(Note: A quick note here: since there are many reincarnators on their second go-round, some characters may be born earlier than they were originally, such as Dugu Yan.)
"Teacher." The Phoenix King walked over just then, carrying some fruit. Medicine Elder was currently a spirit, so he couldn't eat. Some of the fruit was for Dugu Yan.
"Little Phoenix." Medicine Elder greeted his beloved disciple when he saw him approach, then continued explaining the progress of his research.
"Based on my research these past few days, it's very likely due to the inner cores inside Soul Beasts. When a Soul Master harms a Soul Beast, they absorb its entire inner core as well, which is how a Soul Ring is formed.
"I'm not certain yet, but I'd like to test a theory. If a Soul Master absorbed a Soul Beast's inner core directly, rather than absorbing the Soul Beast itself, perhaps they could obtain a Soul Ring without killing the Soul Beast."
Medicine Elder truly lived up to his name. Anyone with "Elder" in their title was a big shot, and he was one of the biggest shots of them all.
"Have some." The Phoenix King gave Dugu Yan an apple.
"Th-thank you, sir..." (You bandits stole the Immortal Herbs from my home, gave me an apple, and now I have to thank you. You're really something.) Dugu Yan didn't dare show the Phoenix King the slightest disrespect just then, but she had a whole lot she wanted to complain about.
Dugu Yan understood perfectly well that she was in the heart of the Soul Beast camp. The figure in front of her, who looked like a ghost, was probably on good terms with the Soul Beasts too—one of their people.
She couldn't offend them under any circumstances. Otherwise, she and her grandfather, Dugu Bo, would be dead in a matter of minutes.
(Honestly, I was reincarnated, and I was born earlier than in my previous life. My grandfather was reincarnated too. So why did a powerhouse like this show up?
If the Soul Beasts have an organization this powerful, why didn't they call it in to help when Xiao Wu, that Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast, fought the Spirit Hall?
All the Immortal Herbs from my home are gone. I was born early, and I thought I could stop Tang San from taking everything from us, but now I have nothing.
Tang San's gone, and the Soul Beasts have taken his place. They just came and robbed us outright, and now I have to be their slave. This is so humiliating.)
Dugu Yan had so much she wanted to say, but she couldn't say any of it aloud.
"...Can I ask you something? What year were you born, according to the Douluo Calendar?"
The Phoenix King asked what he had wanted to know.
"???" Dugu Yan was utterly baffled by the question. What was the point of asking that?
(With those pointy ears, he must be a Soul Beast too. Why would he ask me this? What does it matter to him?)
"I was born in the year 26XX of the Douluo Calendar."
(Note: I'm worried I might get the timeline wrong later, so I'm leaving the exact year vague to avoid contradicting myself.)
"..." The Phoenix King fell into thought after hearing Dugu Yan's answer.
(No, that can't be right! According to the information in the original novel:
Qian Renxue: Born in 2620 of the Douluo Calendar, eleven years before Tang San's birth. The original novel states this explicitly.
Dugu Yan in the original: born around 2626–2627 of the Douluo Calendar, about six or seven years older than Tang San. That's the commonly accepted estimate based on online discussions.
Although the original never specifies Dugu Yan's birth year, she first appears alongside Yu Tianheng and the other members of the Imperial Fighting Team, who are her generation and about six years older than Tang San. From that, people arrived at the commonly accepted estimate.
According to what Ten Thousand Demon King said, the current year is 2624 of the Douluo Calendar, around six or seven years before Tang San's birth.
It's also still some time before Dugu Yan was supposed to be born in the original.
Dugu Yan is already a Two-Ring Soul Grandmaster, with two Hundred-Year Soul Rings. She must be at least in her teens.
This... Dugu Yan was born early. But why?)
"Little Phoenix? What's wrong?" Medicine Elder could tell that the Phoenix King seemed to be thinking hard about something, as if he were grappling with a difficult problem.
"Nothing." The Phoenix King didn't explain. The truth would be hard to believe, and he was worried people might stare at him like he was some kind of oddity.
"Teacher, now that you have those Immortal Herbs, can you make more pills?"
"At the very least, I can make better pills. That's certainly possible.
"This Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well is quite remarkable. It can produce a great many excellent medicinal ingredients."
"Then can you treat Dugu Yan's condition? She's been poisoned, hasn't she?"
The Phoenix King explained. His goal was to make the Dugu Family join their side for good, without any thoughts of resistance.
So the best way was to cure the hereditary illness that plagued the Dugu Family.
"I..."
"I knew about it already. I just wondered why you wanted to help her."
"To invest in a subordinate." That was more or less the truth.
"Little girl, you've been using a Spirit Bone to draw the poison into it, haven't you?"
"That's right. Our family's Martial Soul has always carried poison. At present, only my grandfather can suppress it with the help of the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well. I have no other way to ease the pain except by drawing the poison into a Spirit Bone. But one day, when the Spirit Bone is full of poison, there'll be nothing I can do."
The method Dugu Yan described was the one Tang San had taught the Dugu Family in her previous life. But it was only a temporary fix, not a cure.
It was a flawed solution. In the end, Dugu Yan died, and the entire Dugu Family was left without an heir.
Medicine Elder truly lived up to his name. He'd spotted the heart of the problem at once.
There were plenty of Soul Masters with poison in Douluo Continent. So why was there something wrong with the Dugu Family's Martial Soul?
That was something the Phoenix King also wanted to understand. In the later installments of the Douluo trilogy, there were indeed Soul Masters whose Martial Souls used poison, and they had poison in their bodies too. So why didn't they have problems, while the Dugu Family did?
"I don't know. I only know it's been this way for a long time." Dugu Yan thought Medicine Elder made a good point. But how could her family know what had caused it? If they'd known, they would have found a way to solve the problem long ago.
Otherwise, how could Tang San have tricked them and taken the entire Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well?
The people of Douluo Continent really weren't very bright on average.
They'd been led around by the nose by Tang San, an outer disciple of an assassination sect, a thief and a traitor. In the end, they'd even let him turn the entire Divine Realm and Douluo Planet into the Tang Family's private garden and one-man show. Nothing else quite compared.
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