The Phoenix King's Doubt, Dugu Yan's Premature Birth

(Note: I should mention here that because there are many reincarnators from a second timeline, some characters may be born earlier, such as Dugu Yan.)

"Teacher." Little Phoenix walked over at this moment carrying some fruit. Medicine Elder was currently in a soul form and could not eat, so a portion of this fruit was for Dugu Yan.

"Little Phoenix." Seeing his precious disciple approach, Medicine Elder greeted him and immediately began to explain the current status of his research.

"Based on my research during this period, it is very likely due to the inner core within a Soul Beast. Soul Masters harm Soul Beasts and absorb the entire inner core, which is how the Soul Ring is formed.

Although I am not entirely certain yet, I want to verify this: if a Soul Master were to absorb a Soul Beast's inner core directly instead of absorbing the Soul Beast itself, perhaps they could obtain a Soul Ring without even killing the beast."

Medicine Elder was truly worthy of his name; anyone with "Elder" in their title was a big shot, and he was a master among masters.

"Eat something." Little Phoenix gave Dugu Yan an apple.

"Tha... thank you, my lord... (You bunch of bandits robbed my family's Immortal Herb and gave me an apple, and I still have to thank you? You guys are really something.)" Dugu Yan dared not say anything disrespectful to Little Phoenix at this moment, but her heart was full of complaints.

Dugu Yan understood very clearly that she was currently in the main lair of the Soul Beast faction. This entity that looked like a ghost was likely someone with close ties to the Soul Beasts, and thus a member of their faction.

Under no circumstances could she offend them; otherwise, she and her grandfather, Dugu Bo, would definitely die here in a heartbeat.

(Seriously, I was reborn and even born earlier than in my previous life, and my grandfather is also a reincarnator, but the problem is, where did such powerhouses come from?

If the Soul Beasts have such a powerful organization, why didn't they call them to help when Xiao Wu, that hundred-thousand-year Soul Beast, fought against Spirit Hall back then?

My family's Immortal Herbs are all gone. I was born early and thought I could stop Tang San from stealing everything I had, but now I have nothing.

Without Tang San, the Soul Beasts came instead, robbed us directly, and now I have to be a slave. It's just so humiliating.)

Dugu Yan had many things she wanted to say, but she couldn't utter a word.

"...May I ask you a question? When were you born on the Douluo Calendar?"

Little Phoenix asked the question he had been pondering.

"???" Upon hearing this, Dugu Yan was completely bewildered. Did this question have any significance?

(This one with the pointed ears must also be a Soul Beast. Why is he asking this? Does it mean anything to him?)

"I was born in the year 26XX of the Douluo Calendar."

(Note: I am afraid of getting the timeline wrong, so I won't specify it to avoid any continuity errors.)

"..." Little Phoenix began to think after hearing Dugu Yan's reply.

(That's not right! According to the data provided in the original novel:

Qian Renxue: Born 11 years before Tang San in 2620 of the Douluo Calendar, as explicitly mentioned in the original text.

The original Dugu Yan was born around 2626–2627 of the Douluo Calendar, about 6–7 years older than Tang San, which is the generally accepted deduction by the community.

Although the original novel does not explicitly state Dugu Yan's birth year, one can deduce the common estimate based on her debut as a peer to Yu Tianheng and the Imperial Fighting Team, who were about 6 years older than Tang San.

According to the Ten Thousand Demon King, the current timeline is 2624 of the Douluo Calendar, which is still about 6–7 years away from Tang San's birth.

It is also still quite some time before Dugu Yan should have been born in the original story.

Dugu Yan is currently a two-ring Great Soul Master with two hundred-year Soul Rings; she is at least over ten years old.

This... Dugu Yan has already been born early, but the question is, why is this happening?)

"Little Phoenix? What's wrong?" Medicine Elder noticed that Little Phoenix seemed to be pondering something, as if he were thinking about a difficult problem.

"It's nothing." Little Phoenix didn't say anything. After all, the truth was hard to believe, and he was a bit worried about being stared at with strange looks.

"Teacher, with those Immortal Herbs, can you produce more medicinal pills?"

"At the very least, I can produce better pills; that is certainly possible.

This Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well is indeed excellent; it can produce a large quantity of high-quality medicinal materials."

"Then, can you treat this Dugu Yan's condition? She has been poisoned, right?"

Little Phoenix spoke, his goal being to have the Dugu Family completely defect to their side so they would never harbor thoughts of resistance.

Therefore, curing the Dugu Family's hereditary disease was the best method.

"I..."

"I already knew, but why do you want to help her?"

"As an investment to cultivate a subordinate." That was also the truth.

"Little girl, you previously used a Soul Bone to guide the toxins into the bone, right?"

"That is the case. Our family has a natural martial soul toxin.

Currently, other than my grandfather being able to suppress it with the help of the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well, I have no other way. I can only alleviate the pain by guiding the toxins into my Soul Bone, but one day, once the Soul Bone is filled with toxins, there will ultimately be no way out."

The method Dugu Yan described was the one Tang San had taught their family in her previous life, but this method only treated the symptoms, not the root cause.

It was a flawed solution that eventually led to Dugu Yan's death and the extinction of the entire Dugu Family.

"The method your family came up with can indeed alleviate the problem for a while, but the issue is that it cannot solve the root cause. And I am curious: there are so many martial souls on the Douluo Continent, why does your family's martial soul have such a defect?"

Medicine Elder was truly worthy of his name; he immediately spotted the crux of the problem.

There were plenty of Soul Masters who used poison on the Douluo Continent; why did the Dugu Family's martial soul have a problem?

This was a question Little Phoenix also wanted to figure out. In the later Douluo trilogy, there were indeed poison-using Soul Masters with toxic martial souls, but they had no such issues. Why was it only the Dugu Family?

"I don't know either. I only know it has been this way since long ago." Hearing Medicine Elder say this, Dugu Yan felt it made sense, but how could her family know the cause? If they had known, they would have possessed a way to solve it long ago.

Otherwise, how could they have been deceived by Tang San and lost the entire Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well?

The intelligence level on the Douluo Continent was truly not very high.

To be played around by Tang San—an outer sect disciple of an assassination sect, a thief, and a traitor—until he turned the entire God Realm and Douluo Planet into the Tang family's private garden and dictatorship, was truly something else.