martial Soul defect?"
"My granddaughter's name is Dugu Yan."
"Hmm, that's a nice name." Dugu Xue thought, Dugu Yan and Dugu Yan—those names sound very similar! She must be just as pretty and adorable.
Then Dugu Xue casually asked, "You only need one Earth Dragon Golden Melon? What about your son and your other grandsons and granddaughters? Didn't they inherit the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Martial Soul?"
"???"
Dugu Bo looked up in surprise and met Dugu Xue's gaze, his eyes full of confusion.
Though Dugu Bo wasn't especially strong, his title of Poison Douluo was known far and wide! Who didn't know that he and his granddaughter depended on each other for survival?
"Senior, you may not know this, but I only have one granddaughter!"
"Only one granddaughter?" Dugu Xue immediately thought of the Population Family Planning policy Emperor Qingtian had proposed in their world.
In their world, after Douluo Continent and Sun Moon Continent had united, the population had skyrocketed in just a few decades, growing from 420 million before unification to more than 1.5 billion!
Not only was the population growing rapidly, but Soul Masters also lived long lives!
According to population growth projections, if family planning wasn't implemented immediately, the population would grow to over ten billion within fifty years!
By then, the resources on the two continents wouldn't be able to support so many people, and the ecosystem would be damaged as well! The living environment of Soul Beasts would be the first to suffer!
While no one else had even noticed the population crisis, Emperor Qingtian had already recognized the threat of population growth and issued a feasible plan well in advance. It was called Population Family Planning!
By using Population Family Planning to control the rate of population growth, the total population of the two continents could eventually be kept to around six billion.
"Just answering Emperor Qingtian's call, huh~"
Dugu Xue understood why Dugu Bo only had one granddaughter. Back then, he'd also planned to lead by example and answer Emperor Qingtian's call, but his granddaughter, Dugu Yan, insisted on having a younger sister. Besides, family planning allowed people to have a second and third child! Then his son and daughter-in-law had twins—a boy and a girl!
"What about you and your son? Don't you need to resolve your Martial Soul defects?" Dugu Xue asked, as if it were only natural.
Dugu Bo held back a sigh and patiently explained in a low voice, "I only have one granddaughter! My granddaughter and I have depended on each other for years!"
"Depended on each other? What do you mean?"
Dugu Xue blinked, and his brain finally caught up. Uncertainly, he asked, "You said you only have one granddaughter... You didn't mean your son only had one child?"
"Uh... yes! My daughter-in-law passed away when she gave birth to Yan'er, and my son died fifteen years ago."
"W-what?!"
Dugu Xue was struck as if by lightning. "My son is dead? No, I mean... your son is dead? Your son died fifteen years ago?"
Dugu Bo nodded solemnly.
"I..." Dugu Xue opened his mouth. Still holding an Full Moon Wearing Autumn Dew, he stood frozen in place.
A very, very long time later.
Dugu Xue sighed. "I never expected it to be like this... Ah~ Tell me about your life over the years first."
"All right..."
Then Dugu Bo slowly recounted everything that had happened, from his Martial Soul Awakening to the present.
Dugu Xue was silent for a while, then summed it up: "So you lost your father in your youth, your wife in your middle age, and your son in your old age?"
"Ah... yes!" Dugu Bo felt the words cut deep.
"You... you've had it so rough!" Dugu Xue was speechless, his face full of sympathy. He had countless things he wanted to say, but didn't know how to put them. His doppelganger had experienced all three of life's greatest sorrows!
Dugu Bo pressed his lips together, unable to refute him.
"Senior? What about that Earth Dragon Golden Melon?"
Instead of giving him an Immortal Herb, Dugu Xue took out a pill and said, "This pill can suppress the poison in your body, so you won't have to suffer from its torment anymore! As for the Earth Dragon Golden Melon, I can't give it to you just yet! I need to take the Immortal Herbs back to the Immortal Court and have an alchemist refine them into pills! These two Earth Dragon Golden Melons can make ten pills! Then you and Dugu Yan will only need two pills to evolve your Martial Souls into Jade Phosphorous Earth Dragons! By the way, your granddaughter's Martial Soul is still only a Jade Phosphorous Serpent, so evolving it straight into a Jade Phosphorous Earth Dragon with just one pill will be difficult... Here's what we'll do: once I've harvested these Immortal Herbs, I'll go with you to Heaven Dou City! The two young people who came with me are there, too. By the way, how many levels of Soul Power does your granddaughter Dugu Yan have now?"
"She should be close to breaking through to level forty."
"Hmm, level forty at fifteen? A little low, but now I have a better idea."
Dugu Bo's son had died fifteen years ago, so Dugu Xue had assumed Dugu Yan was only fifteen.
Dugu Xue sighed. "Ah~ When your son died, you were left alone with a tiny baby. She must've needed milk, too. Life must've been hard. Ah~ You really suffered!"
A baby? Needed milk?
Dugu Bo stubbornly corrected him. "Yan'er was already five then. She didn't need milk! And she was very sensible as a child. Life wasn't all that hard..."
He was trying to make it clear that he'd been doing all right...
"Oh, oh~ Five years old was still pretty young... Hm? Wait! How old is your granddaughter now?"
"She just turned twenty. Her twenty-first birthday is coming up soon."
"Uh... You mean Dugu Yan is almost twenty-one, and she still hasn't reached level forty?"
"Th-that's right! It's mainly because of the Jade Phosphor Snake Poison. Yan'er has to spend a lot of time suppressing it! Otherwise, she would've reached level forty a year or two ago!"
Dugu Xue: "..."
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